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Democracy Works

English, National/National politics/National assembly, 1 season, 295 episodes, 17 hours, 36 minutes
About
The Democracy Works podcast seeks to answer that question by examining a different aspect of democratic life each week — from voting to criminal justice to the free press and everything in between. We interview experts who study democracy, as well as people who are out there doing the hard work of democracy day in and day out. The show’s name comes from Pennsylvania’s long tradition of iron and steel works — people coming together to build things greater than the sum of their parts. We believe that democracy is the same way. Each of us has a role to play in building and sustaining a healthy democracy and our show is all about helping people understand what that means. Democracy Works is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
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Eddie Glaude Jr. on the peril of outsourcing democracy

With just weeks to go before the election, voting and candidates are top of mind of many of us. It's easy to think that once our preferred candidates win, our obligations to democracy are finished until the next election. Scholar and author Eddie Glaude Jr. has spent his career studying the perils of that approach throughout history, particularly when it comes to Black politics and power. Glaude joins us to discuss how he's thinking about the 2024 election, the difference between hope and joy, and why we can't outsource democracy solely to elected representatives. One of the nation's most prominent scholars, Glaude's work examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. He is the author of "We are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For," "Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul,"and "Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own." He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies, a program he first became involved with shaping as a doctoral candidate in Religion at Princeton. He is also on the Morehouse College Board of Trustees. He frequently appears in the media, as a columnist for TIME Magazine and as an MSNBC contributor.
10/14/202445 minutes, 31 seconds
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Liberalism is a lifestyle

Chris Beem talks with political theorist Alexandre Lefebvre about why liberalism is more than just a political ideas and procedures, and how abiding by liberal principles can enhance your life far beyond politics. In his book Liberalism as a Way of Life, Lefebvre argues that liberalism isn’t just a set of neutral procedures; it’s a comprehensive way of life that shapes the way we live and think and work and love in innumerable ways. He also argues that it’s a way of life worth robustly defending, drawing on examples from pop culture and recent history.Lefebeve is a professor of politics and philosophy at the University of Sydney. He teaches and researches  political theory, the history of political thought, modern and contemporary French philosophy, and human rights. 
9/30/202438 minutes, 43 seconds
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The immigration stories that aren't told

Immigration is a perennial issue in American politics, but the rhetoric we hear from candidates on the campaign trail is often very different than the day-to-day experiences of migrants traveling from central America to the United States and the smugglers who help them make the often dangerous journey to get here. In an effort to better understand this essential yet extralegal billion dollar global industry, anthropologist Jason De León embedded with a group of smugglers moving migrants across Mexico over the course of seven years. The result is the book "Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling," which we discuss on this episode.De León is visiting Penn State for a lecture on "Soldiers and Kings" Sept. 17 from noon-1:00 p.m. ET in 110 Henderson Building or via Zoom. Register for the webinar here.De León is Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles with his lab located in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and Executive Director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a research, arts, and education collective that seeks to raise awareness about migration issues globally while also assisting families of missing migrants be reunited with their loved ones. He is also a 2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and a Penn State alumnus.Finally, we are excited to welcome Cyanne Loyle, associate professor of political science at Penn State, to the Democracy Works team. She was a guest host in the spring and will be joining the permanent lineup with Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, and Candis Watts Smith.
9/16/202441 minutes, 12 seconds
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How the National Popular Vote could change presidential elections

We're back from summer break with a deep dive on the National Popular Vote campaign, an effort to render the Electoral College obsolete when states pledge their electors to the winner of the nationwide popular vote.As of August 2024, National Popular Vote has been enacted by 17 states and the District of Columbia, accounting for 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed to make it a reality nationwide. Guests Patrick Rosentiel and Alyssa Cass have a plan to get to 270 by the 2028 presidential election.Rosentiel is a senior consultant for National Popular Vote and has visited 45 states on behalf of the campaign. As a Republican political field director, he successfully directed grassroots efforts across the West and Midwest to garner Senate support for U.S. Supreme Court candidates John Roberts and Samuel Alito.Cass is a partner at Slingshot Strategies and founded its communications practice. During the 2022 cycle, she spearheaded the communications strategy for two of New York's most competitive, most watched congressional elections, leading media and messaging strategy for Representative Pat Ryan (in both the NY-19 special election and the NY-18 general election) and Carlina Rivera in New York's 10th Congressional District.After the interview, Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith discuss whether the National Popular Vote will survive a Supreme Court challenge and how it could change the way elections and campaigns are run. 
9/2/202447 minutes, 30 seconds
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Making Peace Visible: In search of good conflict

While Democracy Works is on summer break, we bring you an episode from our friends at Making Peace Visible, a podcast that ignites powerful conversations all over the world about how the media covers peace and conflict. This episode features journalist and author Amanda Ripley. We've wanted to have Amanda on the show for a long time and are grateful to the Making Peace Visible team for sharing this conversation with us!After over two decades as a journalist, including ten years covering terrorism and disasters for TIME Magazine, Amanda Ripley thought she understood conflict. But when momentum started to build around the candidacy of Donald Trump, she questioned what she thought she knew. Ripley interviewed psychologists, mediators, and people who had made it out of seemingly intractable conflicts for her book, High Conflict: Why We Get Stuck and How We Get Out.  In this conversation with host Making Peace visible host Jamil Simon, she shares insights about how people in conflict can move forward, and how journalists can get at the "understory" of what's beneath any conflict. Order Amanda Ripley’s book, High Conflict: Why We Get Stuck and How We Get Out. Watch Amanada’s talk on High Conflict for The Alliance for Peacebuilding. Follow her column in the Washington Post.
7/8/202433 minutes, 21 seconds
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Season finale: Protests, debates, and the "meh" election

We've reached the end of another school year and another season of Democracy Works. Before we go on summer break, Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, and Candis Watts Smith reflect on recent events and what's to come this summer. We do this by taking a look back at some of our previous episodes:The real free speech problem on campus: Penn State's Brad Vivian on the problems with "campus free speech" discourse and media coverage. We discuss how this narrative has been applied to protests about the war in Gaza that happened on some campuses near the end of the spring semester. Follow Brad's Substack for his more recent work on the Gaza protests and more.A different kind of political divide - Yanna Krupnikov from the University of Michigan on the divide between people who follow politics closely and those who don't. We're seeing this divide play out in recent polling that shows support for Donald Trump is higher among people who say they are not politically engaged, while support for Biden is higher among those who follow news and politics more closely. Debating the future of debates: John Hudak from Brookings talks about the value of presidential debates to democracy. We recorded this episode in 2022 after the RNC announced it would not participate in events organized by the Commission for Presidential Debates. Now that two debates are scheduled for the next few months, we discuss whether they'll actually happen and how much they'll matter. This is our last new episode until early September. We'll use the next few months to plan for our fall season. Please send us an email if you have ideas for topics we should tackle or guests we should interview.  Have a great summer!
6/3/202436 minutes, 34 seconds
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How elected strongmen weaken democracy

Democracies today are increasingly eroding at the hands of democratically-elected incumbents, who seize control by slowly chipping away at democratic institutions. Penn State political science professor Joseph Wright is and his coauthors explore this trend in their new book, The Origins of Elected Strongmen: How Personalist Parties Destroy Democracy from Within . Wright joins Michael Berkman, McCourtney Institute for Democracy director and professor of political science at Penn State, on the show this week to explore how the rise of personalist parties around the globe facilitating the decline of democracy. The book examines the role of personalist political parties, or parties that exist primarily to further their leader's career as opposed to promote a specific policy platform.The Origins of Elected Strongmen will be released June 11 from Oxford University Press. Wright's co-authors are Erica Frantz, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University, and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
5/20/202441 minutes, 51 seconds
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30 years of democracy in South Africa

