Palomar5 Education organised a small, conspiratory event in reponse to Sir Ken Robinson’s call to bring on the learning revolution, a great opportunity to get some glimpses of how we will learn in the future through the lenses of Basti Hirsch, who went on a five-week education expedition through the United States; Aron Solomon, who is busy creating a boarding school with wheels, the Think Global School; and Margret Rasfeld, who founded a protestant reform school in Berlin. What have I seen?

I am here for the learning revolution.
And you? Photo by wfryer on Flickr.

I have seen three very different approaches to and understandings of learning and education by people who share the belief that—while public education remains a fundamental cornerstone of democratic societies—much of what happens in our institutions of formal education is wrong and represents a broken system.

I have also seen a few shared principles underpinning three schools that are so very different –

• the Science Leadership Academy, “an inquiry-driven, project-based high school focused on 21st century learning in Philadelphia,”
• the Think Global School, “a global, private and non-profit high school that travels the world and tosses educational sterotypes out of the window,”
• the Protestant Reform School, “a Berlin-based reform school aiming to introduce a radical change of learning culture.”

Many of these shared principles, I would guess, are key to most of the innovative education endeavours I know. Add to the list and share what you think in the comments!

We will learn in the future by

• following rhythms of inquiry and learning rather than rhythms of compartmentalised structures and times,
• moving away from memorising and teaching towards exploring and learning by doing,
• turning away from sitting and listening passively to constructing and collaborating actively,
• facilitating learning from failure instead of punishing every little mistake,
• accepting uncertainty as the only certainty there is within the complexity of learning,
• relating learning and living in ways that are fruitful and enriching both ways,
• not teaching what to learn and think, but by teaching how to learn and think,
• inventing and facilitating new and integrated learning formats, combining subjects and approaches,
• turning away from instruction and control towards facilitation and support,
• moving away from spaces controlled by educators towards spaces controlled by learners,
• providing encouragement and support instead of criticism and barriers.

Admittedly, this list is generic—quite possibly, too generic—but it’s a start. Wir fangen schon mal an.

Much has been written about the Copen­hagen Climate Summit, as the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference—inc­luding the 15th Conference of the Parties [COP15] to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] and the 5th Meeting of the Parties [MOP5] to the Kyoto Protocol—has come to be called.

Hundreds of millions of US Dollars were spent on this chaotic, disastrous nightmare of a frantic summit. That is a hell of a lot of money to burn for bickering and filibustering to finally take note of the “Copenhagen Accord“, which no spin-doctoring can mispresent as anything use- or meaningful.

But it’s not the failed negotiations that upset me most.

It is two other aspects – it is how we were ridiculed by power twice.

The ugly face of power | Photo by thousand.wor(l)ds

Firstly, I am upset about the unashamed and disgusting display and abuse of state power. More than 122 million US Dollars—$122.000.000,00—were spent to secure Copenhagen, and none of it was pretty.

The tip of the iceberg: protests were undermined by deployed undercover officers, phones of activists were tapped, meetings were infiltrated…

Protesters were kettled and arrested in vast numbers—thousands—to be wagoned off to steel cages in a former beer warehouse especially constructed for the climate conference apparently called “Guantánamo Junior”. It’s difficult to see how this could not be called mass repression.

While there is hope that most of this shit will turn out to have been violating the European Convention of Human Rights, we would be lying to ourselves if we continued to praise existing channels of participation as meaningful if even our most basic democratic and human rights are violated so shamelessly.

Secondly, I am upset by the idiocy of the civil society movement. Most NGOs were quick to blaim Obama and claim that the US had wrecked the climate negotiations by demanding too much while offering too little, a sentiment speedily reproduced in the media. But as Mark Lynas—a British author, journalist and environmental activist—points out, many developing countries have much more to lose by legally binding agreements because it would impact their coal-driven growth more directly and more quickly.

Lynas, who was advising the Maldives delegation during the summit, argues in his eyewitness account of the final negotiations behind closed doors that “China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful ‘deal’ so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Mark observes that

“the NGO movement is ten years out of date. They’re still arguing for ‘climate justice’, whatever that means, which is interpreted by the big developing countries like India and China as a right to pollute up to Western levels. To me carbon equity is the logic of mutually assured destruction. I think NGOs are far too soft on the Chinese, given that it’s the world’s biggest polluter, and is the single most important factor in deciding when global emissions will peak, which in turn is the single most important factor in the eventual temperature outcome. Too many leftist activists are therefore tending to side with the big polluters because they think they’re standing in solidarity with the world’s poor.”

