Democratic Impulse in America:
The Unfinished Agenda
Mondays, Feb. 2-23, 2011; 3.30-6pm
Blue Hill Public Library, Howard Room
Facilitator: Tom Bjorkman
America is a profoundly more democratic society than what the Framers intended to create at the Constitutional Convention.
This colloquy will consider the framers’ original intent, the main benchmarks in the American democratic evolution since then, and the factors driving the democratic impulse that has transformed what the Framers put in place. We will end up by considering some less-than-democratic features that remain in the current American political system and weighing the pros and cons of some of the proposals currently being aired for how to further develop America’s democratic impulse.
This colloquy will consider the framers’ original intent, the main benchmarks in the American democratic evolution since then, and the factors driving the democratic impulse that has transformed what the Framers put in place. We will end up by considering some less-than-democratic features that remain in the current American political system and weighing the pros and cons of some of the proposals currently being aired for how to further develop America’s democratic impulse.
Tom Bjorkman has earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Government at Cornell University. Tom spent over 30 years with the CIA as an analyst and manager, specializing in Russian and Eurasian affairs. He is the author of Russia's Road to Deeper Democracy, published by the Brookings Institution in 2003. Currently he is President of the Blue Hill Historical Society.