Originally published on September 18, 2023 (Episode 334)
Introduction
In 2016, Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk published a widely cited essay in the Journal of Democracy showing that support for non-democratic alternatives was rising, especially among younger and wealthier Americans and Europeans. Alarmingly, more people said it might be “good” for the military to take power. That essay—in addition to voting on both sides of the Atlantic—became for me a demonstration that democratic disillusionment in the 21st century was much deeper and in more unlikelier places than I had hitherto imagined.
Against this backdrop, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober argue for confidence in democracy’s resilience. In their book The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives, they describe democracy as a shared agreement: citizens choosing to govern themselves without a single “boss,” bound instead to one another in mutual responsibility. Their historical sweep—from Athens and Rome to Britain and the United States—shows that democracies succeed not by avoiding conflict but by cultivating habits of negotiation, compromise, and inclusion.
Our conversation ranges from the practicalities of defining democracy to the ways that institutions, cultures, and ideas reinforce the “bargain” that allows free societies to endure. For Manville and Ober, democracy’s future depends less on nostalgia or panic than on the deliberate renewal of the civic bargain by citizens themselves.
About the Guests
Brook Manville is an independent consultant, writer, and former partner at McKinsey & Co. A historian by training, he taught at Northwestern University and is the author of The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens and co-author (with Josiah Ober) of A Company of Citizens: What the World’s First Democracy Teaches Leaders About Creating Great Organizations. He has a Substack.
Josiah Ober is the Constantine Mitsotakis Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His books include The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece. He is also co-author of The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 BC, a Reacting to the Past role-playing game used in classrooms worldwide.
For Further Investigation
Brook Manville and Josiah Ober, The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives (Princeton, 2023)
Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk, “The Democratic Disconnect,” Journal of Democracy (July 2016)
Related podcast conversations
Steele Brand on Polybius and the Roman Republic
Remaking American Citizenship — Christopher Bonner on Black Americans and democratic identity
Civil War Politics — Paul Escott on political traditions in crisis
💬 Listen & Discuss
If democracy is “people making decisions together without a boss,” how does that definition change the way we think about our responsibilities as citizens? What does it mean to be both free and accountable to one another? Share your thoughts in the comments, and pass this episode along to someone thinking seriously about democracy’s future.
