Cass Sunstein on #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media

Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/27/2018
10:00 am - 11:00 am

We are thrilled to welcome Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University, who will discuss his recent book #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. In this provocative work, Sunstein argues that the Internet is driving political fragmentation, polarization, and even extremism. In response, Sunstein proposes practical and legal changes to make the Internet friendlier to democratic deliberation. These changes would get us out of our information cocoons by increasing the frequency of unchosen, unplanned encounters and exposing us to people, places, things, and ideas that we would never have picked for our Twitter feed.

From 2009 to 2012, Sunstein was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. Sunstein is the author of many articles and books, including Republic.com (2001), Risk and Reason (2002), Why Societies Need Dissent (2003), The Second Bill of Rights (2004), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005), Worst-Case Scenarios (2001), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), Why Nudge? (2014) and Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (2014). He is now working on group decisionmaking and various projects on the idea of liberty.