by Ariella Shalev | Jan 10, 2022
Alongside climate summits dominated by world leaders, politicians and experts, we are also seeing the rise of Climate Assemblies — a new form of discussion, led by citizens. Climate Assemblies offer a response to the climate emergency by bringing public wisdom into...
by Ariella Shalev | Jan 5, 2022
If the recent COP26 tells us anything, it’s that different ways of making hard decisions about our shared futures are needed. Too often critical decisions are made through last minute compromises, hammered out amongst small groups of negotiators behind closed doors,...
by Graham Smith | Jan 5, 2022 | Blog, News and Comment
If the recent COP26 tells us anything, it’s that different ways of making hard decisions about our shared futures are needed. Too often critical decisions are made through last minute compromises, hammered out amongst small groups of negotiators behind closed doors,...
by Ariella Shalev | Dec 16, 2021
The Global Assembly is the first ever citizens’ assembly aiming to involve people from all over the world in proposing a possible response to climate change. This innovative process provides a novel infrastructure for global governance comprised entirely of...
by Ariella Shalev | Dec 15, 2021
Japan’s Future Design movement offers a unique model for overcoming short-termism in democratic decision-making. Drawing on traditional culture, Future Design is inspired by the principle of seventh-generation decision making, with the aim of strengthening...
by kultur.work | Apr 23, 2021
On May 20th 2021 FDSD held a launch event for a new book by Prof Graham Smith, Chair of FDSD and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster. In Can Democracy Safeguard the Future? Graham asks why democracies repeatedly...
by kultur.work | Apr 29, 2020
Participatory Budgeting (PB) combines direct democracy with representative democracy; it is a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making, in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. In PB Cascais, the...
by kultur.work | Apr 29, 2020
From today to tomorrow is a project on behalf of future generations. “Because thinking about the generations of tomorrow means thinking about a more just society in which all generations are entitled to the same human dignity.” The project provides studies...
by kultur.work | Apr 28, 2020
Project Skyline is a feasibility study that is looking at the possibility of communities managing the landscape that surrounds their town or village. The project is being run by The Green Valleys Community Interest Company (TGV CIC) with funding from the Friends...
by kultur.work | Jan 29, 2020 | News and Comment
FDSD has long supported the wider use of participatory and deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies in bringing the voice of citizens into political decision making. We are therefore delighted that the first weekend of the UK Climate Assembly has been a...
by kultur.work | Oct 27, 2019 | News and Comment
Appeals for people to act now in response to the climate emergency surround us. Many of them focus on the responsibility of the individual to act: to eat less meat, to drive less, to fly less. Does this focus on the role of individuals underestimate the challenge of...
by Graham Smith | Jun 30, 2019 | Blog, News and Comment
Citizens’ assemblies could be vital in kick-starting the tough steps needed to respond to the climate emergency, Chair of the FDSD board of trustees, Graham Smith, argues. But the detail of how they will work is critical. (This blog first appeared on The Conversation...
by kultur.work | Dec 7, 2018 | News and Comment
In 2008, Sara Parkin wrote a provocation for the FDSD: “Are Political Parties getting in the way of the sort of collaborative democracy we need to tackle sustainability? If so, what can we do about it?” Ten years later, she revisits her thinking, “in the...
by kultur.work | Dec 20, 2017 | News and Comment
“It is much easier for us to imagine the end of the world than a small change in the political system”, Slavoj Zizek famously said. The same is true for altering the earth climate system according to a recent report by the Canadian ETC-Group, BiofuelWatch and...
by kultur.work | Nov 28, 2017 | News and Comment
There are many reasons why more democratic and deliberative approaches to economics are necessary and valuable: shaping better and more informed economic decisions, promoting transparency over economic priorities, and strengthening the quality of democracy and public...
by kultur.work | Nov 24, 2017 | News and Comment
As environmental crises become ever more severe, voices are reappearing that call for authoritarian solutions: Democracy, so the argument goes, has proven to be too slow to respond to urgent threats, and so a stronger, authoritarian hand is needed to push through the...
by Graham Smith | May 5, 2017 | News and Comment
The House of Commons Audit Committee recently published its report Sustainable Development Goals in the UK. The Committee is critical of the Government’s lack of ambition in embedding the SDGs. As the report argues: The Sustainable Development Goals represent a...
by kultur.work | Mar 20, 2017
Ecosystems and species are alive. Yet current law treats them as objects, property and resources. This has wide-reaching consequences that are driving the ongoing destruction of the biosphere. Nature’s rights are a solution, many argue, bringing fundamental and...
by kultur.work | Mar 14, 2017 | News and Comment
+++ The video of the event is available here. +++ FDSD, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity is organising an event on Tuesday 11th April to explore the potential to establish a...
by John Lotherington | Feb 21, 2017 | Blog, News and Comment
John Lotherington is an FDSD Trustee. He’s the Program Director with Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS). The election of Donald Trump as President of the Unites States, and his early actions as President – so reminiscent of his reality TV performances,...
