Welcome to How to Save Democracy, the podcast for people who love democracy but know it needs to change. I'm John.

Yeah. I've I've been at Harvard Kennedy School for the last year as a visiting fellow on the reimagining democracy program. And it's given me the opportunity to put something out into the world really with that kind of status and legitimacy and to make this argument about the role of government needing to be more about empowering citizens than delivering services or or being a kind of authority. And, yeah, I'm really excited to get into the world and see what you think.

That's lovely to be here, and I can't wait to discuss John's ideas.

Well, it actually goes back to the summer of twenty twenty four here in The UK. And what people may not remember is there were there were riots that summer, early in the summer, after after an attack in Southport near Liverpool. And straight after those riots, that first run of riots, there was a big community cleanup. And then a few days later, the, the far right, released, I think, leaked on social media a list of a 100 places that were gonna be attacked that night, Islamic cultural centers, refugee processing centers, that kind of thing. And in response to that, almost without any real background organization, in every one of those 100 places, at least a 100 people and sometimes thousands came out pretty much spontaneously to protect them. And there was this huge kind of energy of community, that night. And and a few of and even the the front page of the Daily Mail the next day, I've I've kept it on my phone, was something like, community turnout to to put an end to far right mob. And, and I and others were were trying to get things going and and some messages try and get messages basically into Keir Starmer's office because we were like, the speech that needs to be made tomorrow morning writes itself. Like, if he goes out there and he says, this is who we are. This is what this country is about. Like, we are we are a nation of neighbors, like and and we can turn this energy of community to work on all of our challenges, on climate, on our health service, on on everything we need to work on. This is all of us. And he didn't. Instead, he he made a speech the next day that said, basically, police and a strong hand has fixed this. And I was in touch with community organizations all over the country. I I know how they felt as a result of that. They felt like their work had been ignored. Their their energy had been invalidated, really. And I think that that moment, what was behind that and I'm not blaming Starmer as an individual. I think it's a I think it's an idea of the role of government in this time that says government should fix things for people. And I think this was a particularly egregious kind of moment of that. But it was saying, like, people have no real role here. Like, the the ignored community and the energy of citizens. And I think we're in this moment where actually people want to be involved. There's there's a deep desire for agency in the face of a challenge of our time. And and so many of the stories I've been gathering from around the world, whether it's whether it's and and that we've been telling on this podcast, you know, the the Irish Citizens Assembly, which started with citizens coming together to to say we need a different way of having the conversations about our future. Taiwan's COVID response, which they actually crowdsourced and tapped into the ideas and energy and resources of everyone. We've got stories coming up from from Melbourne and Australia and Perth and all over the world. There is this different way of approaching the work of government, which isn't about delivering for people. It's about unlocking and and tapping into the energy of people. And I wanted to use the the the the opportunity of having the status of a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School to speak into the corridors of existing systems of power and say, look, there's something going on here. There's something you can do that could really be transformative.

