MASS PARRHESIA: Strengthening Democracy by Articulating the Public Will Quantitatively in a Non-Binding, Open Forum
Journal: uO Research (University of Ottawa)
Year: 2019

This thesis begins by considering how democracy has been affected by a modern public discourse that is increasingly siloed and polarized, with experts mistrusted and truth relativized. In Chapter 2 I outline the overriding causes of populist upsurges in the West, especially examining the outcomes of Brexit and Trump, and I assess the circumstances as potentially threatening to liberalism. Alongside economic and cultural causes, I argue that a lack of political efficacy is frustrating and has bee