Christine Landfried on the Democratic Potential of Citizens' Assemblies

June 30, 2022

Christine Landfried on the Democratic Potential of Citizens' Assemblies
When it comes to politics, “distrust is a very healthy thing,” says Dr. Christine Landfried. But Dr. Landfried warns that a complete loss of trust in democratic processes lead people to disconnect from politics entirely. In this episode, the professor of political science talks about how citizens’ assemblies, a new form of participation, strengthen democracy and rebuild trust in its institutions. Landfried has observed citizens’ assemblies and prominently reported about them in a variety of German-speaking media outlets. Christine Landfried is currently a Thomas Mann House fellow in Los Angeles.

 


 

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Tom Zoellner (host) is the New York Times bestselling author of eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, Uranium Train, and The Heartless Stone. He teaches at Chapman University and Dartmouth College. A former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, he is the politics editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.


 


Aida Baghernejad (co-host) is an award-winning journalist and culture critic based in Berlin. Her work appears in national and international media outlets, among them the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the San Francisco Chronicle, the TagesspiegelZeit Online and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, as well as the German podcast series Pasta & Politik, featuring leading female politicians and thinkers in Germany. In 2021, she received the International Music Journalism Award as Music Journalist of the Year. She has previously taught at King’s College London and the Humboldt University Berlin.


 

Lisa Bartfai (producer) is an award-winning independent radio journalist, podcast producer, and translator. She is the producer and editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books podcast 55 Voices for Democracy, and the producer, editor, and host of Bowdoin Presents, a podcast by Bowdoin College. Bartfai’s own reporting was included in the Columbia Review of Journalism’s “Best journalism of 2020: Covering racial justice,” and has been awarded second place in the Society for Features Journalism 2021 Excellence-in-Features, in the Best Podcast category. Bartfai is a mentor with Report for America, and a proud alumni of the KALW Audio Academy.


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