Public Deliberation and Freedom of Expression in a More Inclusive Society: Can we have both? / Deliberación pública y libertad de expresión en una sociedad más inclusiva: ¿Podemos tener ambos?

Date: 

Thursday, December 9, 2021, 9:00am

9:00 am ET / 11:00 am Chile

For a recording of this event in English, please click here.

For a recording of this event in Spanish, please click here.

Welcoming Remarks: Steven Levitsky, Director, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; Professor of Government, Harvard University; Co-author, How Democracies Die
International Keynote Speaker: Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School
Local Panelists: Patricio Bernedo, Dean of the Faculty of History, Geography and Political Science, Universidad Católica; Paula Molina, Host and editor at Radio Cooperativa, general editor at Cooperativa Podcast, contributor to the BBC and Harvard Nieman Fellow '13; Chiara Saez, Associate Professor, Institute of Communication and Image, Universidad de Chile and head of the project to measure news pluralism: pluralismotv.orgFrancisco Urbina, Assistant Professor, Public Law Department, Universidad Católica

As Chileans write a new Constitution aimed at representing a more diverse and more inclusive society, intense new debates have begun to test the limits of public deliberation and freedom of expression. What are the appropriate standards for public debate in a diverse and democratic public sphere, and which institutional arrangements will best sustain them?

Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance. He focuses upon public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He co-directs the Transparency Policy Project and leads democratic governance programs of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School. His books include Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency (Cambridge University Press, with Mary Graham and David Weil) and Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton University Press). He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two SBs — in philosophy and physics — and his PhD in political science from MIT.

Patricio Bernedo is historian and Dean of the Faculty of History, Geography and Political Science of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is the author of the book "History of free competition in Chile" and co-author of "History of universal journalism", among other publications. Ph.D. at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingostadt, Germany.

Paula Molina is a journalist, host, and editor for Radio Cooperativa, and is the general editor for Cooperativa Podcast, which is carried out in collaboration with BBC News Mundo. She’s a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Distinguished Graduate in Journalism from Universidad de Chile, and holds a master’s in public policy from the Universidad Adolfo Ibañéz. She has working in the founding and development of journalistic projects in radio, podcast, television, and digital media. Her work has been distinguished by the following awards: "Journalism of Excellence UAH," "Elena Caffarena," "Energía de Mujer," and "Pobre el que no cambia de mirada,” in addition to others. She also sits on the boards of Comunidad Mujer and Fundación para la superación de la pobreza, and is the author of the book "Crisis, Terremotos y Estrellas.”

Chiara Sáez is a sociologist, doctor in communication and post-doctorate in public policy. She has dedicated more than 20 years to communication research. Between 2000 and 2005 she was a researcher at the Department of Studies of the National Television Council of Chile. Between 2005 and 2011, she collaborated on several research initiatives carried out by the Faculty of Communication of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, working as well with experiences of alternative television and community media networks in Spain. Since 2011 she has been an academic at the Institute of Communication and Image of the University of Chile, which she represented at the Citizenship and Digital TV Table (2011 - 2014) and at the Assembly for the Democratization of Communications, two instances of advocacy of the civil society around communication in the country. She was coordinator of the Freedom of Expression and Citizenship Program at the University of Chile between 2014 and 2016 and a Member, Vice-President and President of the Civil Society Council of the Subsecretariat of Telecommunications between 2014 and 2018. Specialist in television, communication issues alternative and communication policies. Author of several books:   Digital TV in Chile; Public Policies and Democracy (University, 2014) and Notes for a History of Communication in Chile (RIL; 2018), Co-author of La Comunicación desde Abajo (Gedisa, 2021) and the report "Freedom of Expression in Chile 2020. Between the outbreak and the pandemic "(2021). She is currently preparing a book on media pluralism.

Francisco J. Urbina is a lawyer working on human rights law and jurisprudence. He is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. During the spring semester of 2022 he will be a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and a concurrent professor at the Law School in the University of Notre Dame. His work has been published in journals such as the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the Law Quarterly Review, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law. He is the author of A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing (Cambridge University Press 2017) and the co-author of Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights through Legislation (Cambridge University Press 2018). Between 2019 and 2021 he served as a legal advisor to the Mission of Chile to the Organization of American States and has been co-agent for the State of Chile in cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He holds a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford.

In Collaboration with / En colaboración con:

Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad de Chile
Instituto Milenio Fundamentos de los Datos
Laboratorio Constitucional, Universidad Diego Portales
Facultad de Derecho, Pontificia Universidad Católica
Instituto de Ciencia Política, Facultad de Historia, Geografía y Ciencia Política, Pontificia Universidad Católica
Harvard Association of Chilean Students

Co-Sponsored by / Copatrocinado por:

Fundación Luksic Scholars