Meanwhile India has confirmed that it co-operated with China and other nations to torpedo any legally binding targets at the talks – and while I love the new video of the global youth climate movement, I would much rather hear a well argued response and, more importantly, see a shift in logic and argumentation that leaves antiquated sentiments behind.

Act the fuck now! | Photo by thousand.wor(l)ds

Because there is, regrettably, no open discourse on the situation of the Youth Forum between the different movements and strands—with most youth organisations, in united hypocrisy, happily ignoring their own call to politics for more transparency—these voices cannot be easily heard, but the increasing frequency, intensity and attractiveness of networks and meetings working on the establishment of organisational alternatives will soon lead to visible results, which will exemplify for how long the dissatisfaction with the Youth Forum has simmered.

The few large organisations that currently dominate the platform—most notably the scouts and the socialists—share a lack of interest to make the European Youth Forum a strong voice of young people with key institutional players such as the European Commission: both sides fear the loss of power and influence.

Luckily for these players, the Youth Forum is, in its current state, caught in internal power struggles and ensnared by a lack of critical voices: seemingly endless discussions culminate in carefully negotiated position papers that lack both courage and authenticity.

Having discovered Youtube, the European Youth Forum publicly demonstrates—for anyone who has the strength to sit through their video speeches—that there is no youth spirit left to show; the organisation is light-years away from the creativity and sovereignty of many young people in using media and making their voice heard.

At the press conference marking the public announcement of the European Commission’s new strategy for young people “Youth — Investing and Empowering“, all that the Youth Forum’s President Tine Radinja managed to achieve is that Jan Figel—Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth and anything but a talented speaker—shines as a seemingly gifted rhetoric.

Is this the voice of young people in Europe?

How is an organisation defending the interests of young people in Europe that doesn’t have the courage to criticise the blatant discrepancy between the Commission’s ambitions in addressing disadvantaged young people and the tools they employ to this end?

How is an organisation defending the interests of young people that lets itself be willingly abused as a tokenistic symbol of pseudo-representation?

It isn’t — no matter how many times it is written or said to be the biggest regional youth platform in the world, bringing together and representing tens of millions of young people from all over Europe.

Photo by warein.holgado on flickr

It would be too easy an explanation to point at the considerable amount of 2.2 Million Euro the European Youth Forum receives every year from the European Union through the Youth in Action Programme.

The EU, even though they would have the leverage, doesn’t need to apply any thumbscrews.

Faced with a structure that fails to protect the interests of small organisations and offers no efficient instruments to constructively negotiate and mediate between different wings, the organisation consistently blocks itself and is as meek as a mouse.

[The alarmingly high turnover of staff is but one indicator for the state of the association, in which the creativity and enthusiasm of individuals seems forfeit to vanish.]

Not surprisingly, the European Commission does not miss a single opportunity to praise the European Youth Forum as an important and reliable partner — smothered in harmony they can hardly breathe, and any criticism towards the institutions is systematically silenced.

For many years, interest in creating an alternative platform has remained low, also because there is so little at stake in a democratically defunct European Union — but sooner or later the much needed alternative will emerge.

Chances are that such a platform will be taken seriously — not because they brag to be the biggest organisation on the continent in every speech, but because they have something meaningful to say in ways which are authentic and honest, direct and powerful.

And when all is said and done, chances are that the European Youth Forum is going to find itself in a much stronger position after what will likely be turbulent times.

‧ Full disclosure: I was a member of the Bureau of the European Youth Forum from 1998 until 2000 with responsibility for education and training, and an unsuccessful candidate for Secretary General in 2003. If you are inclined to believe that I am searching for romantic memories or bitter revenge, feel free to do so.

The emergence of new communication systems is the result of complex interactions among technological, cultural, social, political and economic forces. This puts aside the belief that technologies have themselves an intrinsic power to shape society. Technology – in this case: communication tools – are just part of society and culture, a medium of expression. Therefore social changes cannot be directly identified in technology itself, but rather in its uses.

In the 90s, many studies focused on pathological users of the internet, stating that it creates an “unreal” world and that its users suffer from a lack of social capacities (see, for example, Chandler).

However, this discourse doesn’t seem to make sense today. Obviously there are always uses and abuses of technology, but we have different examples of the political use of the world wide web. Political, in this context, means all activities related to the public life.

