Contemporary Issues Forum at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara
October 9, 2024 from 7:00-9:00 PM
FREE event
“Blurred lines between fact and misinformation are worsening, and concerns are growing about threats to peaceful transitions of power in elections. American democracy is at a crossroads.” – Dr. Julien Labarre
How do democracies decay? How can we prevent their decay and revitalize our democratic norms and institutions? This is the topic that will kick off the 2024-2025 season of the Contemporary Issues Forum.
Some symptoms of decay are well theorized—like dysfunctions in our core institutions, or economic inequality—but others, like the crisis of information or the erosion of democratic norms, not so much. These phenomena are often talked about separately, missing out what they collectively say about the state of our democracy. With the November election approaching rapidly, please join us as Dr. Julien Labarre lays out a framework for thinking about the crisis of US democracy and dives deeper into some pathologies of democracy he has studied over the last few years.
Drawing from his research, Dr. Labarre will focus on how the crisis of information and the erosion of democratic norms interact and deepen the malaise of our democracy as we approach a critical election. We will also discuss how our norms and institutions can be revitalized.
Dr. Julien Labarre is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Originally from France, he came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar in 2016. He is a proud affiliate of the International Panel on the Information Environment, an initiative that was officially launched at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit with the support of the Nobel Foundation. He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2024.
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