The Democracy Challenge

This is an experiment which has never been carried out on television before: about the most important asset of our society — democracy. How democratic are we really? What fundamental values and principles form the basis of our coexistence? And how quickly do we throw these overboard when it comes to asserting our personal interests? Representative of Austrian society, 16 people dare to participate. They know what it is about — but nobody knows exactly what will happen. In playful and at first glance almost harmless-looking tasks, the focus is on the mechanisms that regulate our behaviour in our daily interactions. It quickly becomes clear: Many rules of coexistence that seem obvious to us are more fragile than we think. Our actions are riddled with undemocratic behaviour, no matter which side we are on, no matter where we or others place ourselves politically. Democracy becomes tangible to us — and our audience. By reproducing the experimental components, they can put themselves in the situation and ask: How would I have reacted?