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“I would love to win because I like to win. I mean, my life is about winning.”

— Donald Trump, casino owner/U.S. president

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It’s not hard to find Canadians who believe many things are going horribly wrong with democratic institutions.

Democracies are weakening through polarization, overblown rhetoric, extremism, corruption by big money, excessive partisanship, hyper-competition, an inability to compromise and a lack of shared vision of the public good.

The head of UBC’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions has written a new book bent on reforming the systems and beliefs that create such havoc and hand too much power to oligarchies, small groups that control nations and regions.

Political Institutions and Practical Wisdom (Oxford University Press), by Max Cameron, offers astute observations and philosophical insights about how to rebuild democratic institutions based on the Aristotelian idea of practical wisdom.