Sustaining and Revitalizing Democracies: A Conversation with Brook Manville and Josiah Ober

The Liberty Exchange
S02E06 -

Essential qualities for robust democracies.

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Guests
Josiah Ober

Josiah Ober is Mitsotakis Professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in ancient and modern political theory and history. His most recent books are The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason (University of California Press, 2022), Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and (with Brook Manville) The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives (Princeton University Press 2023). His ongoing work focuses on rationality (ancient and modern), the theory and practice of democracy, and the politics of knowledge and innovation. He is author or co-​author of about 100 articles and chapters and several other books, including Democracy and Knowledge (2008) and The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (2015).

Brook Manville

Brook Manville is an independent consultant who writes about politics, democracy, and business. Previously a partner with McKinsey & Co., he has also held senior positions in media, technology, non-​profit management and executive development. In his earliest career he was an award-​winning teacher and professor of ancient history at Northwestern University. Brook is the author of several books and articles including The Origins of Athenian Citizenship (Princeton U. Press, 1990), and A Company of Citizens: What the World’s First Democracy Teaches Leaders About Creating Great Organizations (Harvard Business Press, co-​authored with Josiah Ober). His latest book, The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives (Princeton U. Press 2023, co-​author Josiah Ober) was named a “Best Book of 2023” by The New Yorker magazine. Brook currently publishes periodic essays on Substack, which further develop and extend ideas from his book of the same name.

In this episode, Jonathan Fortier talks with Brook Manville and Josiah Ober about their recent book, The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives (Princeton, 2023). Manville and Ober identify essential qualities for robust democracies, and explore how ancient Athens, republican Rome, parliamentary Britain, and the American Founding each struggled to develop and maintain key practices and institutions to preserve their political orders.