Democracy has been slowly eroding worldwide for 20 consecutive years. But two countries have recently started to reverse the trend, and part of the story is about what people believed was possible.
In this episode, we talk with Genevieve Shea, who has spent years on the ground in Central Europe training young people in politics, building civil society coalitions and observing elections, and who now focuses on AI safety and its impact on democracy.
We cover:
Chapters
0:00 Cold open
0:39 What pulled Genevieve into democracy work
3:34 Why democracy is much more than voting
5:10 Democracy declining worldwide: what 20 years of data show
6:47 How do researchers measure democracy?
9:45 Would you notice if democracy was eroding? The telltale signs
11:43 Where is democracy making a comeback?
15:38 How did Poland and Hungary turn things around?
22:20 Can hope be civic infrastructure?
28:07 How democracy work led Genevieve to AI governance work
29:47 What can AI safety learn from democracy movements?
31:44 How can young people get involved?
33:46 An organization to know about: Unhack Democracy
34:22 Genevieve’s existential hope vision: democracy as a daily practice
35:12 The best piece of advice Genevieve has received
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