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Deep Trust, Political Hope, and the Future of Democracy – Professor Michele Moody-Adams, Astor Visiting Lecturer 2025
In-person participants will be able to take part in the discussion and Q&A following the lecture and are warmly invited to stay for lunch in the Common Room at the Manor Road Building afterwards.
Many citizens of once stable democracies have become tolerant of oligarchy and autocracy because they feel betrayed by conventional political elites and disempowered by established political institutions. If we want to produce better leaders and create institutions truly conducive to the flourishing of democracies and their citizens, we must rebuild what I call deep trust in the human capacity for self-governance. Democratic deep trust demands, first, what Lawrence Becker calls noncognitive security regarding the motives of others. But it also requires , second, that most citizens have cognitive self-trust in their capacities to contribute constructively to political debate and decision. Rebuilding deep democratic trust is critical to strengthening hope for the survival of democracy and enabling pursuit of John Dewey’s ideal of democracy as a “freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute.”
Date:
23 October 2025, 12:00
Venue:
Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details:
Manor Road Building Lecture Theatre
Speaker:
Michele Moody-Adams (Columbia University)
Organising department:
Centre for Socio-Legal Studies
Organiser contact email address:
admin@csls.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Centre for Socio-Legal Studies Seminar Series
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://forms.office.com/e/V1rcKKHbDe
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Nadine Moustafa