In dictatorial regimes such as Belarus, to give but one example, the role that the internet plays for the opposition is well known. Similarly, anti-globalisation movements are often closely linked with new communication technologies.

Why? There are three main reasons: anonymity, geographical scope, and costs.

Anonymity is an increasingly beneficial reality – at times when communication is observed and registered not only in political dictatorships. But it can also be of value for young people growing up in a more traditional context, where questioning about certain themes might be taboo. Available online information provides options and shows possibilities – an informational power of the internet that could hardly be argued. And the very fact that the internet is an information medium makes it political – in the sense that it has and produces influence on social spheres and in public life.

The geographical scope of the internet is well-known, but it is worthwhile to remember that the internet is not global: it does not (yet) reach the entire world population. Economic and geographic disparities where shown by Pipa Norris in «The Digital Divide».

And the gap is not only between the Americas and Africa, or between Europe and Asia! That also, but the geographical divide also exists between Melnik and Sofia in Bulgaria, or between Salvaterra de Magos and Lisbon in Portugal. Inside the same country geographical divides are identifiable along distinctions between urban and rural or central and peripheral, often determined by economical differences or technological limitations.

And yet, part of today’s world population has access to the Internet; indeed, most people in developed countries have to use Internet in their daily life – be it at work, at home, or both.

Photo by Stefan Franke | www.youthphotos.eu

The costs for providing and ensuring access to the internet are relatively low in comparison to other media. Think about the costs related to printing, add the environmental externalities and hold that against the investments related to internet access. Think about TV production costs and compare it with the maintenance of a weblog. And while costs can be a political question and pose the question if and how the state should interfere, the world wide web is definitely cheaper than many other media.

Partly due to the relatively low costs, the internet facilitates the diversification of communication channels. This is politically important because it expands the range of voices that can express themselves. Furthermore, mass media could be (and sometimes are) interpreted as a construct of capitalism, based on consumption as a tool for manufacturing consent. Because of its decentralized nature, low cost and easiness of creating (new, alternative) content, the internet – and new media in general – offer the attractiveness of many-to-many communication patterns. This can also be a metaphor of a changing society, more open, more diverse… and eventually more diffuse?

This line of thought raises another question: can the internet foster participation? The internet’s comparatively low entry barriers ensure greater access to innovative (or even, at times, revolutionary) ideas. Simultaneously it allows for the circulation of a greater number of messages.

But… how many can actually be heard, read or listened to!?

If everyone is speaking at once, who is listening?

The social potential of new technologies is determined by their own nature: they are intrinsically different from other media. Unlike mass media, new technologies are not based on a communication system centred on the producer. The economies of scale – that are so characteristic of mass media production and consumption – are not to be found in the same manner in new media technologies.

Traditional mass media may currently have an enormous social power that is based on their ability to deliver huge quantities of information to large numbers of people in short time-spans. However, information reception is often passive and rarely involves thought and learning – one of the main criticisms put forward by the Frankfurt School, arguing that mass media favoured the passive reception of information and entertainment over thoughtful engagement and re-action.

New communication technologies can be used synchronously or asynchronously, which offers the chance to debate, but also the needed time to think and deliberate – with obvious advantages to negotiation and political discussion. However, one has to be critical towards the offer of content – as Benjamin Barber argues, variety is not the same as segmentation and abundance does not mean pluralism of content. The main risk of segmentation is that, in an extreme case, it destroys the common ground on which we base our shared working, living and co-operating.

Therefore, it is essential to find ways of bringing together people with different interests. It is vital for the social existence of democracy in complex societies where common life shall be ruled by common decisions. And in this sense, it is finally also essential to think about youth participation and the internet.

We all know the argument that young people are the future of society – and they also are, already now, the main users of new technologies; many times even their most creative users. Future generations will use technology in ways we cannot even think about today! And their imaginative uses might turn out quite different from those that we expect: just think about the importance of image over text today…

These – often co-existing and co-evolving – changes of paradigms are important for democracy.

And yet, the effect of change is barely calculable, and it may well become a part of youth work to help identify resulting opportunities and chances – for which youth workers need to observe and comprehend the uses of technology by young people.

These observations should never be understood or misused as a value-based evaluation returning positive or negative results. Much rather, it should come with a humble and constructive approach that is based on sharing and partaking and focuses on and highlights potential.

If youth work adopts an activist participatory approach in observing the influence of electronically mediated social and participatory networking of young people, we might eventually begin to understand how the social use of new technologies can affect personalities, human relations and the political system.

