The Fifth Estate: Democracy in Action

‘Democracy is the worst form of government,’ Winston Churchill famously said, ‘except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time’.

But democracies come in very different shapes and sizes. And they’re always evolving; sometimes in response to pressure from within the body politic, and sometimes because of shifts outside sovereign control. Lately – with the emergence of Donald Trump, the shock Brexit result and Australia’s confusing recent turn at the polls – talk of democratic dysfunction has been on the rise. But are things really worse than they were in the past? And what can we learn from other models of democracy around the globe?

For this conversation, host Sally Warhaft speaks with two observers deeply familiar with democracy here and abroad – academic, lawyer, international policymaker and former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, and the Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan.