Democratic Competition: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

WiSER invites you to a lunchtime seminar by

Professor Ian Shapiro

Ian Shapiro discusses the varieties of political competition across the democratic world. He explains why so many democratic political parties have become susceptible to hostile takeovers by demagogues and other populists, and what can be done to reverse the trend.

With a response from Professor Shireen Hassim.

Wednesday, 15^th August    
12:45

WiSER Seminar Room,
6th Floor, Richard Ward Building,
East Campus, Wits University

All welcome.

Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he also serves as Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. He has written widely and influentially on democracy, justice, and the methods of social inquiry.  In democratic theory, he has argued that democracy’s value comes primarily from its potential to limit domination rather than, as is conventionally assumed, from its operation as a system of participation, representation, or preference aggregation.  Born in South Africa, Shapiro received his J.D. from the Yale Law School and his Ph.D from the Yale Political Science Department where he has taught since 1984 and served as chair from 1999 to 2004. Shapiro is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a past fellow of the Carnegie Corporation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His most recent books are The Real World of Democratic Theory (Princeton UP, 2012)  and  Politics Against Domination (Harvard UP, 2016). His new book, coauthored with Frances Rosenbluth, Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself will be published by Yale UP in 2018. His current research concerns the relations between democracy and the distribution of income and wealth.