What is it? I mean, I think what they got right was the fact that people are ready for a radical transformation of the role of government. People are ready for something very different in how government operates in relation to society. And so there was I came across some fascinating research, and I'd love to know what Johnny thinks of this, in a moment maybe. I came across this fascinating research where a team had taken focus groups, research groups all over The US, and they had invited people to bring images that represented the existing role of government and the potential the ideal role of government to those conversations and talk about them. And what they brought to the in 2024 under the Biden administration, the images they brought were, like, really desperate. They were images of people drowning and and, and people walking on a tightrope with no safety net. There was this feeling that government was kind of absent, really, but but promises were made that just weren't being fulfilled. And and and in that in response to that, that that what that showed was this deep desire for something different. And I think what Doge did was it it spoke into that. It said, got we we acknowledge that something's broken. That's what it got right. And for too long, we've had this kind of this choice, I think, between, an existing kind of technocracy really that says, like, we can fix it. Keep calm, carry on, vote for us again, and we'll we'll eventually get it right. And we haven't acknowledged that people feel deeply abandoned. And and Doge came into that. Musk came into that with a kind of screw government. Like but but it came in with a with a message of fundamental changes needed. And that's what it got right. The thing is in the event, and and the research goes on to show this, that when they when they when they went out with these focus groups in 2025, the images people were bringing were of, like, a boot stamping on people. After Doge. After Doge. Yeah. So so there had been a desire for something different, but it wasn't this that people wanted. They wanted something different, but not this. And and my favorite part of this research is the the images people brought. And this is people across the political spectrum, Republican voters, Democrat voters. When they were asked to bring images that represented their ideal relationship, their ideal role of government, the ideal state of the nation, the images they brought were of of rowing crews and orchestras, and they talked about the the the ideal role of government being a conductor that would make sure that everybody's, contribution could be made to its maximum. And I think what this speaks to is, like, as you say, the Doge was an act of wanton destruction, ultimately. But I think it's important to acknowledge that that there was a hunger for something really different. What we haven't done yet, and I think we've had a kind of failure of imagination so far, we haven't seen at a kind of systemic, deliberate, structural scale, government step into the opportunity to be that conductor, to tap into the contributions that everyone is capable of rather than trying and failing actually to be a service provider.

skepticism of government doesn't need to translate into a skepticism about democracy. Right? So governments in United States, democracies around the world are facing these incredibly significant challenges, and they're not really living up to the promise of addressing those. Right? The significant rises in inequality, climate change, cost of living, AI regulation. Right? We have serious challenges, and it's not clear governments are even starting to really get a grip on these. But it's, I think, wrong to then have that translate into a more general skepticism about democracy itself. Right? So for one thing, many non democratic countries are facing the same challenges. And in many cases, these challenges are a lot more serious there than they are in the democratic world. And for another thing, the track record of democracies around the world is the most impressive. Right? Democracies do the best for prosperity. They do the best for basic needs, for education, for the environment. They do the best for the protection of human rights. Right? There's so much to be said in favor of democracy. So the real question, the question that John, I think, is tackling in his, in his new worker is how do we change our democratic systems in a way that can make them more effective at addressing these kinds of problems. And I think he's completely right that Doge had the wrong answer to this. Doge vision is one which does seem to trade on a skepticism about government to a skepticism about democracy. Right? Let's run government not in a democratic way, but let's run it like a Silicon Valley tech firm. Right? Let's get a big businessman like Musk in the room. He will be able to sort this out. Let's not get democratic debate and discussion in the way. Cut through that. We can be as efficient as possible in the way that these kind of tech companies are. Right? And that origin story is part of the kind of disaster it went through. Right? The people in the room in in Doge did not really understand government or how it worked. Right? You had a number of decisions which just went against what people would really want. Right? So it's seeing that the government skepticism, which is completely justified not translating into a kind of, democratic skepticism. Right? And this kind of approach, I think, we've seen in the past. Right? So in the past, it was government failure. The solution was to kind of give it over to the market, reduce the state, let private firms do this. Right? And in the same case with the market solutions and the DOGE solution is that focus on efficiency. I just make government more efficient rather than trying to think, well, what are the goals of government, and how do we get the goals of government closer to the goals and aspirations of people? Right? That question is not in either of those kinds of packages packages. Yeah. So it's this market approach to government.

