Democracy Innovators Podcast

Isabella Roberts discusses her move from finance and electoral politics into research on deliberative democracy, AI and immersive technology. She explains her BoomTown Festival experiment using surveys and biosensors during mini citizens’ assemblies, including an early finding of increased shared identity among participants. The conversation also examines human-centred principles for digital deliberation and how technology might support participation without displacing reflection, listening and human connection.

Isabella links LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabellaroberts Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/user/b_lla Substack - https://breathewithbella.substack.com/ ANTIPARTY - https://antiparty.co.uk/ ANTIPARTY Yo...

Paul Nemitz examines how concentrated control over data, infrastructure and AI can weaken democratic life, and argues that these technologies are not politically neutral. Drawing on his experience with the GDPR and other EU digital legislation, he discusses regulatory enforcement, the limits of treating code as law, and the importance of human judgment. The conversation concludes with a case for decentralizing AI and involving technologists directly in democratic institutions and debate.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Thomas Lorenz discusses Brief nach Berlin, an open-source, AI-assisted tool that helps citizens identify the appropriate political representative, draft a letter about a local concern and then copy it by hand. The conversation uses this practical project to examine how civic technology can lower barriers to participation while preserving meaningful human action. It also considers AI’s risks for privacy, dependence and social isolation, as well as its potential to make public administration more responsive and democratic collaboration easier.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Terry Bouricius is a former Vermont lawmaker who has spent decades working on democracy reform, now focused on sortition — the use of random selection to form representative citizens’ bodies. His experience as both a politician and reformer led him to question whether elections are actually democratic. In this episode, he explains why he sees elected legislatures as inherently oligarchic, drawing on citizens’ assemblies, ancient Athens, and experiments in Ireland and elsewhere. We discuss how randomly selected bodies could make laws, how technology and AI might support deliberation, why advisory assemblies need real consequences, and why politicians may have little incent...

Malik Lakoubay is a system builder and co-runs the Expanding Civilizational Optionality initiative at Dark Matter Labs, working at the intersection of civic infrastructure, finance, technology, and democratic renewal. In this episode, he explores how technology can enable new forms of participation and collective decision-making, from quadratic voting to community sensing in Mumbai. The conversation takes a provocative turn into “civic finance”: treating civic infrastructure as an asset class and exploring democracy bonds as a way to mobilize private capital for public value. Lakoubay also discusses token economics, incentive design, and why democratic innovation may require rethinking how value is c...

Olivier Schulbaum co-founded Platoniq, a foundation at the intersection of participation, civic technology, culture, social innovation and democratic experimentation. He explains why citizen assemblies on sensitive issues should begin with those most affected, allowing them to shape the agenda before experts frame the question. The conversation also examines how institutional “technification” can drain citizens’ proposals of their original meaning. It then turns to GRID, an experimental AI agent with a legislative-theatre “joker” that interrupts the flow and asks participants to reflect. Rather than treating AI as a frictionless route to consensus, Schulbaum explores technology that deliberately introduces friction into deliberati...

Ryan Koch, host of Civic Tech Chat, joins Alessandro Oppo for a cross-podcast conversation about the evolution of civic tech and the growing role of AI in public-interest technology. They discuss volunteer civic-tech communities, faster prototyping, public data, and the boundaries between civic tech, gov tech, and public-interest tech.

The conversation also examines deterministic systems, AI guardrails, explainability, human oversight in public services, the political choices embedded in software, and how technology might support more direct forms of democratic participation.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to...

Gianluca Misuraca of Inspiring Futures Europe, coordinator of the European Union AI Skills Academy, discusses how foresight can help societies shape technological change. He explains why democratic control of AI depends on digital sovereignty, public-sector skills, interoperability, better procurement, and meaningful citizen participation.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Alvaro Oleart is an academic researcher based in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His work focuses on social movements, EU participatory practices, democratic innovation, and the political economy of technology. In this conversation, he offers a critical perspective on citizen assemblies, arguing that they can depoliticize democracy when they bypass collective actors such as trade unions, political parties, civil society organizations, and social movements. We also discuss Big Tech, AI, the industry of participation, technology in deliberation, the agentic state, and why democratic innovation should focus more on collective power than on small groups of selected individuals.