Please join us in welcoming a special guest host for this episode! Cyanne Loyale is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Penn State and a Global Fellow at the Pease Research Institute Oslo. Her research focuses on transitional justice and democratic rebuilding after conflict, which makes her the perfect person to reflect on South Africa's democratic transition.One additional programming note — Chris Beem lost power during this recording so the closing segment is Cyanne and Jenna reflecting on the interview.At the end of April, South Africa marked the 30th anniversary of its first post-Apartheid election — the first in the country where everyone could vote. South African writer and scholar Antjie Krog join us for a look at the state of South African democracy today, the impact of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and how South Africa has served as a model for other countries in democratic transition. Krog is a South African writer, scholar, and activist. She covered the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the South African Broadcasting Corporation and wrote about the experience in the book Country of My Skull. She has published more than a dozen volumes of poetry and translated Nelson Mandela's biography into Afrikaans. She is currently a professor at the University of the Western Cape.  
5/6/202444 minutes, 31 seconds
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David Hogg on leaders we deserve

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida happened around the same time Democracy Works launched in 2018. In fact, one of the first episodes featured students who organized a march event in State College, Pennsylvania. At the time, we thought it would be fantastic to get David Hogg on the show. Six years later, he's finally here to talk about what his life has been like since that fateful day in February 2018 and his work to change gun policy at the state and federal level. Hogg also discusses his new project, Leaders We Deserve, which helps young people run for elected office. Finally, we discuss youth voter turnout and waning enthusiasm for Donald Trump and Joe Biden among young people ahead of November's election.
4/22/202448 minutes, 44 seconds
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Democracy is the sum of us

Heather McGhee made her career in pushing for economic policy changes at the think tank Demos. But she couldn't help but feel that something was missing from her work. So she embarked on a cross-country road trip to understand what's at the heart of what ails America's economy and our democracy. The result is her book The Sum of Us, which she joins us to talk about in this episode. In the book, McGhee explores what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. She details how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. Finally, she offers examples of how this paradigm is changing in communities across the country when people work across differences to achieve a shared goal. At the beginning of the episode, we reference our conversation with Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the architects of the Green New Deal.
4/8/202445 minutes, 51 seconds
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Cassidy Hutchinson on what comes after January 6

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to Mark Meadows whose testimony captured the nation's attention in the January 6 Congressional hearings, joins us this week to discuss her time in the Trump administration and her new role safeguarding American democracy. Hutchinson was faced with a choice between loyalty to the Trump administration or loyalty to the country by revealing what she saw and heard in the attempt to overthrow a democratic election. She bravely came forward to become the pivotal witness in the House January 6 investigations, as her testimony transfixed and stunned the nation. In her memoir, Hutchinson reveals the struggle between the pressures she confronted to toe the party line and the demands of the oath she swore to defend American democracy.Hutchinson's memoir, Enough, was published in September 2023 and is a New York Times bestseller.
3/25/202440 minutes, 16 seconds
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How discontent destabilizes demoracy

If there's one thing that people across the political spectrum can agree on, it's a sense of discontent with the current state of American politics. This week, we explore the origins of that discontent and why it's damaging to democracy. Our guest is Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, an assistant professor of political science at Clemson University and one of the authors of The Age of Discontent: Populism, Extremism, and Conspiracy Theories in Contemporary Democracies.Rhodes-Purdy and his co-authors argue that the most successful populist and extremist movements of the past 20 years have focused largely on cultural grievances, rather than on economic discontent. The book outlines what they describe as  the troubling implications of discontent on the long-term compatibility of liberal democracy and free-market neoliberalism. Looking at case studies from around the world, the authors imply that democratic states must renew their commitment to social regulation of markets and to serve as conduits for citizen voice for  democracy and market economies are to survive. 
3/11/202438 minutes, 17 seconds
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A different take on social media and democracy

We've talked about social media a lot on this show over the years — usually focusing on algorithms, echo chambers, polarization, and the other ways it's damaging to democracy. This week, however, we hear a different take from V Spehar, who has more than 3 million followers on the TikTok account Under the Desk News. V built a reputation providing recaps of the daily news for an audience who might not consume news anywhere else. The Under the Desk News audience is politically diverse and V talks about some of the conversations that happen in the comments section. V's also seen how social media can bring people together in real life and encourage people to become civically informed and engaged.Check out V’s new podcast, American Fever Dream. 
2/26/202436 minutes, 17 seconds
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How to combat political extremism

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, one of America's leading experts on the far right, joins us this week to discuss what draws people to political extremism online and offline — and what we can do to combat it. Miller-Idriss is the director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University and author of the book Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right. As you'll hear, PERIL takes a public health approach to preventing violent extremism and provides tools and resources to help communities create resilient democracies. In the interview, Miller-Idriss discusses how extremism and political violence are linked to our desire for community. This dynamic means that extremist ideas can pop up in seemingly innocuous places from martial arts groups to online wellness communities. She says understanding this dynamic is key to moving people away from extremist spaces and into constructive communities.Miller-Idriss visited Penn State as part of the Mellon-funded Sawyer Seminar exploring the theme, "Birthing the Nation: Gender, Sex and Reproduction in Ethnonationalist Imaginaries."
2/12/202437 minutes, 9 seconds
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A different kind of political divide

As a Democracy Works listener, you probably follow politics pretty closely. And we're going to go out on a limb and say that many of the people in your life do, too. But what about everyone else? People who casually keep up with political news or maybe tune iit out entirely. Scholars Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan argue that America might not be as polarized as we think because the media and political observers over-index on people who are deeply invested in politics at the expense of those who are not as engaged. They call this phenomenon "the other divide" and it's the subject of their most recent book. Krupnikov and Barry Ryan join us on the show this week to share their research on levels of political involvement and how it translates to media coverage.As Candis Watts Smith says at the end of the episode, we hope that this conversation will inspire some epistemic humility. Krupkniov is a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. Barry Ryan is associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. They are the authors of The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics.
1/29/202439 minutes, 58 seconds
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Tim Alberta on evangelicals and Republicans

Chris Beem talks with journalist Tim Alberta about the role that Evangelical Christians play in the Republican Party — and what that means for the future of American democracy.Alberta is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the books The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age  of Extremism and American Carnage: On the Front  Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. He's also the son of an evangelical pastor. This conversation covers both books and how the evangelical movement and the Republican party have been corrupted. They also discuss the role that religion should play in politics, and Alberta's answer might surprise you.
1/22/202433 minutes, 13 seconds
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How election officials are preparing for the year ahead

The past few years haven't been easy for election officials and their teams. They had to pivot during the pandemic and face ongoing threats that have resulted in unprecedented staff turnover. This turmoil brings more scrutiny of errors that occur when people make honest mistakes. Despite these challenges, Tammy Patrick, CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials, is confident that the tens of thousands of people charged with election administrators across the country this year will deliver free, fair, and secure  elections. She's also optimistic about their ability to rise above threats and uphold their commitment to democracy.Patrick has been working in the election administration space since 2003, most recently as the Senior Advisor to the Elections Program at Democracy Fund. Focusing on modern elections, she works to foster a voter-centric elections system and support election officials across the country.In this conversation, we dive deeper into what's in store for election workers this year and how Patrick and her team are helping them prepare to stand up against everything from misinformation campaigns to threats of physical violence.
1/15/202437 minutes, 6 seconds
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Finding hope in 2024

Happy New Year! We're starting off 2024 with a conversation about finding hope in politics. We often hear from listeners that our show brings feelings of hope, and this episode is no exception.Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington state joins us for a discussion on the Building Civic Bridges Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide funding for service projects aimed at bridging divides and reducing political polarization. We also discuss his work on the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which invited experts like Danielle Allen and Lee Drutman to discuss reforms including multi-member districts and increasing the size of the House of Representatives.It's hard to listen to Kilmer without feeling at least a little hopeful about where politics might go in the coming year. We hope this episode will help you start 2024 on a good note.
1/1/202430 minutes, 45 seconds
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Year in review: Media, mental health, and threats to democracy

For our final episode of 2023, we revisit some of our episodes from throughout the year and reflect on what's in store for democracy in 2024. We talk about:Mental health and media consumptionBureaucracy and the prospect of Project 2025The Republican party and threats to democracyPlus, we share some recommendations of the books and TV shows we loved in 2023. Recommendations include:TV: For All Mankind, Fargo, The Gilded Age, and Slow HorsesBooks: The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet; Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, Why We Did It by Tim MillerThank you to all of our listeners for another great year. We'll see you in 2024!
12/18/202345 minutes, 25 seconds
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Making Peace Visible: The state of democracy in India

This week, we're bringing you an episode from Making Peace Visible, a podcast that helps us understand the human side of conflicts and peace efforts around the world.The episode explores the how democracy is faring in India after years of democratic erosion by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.  We've covered democracy in India several times on the show, but it's been while and thought this episode was well-timed for a check in.Guest  Suchitra Vijayan questioned whether India can still be called a democracy in a recent Time Magazine article.  She talks with Making Peace Visible  host Jamil Simon about how journalists who have criticized the government have been harassed, detained, imprisoned, and even murdered. As you’ll hear in this episode, today’s Indian government uses complicit media outlets as a weapon against non-violent dissent. 
12/11/202337 minutes, 30 seconds
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Does mandatory civic education increase voter turnout?