Well, I I mean, first of all, just to say that the the play on the play on the acronym was very deliberate. Right? I spent ten years working in the advertising industry, so I I like to I like to mess with language where I can. But, but I do I genuinely believe that the like I say, that the thing that Doge got right was this this kind of radical transformation. The idea that something really, really different is needed and wanted by people. And so I think I think what we can learn from DOGE is the possibility of of, like, creating transformation units, doing this kind of really radically all at once, spreading something across government. And so DOSE, Department of Citizen Empowerment, with the way what I imagine that to be is is teams that would have a kind of a really open remit to work horizontally across government departments, drawing on a load of the different macro trends that are out there today, drawing on democratic innovation really deeply, using participatory budgeting, citizens' assemblies, legislative theater, all of these kinds of methods that we've met on how to save democracy, in in as many ways as possible so that so what you're doing is empowering citizens to have a role in decision making. But I also think it's about things like a different approach to public services. So I I there's a I draw on this trend of relational public services that's being tapped into by 80, at least 80 different administrations across the world. And they are what they're doing with that is is taking an approach to the people who have the most complex needs that says we're going to unlock your contribution as citizens, by giving you an individual caseworker who'll build a relationship with you, and we believe in the contribution you can make and want to unlock that. Rather than seeing them as difficult service users who need to be served and catered to by multiple different services, which end up becoming bloated and costing an awful lot of money, actually. And then trends like community wealth building, which is really about believing in, the potential of local economies, putting government in service of what community can become and and what and how communities can, build sort of powerful economies within themselves. And I think the the idea of what I was trying to do here, what I'm trying to do with this work is say, actually, there's a broad agenda of citizen empowerment. An idea really of reorienting the state citizen relationship, to see people as sources of ideas and energy and resources as rather than just as consumers of services, as members of communities who can be unleashed rather than as self interested, individuals who need to be served. And I think, like, there is a kind of, there is a deep skepticism. I'd call it cynicism actually in the world right now that I think is the deepest danger. I think it's our friend, Ece Temelkuran, who we've done a couple of episodes of How to Save Democracy with, has this very lovely phrase where she talks about, faith in humanity is the essential. And, actually, I think the the skepticism about these ideas when it comes comes from a place of lack of faith in humanity. And I think we need to confront that really openly. If you don't believe if you fundamentally believe that humans are inherently selfish, kind of nasty creatures. The best and the best you can do for them is to serve that self interest and try and manage it. Then we're in real trouble. If though, you can take that leap of imagination, that leap of faith in humanity that says, no. Actually, given the right conditions, humans can and want to contribute. They want to be useful and kind. We just need to design systems that tap into that. Then I think we can create something incredibly powerful. And I but I wanna be really open. That, I think, is the challenge. We're not gonna design the kind of systems we need from a place of essentially kind of lack of belief in ourselves as a species?

if there is an example that you think of where this could really work. I I mean, I think, the Tuesday afternoon stuff, one of the things I do in the paper is I talk about the boring revolution. The idea that actually there's really small day to day changes that need to show up. And it's it's in things like job titles. I one of the things that I, one of the moments that inspired some of the work in this essay, a a few years back, I was, working with a a set of councils in The UK, and I came across a group of staff whose whose job title was heads of democratic services. I was like, democracy is not a service, my friends. Like and and job titles are a really powerful carrier of the idea of the role of government that we're that we're embedding. So on a Tuesday afternoon, you might it might be about, like, what's the meeting culture? How do we start meetings where and do we have meeting rooms that actually are named after parts of the local community rather than being meeting room one and painted in gray? Like, do we bring the spirit of the community and the and the place into our government buildings? Like so those sorts of things are part of the boring revolution. But, actually, I'm I'm almost more, focused on the big moments that can be different. And so I I mentioned I talked about the the riots in summer twenty twenty four, but in a US context, and this is where I've I've been writing the paper, I was really struck by how, when Biden and his team launched the Inflation Reduction Act, a huge investment, like $780,000,000,000 of investment in climate and energy infrastructure, essentially. That was done in a way that sort of, an announcement from the White House that that away from people. And I think what a dose agenda, if if if there were a Department of Citizen Empowerment influencing what what the Biden administration had been doing, I think that would have they would have done it very differently. And I draw on the paper on examples and inspiration from particularly from, Wales, actually, and and how the Welsh government developed their well-being of future generations act in the in the twenty tens. And that started with, a massive national conversation called the Wales we want, inviting people to to be part of visioning the future of the country. And then and then, and then built a set of, processes that that actually were about unlocking people's agency. My my my sort of thought experiment in the paper goes to, well, what if actually, the The US pro had done a similar process? What if instead of just sort of announcing an amount of money and then trying to figure out how to get it into places around the country for people, like, with government doing it, what if there had been a massive hosting of a conversation about the future we want, the the The United States we want? What if there had then been a a bunch of this money allocated as participatory budgeting at the at the state level and the city level? What if there had been, citizens' assemblies and citizens' juries as part of the governance structure of these funds? What if there had been matched crowdfunding as part of it? Like, and what if the whole thing had been framed as the as the Future Generations Act, not the Inflation Reduction Act? So you really lean into this idea that that people want to be part of something meaningful in the world. And, actually, you know, the the polling shows that, from that time, at least two thirds of The US population were actually in support of, an, a positive aspirational climate agenda. And so there's a real, sense for me that that, on a Tuesday afternoon or in any given moment, we are really close actually to a very different state of affairs in our world. We are the will in people and in communities to be useful, kind contributors to the to the work of building a different future is there. Governments want people to contribute, but don't sort of believe that they can open up and invite that. And these processes of of democratic innovation, of community wealth building, of relational public services are there. And we're just so close, but stuck, I think. And, and what I'm trying to do with the paper is so is is show that this is emerging around the world. There have been examples. And if we can piece this together, we could do something really powerful in this time. So one of the things that

