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How to Save Democracy

Democracy is in trouble. Around the world, trust is breaking down, systems are creaking, and people are walking away. But we still believe in it. Not as something we have, but as something we do.

How To Save Democracy is a podcast about repairing our relationship with democracy, hosted by Omezzine Khelifa and Jon Alexander, with producer Jo Barratt. We hold space for the hard conversations — the ones we all know we need to have.

We'd love to know what you think when you've had a listen. If you want more, we need your help. Sign up, spread the word, and if you can, support us. Let’s rebuild democracy together.

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19 episodes
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Avg 47 min
English

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Episodes 19

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Wednesday · 32 min
Voices for Bendigo (and beyond)
What happens when people come together around kitchen tables, have real conversations about what they love about the place where they live and what needs to change, and then take what they find to the politicians who want to represent them? That’s how the Community Independents movement in Australia works - and it’s played a growing role in national politics over the last decade. We find out more from the team kicking off the latest iteration, in Bendigo, Victoria.
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October 8 · 1 hr 4 min
I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World
How should we understand the moment we're living in? Sarah Wilson is an author, podcaster and philosopher who argues we need to accept that this is a time of profound and inevitable collapse - and that while there is no hope, there is something else happening. Jon hosted Sarah at the Conduit in London for a live conversation that wasn't about elections or citizens' assemblies, but was absolutely about how we save democracy - by showing up, connecting with one another, living fully and beautifull
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September 24 · 52 min
The House Of Wonder And Disagreement
In April this year, Jon was invited to help launch a new community-centre-cum-democracy-hub in the city of Stavanger, Norway, with the brilliant name of The House Of Wonder And Disagreement - and of a world-first project to create a standing citizens’ assembly as part of a city’s governance from outside of government… As part of the launch, Jon hosted a conversation with Jan Inge Reilstad of KÅKÅ, the organisation running the project, and leading Norwegian journalist Hilde Sandvik, to find out m
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September 10 · 41 min
Dena Heals
When the Eaton fire ripped through Altadena, Pasadena, in January 2025, a whole neighbourhood was virtually burned to the ground. One of the many to lose their home was Carola Secada. In this episode, we hear what happened next: the creation of Dena Heals, a mutual aid marketplace and wellness centre that has since supported over 7000 people from 1500 families as they have rebuilt their lives.
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August 27 · 44 min
Regenerating Melbourne
At the end of 2020, a combination of Covid lockdowns and “Black Summer” bushfires across the Australian state of Victoria meant that Melburnians were confined to their homes for weeks on end. But instead of staring into crisis, a group of citizens came together determined to start reimagining and rebuilding their city out of it. Jon sat down with Kaj Lofgren and Charity Mosienyane to hear the story of Regen Melbourne, an organisation born in that moment to catalyse work across the city towards t
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August 13 · 42 min
From Street Protests to Building Democracy: Lessons From the Tunisian Experience
Working with political theorist Jonny Benson, Omezzine has been looking back over her experiences in the politics of her native Tunisia - first as an activist in the Tunisian Revolution, and then as a politician in the aftermath. Their aim? To reflect on the role democratic innovations such as citizens’ assemblies might have played, and draw out lessons that could help the world. Jon takes the role of interviewer to see what they’ve found.
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July 30 · 39 min
The DOCE Proposal
Jon has spent much of the last year based at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as a Visiting Fellow on the “Reimagining Democracy” programme. As part of this, he published an essay calling for the creation of Departments of Citizen Empowerment at every level of government, everywhere in the world. In this episode, Omezzine interviews Jon about the ideas in the essay, with the help of our new friend from the University of Manchester, political theorist Jonny Benson.
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July 16 · 40 min
Double Take Debate: How to Save Democracy
Jon took the hot seat for this episode of award-winning comedian Robin Clyfan’s new current affairs podcast, Double Take Debate. This discussion pits the politics of deliverism, where politicians try to fix the problems of the world for us, against our vision of a more participatory democracy, where people hold the solutions to our own problems. The politics of England’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, get a mention or two along the way…
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July 9 · 27 min
It Takes a City
Our friends Flavio and Stefania have brought together stories of participation and democracy from across four continents. In this episode, they interview the pioneering Portuguese politician Graça Fonseca about her time as Deputy Mayor of Lisbon - and about that city’s participatory budget, which every years sees millions of euros directly allocated to citizen ideas by citizen vote.
