Conference Report: Democracy and Dissent

From Madrid to Cairo, Tel Aviv, Rome and New York, protests have erupted across the globe against economic instability, political unaccountability and corruption. Characterized by a prevailing sense of disillusionment, these movements are calling for a rethinking of representative democracy and greater citizen involvement in public governance. As part of the La Pietra Dialogues 1 – a long-running series of events in which some of world’s foremost scholars, policy makers, practitioners, business leaders, public intellectuals and artists discuss publicly relevant issues – a day-long international round table was organized by New York University Florence on April 17, 2012 to discuss these issues. Among the main questions that the event aimed at debating were the defining characteristics of contemporary dissenting movements, the sources and modes of expression of their ideas, their potential direction, outcomes, and impact on national and transnational policy agendas, the influence of social media in their structure and philosophy, and whether these movements are developing new models of horizontal organization and democratic engagement. The setting of the event was designed to promote open, lively and continuous discussion among all participants, both speakers and audience, and clearly succeeded in this goal, as enlightening conversations and exchanges between different viewpoints took place throughout the whole conference. The event featured three closely interrelated sessions: the first was titled «Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy» and was moderated by Professor Bill Klein of NYU Florence; the second, «New Forms of Democracy: Old Wine in New Bottles?», was chaired by Professor Claudius Wagemann of NYU Florence, and the third, which focused on «Mass Media, Social Media and Dissenting Movements», was directed by Dr. Cristian Vaccari of NYU Florence.