Alberto Fernandez Gibaja leads International IDEA’s global work at the intersection of technology and democracy. In this conversation, he discusses how the early optimism around digital technology changed after Brexit, Trump, and the rise of disinformation, why tech companies can be as powerful as medium-sized countries, and why democratic societies need more control over data, infrastructure, foundation models, and AI applications. We also discuss digital sovereignty, data rights, the limits of direct democracy, political parties, expertise, and why the difficult part of democratic innovation is often political will rather than technology.

If you enjoy our podcast, pl...

Simon Horton is a negotiation expert, author, and lecturer who has taught negotiation for more than 20 years. In this conversation, he explains why the best negotiators do not treat negotiation as an arm wrestle, but as a collaborative problem-solving process. We discuss political negotiations, peace processes, citizen mediation, and how AI could support better conflict resolution.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Anthony Zacharzewski is the founder of Democratic Society, an organization working across Europe to build democratic infrastructure and improve participation in government. In this conversation, he discusses how participation can become part of institutional design, why democracy must engage seriously with power, and how digitalization and the agentic state could reshape the relationship between citizens, political parties, and public services.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Alice Casiraghi is a systemic designer working on sustainability, circular economy, regenerative systems, and public services. She is a European Climate Pact Ambassador, teaches at Politecnico di Milano and created Climate Cards to educate on environmental impacts. Through her systemic approach, she gives new perspectives on participation of citizens and beyond. In the interview we talked about:

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Paolo Spada is a political scientist at the University of Southampton working on participatory budgeting, citizen assemblies, and democratic innovation. In this episode, we talk about feedback loops, scaling participation, political parties, online deliberation, and why democratic innovation needs stronger critique as it becomes more established. A central idea in the conversation is that scaling democratic participation is not mainly a technical problem. It is a political problem, and tools like AI only help when ownership, transparency, and accountability remain under democratic control.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us...

Antoine Vergne is the co-director of Missions Publiques and the co-author of the ScaleDem Analytical Framework. His passion for innovating democratic processes is reflected in his academic background in political science and his nearly 15 years at Missions Publiques.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Paul Zeitz is an author and advocate for global justice and human rights, among other things. With over 35 years of experience and several publications he is addressing systemic challenges. Especially in his book “Hit Refresh on the U.S. Constitution”, he calls for more deliberation in our democracies.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Ben Nelson is founder and CEO of the Minerva Project and founder of the Minerva University. His mission is to reinvent higher education by utilising a systematic and evidence-based approach to learning. Drawing on his extensive entrepreneurial experience and keen awareness of societal issues, he offers valuable insights into the relationship between education and democracy, as well as the steps required to pursue one’s passion and achieve success.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Cecile Green is a social entrepreneur and Seth Frey is a computational social scientist. They share a mission to enable healthy self-organization and improve relationships in society, which naturally impacts democracy. Together, they work on the Commoning Standard, which unites stakeholders from research and practice to develop standards for effective self-governance.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Sylvain Le Bon is co-founder of Startin’blox, a company that helps building data spaces. Drawing on his extensive entrepreneurial experience, Sylvain provides an overview of data spaces and their role in establishing the foundation for digital democracy.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Jorge Lagarto is director at LabX, a center for public sector innovation. With many years of experience in the field, Jorge provides clear guidance on making services more citizen-friendly by integrating their needs and expectations. We talked about:

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

.Wietse van Ransbeeck is the CEO and co-founder of Go Vocal, a leading platform for community engagement. The company partners with over 600 municipalities and cities worldwide to facilitate citizen dialogue and provide governments with insights for better decision-making.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Marcello Coppa has a background in economics and communications. He has 15 years’ experience in innovation management and consultancy. As the CEO of the Feel Community and curator of the GoVTech Forum, he is working to accelerate innovation in public systems.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

.Stefaan Verhulst is Co-Founder of the Governance Laboratory (The GovLab), a research center that is focused on transforming decision making by using advances in science and technology. Stefaan shares a clear view on the most important aspects of governance.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Yuting Jiang is CEO and co-founder of the Agora Citizen Network. The Agora tool was inspired by the well-known Polis platform. Yuting understands how modern technologies can improve democratic processes and offers interesting insights into future developments.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Political theorist Helene Landemore joins us to explore what democracy could look like in the age of AI. We discuss citizens’ assemblies, sortition, digital participation, global governance, and how democratic systems can transition toward more inclusive, deliberative, and future-ready institutions.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Nathan Schneider is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has worked for many years on democratic ownership and governance for online platforms, and is currently writing a book about how protocols shape human organization.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Matt Stempeck is founder and curator of the Civic Tech Field Guide, which lists civic tech projects from all over the world. With 20 years experience in civic tech, Matt has seen projects passing and persisting in this challenging field. He has a profound understanding of what makes a project successful and what makes it fail.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps...