«Two-thirds say they’ll do it for a year’s tuition. And for a few, even an iPod touch will do.

That’s what NYU students said they’d take in exchange for their right to vote in the next presidential election, a recent survey by an NYU journalism class found.

Only 20 percent said they’d exchange their vote for an iPod touch.

But 66 percent said they’d forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they’d give up the right to vote forever for $1 million.

But they also overwhelmingly lauded the importance of voting.

Ninety percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for the money also said they consider voting “very important” or “somewhat important”; only 10 percent said it was “not important.”

Also, 70.5 percent said they believe that one vote can make a difference — including 70 percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for free tuition.

The class — “Foundations of Journalism,” taught by journalism department chairwoman Brooke Kroeger — polled more than 3,000 undergraduates between Oct. 24 and 26 to assess student attitudes toward voting.»

—

The sad list grows longer and longer.

Erfurt › Columbine › Emsdetten › Blacksburg

Where next? What next?

—

There are so many issues to be discussed, among them

» the dignity of media coverage

» the influence of a culture of weapons

» the double standards we all live with

—

Later.

∞

Yet, there is more to this. The article guarantees free and public education for all Greek citizens and to many, a change of such fundamental principles will quickly lead to restrictions of the right to university asylum prohibiting police forces from entering university grounds. It was this right that allowed students to fight the dictatorship in 1973 — which makes it an untouchable right for many students and citizens.

Already in 2006, the Greek education ministry tried to implement reforms but had to back off after the forming of a huge student movement that organised street demonstrations and sit-ins resembling French protest culture.

The change of Article 16 has become a major dispute in Greece. The «People’s Weekly World» writes:

«Pro-education forces throughout Greece took to the streets this week for an all-out offensive of marches and demonstrations to block a parliamentary vote on privatizing the higher education system. The day the vote went to Parliament, Jan. 10, was declared a day of nationwide action.

Marches and demonstrations were held all day long in over 40 cities on the mainland and on the islands. Thousands upon thousands came out to protect the right of this and future generations to be educated. Their battle cry was “Free public education for all!”»

According to inymedia, more than 15.000 people demonstrated alone in Athens against the attempt to constitutionalise the privatisation of education (source). One week later, 20.000 went to the streets in Athens and 10.000 in Thessaloniki (source).

The final vote of the Parliament is scheduled to be held before the end of March 2007. And while the discussion inside the parliament is not expected to be fierce, protests outside will certainly be.

Which leaves us behind with at least one question: Fair enough that students do protest against the privatisation of the higher education system – but how is the public one going to get better? Students and Politics better find an answer soon because, as ESIB puts it:

«When can one say that a country is in crisis? The answer is clear: when students start street protests.«

Indeed.

The most important resource of the twentyfirst century, politicians say, is education. How fatally wrong: The most important resource, being the most scarcely one, is willpower.

In a nutshell, the article argues that transformation and change will happen not through education alone.

So how do we reach for the stars now?

Pictures courtesy of Lida Rose and Carf.

In an (to say the least: unusual) interview with the German Süddeutsche Zeitung, EU Commission Vice President and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Günter Verheugen (62) complains with an amazing level of frustration and honesty about permanent power struggles between Commissioners and their senior staff:

“The development of the past decades has given the Commission’s apparatus of civil servants so much power that meanwhile it has become the most important task of Commissioners to control that machinery and its power.”

According to Verheugen, too many decisions are negotiated between civil servants instead of discussed with the responsible Commissioner – who nonetheless remains politically and legally responsible.

“Making sure that sensitive decisions are tackled in the weekly meeting with the Commissioner implies having to pay hellish attention”.

Verheugen adds that

“sometimes the control over the apparatus gets lost. My thesis is that too many things are decided by civil servants.”

Making the unchecked power of civil servants co-responsible for the high level of bureaucracy, Verheugen demands that the Commissioner not only holds political and legal responsibility for his or her area of work, but also gets the final decision-making power over administrational structure, staff and budget – all of which lie with a Directorate’s Director General at the moment.

He also suggests to re-organise the Commission in fewer Directorates while leaving the number of staff untouched, allowing for a cross-sectorial and holistic approach in the Commission’s work. In his opinion, geographical, cultural and political cultures would remain balanced by allowing the Commission’s President to construct his or her own Cabinet of Commissioners to be endorsed by both the Parliament and the Member States.

