The Great Experiment - Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure

Some democracies are highly homogeneous. Others have long maintained a brutal racial or religious hierarchy, with some groups dominating and exploiting others. Never in history has a democracy succeeded in being both diverse and equal, treating members of many different ethnic or religious groups fairly. And yet achieving that goal is now central to the democratic project in countries around the world. It is, Yascha Mounk argues, the greatest experiment of our time.

Thomas Brailey

I am a DPhil in Politics student at the DPIR.

I was previously a MPhil student in Comparative Government at the DPIR. My thesis focused on:

  1. conceptualising non-state security actors, and;
  2. identifying the conditions under which states choose to outsource their coercive capabilities

I serve as a research assistant with the Department of Sociology, where I study the relationship between public and private violence, and with the Institute for Replication (I4R).

Haitong Du

I am a DPhil student in International Relations at Balliol College. I hold an MPhil in International Relations from Pembroke College, Oxford and a BA in International Relations (Phi Beta Kappa) from Tufts University.

My research focuses on how the rise of personalist leaders influences the international structure, particularly in the context of contemporary US-China relations. I maintain a secondary research interest in European diplomatic history from the 17th century onwards.

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