Democracy Rising posts are curated by Tom Prugh. Tom is a former senior researcher at Worldwatch Institute and the editor in chief of World Watch magazine. He co-directed the Institute’s State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy, State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? and State of the World 2014: Governing for Sustainability. In 2013 he was also lead writer and editor for the Royal Government of Bhutan’s New Development Paradigm initiative. Tom is the lead author of two books: The Local Politics of Global Sustainability (with Robert Costanza and Herman Daly) and Natural Capital and Human Economic Survival (with Robert Costanza, John H. Cumberland, Herman Daly, Robert Goodland, and Richard B. Norgaard).
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Democracy Rising 34: On Ghosted Nature, Moloch, Alternate Futures, Shatter Zones, Elites, Power Laws, and [d]emocratic Crypto-Revolution
Perhaps our long experience of sitting around campfires together and talking about what’s going on in the world around us, and what we ought to do about it next, can be recovered and put to good use again.
January 15, 2026
Democracy Rising 28: AI, Gossip, and Our Epistemological Crisis
ChatGPT and its successors and rivals, whatever their virtues, are the latest agents in the corruption of the public sphere by digital technology, threatening to extend and deepen the misinformation, fabulism, and division stoked by Twitter and other digital media.
May 2, 2023
Democracy Rising 27: The Garden of Democracy
Think of it as a garden: you start with the soil, preparing it for seeding, and you work with the grassroots, cultivating a crop and nurturing it carefully over time. Democracy is more like an annual crop than a perennial one; it needs to be refreshed periodically. It won’t keep thriving if it’s left alone.
November 4, 2022
Deliberative Democracy and Gaianism: Natural Complements
Deliberative democracy (DD) shares some key features with Gaianism and is intrinsically compatible with it, to the point that Gaians might think about taking an interest in practicing and promoting DD.
May 12, 2022
Democracy Rising 11: Doorways into Deliberation
Deliberation is key to public engagement work as well, enabling people to discuss the consequences, costs, and trade-offs of various policy options, and to work through the emotions that tough public decisions raise.
February 24, 2022
Democracy Rising 5: Deliberation’s Long and Winding Road
We believe that a deep form of democracy based on citizen deliberation is the best form of governance for human beings and that this is a good time to start building it, regardless of what the future brings.
December 21, 2021
