29. Defending democracy in our time – Folke Tersman

How can democracy catch up with the globalized economy? ”It’s surprising that inequality increases even in democratic systems”, says Folke Tersman, a professor of practical philosophy at the university of Uppsala in Sweden.

”You might expect that with more inequality people would vote governments out that are seen as responsible. But we don’t always vote in accordance with our own interests”, says Tersman, who also holds a position at the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm.

Voters seem more engaged in small cultural and social issues than the more complex questions, like distribution of wealth.

Folke Tersman is the co-writer of a topical book published this fall, ”People and will” (”Folk och vilja” in Swedish) with the subtitle ”A defence of democracy in our time”.

He argues that we are stuck in a sort of democratic limbo right now – the old hasn't died and the new cannot yet be born. He hopes that this ”interregnum” will last for as short a period of time as possible.

In the long run he envisages a globalized democracy. It may sound a bit utopian, he says, but achieving it is basically no different than the earlier process of lifting the democratic level from the local to the regional and the national level, and lately even to the European level.