I think is really interesting about John's paper is it tackles one of the most significant problems for thinking around, citizen empowerment and democratic innovations, which is how do we connect these to the existing political system in some way. Right? How do we embed them with our more traditional institutions so that they can find their promise, right, but then also not become a kind of world of their own apart from the kind of institutions of power. And the comparison with Doge here, I think, is a really nice one because I think the motivation for Doge and why a lot of people supported it was that it was meant to be, in a way, outside of the traditional institutions of democracy. Right? So it was meant to be a government department, but it was also meant to be somewhat independent of them. Right? It wasn't gonna be shackled by congress. Right? It wasn't gonna have to go through the procedures of talking to other departments. It would make decisions. It would do them quickly, and that's what would produce this efficiency, which just hadn't happened in the past. Right? Cuts and efficiency gains that just the other institutions had failed to give. Right? That was the the aspiration. And there is some truth in the fact that traditional institutions can be slow and cumbersome. Right? But there's also very significant risk, which is what I think Doge's end up doing, which is that it just ends up lacking all legitimacy. The headline is, of course, Musk, a billionaire who backs the president in the election with all his resources, gets given a very huge amount of power. Hard to see that having much democratic legitimacy. Right? But even if it wasn't, you know, a character like Musk, there was very little democratic debate. This person was very unclear what accountability he had, what the rules and scope of those who should have been. Right? So there's real lack of legitimacy. So the other way of doing it, which I think is what John has in mind for Dose and for citizen empowerment, right, is that you build these in connection with those traditional institutions. So your example of the of the, Biden legislation, right, is have citizen empowerment, have democratic innovations working alongside and contributing to that traditional legislative process. Right? And then you don't get the legitimacy cost. Right? In fact, you might even boost legitimacy because we have the standard forms plus all of this citizen engagement and voice, which we don't normally have. But then there's also the risk on the other side, right, which is that you get shackled to these institutions, I think, in your own diagnosis, are kind of failing us. Alright? So I'm wondering a bit about how you, John, think about that trade off. I mean, I do think there's a kind of danger of having these forms of system empowerment too closely aligned to, for example, an institution like Congress in The US, which has just been increasingly struggling to pass any significant kind of legislation. Right? Gridlock is the word in Washington. So how do you think about that relationship between citizen empowerment and the traditional institutions?