Two of our Penn State colleagues join us this week to discuss their recent findings on the connection between state-mandated civics tests and voter turnout. Jilli Jung, a doctoral student in education policy and Maithreyi Gopalan, assistant professor of education and public policy, recently published the paper "The Stubborn Unresponsiveness of Youth Voter Turnout to Civic Education: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From State-Mandated Civics Tests" in the journal Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis. In the paper, Jung and Gopalan study the Civic Education Initiative, a framework adopted by 18 states since 2015 that requires high school students to take a test very similar to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Civics test. They found that voter turnout among 18-24 year olds largely did not increase in states that adopted the Civic Education Initiative compared to states that did adopt it. The reason for this, they argue, is that the knowledge of civic facts alone is not enough to motivate someone to vote for the first time. In this episode, we discuss how to structure civic education that could increase voter turnout and lead to more engaged democratic citizens. For more information on this work, check out the CivXNow coalition, which is made up of hundreds of organizations across the country that are working to strengthen civic education. Jung and Gopalan also recommend the following books and papers to anyone who wants to take a deeper dive into the role of civic education in a democracy:Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Civic ActionRefocusing Civic Education: Developing the Skills Young People Need to Engage in DemocracyI  Will Register and Vote if you Teach Me How: A Field Experiment Testing Voter Registration in College ClassroomsThe Impact of Democracy Prep Public Schools on Civic Participation 
12/4/202339 minutes, 17 seconds
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A deep look at political loss

Democracy is sometimes described as "a system where political parties lose elections." That's true but doesn't capture the deeper feelings of grief and grievance associated with political loss. We dive into those emotions this week with Juliet Hooker, the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University and author of Black Grief, White Grievance: The Politics of Loss.Hooker argues that whites as a group are accustomed to winning and feel a sense of grievance when they need to give up political power. Conversely, Black people are expected to be political heroes in the face of grief that comes from setbacks on the road to racial justice.  These two forces, black grief and white grievance, have been at the heart of American politics for centuries and remain so today.Black grief, Hooker says, is exemplified by current protests against police violence—the latest in a tradition of violent death and subsequent public mourning spurring Black political mobilization. The potent politics of white grievance, meanwhile, which is also not new, imagines the United States as a white country under siege.This is a very thought-provoking book and conversation about some of the most important issues in American democracy. Black Grief, White Grievance: The Politics of Loss
11/20/202340 minutes, 37 seconds
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When populism and democracy collide

Cas Mudde, one of the world's leading experts in the study of populism and far-right politics, joins us this week to discuss the tensions between populism and democracy, and why populism has increased around world in recent years.Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia and a Professor II in the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo. His research agenda aims to address the question: how can liberal democracies defend themselves against political challenges without undermining their core values?  Mudde visited Penn State in October 2023 to give the keynote lecture at the Populism, Piety, and Patriotism conference organized by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy.
11/6/202341 minutes, 21 seconds
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Understanding union voters

In the heyday of American labor, the influence of local unions extended far beyond the workplace. Unions were embedded in tight-knit communities, touching nearly every aspect of the lives of members—mostly men—and their families and neighbors. They conveyed fundamental worldviews, making blue-collar unionists into loyal Democrats who saw the party as on the side of the working man. Today, unions play a much less significant role in American life. In industrial and formerly industrial Rust Belt towns, Republican-leaning groups and outlooks have burgeoned among the kinds of voters who once would have been part of union communities. This episode explores why that's happened and whether new unions coming online at places like Starbucks may change the picture moving forward.Our guest is Lainey Newman,  a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and co-author with Theda Skocpol of Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working Class Voters are Turning Away from the Democratic Party. Newman is a graduate of Harvard College and a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
10/23/202338 minutes, 33 seconds
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A conflict at the heart of our political disagreements

Why do we disagree about the causes of and solutions to social inequality? What explains our different viewpoints on Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, income inequality, and immigration? Penn State professors John Iceland and Eric Silver join us this week to discuss how the discrepancy between social order and social justice impedes political compromise and progress.Iceland and Silver, along with Ilana Redstone of the University of Illinois, are the authors of Why We Disagree about Inequality: Social Justice vs. Social Order. In the book, they show how these competing worldviews are preventing Americans from solving their most pressing social problems. Iceland is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography; Silver is Professor Sociology and Criminology and recently won the Open Inquiry Award for Teaching from Heterodox Academy.In the interview, we discuss how the conflict between social order and social justice played out at different points in history going back to the French Revolutions. Iceland and Silver also offer suggestions for how to move beyond these divisions to find consensus and common ground. After the interview, Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith discuss whether social order and social justice should have equal footing and how looking to history might not be the best approach for how to break out of these silos. Why We Disagree about Inequality: Social Justice vs. Social Order
10/9/202341 minutes, 43 seconds
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What can we learn from early democracies?

This week, we're handing the microphone to Penn State student Joey Picarillo for an interview about the rise and fall of early democracies and what lessons we can learn from them today. Joey is a studying political science at Penn State World Campus and has already read many of the most influential books on democracy by Robert Dahl and others. He brought this book to our attention and did a wonderful job with the interview. Historical accounts of democracy’s rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy by David Stasavage draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer—democratic practices were present in many places, at many other times, from the Americas before European conquest, to ancient Mesopotamia, to precolonial Africa. Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished—and when and why they declined—can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but also about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future. Stasavage is the Dean for the Social Sciences and the Julius Silver Professor in NYU’s Department of Politics and an Affiliated Professor in NYU’s School of Law. The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today
9/25/202333 minutes, 52 seconds
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Building better bureaucracy

Before we get to the show notes, we invite you to take our listener survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works coffee mug!COVID-19 brought the problems with government technology into sharp focus. The systems responsible for delivering unemployment benefits and healthcare were not prepared to mange the influx of requests they received, and the government employees who run those systems were often hobbled by a culture that focuses on regulation and oversight, not innovation and acting quickly.Beyond the day-to-day impacts of these systems not working, the long-term consequences include the erosion of trust in the institutions that comprise our democracy. So, what can we do? Jennifer Pahlka has a few ideas and she joins us this week to talk about them.Pahlka is the author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. She is the former deputy chief technology officer of the United States and the founder of Code for America, a nonprofit that believes government can work for people in the digital age.Recoding America websiteMore information on Schedule F/Project 2025
9/18/202345 minutes, 6 seconds
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Tim Miller on why Republicans stuck with Trump

Before we get to the show notes, we invite you to take our listener survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works coffee mug!Chris Beem talks with former Republican political operative Tim Miller about the party's loyalty to Donald Trump and where it might go in 2024 and beyond. Miller is a writer-at-large for The Bulwark and the author of the best-selling book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. He was previously political director for Republican Voters Against Trump and communications director for Jeb Bush 2016. He also appears on MSNBC and The Circus on Showtime.Miller's book is a reflection on both his own past work for the Republican Party and the contortions of his former peers in the GOP establishment. He draws a straight line between the actions of the 2000s GOP to the Republican political class's Trumpian takeover, including the horrors of January 6th. In this conversation, Miller and Beem also discuss alarming trends among young conservatives and how they may continue, or even exacerbate, some of what Miller observed after the 2016 election. 
9/11/202337 minutes, 11 seconds
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"Democracy '24" on the debate stage

