What science can do for democracy: a complexity science approach

cb
Thumbnail Image
Files
s41599-020-0518-0.pdf(369.9 KB)
Published version
Date
2020-07-10
Authors
Eliassi-Rad, Tina
Farrell, Henry
Garcia, David
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Palacios, Patricia
Ross, Don
Sornette, Didier
Thébault, Karim
Wiesner, Karoline
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
Published Version
10.1057/s41599-020-0518-0
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Abstract
Political scientists have conventionally assumed that achieving democracy is a one-way ratchet. Only very recently has the question of “democratic backsliding” attracted any research attention. We argue that democratic instability is best understood with tools from complexity science. The explanatory power of complexity science arises from several features of complex systems. Their relevance in the context of democracy is discussed. Several policy recommendations are offered to help (re)stabilize current systems of representative democracy.
Description
Keywords
Political science , Complexity science , Representative democracy , Democracy , Democratic instability
Citation
Eliassi-Rad, T., Farrell, H., Garcia, D., Lewandowsky, S., Palacios, P., Ross, D., Sornette, D., Thébault, K. and Wiesner, K. (2020) 'What science can do for democracy: a complexity science approach'. Humanities And Social Sciences Communications, 7, 30 (4 pp). doi: 10.1057/s41599-020-0518-0
Link to publisher’s version
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0518-0
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10468/10262
Collections
Philosophy - Journal Articles
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.