In the interview, Verheugen touches on two of the most problematic issues in shifting power back to the politically responsible Commissioners:

“It is about a change in political culture in the institution ‘European Commission’. A change which has to reach the minds of all civil servants.”

Not surprisingly, he leaves in the dark how exactly this could be achieved. Changing the political culture of an institution like the European Commission is not going to be easy. After all, the 18.000 civil servants of the Commission are to be convinced of an evolution essentially taking away some of their most essential powers – powers from wich they have benefited and to which they have grown accustomed.

It may be worthwile considering how some of the 28 reform proposals suggested by the Council of Europe’s Expert Group on “Making democratic instutions work” could contribute to reforming the European Commission’s internal decision-making culture. Guardians to watch the gurdians seems to be a good idea anyway…

Another exciting aspect of this life reform attempt is the observation of the largest European bureaucratic structure trying to apply the principles of learning organisations to itself under cruel scrutiny from a prejudiced public. Take, just for a moment, the 5 key disciplines of organisational learning as published by Peter Senge and try to think about applying them to a machinery of such sheer size, political sensitivity and intercultural complexity. Oh je.

Indeed, as they say: “We are condemned to live in interesting times.”

More on Verheugen’s interview at the “EU Observer” and “Der Spiegel”. More on organisational learning and the discourse on Senge’s approach to it over at “Infed”.

Interview published by Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Translations by Nonformality.

“The future of democracy in Europe – trends, analyses and reforms” is the title of a Green Paper published by the Council of Europe about 24 months ago.

It is one the key outputs of the Council’s integrated project on “Making democratic institutions work”, the second one being a closely related publication entitled “Developing democracy in Europe – an analytical summary of the Council of Europe’s acquis”.

Based on the analysis presented in the latter book, the Green Paper puts forward twenty-eight democratic reform proposals which were critically explored and reviewed at “The Future of Democracy in Europe Conference” in Barcelona 20 months ago. On the basis of the discussions at the conference, suggestions were made on how to proceed from there.

The conference brought together policy makers and civil servants, researchers and academics and civil society representatives. Its main outcomes have been published in a third book “Reflections on the future of democracy in Europe”. One outcome of the conference is the current “Forum on the future of democracy” of the Council of Europe which was established in 2005.

Professor Philippe Schmitter of the European University Institute in Florence used this quote of Karl Popper as an entry point to his keynote presentation in Barcelona.

(Schmitter, Philippe (2004): Democratic Reforms – Que Faire? Où faire? In: Reflections on the future of democracy in Europe. Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing. P. 37 ff)

By means of his intervention, Schmitter introduced the backdrop of the integrated project, the shared assumptions of the expert group and the recommendations developed by the experts for the project. If this sounds a little technocratic, don’t be mislead because it is thoughtful and inspiring! While I couldn’t be in Barcelona, I wish I could have after reading through the keynote presentation…

But not only the speech, also the topic is very exciting and thought-provoking. After all, there is general agreement that our polities and democracies need to evolve on the one hand – and a similarly mutual conformity that such reforms are to happen democratically. Or in the words of Professor Schmitter:

“Ironically, [the] much more favourable regional context [of Europe] presents dilemmas of its own for democracy. Many (if not most) of the major historical advances in democratic institutions and practices came in conjunction with international warfare, national revolution and civil war. Fortunately, none of these Archimedean devices for leveraging large-scale change seems to be available in today’s pacified Europe.”

But how can political and democratic institutions and practices be fundamentally reformed by democratic means? How can progress and development be ensured and norms and practices changed and improved by using these very same rules and norms to do so? How can the current rulers be convinced to change the ruley they have benefited from so far?

Historically these questions remain largely unanswered, and the challenges and opportunities hiding behind these questions are exceptionally diverse and strong. As Professor Schmitter puts it:

“Certainly, we are condemned to live in “interesting times” in which both the rate, and the scale and scope of change seem to be unprecedented and, most important, beyond the reach of traditional units that have heretofore dominated its political landscape.”

In these interesting times, the Council of Europe brought together a group of experts from policy, research and practice to produce a Green Paper on reforming democracy. In more detail, the tasks of the expert group were to:

• identify the challenges and opportunities posed to contemporary European democracy by rapid and irrevocable changes in its national, regional and global contexts;
• specify the processes and actors in both the formal institutions and informal practices that are being affected by these external challenges and opportunities, as well as by internal trends that are intrinsic to democracy itself;
• propose potential and desirable reforms that would improve the quality of democratic institutions in Europe.