We're back from summer break and diving into the 2024 election season, Donald Trump's indictments, the spread of election deniers, and more. We also welcome Michael Berkman back from sabbatical and discuss the significance of "Democracy '24" as the backdrop for the first Republican presidential debate on August 23.For our listeners who teach American politics, we've put together a list of episodes designed to be a companion to your courses. Check it out at democracyworkspodcast.com/syllabus.Referenced in this episode: Votebeat piece by Jessica Huseman on Trump indictments
9/4/202333 minutes, 13 seconds
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When the People Decide: Libraries as civic spaces

We're excited to present an episode from our sister podcast, When the People Decide, about how libraries can be sites of civic engagement and building a new social fabric in America's cities and towns.Librarians have spoken for years about “library faith,” the belief that public libraries are central to democracy because they contribute to an informed citizenry. Today, the idea is gaining even more traction, and even conservative crackdowns on what’s permitted in libraries reinforce the idea that they’re more than just “book warehouses” but centers for community engagement and representativeness. This week, hear from two librarians working to enhance the role libraries of libraries democracy and civic engagement. Shamichael Hallman explains how he brought his experience in tech and faith leadership to bear when he ran a branch of the Memphis Public Libraries, including bringing Civic Saturdays to his community, a program of Citizen University. And public policy advocate Nancy Kranich of Rutgers University shares the high hopes she has that libraries remain crucial institutions that allow us to engage with our government–and each other.Subscribe to When the People Decide
8/7/202324 minutes, 9 seconds
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A deep dive on parties and political reform

Americans want electoral reforms so that they can have more choice in elections. Recent surveys show that 20 to 50 percent of Americans are open to a new electoral system, while demand for a third party has crept upward since Gallup began asking in 2003. More Americans now call themselves "independent" than identify with either of the major parties, but what happens when Americans try to reform their way out of a two-party system? In More Parties or No Parties, Jack Santucci traces the origins and performance of proportional representation in U.S. cities, the reasons for repeal in all but one case, and discusses the implications of this history for current reform movements at the state and national level. In a two-party system, reform requires appealing to the group that wants to "get the parties out of politics" (or, in modern terms, to "reduce polarization"). This leads to ostensibly nonpartisan reform packages, yet party-like formations emerge anyway, as voters and governments need to be organized. However, such reform is not stable and has tended to make voting difficult for everyday people.This conversation, originally recorded in August 2022,  looks back at the history of political reform and current movements like the Forward Party and the adoption of ranked-choice voting in Nevada and other states. As you'll hear, reform is easy to put into a slogan, but much harder to implement in practice. More Parties or No PartiesJack Santucci's website
7/24/202341 minutes, 10 seconds
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Democracy Paradox: The democratic crisis you haven't heard about

This week, we bring you an interview from the Democracy Paradox podcast about the political crisis in Peru and how it fits into the bigger picture of democratic erosion around the world.Democracy Paradox host Justin Kempf thinks Peru is an extreme case of something that I think will become more common. His guest is Rodrigo Barrenechea,  assistant professor of social sciences at the Universidad Católica del Uruguay and a Santo Domingo Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. He recently coauthored (with Alberto Vergara) the article "Peru: The Danger of Powerless Democracy" in the Journal of Democracy. Democracy Paradox podcastDemocracy Paradox on Twitter
7/10/202349 minutes, 18 seconds
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Village SquareCast: Can curiosity save us?

This episode from the Village SquareCast is a conversation between Manu Meel, executive director of Bridge USA and Mónica Guzmán, a senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels and author of I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.Manu and Mónica discuss how to fight back against political division and find the answers you need by talking with people—rather than about them—and asking the questions you want across the divides you want, curiously. Mónica argues that seeing where people are coming from isn’t just possible, it's easier than you think.I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided TimesSubscribe to the Village SquareCast 
6/26/202346 minutes, 4 seconds
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Democracy-ish: Can America's democracy be saved?

Political Historian, author and editor Eli Merritt joins #democracyish to provide some historical grounding for the place we find ourselves in America's story. America is at a tipping point, the question is what direction does it fall?!? Danielle and Waj discuss this and more on this episode of democracy-ish.Subscribe to democracy-ish
6/12/202339 minutes, 24 seconds
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Democracy needs serious people

Before we take a break for the summer, we wanted to talk about some of the events that have been on our minds lately, and some of what we'll be watching over the summer. Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith talk about what's happening in North Carolina, what we may hear from the Supreme Court in June, the fight over the debt ceiling, and more. Many of these conversations ultimately boil down to the question of how serious the representatives of our democracy are about protecting the things that make America democratic. We end the episode addressing the question of whether the perverse incentives and the unserious behavior they produce can be overcome — and what it will take to do so.New episodes of Democracy Works will return in late August. In the meantime, we'll be rebroadcasting some older episodes you might have missed and sharing episodes from our partners in The Democracy Group podcast network.
5/29/202332 minutes, 44 seconds
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Gen Z's fight for democracy

We've talked about generational politics on the show before with episodes on Millennials and Baby Boomers. This week, we turn our focus to Gen Z, those born from the late 1990s to early 2000s. This generation's formative experiences include school shootings, a global pandemic, and reckonings with racial and economic inequality. In his book Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America, John Della Volpe argues that Gen Z has not buckled under the weight of the events that shaped them. Rather,  they have organized around the issues America has left unsolved, from gun control to racial and environmental justice to economic inequality, becoming more politically engaged than their elders were at their age and showing a unique willingness to disrupt the status quo.Della Volpe joins us this week to unpack what he's learned from thousands of conversations with members of Gen Z and what this generation's growing power means for the 2024 election and beyond. Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, where he has led the institute’s polling initiatives on understanding American youth since 2000.Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save AmericaJohn Della Volpe on Substack
5/15/202347 minutes, 12 seconds
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Think Inclusive: Facing the Anti-CRT Movement

This week, we bring you an episode from Think Inclusive, a podcast that builds bridges between families, educators, and disability rights advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. The episode explores what Critical Race Theory is and what advocates for inclusive education need to know about the Anti-CRT movement. You'll hear from individuals with experience and expertise in CRT:King Williams, a filmmaker, and journalist in Atlanta, GAAlida Miranda-Wolff, a professional in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging sector in Chicago, ILEddie Fergus, a professor at Temple UniversityPete Newlove, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado and current high school English teacher,Referenced in the episode:Cherokee Schools' would-be diversity administrator shares why she stepped down (Cherokee Tribune & Ledger News)Teacher Anti-CRT Bills Coast To Coast: A State By State Guide (Forbes)Plessy v. Ferguson (History.com)Conservative-led school board fires superintendent after allegations of private ultimatum, teacher protest (Washington Post)Gov. Kemp opposes 'Critical Race Theory' in letter to state board of education (11 Alive - Atlanta)State Education Board Passes Resolution On Teaching Race (Georgia Public Broadcasting)Teachers Say Laws Banning Critical Race Theory Are Putting A Chill On Their Lessons (NPR)
5/8/20231 hour, 21 minutes, 37 seconds
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Is America in a third reconstruction?

