This workshop, held at Columbia University, is the fourth in a series of convenings organized as part of a collaboration between the SSRC’s Anxieties of Democracy program and our namesake European partner program, Anxieties of Democracy, at the Swedish Institute for Futures Studies.

The workshop explores the idea of popular sovereignty and how to define “the will of the people.” Questions addressed include:

What does it mean for the people to be sovereign? What is “the will of the people”?  By what criteria and by whom should this will be ascertained, judged, and acted upon? What is a valid method to assess this “will” and how can biases and distortions caused by “wrong” methods of measurement be avoided? The “will” of the people is continuously changing: what forces and mechanisms play a role in this ongoing will-formation?

The workshop is generously supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and co-hosted by Columbia World Projects.