I think this goes back to your first contribution in this conversation, Johnny, actually. The the what I am trying to do is respond to the crises of our institutions by acknowledging that they exist, that these things aren't working, but respond to that with a kind of yes and rather than a throw everything out. And I think what I imagine dose units to do and be is is kind of creators of space for the institutions to evolve. And I guess I'm also thinking from from around the world and from some of the examples that I've written into the paper. Again, I don't think that the fracture of the the collapse of our institutions, the failure of our institutions, let me say, is, is actually that fundamental. Like, I look at the Taiwanese government and how they responded to the COVID crisis and the creation of participation officers in every government department who acted as a kind of network in the build up to that moment over the previous, six or eight years, and, and how they were able to to create the space for the culture to shift. The the combination of these, these day to day roles and day to day changes, the boring revolution, and then and then the creation in the context of COVID of, a telephone line anyone could ring into with ideas for how the country's response could be better, the the creation of challenge prizes that would that would tap into the tech community to create the apps that would track face mask availability and case outbreaks and so on. These things didn't require wholesale destruction of the existing institutional capacity. But through a combination of kind of day to day shifts, and, like, big, like, moments where you where government operated in a different way, there's this kind of evolution that happens. The space is created for an evolution to happen. What I'm saying in some ways is sort of, probably less radical, than a lot of people in that I'm saying, I don't actually believe their own institutions are that broken. I think the the people in them can operate differently. The and want to. I think we're I think we're stuck more than we are broken.

Does that make sense? Yeah. That certainly makes sense. And I think that idea of stuck not broken is a is a very nice one. But in the end, I think so much of this is gonna depend on the context. Right? So I think, you know, a critic to what you just said would maybe would maybe kind of draw on the the Taiwanese example by just saying, well, the Taiwanese government was probably a lot more effective than the American government to start with. Right? And therefore, it was able to cause use citizen participation in this more effective way. But then, you know, the answer would be find out what parts of the system, I guess, are working, and then how do we connect it as of how into those ways in order they can work even better. Right? And once you've got that example, we can start to look to fix the kind of wider elements of the system. And I think that's that's exactly the spirit of all of my work, actually. I often,

quote, my friend Cormac Russell, who we should have on the podcast at some stage. But Cormac speaks in aphorisms very beautifully. And one of the things he says is start with what's strong, not with what's wrong, and then use what's strong to fix what's wrong. And he's he's saying that in the context of community, actually. He his work is all about saying, like, in community, high streets and and towns actually have a lot of energy, and we should start by celebrating what's good and then build on it rather than starting with the problems. But I think it applies here to institutions as well. Like, what I'm trying to do with this work is say, actually, there is a different way of doing government emerging all over the world. All we need to do is stare at that, build on it, celebrate it, rather than starting every conversation with why exactly is government broken. We should start with where is government working, and how can we do more of that.

So let me step back from it a little bit. Because the the the way I see this moment in time that we're living in, as I've hinted a couple of times, I think we're really close to a very different world. Because I actually think that in a lot of ways, all of what we need is here already. I I I see people in communities across the world starting to step into their agency, starting to build their own institutions, starting to build different ways of working, starting to, take ownership of local assets, starting to grow food, starting to, like, build their own energy systems. Like, this is all really happening. And I think from that perspective, there's really two parts of my theory of change in this moment. The first is that that has to carry on. It has to connect up. We have to be able to see that people in communities can find the answers ourselves. Like, we can there is a a an important vital power in kinda leaning in and doing it. And so anyone who's listening to this podcast, the key part of what we're saying really, I think, is like, show up in the place you live and love, connect with other people, start to ask what you can do together. That work is the essential in this moment in time. And what I saw in that moment in 2024 when Starmer didn't acknowledge and validate the the energy in communities that is there was that there is a vital role of government, and it's not to do it all for us. But but it I almost imagine it as, like, people in communities coming together and showing power and stepping into agency as sort of reaching a hand upward. And what I think governments need to do is open up and reach a hand kind of to meet that and and hold it. And and when that can happen, I think transformation can happen incredibly quickly. And so really with this paper, I am I'm sort of stepping out of what is maybe my more usual, more comfortable role in kind of going and telling stories in communities and pollinating and meeting people and and celebrating what they're doing. And trying to say, well, actually, no. Look. As a no one else seems to be taking the this challenge of speaking into the corridors of existing power, and saying, if you guys open up, there's something building. And so I guess what I'm trying to do is with the the sort of legitimacy with those folks of a Harvard fellowship to say to speak to people in positions of existing power and influence and say, open these institutions up. Here's how you can do it. Here's who's doing it already. And if you can do that, people are ready to meet you. And so this intervention is this paper I've written is slightly uncomfortable for me because what I feel most joy and comfort doing is going around the places where people aren't waiting for permission and are just doing it. But, ultimately, I do believe there's there's important work for governments to do in in seeing that and opening up to it. And and in a way, stepping back, like, a Department of Citizen Empowerment isn't getting governments to do more. It's in a sense getting them to do less. It's but it's in doing so, it's moving them from a role of kind of delivering for people to holding the space for people to do what they're already wanting to do.