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July 2 · 42 min
A Democracy of Doing
Jon found himself in Perth, Western Australia, with the team from the DoingCo. This social enterprise supports a growing movement of “town teams” across the country and beyond: local doers coming together to shape their places, their way. This is a joyful, powerful movement - as you’ll hear from nightclub-promoter-turned-community-organiser Jimmy Murphy, and all-round citizen powerhouse Kendell Terrell.
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April 13 · 1 hr 8 min
What Art Can Do for Democracy
We host legendary artist Brian Eno and his co-author Bette Adriaanse to explore the ideas in their book, What Art Does. Feelings are not luxuries, they're powerful forces that can nurture democracy or, in the wrong hands, unmake it entirely. Even at its most intimate and personal level, art invites us to imagine alternatives, experiment, and find grounding, a sense of stability, and forward momentum in a world of increasing uncertainty.
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March 23 · 1 hr 5 min
Neighbourhood Power
Radical architect Indy Johar and renowned community leader Immy Kaur share their understanding of the vital importance of neighbourhood-scale work in the face of the realities of our time. Sometimes brutal in their realism, they force us to stare hard at the challenges and not shy away from painful truths. But they're also insistent about what becomes possible when we work at a human scale: the scale of our lives and the places we live, where we all have a role to play in building the future we
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March 9 · 56 min
Nation of Strangers
For our first live recording, we host Turkish writer and political commentator Ece Temelkuran to discuss her brave and beautiful new book, Nation Of Strangers. In a world unmaking our sense of safety and belonging, Ece offers something we desperately need: a vision of the future we can create together and requiring all of us. Her most powerful insight? The unhomed among us aren't simply victims of our times. They're pioneers, already carrying the know-how we need to build our new home together.
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Nov 14, 2025 · 54 min
Taiwan’s Transformation
Trust in government has been collapsing all over the world over the last decade - but one country has bucked the trend. Fewer than 10% of the population trusted government in 2014, but by 2024, that figure had climbed above 70%. Spurred on by a collective of civic hackers calling themselves “Gov Zero”, Taiwan has trusted its people, opened its institutions, and even crowdsourced what was arguably the world’s most successful Covid response. In this episode, we draw out the lessons every nation ca
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Nov 4, 2025 · 1 hr 4 min
The Irish Citizens’ Assembly
In September 2025, Jon hosted a live event in Dublin exploring the past, present and future of one of the most exciting democratic experiments of recent times. Over the last 15 years, Ireland's Citizens' Assembly has brought nearly 600 randomly selected citizens together to deliberate on issues from abortion to marriage equality to biodiversity, before making recommendations to elected officials. Join us as we delve into what happened, how, and why - and ask whether this approach could help save
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Jul 1, 2025 · 23 min
Meet Jon
In this episode, co-host Omezzine Khelifa turns the mic on her fellow presenter, Jon Alexander. Before founding the New Citizenship Project and writing Citizens, Jon spent a decade in the world of advertising — helping big brands sell more stuff. So how did he make the leap from marketing to reimagining democracy? Omezzine asks the thoughtful (and tough) questions as we trace Jon’s journey from consumer culture to citizen action — as they explore what it really means to tell a hopeful new story
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Jul 1, 2025 · 30 min
Meet Omezzine
We’re figuring out how to fix democracy. Not by talking about it from a distance, but by meeting the people doing the work. In this episode, you have the chance to get to know co-host, Omezzine Khelifa — someone who’s lived every facet of this fight: reformer, revolutionary, politician, and practitioner. Omezzine proudly calls herself French-Tunisian, and her story begins in the heart of the 2010 Tunisian Revolution — what would become known to the world as the Arab Spring. From the frontlines o
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Jul 1, 2025 · 58 min
Citizen is a Verb
Back in September 2024, as the US election took an unexpected turn, we gathered at the Conduit Club in London with Baratunde Thurston and Elizabeth Stewart — the powerhouse duo behind How To Citizen. Since launching their project in 2020, they’ve been telling the stories of the “next democracy,” spotlighting people who are already reimagining civic life. In this episode, we explore their radical, hopeful idea: that being a citizen is something we do, not something we are. It’s a call to action a
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Jul 1, 2025 · 1 hr
Facing the Menace
In this episode, we’re not looking away. We’re acknowledging the cracks in our democracies and asking what can still be done. Recorded live at the Conduit Club in early 2024, this powerful conversation brings together two sharp, prescient voices: political strategist and pollster Paul Hilder, and author and journalist Ece Temelkuran. Paul has worked on elections across Europe, uncovering the deeper trends shaping our politics. Ece, whose book How to Lose a Country warned of creeping authoritaria
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