Reimagining European Democracy With Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis on the power of mythology, translators and demoicracy 

In this episode of Radio Vinternational, Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis shares her unique insights on the resilience and challenges facing democracy in Europe today. Report after report declares that “we are currently witnessing a concerning trend of worldwide backsliding of democratic values” (United Nations Development Program), that Democracies are in Decline (Freedom House) and that After decades of triumph, democracy is losing ground (The Economist). But, the real question remains: are we witnessing the fall of democracy? 

I asked Professor Nicolaïdis this exact question. She argued (as a true academic, of course) that it’s a bit of both—democracy is in danger, but there are also countless positive examples of hope and optimism. What I enjoyed tremendously from our conversation, is the fact that her personal and professional life is a testament to European development, full of political highs and lows. As a little girl she campaigned in the streets of Paris in 1968  to raise awareness for the political situation in Greece, and later in her life she campaigned passionately against Brexit and became a British citizen … 
Furthermore, our conversation is on the transcendent power of mythology, as Professor Nicolaïdis explains how stories from her book Exodus, Reckoning, Sacrifice can illuminate complex political divides, like Brexit, and offer a path toward shared understanding. She also introduces her visionary project, The Democratic Odyssey, a traveling citizens' assembly designed to connect people across Europe in democratic dialogue.

Meet the guest
Professor Kalypso Nicoiladis is an authority in the fields of European Integration, democratic theory and global governance and has worked with numerous EU institutions and national governments. She fulfils her current role as professorial Chair of Global Affairs at the STG in Florence, whilst she is on leave from the University of Oxford where she has been professor of International Relations. Previously she was professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she also obtained her PhD. 

What I really liked from our conversation, is that she is someone who ‘is’ her work: her international background and her ideas on democracy are in line with her personal background (being ‘freakish’: French, Greek, British). If you want to see all projects on which she is working and see all her publications, you can visit her personal website! 

Recommendation of the Week
First, she recommends checking out the website of the Democratic Odyssey. You can explore the project, subscribe to updates, and learn about the mission and activities of this “travelling circus of democracy.” Beyond that, she suggests two literary recommendations:

• One of the greatest inspirations to reinvent a better future for her, come from the science fiction works of Iain M. Banks! His series ‘Culture’ is a science fiction series written and released from 1987 until 2012. The Culture is a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens and advanced superintelligent artificial intelligences living across the Milky Way galaxy. Her words: “if you enter it, you realise how it could be different, how much room there is for imagination”   

• Her second recommendation is a classic work of political history: Democracy in America by the renowned French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville.. In this work, de Tocqueville reflects on his travels through the greatest governance experiment of that time (and perhaps, of all time…): the United States of America! She specifically notes that, even then, he recognized a key truth—“it’s the economy, stupid!”

Saluti, 

Vincent