It's like the the fundamental shift is from trying to do things for people and and trying to be the hero to enabling people to do things for themselves, doing things with people, being the facilitator. And and really, that's the core of the invitation. It's the step from, a mode of delivery to a mode of empowerment.

I think the call for action is a great one. I think John kinda nailed it on the importance of having, a theory of change. Right? We have a lot of blueprints. Right? Academics and myself like coming up with these bold and lovely plans for how we can get citizens involved. Right? We could have sortition assemblies and participate budgeting, doing all kinds of things. But the question of how you get from here to those places which seem, in many ways, quite distant from our current political reality is the is the kind of really key question. Right? And I think John is right that that area of change, that call for action will be both from the bottom and from the top. Right? So it's not gonna happen. You can't just get people to to act in the way in which you want to by just having politicians, you know, set things up and hoping the community will follow. But nor can you have community level having widespread changes unless it has the backing of the state and all its resources. So it's that inside outside strategy, as it's sometimes called, that will be really crucial, right, in kind of driving forward this this agenda of citizen empowerment. And we need to think a lot about how the state, and the kind of more local levels tend to tend to never start experimenting more, and bringing up these beautiful examples, you know, for example, that you put in the in your report, right, from Taiwan, from Wales, from Texas. Right? The more of those that we have, the more we can see that kind of road forward for citizen empowerment.

these two spaces that don't usually collaborate massively together. And what and what I wanna say, one other thing actually, which is that I do think these sorts of things are starting to exist. So so, Bologna in Italy has an office of civic imagination. There are several Mexican states that have, offices of citizen participation. And, Mandani in New York, there's the office of mass engagement. These things are all none of these things are quite what I'm imagining with the Department of Citizen Empowerment, but there but there's something in the waters institutionally, structurally as well. So this I don't think this is in some ways, this is a a a radical piece of thinking, a very different thing, a challenge. And, really, I've put it out there in part because I got so frustrated that that the dominant, discussions from a kind of, a progressive agenda, should we say. Like, when Doge happened, the commentators from a progressive perspective were like, Doge is the is asking the right questions. That, Jeff Mulgan, who's a a prominent kind of, civil servant service thinker, actually used those exact words. He said, Doge is asking the right questions, but but the answers are slightly wrong. And and then, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein, the authors of a book called Abundance that's come out in The States, it's hugely influential. They're also sort of saying, like, we're doing the right things. We just need to get bureaucracy, like, government rules out of there's too many rules getting in the way. And I believe that that conversation is just so limited because it's all about efficiency. How can we enable government to deliver better? What it's already trying to do, do it cheaper, faster, quicker. And I'm like, no. We need to ask a bigger question, which is what is the role of government? How can government relate to citizens differently? How can we tap into this standing resource that we see in protest movements all over the world where people are essentially saying, like, we want more of a role. How can we tap into that energy that is making people bring images of rowing crews and orchestras to focus groups and not just try and keep doing it for people. That's the that's the sort of frustration in me that's making me wanna get this into the world. We need we need more imagination in the conversation.

So the paper is you can download it. I'm sure we'll put it in the show notes, but you can download it from the Ash Center, website, the Harvard Kennedy School. And, you can also find me at john alexander dot net, and you can probably you'll be able to download it there as well. So, yeah, send it to your politicians. Send it to your governments. Let's rattle this cage.

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you want to get closer, find us online at howtosavedemocracy.co and sign up to the mailing list. We've got big plans. So if you can chip in to help us make them happen, we'd love to have you on board.