Alvaro Oleart on the instrumentalisation of EU participation processes & limits of AI for democracy
Ep. 55

Alvaro Oleart on the instrumentalisation of EU participation processes & limits of AI for democracy

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Episode description

Alvaro Oleart is an academic researcher based in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His work focuses on social movements, EU participatory practices, democratic innovation, and the political economy of technology. In this conversation, he offers a critical perspective on citizen assemblies, arguing that they can depoliticize democracy when they bypass collective actors such as trade unions, political parties, civil society organizations, and social movements. We also discuss Big Tech, AI, the industry of participation, technology in deliberation, the agentic state, and why democratic innovation should focus more on collective power than on small groups of selected individuals.

0:00About Alvaro Oleart
0:57Citizen-washing and EU participation
3:42Intermediates and descriptive representation
6:38Democratic practices and the role of technology
11:51Who organizes citizen assemblies?
15:00Taking into account risks of technology
18:28Specific vs. general-purpose AI
21:37Collective discussions about technology
23:51Control over technological infrastructure
31:30The agentic state and dehumanization
35:55Societie's future
40:32Targeted uses of technology
44:57Democratizing collective actors
48:37A message for democratic innovators