During its work, the expert group used a generic working definition of democracy which should not prefer or exclude any of the three main contemporary models of democracy but rather focus and guide the work of the diverse group.

“Modern political democracy is a regime or system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and co-operation of their representatives.”

On the basis of this broad and common understanding, the group developed a set of twenty-eight reform proposals which are not meant to be seen as single and disconnected measures but rather as an interwoven package of reforms. Of course not all reforms make sense in all situations, and therefore the constellation of each reform package is highly context-sensitive: “It is the mix that matters.”

Independent of the specific packaging in a given situation, reforms could and should happen simultaneously and/or sequentially, thus influencing each other in ways which are, experience seems to tell, difficult to calculate and fully predict.

The reform proposals range from lotteries for electors to participatory budgeting by citizens and vouchers for funding civil society organisations. In the order presented in the Green Paper, the expert group’s “wish list” is this (follow the link to read more about each proposal):

01. Universal citizenship
02. Discretionary voting
03. Lotteries for electors
04. Shared mandates
05. Specialised elected councils
06. Democracy kiosks
07. Citizenship mentors
08. Council of Denizens
09. Voting rights for denizens
10. Civic service
11. Education for political participation
12. Guardians to watch the guardians
13. Special guardians for media guardians
14. Freedom of information
15. A “yellow card” provision for legislatures
16. Incompatibility of mandates
17. Framework legislation
18. Participatory budget by citizens
19. A Citizen’s Assembly
20. Variable thresholds for elections
21. Intra-party democracy
22. Vouchers for funding organisations in civil society
23. Vouchers for financing political parties
24. Referendums and initiatives
25. Electronic support for candidates and parliaments (“smart voting”)
26. Electronic monitoring and online deliberation systems
27. Postal and electronic voting
28. An agent for the promotion of democratic reform

Some of these ideas I agree with enthusiastically, others I am more hesitant about. Such differing degrees of enthusiasm were also present in the expert group, but while I am tempted to argue some of the recommendations I won’t. In doing so I would replace the collective and interdisciplinary work of the authors of the Green Book with my individual opinion. In the framework of this article, which aims at introducing the Green Book and the suggestions it contains, I feel such a personalised attempt would be erroneous and egocentric.

Having said this, let me conclude by adding one reform proposal to the list of twenty-eight:

0. Democratic education

This proposal would reform educational institutions (kindergarten, schools, universities etc) to be democratic and participatory in nature. It has been the collective assessment of the expert group developing the Green Book that

“the major generic problem of contemporary European democracy concerns declining citizen trust in political institutions and participation in democratic processes”.

Educational institutions are part of society and part of democratic polities. Political education about democracy will never achieve trust and confidence if it happens in a non-democratic environment. Citizens will not believe in the efficacy of controlling rulers if they have never experienced such control having positive effects or any effects at all.

In other words: As long as we request from our children to recite and remember the principles of our democratic system in an environment which is deeply undemocratic, we should not be astonished that young people do not believe in the power and added value of democracy. As long as we have to learn in institutions in which power-relations are lopsided and constantly abused and in which voluntary engagement results in pressure and downgrading, young people will continue to disengage from what we call democracy and they experience as hegemonial control.

This is, for me, the largest challenge of the world we are condemned to live in: Without an empowering system of education which provides a framework to live and experience democracy, our polities will continue to tumble and topple, and they will never be truly democratic either.

The three books online:

Developing democracy in Europe – An analytical summary of the Council of Europe’s acquis
The future of democracy – Trends, analyses and reforms
Reflections on the future of democracy in Europe

The three books as pdfs:

Developing democracy in Europe – An analytical summary of the Council of Europe’s acquis
The future of democracy – Trends, analyses and reforms
Reflections on the future of democracy in Europe

The three books in the COE bookstore:

Developing democracy in Europe – An analytical summary of the Council of Europe’s acquis
The future of democracy – Trends, analyses and reforms
Reflections on the future of democracy in Europe

Note:

Obviously, you will also find all the documents at the website of the Council of Europe, where they are freely available for download in pdf-format as well as purchasable from the Council’s bookstore. It is against our ethical standards as bloggers to steal bandwidth from other people without them knowing it, which is why we offer you the download directly from our site.

Independent of that, ownership of and credit for the pulications belong solely to the Council of Europe — which has a long tradition in sharing its knowledge.