Professor Graham Smith, Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, was interviewed by RSA for their ‘Bridges to the Future’ podcast about reforming democracies to build a better long-term future.
Professor Graham Smith discussed his latest book ‘Can Democracy Safeguard the Future?’, where he argues that current democratic systems do not seem to be great at thinking long-term. He said: “I think we’ve got lots of issues like pensions, health and social care, infrastructure, climate change, biodiversity, and currently, obviously with pandemics and existential questions around emerging technologies, where I think democracies have a patchy record in terms of their capacity to think long-term, their capacity to give due regard to the interest of future generations and I think there is a number of reasons why that’s the case and it is to do with the sort of design of democratic institutions and the kind of dynamics that are in play.”
Listen to the full episode on the RSA website.
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