Degenerations and Regenerations of Democracy with Charles Taylor

In this episode Shalini and her guest discuss why democracy is prone to degeneration, and how this affects our conventional notions of democracy itself. Do we usually depend too much on a thin formal institutional conception of democracy focused on electoral routines, and thus, neglect broader questions of class, culture, equality, and solidarity? How can we reimagine and also regenerate progressive democracy with the right balance of freedom, equality, and solidarity on the local, national, as well as supranational levels? And how can we overcome the pervasive sense of powerlessness in the face of abstract impersonal forces, forces that Charles Taylor refers to not only as opaque, but also as those signaling the loss of citizen efficacy?