Peniel E. Joseph, author of The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the 21st Century, joins us this week to discuss how the era from Barack Obama's election to George Floyd's murder compare to the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. Joseph argues that racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020 marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. However, Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith are not so sure he's right about that conclusion. We hope you'll listen to the arguments and think critically about where you land on the question of whether America has experienced or is in the midst of a Third Reconstruction.Joseph is based at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the following titles:Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, Professor of History and Public Affairs, and Founding  Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. His career focus has been on "Black Power Studies," which encompasses interdisciplinary fields such as Africana studies, law and society, women's and ethnic studies and political science. He is a frequent commentator on issues of race, democracy and civil rights.
5/1/202347 minutes, 11 seconds
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Between democracy and autocracy

Between democracy and autocracy is an anocracy, defined by political scientists as a country that has elements of both forms of government — usually one that's on the way up to becoming a full democracy or on the way down to full autocracy. This messy middle is the state when civil wars are most likely to start and the one that requires the most diligence from that country's citizens to prevent a civil war from breaking out.Barbara F. Walter, author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them has spent decades studying civil wars around the world and working with other political scientists to quantify how strong democracy is in a given country. She joins us this week to discuss those findings, how the democratic health of the United States has shifted over the past decade, and more.Walter is the Rohr Professor of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and completed post docs at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University and the War and Peace Institute at Columbia University. How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop ThemBarbara F. Walter on Twitter
4/17/202346 minutes, 25 seconds
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Living in a fragmented democracy

At the end of March, millions of Americans lost access to Medicaid as pandemic-era expansions to the program were rolled back. At the same time, North Carolina's legislature voted to expand Medicaid, marking a demonstration of bipartisan agreement in these polarizing times. This backdrop makes it a very interesting time to talk with Jamila Michener, who studies both the specific politics of Medicaid and how the political fights over Medicaid illustrate larger issues in federalism and democracy. In this episode, we discuss how receiving government benefits like Medicaid impacts political agency, whether it's possible to square federalism and equality, and more.Michener is associate professor of government at Cornell University and author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics. In the book, Michener examines American democracy from the vantage point(s) of those who are living in or near poverty, (disproportionately) Black or Latino, and reliant on a federated government for vital resources.Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal PoliticsMichener on Twitter
4/3/202344 minutes, 45 seconds
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Feet in 2 Worlds: Immigrants in a Divided Country

This week, we bring you an episode from Feet in 2 Worlds and its series Immigrants in a Divided Country, which explores the current political landscape from the perspective of immigrants. In this personal audio essay, writer and audio producer Boen Wang goes looking for answers. He always thought his mom—an immigrant from Mainland China —was brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party. His mom, on the other hand, thinks he’s been brainwashed by the New York Times and CNN. To break the deadlock Boen interviews his mom about the evolution of her political beliefs—which are on the opposite end of the spectrum from his.As he learns more about his family and himself, Boen discovers the surprising history and etymology of the term “brainwashing”—which goes back to the last Chinese empire and is deeply rooted in American Cold War-era anxieties about the rise of communism. In the end, he emerges with a new understanding of the use and misuse of “brainwashing” and shares his thoughts on how people with opposing views can live with their differences.Episode Transcript
3/27/202338 minutes, 44 seconds
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Harnessing the power of juries

Juries have been at the center of some of the most emotionally charged moments of political life, especially in high profile cases like the trial of Derek Chauvin for George Floyd's murder in 2021. This week, we explore juries as a democratic institution. Our guest, Sonali Chakravarti, argues that juries provide an important site for democratic action by citizens and that their use should be revived. She says juries could be a forward-looking institution that nurtures the best democratic instincts of citizens like examining their own perceptions and biases and engaging in dialogue and deliberation.  Chakravarti is a professor of government at Wesleyan University and the author of Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life , published by the University of Chicago Press in 2020. Her work focuses on public participation in legal institutions and the relationship between law and politics. Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public LifeChakravarti on the Chauvin trial - The AtlanticHow jurors can protect abortion access - Boston Review
3/20/202346 minutes, 34 seconds
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Civic learning amid the culture wars

More than ever, civic learning is needed to ensure each and every person across this country has the necessary tools to engage as members of our self-governing society. However, schools are also a growing part of the culture wars. According to a 2022 National Education Association Survey, nearly half of schools reported challenges teaching about race and racism and practices related to LGBTQ students in the classroom. As we've discussed before on the show, book bans, funding cuts, and teacher shortages are also making teaching anything — let alone civics — more difficult.At this critical juncture, Civic Learning Week unites students, educators, policymakers, and private sector leaders to energize the movement for civic education across the nation. This week's episode includes two experts who talk about the theory and practice of strengthening civics education in these polarizing times.Emma Humphries is Chief Education Officer and Deputy Director of Field Building for iCivics, the non-profit founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to reinvigorate civics through free, interactive learning resources. Emma serves as iCivics’ pedagogical expert, ensures its resources evolve to a place of greater equity and deeper learning for all students, and advocates for more and better civic education across the country.Ashley Berner is Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Associate Professor of Education. She served previously as the Deputy Director of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy and as an administrator at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Her most recent book is Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School.Civic Learning WeekiCivics poling on bipartisan support for civic educationDiffusing the History Wars: Finding Common Ground in Teaching America's National Story
3/6/202345 minutes, 17 seconds
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Finding the "we" in civic engagement

People who want to improve the world often encounter problems of collective action (how to get many individuals to act in concert), of discourse (how to talk and think productively about contentious matters), and of exclusion. To get things done, they must form or join and sustain functional groups, and through them, develop skills and virtues that help them to be effective and responsible civic actors.Peter Levine, one of America's leading scholars and practitioners of civic engagement, identifies the general challenges that confront people who ask the citizens' question and explores solutions in his most recent book, What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life. Democracy Works host Chris Beem also thinks through these questions in his most recent book, The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Democracy.  In this conversation, Levine and Beem discuss how their approaches differ and how individual and collective actions can't be separated from each other when it comes to civic engagement. Levine is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University's Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life.What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic LifeThe Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy
2/27/202338 minutes, 27 seconds
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Why politics makes us depressed — and what we can do about it

Many of us can conjure moments when politics made us feel sad. But how often do those feelings translate into more serious forms of depression or other mental health issues? And if politics does make us depressed, what do we do about it? Christopher Ojeda has spent the past few years exploring these questions and joins us this week to talk about the relationship between depression and democracy. Ojeda is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California Merced and author of the forthcoming book The Sad Citizen: How Politics Makes Us Depressed. He visited Penn State to give us a sneak preview of this important work on the relationship between democratic engagement and individual mental health. We discuss how to meet the demands that democracy places on us without sacrificing our mental health in the process.
2/20/202343 minutes, 59 seconds
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What will it take to make democracy more representative?

Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in elected office proved so persistent? Some experts suggest that women lack sufficient ambition to run for office relative to men, while others say that districts with majority white populations do not provide adequate resources or opportunities for minority candidates to succeed. These approaches tend to treat women and racial minorities as parallel social groups, and fail to account for the ways in which race and gender simultaneously shape candidacy.In her book, Nowhere to Run, Christian Dyogi Phillips introduces the intersectional model of electoral opportunity, which argues that descriptive representation in elections is shaped by intersecting processes related to race and gender. The book and this conversation shed new light on how multiple dimensions of identity simultaneously shape pathways to candidacy and representation for all groups seeking a seat at the table in American politics.Phillips is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California, and holds affiliations with the USC Institute for Intersectionality and Social Transformation and the USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute. Prior to becoming an academic, Phillips led organizing and political campaigns in the American labor movement.Nowhere to Run: Race, Gender, and Immigration in American ElectionsChristian Dyogi Phillips on Twitter
2/6/202346 minutes, 43 seconds
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Separating news from noise

How much news is too much? Or not enough? News Over Noise, the new podcast from Penn State's News Literacy Initiative explores that question and offers guidance on how to consume news that enhances your participation in our democracy without becoming overwhelmed by all the noise on social media and the 24/7 news cycle. News Over Noise co-hosts Matt Jordan and Leah Dajches join us this week to discuss how the news impacts our mental health, the future of media literacy education, and more. Jordan is a professor of media studies Dajches is a post-doctoral researcher, both in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. Listen to News Over NoiseNews Literacy Week- January 23-27, 2023
1/23/202346 minutes, 30 seconds
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What we learned from our guests in 2022

We've had some incredible guests on the show in 2022. For our final episode of the year, we're taking a look back at what we've learned from them.  Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Candis Watts Smith, and Jenna Spinelle revisit our episodes with:Jake GrumbachJeffrey SuttonFrancis FukuyamaJamelle BouieLilliana MasonJon MeachamJessica HusemanJoanna LydgateA programming note: Democracy Works will be moving to a bi-weekly release schedule in 2023. If you have ideas for people we should be talking to or topics we should cover, please get in touch! 
12/19/202246 minutes, 30 seconds
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Where do the parties go from here?

