Deep Trust, Political Hope, and the Future of Democracy – Professor Michele Moody-Adams, Astor Visiting Lecturer 2025

Many citizens of once stable democracies have become tolerant of oligarchy and autocracy because they feel betrayed by conventional political elites and disempowered by established political institutions. If we want to produce better leaders and create institutions truly conducive to the flourishing of democracies and their citizens, we must rebuild what I call deep trust in the human capacity for self-governance. Democratic deep trust demands, first, what Lawrence Becker calls noncognitive security regarding the motives of others. But it also requires , second, that most citizens have cognitive self-trust in their capacities to contribute constructively to political debate and decision. Rebuilding deep democratic trust is critical to strengthening hope for the survival of democracy and enabling pursuit of John Dewey’s ideal of democracy as a 'freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute'.