21st Century Democracy Conference in Alexandria Egypt

Posted on October 22, 2015 by tbouricius

I have been working with a number of sortition academics to organize the sortition element of an international conference being hosted by the Library of Alexandria in Egypt starting December 9, 2015. Presenters will include many names familiar to sortition activists including John Gastil (U.S.A.), David van Reybrouck (Belgium) and Janette Hartz-Karp (Australia). The first two days of the conference will be addressing the “deficit of democracy” in the modern world and introduce participants to such alternative democratic reforms as sortition, participatory budgeting and varieties of direct democracy. The third day will be largely devoted to sortition and mini-publics. The Library anticipates having around 200 attendees (about half from the Arab world), and can accommodate a small number of additional people who have special interest in sortition. If you would like to attend the conference (paying your own way) please get in contact with me, so I can forward your information to the Library staff. Email me at terrybour(at)gmail.com.

Filed under: Academia, Sortition |

3 Responses

keithsutherland, on October 22, 2015 at 4:19 pm said:

Terry, is there a website and (provisional) programme for the conference?

LikeLike
tbouricius, on October 22, 2015 at 5:12 pm said:

Unfortunately there is no web site specific to the conference, but there may be something on the Library of Alexandria web site, as they are sponsoring the conference and inviting the presenters and attendees. Most of the attendees are specifically invited guests by the Library Director, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, rather than this being a typical wide-open conference. The first two days are going to focus on shortcomings of modern democracy, and discussing some more or less conventional reform concepts about improving elections, etc. the third day will be mostly about sorititon, with some additional presentations about experiments with direct democracy and participatory budgeting.

LikeLike
peterstone, on October 23, 2015 at 9:19 am said:

Sadly, my travel budget probably won’t stretch to cover a trip to Egypt this year. But I hope to see a lot of discussion about the event here.

LikeLike