A few days after the midterms, a Substack post from Dave Karpf caught our eye. In it, he takes up the question of how the Republican and Democratic parties should move forward after the election. This conversation covers party networks, Karpf's lessons from environmental organizing, and how to craft political messages in a changing social media environment.  Karpf is an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University. His work focuses on strategic communication practices of political associations in America, with a particular interest in Internet-related strategies. You might remember him as the professor who called Bret Stephens a "Bretbug" on Twitter a few years ago.Karpf's Substack, The Future, Now and Then Karpf on Twitter
12/12/202245 minutes, 23 seconds
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The real free speech problem on campus

Across op-ed pages and Substack newsletters,  college campuses have become fiercely ideological spaces where students unthinkingly endorse a liberal orthodoxy and forcibly silence anyone who dares to disagree. These commentators lament the demise of free speech and academic freedom. But what is really happening on college campuses?In his new book, Campus Misinformation, Penn State professor Brad Vivian shows how misinformation about colleges and universities has proliferated in recent years, with potentially dangerous results. Popular but highly misleading claims about a so-called free speech crisis and a lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses emerged in the mid-2010s and continue to shape public discourse about higher education across party lines. Such disingenuous claims impede constructive deliberation about higher learning while normalizing suspect ideas about First Amendment freedoms and democratic participation.Taking a non-partisan approach, Vivian argues that reporting on campus culture has grossly exaggerated the importance and representativeness of a small number of isolated events; misleadingly advocated for an artificial parity between liberals and conservatives as true viewpoint diversity; mischaracterized the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces; and purposefully confused critique and protest with censorship and "cancel culture." Vivian is a professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State. His research focuses on public controversies over collective memories of past events. He previously appeared on our show to discuss Confederate monuments following the Unite the Right really and related events in Charlottesville.Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher EducationBrad's first appearance on the show
12/5/202246 minutes, 19 seconds
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Jamelle Bouie makes the case for majoritarianism

Jamelle Bouie's writing spans everything from 19th century American history to 1990s movies, but he's spent a lot of time recently thinking about America's founders, the Constitution, and the still-unfinished work of making America a multi-everything democracy.  In that work, he's identified a contradiction that he believes is impeding democratic progress:"Americans take for granted the idea that our counter-majoritarian Constitution — deliberately written to constrain majorities and keep them from acting outright — has, in fact, preserved the rights and liberties of the people against the tyranny of majority rule, and that any greater majoritarianism would threaten that freedom," Bouie wrote.In this interview, we discuss that claim and why he's is looking to Reconstruction as a time that could provides lessons for our current political moment. Bouie is a columnist for the New York Times and political analyst for CBS News. He covers U.S. politics, public policy, elections, and race. Jamelle Bouie at the New York TimesBouie's lecture on "Why the Founding Fathers Still Matter" at Penn StateWhen the People Decide - our series on ballot initiatives and direct democracy
11/21/202244 minutes, 12 seconds
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Our conversation with Josh Shapiro [rebroadcast]

We talked with Pennsylvania Attorney General (and now Governor-elect) Josh Shapiro back in 2018, at the height of efforts by state attorneys general to block actions from the Trump administration on issues from immigration to opioids. We discuss those efforts in this conversation and the role that Shapiro sees states playing in American democracy — a new meaning to the term "states rights."Looking back, you can hear some early seeds of the themes that would emerge during Shapiro's gubernatorial campaign, particularly around his desire to fight for the people of Pennsylvania and not be afraid to get political when the circumstances demanded. We'll be back next week with a new episode featuring New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie on majoritarianism and counter-majoritarianism in American democracy. 
11/14/202231 minutes, 10 seconds
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States united for democracy

With hundreds of elections deniers running in the midterms, democracy is on the ballot this fall. The team at the States United Democracy Center is at the forefront of efforts to ensure free, fair, and secure elections in 2022, 2024, and beyond. Cofounders Norman Eisen, Joanna Lydgate, and Christine Todd Whitman join us this week to talk about how they're doing it in states across the country and how everyone can support their efforts.Through legal, policy, and communications work, States United is fighting back empowering state leaders as they defend elections. These officials are the frontline champions in the battle for our democracy. Governors help enshrine voter protection into law, and attorneys general defend those laws—along with election results. Secretaries of state oversee elections, and law enforcement leaders make sure they are safe and free from violence. States United’s mission is to bring these leaders together to protect elections, prevent political violence, fight disinformation, and pursue accountability for those who step outside the bounds of our democracy.Eisen is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, former Ambassador to the Czech Republic, and Special Counsel to the White House for Ethics and Government Reform. Lydgate is the former  Chief Deputy Attorney General of Massachusetts. Whitman is the former Governor of New Jersey and was the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator in the George W. Bush administration. They are the recipients of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy's 2022 Brown Democracy Medal.States United Democracy CenterStates United: A Survival Guide for Our Democracy - Eisen, Lydgate, and Whitman's book written as part of receiving the Brown Democracy Medal
11/7/202239 minutes, 39 seconds
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Celebrating democracy's small victories

Amid election deniers and political polarization, it's easy to overlook the times when democracy is actually working. We do that this week in a hopeful conversation about resident-centered government. Elected officials and administrative staff like city planners often have the best intentions when it comes to development and redevelopment, but political and professional incentives push them to pursue projects that lure in outsiders rather than serving people who live in their communities. Our guest this week is Michelle Wilde Anderson, a professor of property, local government, and environmental justice at Stanford Law School and the author of The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America. The book tells the stories of revitalization efforts in Stockton, California, Josephine, Oregon, Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Detroit, Michigan. In each instance, residents organized to fix small problems that turned into large-scale change. It's a model that anyone can replicate and our democracy will be stronger for it.The Fight to Save the Town by Michelle Wilde Anderson
10/31/202244 minutes, 7 seconds
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Climate change is everyone's fight

The conversation about climate change has come a long way from the days of polar bears and melting ice caps, but as our guest this week shares,  there's still a long way to go in creating truly inclusive climate policy. In order to do that, those who are most impacted by environmental racism need to be involved in the policymaking process. Rhiana Gunn-Wright is the director of climate policy at the Roosevelt Institute and one of the intellectual architects of the Green New Deal. She grew up on Chicago's South Side and talks about how environmental justice shaped her life from an early age — event if she didn't know that's what it was. We also discuss how climate reform is connected to other parts of America's political system and efforts to reform democracy. 
10/24/202243 minutes, 52 seconds
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Francis Fukuyama on the promise and peril of liberalism

It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning. As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and an increasing peril to our democracy.Fukuyama isthe Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a faculty member at Stanford's Institute on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His previous books include Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment and The End of History and the Last Man.Liberalism and its Discontents
10/17/202242 minutes, 49 seconds
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The backbone of democracy is now the face of fraud

This episode is part of the series 2022 Midterms: What's at Stake? series from The Democracy Group podcast network. Think of it as an election administrator vibe check as we head into the midterms. Election officials are the backbone of our democracy, but also increasingly the face of fraud allegations from far-right groups and others who deny the legitimacy of elections that don't go their way.Many of us watched Georgia election officials Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss testify before the January 6 committee about the threats they faced after becoming caught up in conspiracies about the 2020 election. Our guest this week says that stories like this are more common than many of us realize, and that things like erroneous record requests from election deniers are even more common. On top of that, social media platforms are making it more difficult local election offices to share accurate information with voters. Jessica Huseman is the editorial director at Votebeat, a news outlet that does nonpartisan local reporting n elections and voting. She was previously the lead elections reporter for ProPublica, and helped manage the Electionland project for three federal election cycles, sharing information and tips with hundreds of newsrooms across the United States. VotebeatJessica Huseman on Twitter2022 Midterms: What At Stake? series from The Democracy Group podcast networkPower the Polls - poll worker recruitment nationwide
10/10/202240 minutes, 13 seconds
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How Democrats can harness grassroots energy

The Democratic Party saw a surge in grassroots activism after the 2016 election, after George Floyd's murder, and most recently after the Dobbs decision. However, the party seems to be sticking to the same old playbook of fundraising emails and text messages, rather than building long-term organizational power. Our guests this week explore why that is and how the Democratic Party can use grassroots mometum to build and expand coaltions.Lara Putnam is professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and previously appeared on the podcast ahead of the 2018 midterms. Micah L. Sifry is the founder of Civic Hall and writes The Connector newsletter on Substack. They teamed up for a New York Times op-ed in August and a series of follow-up pieces in The Connector.The New York Times: Fed Up With Democratic Emails? You're Not the Only OneThe Connector: An Activist Base is a Terrible Thing to WasteThe Connector: Connections, Capacity, and Impact
10/3/202239 minutes, 32 seconds
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When should the states decide?

