Conference Program

In contemporary policy and educational discourse, democracy is increasingly framed using a growing vocabulary of resilience, participation, inclusion, empowerment and engagement. While this expansion of vocabulary is appealing in principle, it often coincides with democratic fatigue, epistemic fragmentation, the algorithmic mediation of public debate and the widening of socio-ecological inequalities. The result is a paradox: as democratic language intensifies, democratic imagination appears to shrink.

To capture this phenomenon, the paper introduces the notion of 'democrazy buzzwords': rhetorically powerful yet conceptually vague expressions that risk replacing democratic practice with symbolic performance. Drawing on critical scholarship concerning policy buzzwords and governance discourse, this concept serves as an analytical tool with which to examine the discrepancy between the normative vocabulary of democracy and the institutional and cognitive infrastructures necessary for its sustenance.

Against this backdrop, the paper presents FINNA (Fabiani & Cipriani, 2025) as a theoretical framework for democratic learning. Rather than presenting FINNA as a pedagogical toolkit, the framework is conceptualised as an epistemological architecture for anticipatory citizenship. The central argument is that, in complex societies, democracy depends not only on institutional arrangements, but also on learning environments that enable citizens to engage with uncertainty, negotiate differences, and take responsibility across temporal horizons.

The framework was developed through an integrative synthesis of scholarship in democratic theory, adult learning, and futures studies. FINNA articulates five interdependent epistemic dimensions — futures literacy, institutional reflexivity, narrative imagination, neuro-embodied awareness and action orientation — which connect anticipatory reflection with situated democratic practice.

Drawing on Deweyan pragmatism (Dewey, 2018), Freirean critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), pluriversal political theory (Escobar, 2020), and debates on futures literacy and anticipatory governance (Loudoun & Van Ruyskensvelde, 2025; Miller, 2018; Rosa, 2019; Artelaris & Mavrommatis, 2026 among others), this paper conceptualises democracy as an ongoing, anticipatory practice that is sustained through collective enquiry, rather than as a fixed institutional arrangement.

By advancing FINNA as a theoretical framework, the paper connects adult learning theory, democratic epistemology and futures studies. It argues that deep democracy in plural and uncertain societies hinges on cognitive and institutional infrastructures that can accommodate complexity without descending into polarisation, symbolic participation, or technocratic reductionism. From this perspective, adult education is not an auxiliary democratic function, but rather one of the conditions that enable democratic life.