Samuel Vance-Law is Senior Researcher at the Decentralization Research Center and excited about governance and blockchain. He sees technology, especially blockchain, as an opportunity for governance innovation that can serve as a sandbox for progress also in our political democracies. In this episode we talked about:

🤖 Why governance is not sexy

🔢 Governance in DAOs and the blockchain space

📕 How to engage people in democracies

⚙️ Why efficiency is not everything

💰 Why we need to think bigger and weirder

💸 Support us with a donation: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/7KCR9XBSCQV...

In a joint live stream between the Democracy Innovators Podcast and Governance Futures Podcast we wrapped up our learnings from last year and gave a perspective on the next year. We examined the evolving relationship between democratic systems, digitally networked communities, and emerging governance architectures. We summarized the technological developments in Web3 and AI, as well as challenges in democratic deliberation, concluding with the mission to nurture a movement of governance innovation.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Simone Maria Parazzoli is part of the Agentic State project and previously worked for the OECD and the ISI Foundation. His experience on the digital transformation of governments gives interesting insights. In this episode we talked about the Agentic State, an attempt to use technologies, especially AI, to provide governments with better services and faster decisions.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really...

Marco Cappato and Francesco Vecchi from the pan-European Eumans movement engage for a more transnational democracy and a more long-term orientation. In this episode we talked about the Civic AI initiative as part of the Eumans movement.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Vir introduces Tilt.vote, a platform that uses AI to rank comments based on a “Logic Score” rather than just popularity or rage bait. We discuss how the AI detects fallacies, the future of AI agents in the workforce, and how civic tech can help save democracy from polarization.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

.Bruce Schneier is a well known cryptographer, security expert, and privacy advocate who deeply cares about society. Recent books like “A Hacker’s Mind” or “Rewiring Democracy” reflect his engagement in finding new perspectives of how democracy can be designed in better ways.

We had a connection issue which caused a cut within the recording.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really hel...

Tiago C. Peixoto is an international civil servant and a visiting professor at the Centre for Democratic Futures at the University of Southampton. He has been recognized as one of the 20 Most Innovative People in Democracy and one of the 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Jonathan Moskovic is expert in democratic innovation and citizen participation. He has over ten years of experience at local, regional, European, and international levels with various actors, including civil society, traditional political institutions, and international organizations.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Carol Romero is CPO and Andrés Pereira de Lucena is CTO of Decidim, a well-known open-source tool for democratic online participation. With several hundred instances actively running and nine years of development behind it, Decidim is a widely used and battle-tested software. Building on this experience, the Decidim team is now working on a more refined and mature release.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a...

Alex Blaga works at Trollwall AI, a platform designed to moderate toxic comments on social media. In this episode, Alex explains how harmful content is often used to spread narratives through repetition alone. The conversation also touches on the need for user identification on social media and the balance between freedom of speech and accountability.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps...

Sonia Bussu is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on participatory democracy and democratic innovations. In this episode, we explore the role of emotions in democratic engagement, the potential of civic technology, and how assemblage theory can help us to understand the fluidity and complexity of democracy.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain...

Graham Wetherall-Grujić is researcher at the Innovation in Politics Institute. With his background in political theory and a PhD in philosophy, he has a differentiated perspective on contemporary democracy, power and deliberation. He emphasizes the need for a reasoned discussion that needs to happen before any voting process.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

Richard Bartlett is the co-founder of Loomio, a collaborative decision-making tool for communities and organizations. He started his career as an engineer, but the financial crisis caused him to change direction. He joined Occupy Wall Street and eventually founded Loomio in 2012. With over 13 years experience in digitally assisted consensus decision-making, he has valuable insights to share.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast.

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really...