Following the Dobbs  v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision, reproductive rights are heading to ballots in states across the country this fall. Are states the right venue for this and other issues? Our guest this week says yes and makes the case that state courts and constitutions are more democratic than their counterparts at the federal level.In Who Decides? State as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation, U.S. Appellate Court Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton focuses on the constitutional structure of the American states to answer the question of who should decide the key questions of public policy today. We also discuss work by Jake Grumbach in his book Laboratories Against Democracy and the forthcoming Moore v. Harper case in the U.S. Supreme Court, which grapples with what's come to be known as the Independent State Legislature Theory.Sutton is the  Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was previously a partner with the law firm of Jones Day and served as State Solicitor of the State of Ohio. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (Ret.), the Honorable Antonin Scalia, and the Honorable Thomas J. Meskill. His previous book is 51 Imperfect Solutions, published in 2018.Who Decides: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation
9/26/202246 minutes, 20 seconds
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Chris Beem on the seven democratic virtues

This week, we bring you an episode from Future Hindsight. Our own Chris Beem talks with host Mila Atmos about his new book, The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy.In the book and in this conversation, Beem argues that American democracy is at a crisis point and to fix our politics, we have to change our culture first. We can all take part in creating a culture that cultivates democratic virtues. Humility, for example, recognizes that all of us are biased and that we will disagree. In fact, anger is an essential emotion in democracy. Hatred, however, is disastrous. When we hate, we cannot operate as a democracy. The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our DemocracyFuture Hindsight
9/19/202240 minutes, 2 seconds
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Rural broadband and the politics of "good enough"

COVID-19 showed just how essential high-speed Internet is to our everyday lives. It determines how many of us work, learn, and access news and entertainment. Yet, millions of Americans do not have reliable access to broadband and millions more can't afford to pay for the service that's available to them.Christopher Ali, the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications at Penn State, unpacks these issues in his book Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity and joins us this week for a discussion about market failures, how communities across the country are democratizing Internet access and how the federal government is now starting to step in thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in November 2021.We also discuss some of Ali's more recent work on the relationship between broadband deserts and news deserts, and how the combination impacts democratic citizenship.Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural ConnectivityChristopher Ali on Twitter 
9/12/202244 minutes, 21 seconds
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A deep dive into the administrative state

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act shines a light on the administrative state. How will the billions of dollars for Medicaid, green energy, and other provisions be spent and turned into policy? With the help of people whose jobs are largely nonpartisan and non-political. Complaints about government bureaucracy are nothing new but has recently moved beyond rhetoric to a concerted attack on policy implementation.Don Moynihan, the McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown, writes about the administrative state in his newsletter, Can We Still Govern? He joins us this week to discuss the promise of the Inflation Reduction Act, the looming peril of Schedule F, and whether a bipartisan, policy-focused coalition can emerge in 2022 and beyond.Can We Still Govern? newsletterDon Moynihan on Twitter
9/5/202242 minutes, 45 seconds
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Reflecting on the January 6 hearings and what's happened since

Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Candis Watts Smith, and Jenna Spinelle are back after summer break to discuss the January 6 committee hearings, which we previously teased as "democracy's summer blockbusters." Did they live up to the hype? Did they change public opinion — and does that matter?We also discuss the January 6 hearings and the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago in the context of democratic pedagogy, or behavior that helps us learn what it means to be good democratic citizens. Finally, we discuss some of the summer's primary elections and what to expect in the general election this fall.NBC News poll on threats to democracy as the most important issue facing the country
8/29/202232 minutes, 38 seconds
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A new approach to breaking our media silos

It's no secret that there's a partisan divide in the media, but thus far, solutions to bridge that divide have been few and far between. Our guest this week had an idea that seems to be taking hold and building a readership across the political spectrum.Isaac Saul is the founder and publisher of Tangle, a non-partisan news and politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on one issue each day. He a politics reporter who grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, one of the most politically divided places in the United States. In 2020, he created Tangle in an attempt to get people out of their information bubbles. Subscribe to Tangle
8/1/202228 minutes, 35 seconds
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Laboratories against democracy [rebroadcast]

Jake Grumbach's book "Laboratories against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics" is out now from Princeton University Press. We were lucky enough to receive and advance copy and are rebroadcasting our conversation with him from earlier this year.As many liberals were saying "thank God for federalism" in the Trump era, Grumbach saw some different — and disturbing — patterns emerging. He argues that as Congress has become more gridlocked, national partisan and activist groups have shifted their sights to the state level, nationalizing state politics in the process and transforming state governments into the engines of American policymaking in areas from health care to climate change. He also traces how national groups are using state governmental authority to suppress the vote, gerrymander districts, and erode the very foundations of democracy itself.Grumbach is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington. Additional InformationLaboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State PoliticsGrumbach's websiteGrumbach on Twitter
7/18/202243 minutes, 17 seconds
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How positive and negative freedoms shape democracy

From COVID-19 policies to reproductive rights, conversations about freedom and liberty seem to be front and center in politics and the culture wars. This week, we take a deep dive into the philosophical underpinnings of these concepts and how different interpretations of them impact our ability to sustain a democracy. We also examine how bringing  the idea of freedom into political debates can obscure what's really at stake and make it difficult to come to meaningful resolution.Democracy Works host and McCourtney Institute for Democracy Managing Director Chris Beem talks with John Christman, professor of philosophy, political science, and women's studies at Penn State and director of the Humanities Institute. He is the author of numerous articles and books in social and political philosophy, specializing in topics such as the social conception of the self, theories of justice and oppression, and the idea of freedom. Christman is the editor of the newly-published Positive Freedom: Past, Present, and Future. The book  includes both historical studies of the idea of positive freedom and discussions of its connection to important contemporary issues in social and political philosophy.Additional InformationPositive Freedom: Past, Present, and FuturePenn State Humanities Institute
6/20/202232 minutes, 40 seconds
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Introducing: When the People Decide

We are excited to share the first episode of a new narrative series on ballot initiatives from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy: When the People Decide. In this reported series, Jenna Spinelle tells the stories of activists, legislators, academics, and average citizens who changed their cities, states, and the country by taking important issues directly to votes — like Medicaid expansion in Idaho, sentencing reform in California, and LGBTQ workplace protections in Ohio. This episode tells the story of a campaign in Michigan to end partisan gerrymandering in 2018 and shows how it is part of a legacy of ballot initiatives dating back to the 1800s. After becoming disillusioned with the results of the 2016 election, Katie Fahey took to Facebook to gauge the interest of grassroots mobilization amongst her colleagues, friends and family. Now the executive director of a nonpartisan voter reform organization, Fahey shares how the ballot initiative excited everyday people about becoming active in politics, including its 10,000 volunteers, and how they were inspired to make political changes in their communities. We also hear from historian Steven Piott about the unlikely origin of the initiative and referendum in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.New episodes will be released throughout the summer. Subscribe to When the People Decide in your podcast app:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOvercastPodcast AddictGoogle Podcasts StitcherOther platformsLearn more about the podcast at thepeopledecide.show and follow us on Twitter @PeopleDecidePod. 
6/13/202234 minutes, 30 seconds
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Democracy's summer blockbusters

Democracy Works is taking its annual summer hiatus starting next week, but that does not mean the wheels of democracy will stop turning while we're away. In fact, this summer could prove to be quite the opposite. In this episode, we discuss what's going on in the Supreme Court and the impact of the rulings that are expected to come out by the end of June. We'll also be watching the January 6 committee hearings, which are scheduled to begin June 9. We consider what the goals of the hearings are and how our fractured media landscape will impact how the committee's work is received by the public. Finally, we share some recommendations for books and series that have nothing to do with politics and tease a new series that we'll be launching this summer while Democracy Works is on break. Additional InformationCandis's recommendation: A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George SaundersChris's recommendation: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa CatherMichael's recommendation: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley RobinsonJenna's recommendation: Station Eleven by Emily St. John MandelRelated EpisodesThe Federalist Society's ideas have consequences for democracyHow national parties are breaking state politicsThe roots of radical partisanship
6/6/202233 minutes, 15 seconds
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Can American democracy have nice things?

