An hour-long conversation on how the idea of politics is unraveling and reassembling itself in real time. We move through the ruins of trust and institutions, tracing how governance lost its moral weight and how citizens slowly traded participation for comfort. The discussion bridges the small and the immense, from roads and rubbish collection to questions of democracy in the digital age, showing that power has not disappeared but changed form.

A conversation about the silent war between safety and sovereignty. We explore how comfort disguises itself as freedom, how the pursuit of ease dulls the instinct to question, and how quiet submission becomes the new obedience. It is a reflection on the trade we make between risk and rest and what that exchange reveals about the modern human condition.

In this episode of The Social Contract, we explore the paradox of democracy in the 21st century: cherished yet fragile, admired yet under siege. From declining youth faith in democratic values to the rise of authoritarian nostalgia, we confront what happens when trust—the lifeblood of democratic societies—begins to erode.

Is democracy failing to deliver, or are we failing democracy?

With insights from thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari and Aristotle, we examine how individualism, institutional decay, and polarisation are reshaping the relationship between the citizen and the state. Can we renew the promise of democracy for a generation raised in algorithmic echo chambers? Or has the “will of the people” become too volatile to govern?

Join us as we dissect the difference between apathy and antipathy, the importance of accountability, and why the ballot box is no longer enough to keep democracy alive.