Season 2, Episode 9: Lisa Silvestri - On Citizen Engagement

In this conversation, Professor Lisa Silvestri discusses her book Peace by Peace: Risking Public Action, Creating Social Change, emphasizing the vital yet overlooked role of risk in public engagement. She explains that creating real change—especially in today’s climate of precarity—demands personal courage and a willingness to step into the public sphere. Together with the host from the True Representation Movement (TRM), they explore how most working-class Americans, though deeply affected by policy, are often unable to take such risks due to economic and psychological constraints. They discuss how direct democracy, grounded in the lived experience and practical wisdom (phronesis) of ordinary people, can harness collective decision-making more effectively than elite-led structures. Silvestri argues that genuine social change requires not just energy or moral conviction, but also structural understanding and strategic action—a blend of community, education, and political engagement. The conversation touches on issues like precarity, structural injustice, the false promises of elite expertise, and the importance of building bottom-up, justice-oriented civic movements that empower people to act within their means and conditions.