Democracy and the Wired World - Michael Wesley November 16, 2009

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/04/Is_Democracy_Not_For_Everyone

In this panel debate, Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Wesley explores how advancements in communication technologies have facilitated the spread of global democracy. "Fatalism is dead," he says. "Democracy is here as a consciousness."

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Winston Churchill famously said that democracy was the worst form of government - except for all the others that have been tried. In western countries like Australia the universal good of democracy is simply assumed. But are we assuming too much?

"Democracy Is Not For Everyone" was the challenging proposition debated at the most recent IQ Squared event, held as part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Michael Wesley is the Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Previously he was Professor of International Relations and Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Hong Kong and Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China.

Between 2007 and 2009, Dr. Wesley was the Editor of the Australian Journal of International Affairs and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS). He has served on the Australian Research Council's College of Experts and the Queensland Art Gallery's Board of Trustees. In April 2008, he was Co-Chair (with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith) of one of the ten issue streams at the Australian government's 2020 Summit and gave the keynote speech at the Summit.

His most recent books are Energy Security in Asia(Routledge, 2007); The Howard Paradox: Australian Diplomacy in Asia 1996-2006 (ABC Books, 2007); and (with Allan Gyngell) Making Australian Foreign Policy, 2nd edition, (Cambridge University Press, 2007).