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Cooperative Extension and Democratic Potential:
Building on a Legacy of “Schools of Philosophy"
Jordan's Public Forums Initiative
Chattanooga Chugging
Democracy and Economics
How Citizens Talk about Responding to Economic Change
Discovering Capacity
Institutes Using NIF Strengthen Civic Life
Cooperative Extension and Community Development: How Politics and the Academy Mix
Journalism as a Civic Practice
Effects of Deliberation on Secondary School Students
University Outreach in Communities: The Limits of Expertise
Experiments in Communicating the Results of Public Deliberation
Getting Grounded
A Need for Human Logic in Education
Developing Civic Practices in South African Communities
Communities as Educators: A Report on the November 2007 Public and Public Education Workshop
Looking Back/Looking Ahead at Communities
What’s Changed? Are Citizens Reestablishing Education Ownership?
Taking a Look at Organic Community-Level Politics
Emerging Trends in Democracy
Self-Organizing and Community Politics
Studies of a Role for Communities in the Face of Catastrophe

Emerging Trends in Democracy


Around the world, democracy has been embraced as in no other time in history. Amartya Sen has written that “the idea of democracy as a universal commitment is quite new, and it is quintessentially a product of the twentieth century.” Yet there are competing notions of what democracy is, all with different implications for the role of citizens. In the various declarations made about what democracy is or what it shouldn’t be, and in the various efforts to reform political systems, certain trends seem to be emerging.

This article contains brief descriptions of four possible trends. We invite you to participate by sharing your thoughts on trends you see emerging in democracy.

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