In 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting, E.J. Dionne and Miles Rapoport argue that all members of a democracy must participate in elections. Universal voting would be the surest way to protect against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a large share of our citizens. And it would create a system true to the Declaration of Independence's aspirations by calling for a government based on the consent of all of the governed.The system works in Australia, but can it work in the United States? Would it become just another tool in partisan warfare? Can American democracy even handle something like universal voting? We explore those questions this week.Dionne is is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, university professor at Georgetown University, and visiting professor at Harvard University.  He is the author of Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country.Rapoport is the Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. He formerly served in the Connecticut state legislature and as secretary of the state. He also served as president of Demos and of Common Cause.Additional Information100% Democracy: The Case for Universal VotingRelated EpisodesDanielle Allen on achieving democracy's idealsHow national parties are breaking state politicsE.J. Dionne on empathy and democracy - E.J.'s first appearance on the show in April 2019 
5/30/202242 minutes, 51 seconds
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Baby Boomers and American gerontocracy

The Baby Boomers are the most powerful generation in American history — and they're not going away anytime soon.  Their influence in politics, media, business, and other areas of life is likely to continue for at least the next decade. What does that mean for younger generations? Generational conflict, with Millennials and Generation Z pitted against the aging Boomer cohort, has become a media staple. Older and younger voters are increasingly at odds: Republicans as a whole skew gray-haired, and within the Democratic Party, the left-leaning youth vote propels primary challengers. The generation gap is widening into a political fault line. Kevin Munger leverages data and survey evidence to argue that generational conflict will define the politics of the next decade.Munger is an assistant professor of political science and social data analytics at Penn State and the author of the new book Generation Gap: Why Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture.Additional InformationGeneration Gap: Why Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and CultureKevin Munger on SubstackKevin Munger on TwitterRelated EpisodesMillennials' slow climb to political power
5/23/202243 minutes, 29 seconds
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No Jargon: How white Millennials think about race

Millennials are often seen as a progressive-minded generation – as 80’s and 90’s kids, they grew up in a digital landscape that exposed them to a diversity of perspectives. But while expectations were high that this generation would be on the frontlines in the fight for racial equality, recent research by Democracy Works host Candis Watts Smith paints a different picture. During this conversation with Lisa Hernandez and Lizzy Ghedi-Ehrlich, host of the Scholars Strategy Network's No Jargon podcast, Candis discussed how white millennials’ really think about race and the ways in which their views and beliefs have largely halted progress for Black Americans and other racial minorities in the United States. Additional InformationRacial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives MatterRelated EpisodesThe clumsy journal to antiracism
5/16/202228 minutes, 37 seconds
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Book bans are never just about books

Book bans are nothing new in the United States, but  our guest this week says the current movement to restrict access to books about race and gender has a different flavor than bans in previous eras. Rather than coming from individual parents or from the ground up in a community, demands to ban dozens or even hundreds of books at a time are coming from state legislators or national parent groups who circulate lists of books online. This trend is troubling for free speech and for the democratic processes that govern how students access information in schools.  Joining us to unpack what's happening and what we can do about is Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America. He oversees advocacy, analysis, and outreach concerning educational communities and academic institution and drives PEN America’s efforts to catalyze a more informed, civic culture through education and advocacy for the rising generation and the general public.Additional InformationPEN America's report on book bansRelated EpisodesHow national parties are breaking state politicsPublic schools, not government schools 
5/9/202238 minutes, 36 seconds
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Debating the future of debates

We love a good debate — and have certainly had plenty of them on this show. But how effective are they in today's media and political landscape? We take up that question this week, prompted by the Republican National Committee's recent decision to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates.John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, wrote a piece on the GOP's decision that caught our attention. He joins us to discuss the commission's history and where things might go between now and 2024. Additional InformationHudak's piece for BrookingsHudak on Twitter
5/2/202239 minutes, 10 seconds
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What student debt says about democratic institutions

Americans owe more than $1.5 trillion in student debt and some members of the Millennial and Gen Z wonder whether they'll ever pay off their loans. Student loans began as a well-intended government program to help increase America's brainpower in the Cold War era, but as our guest this week describes, grew into a political and financial morass that's swept up millions of people over the past 50 years. The Department of Education announced on April 19 that at least 40,000 borrowers will be eligible for debt forgiveness through a loan forgiveness program for public servants, but as we discuss in this episode, the program is complicated and places an administrative burden on borrowers to comply with its rules.Our guest this week is Josh Mitchell, a reporter who covers the economy and higher education for The Wall Street Journal, and author ofThe Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe. In the book, Mitchell  draws alarming parallels to the housing crisis in the late 2000s, showing the catastrophic consequences student debt has had on families and the nation’s future. Additional InformationThe Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National CatastropheApril 2022 loan forgiveness announcement from the Department of Education
4/25/202241 minutes, 49 seconds
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Combating disinformation at home and abroad

Peter Pomerantsev visited Penn State at the end of March, when he was just back from a trip to Ukraine. We discuss what he saw there, as well as how American media is covering the war. We also talk about the similarities between Ukraine and the United States when it comes to being vulnerable to Russian disinformation — and how both countries can strengthen democratic media. Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of the books This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality and Everything Is True and Nothing Is Possible : The Surreal Heart of the New Russia. Additional InformationPeter's lecture on Ukraine at Penn StatePeter's article on Ukraine in TimePeter's article on Ukraine in The Economist
4/18/202243 minutes, 40 seconds
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Jon Meacham on creating a more perfect union

Jon Meacham is one of America's leading thinkers on how the country's political history can inform the present. He recently visited Penn State to present a lecture on his 2018 book The Soul of America and joined us for a wide-ranging conversation on the war in Ukraine (and whether Zelensky really is like Churchill), American polarization polarization, the changing media landscape, and more. Meacham is author of multiple New York Times  bestsellers, a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University and co-chair of Vanderbilt's Project on Unity and American Democracy, a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians.Thank you to the Center for Character, Conscience, and Public Purpose at Penn State for bringing Jon to campus and making this interview possible. Additional InformationVanderbilt Project on Unity and American DemocracyHope Through HistoryFate of Fact The Soul of AmericaHis Truth is Marching On   
4/11/202237 minutes, 24 seconds
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The roots of radical partisanship

Political violence is rising in the United States, with Republicans and Democrats divided along racial and ethnic lines that spurred massive bloodshed and democratic collapse earlier in the nation’s history. The January 6, 2021 insurrection and the partisan responses that ensued are a vivid illustration of how deep these currents run. How did American politics become so divided that we cannot agree on how to categorize an attack on our own Capitol?In the new book Radical American Partisanship, Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe bring together four years of studying radicalism among ordinary American partisans. They draw on new evidence—as well as insights from history, psychology, and political science—to put our present partisan fractiousness in context and to explain broad patterns of political and social change. Mason joins us this week to discuss the findings and the rocky path toward making the United States a fully-realized multiracial democracy She is an associate professor of political science at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.Additional InformationRadical  American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for DemocracyLilliana Mason on TwitterSNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins UniversityRelated EpisodesSore losers are bad for democracy
4/4/202246 minutes, 16 seconds
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How democracies can win the war on reality [rebroadcast]

Peter Pomerantsev will visit Penn State March 31 and April 1 to discus Ukraine, Russian misinformation, and more. To get ready for his visit, we're rebroadcasting our conversation with him from May 2021.  Click the link below to register to watch his lectures via livestream.Misinformation, disinformation, propaganda — the terms are thrown around a lot but often used to describe the same general trend toward conspiratorial thinking that spread from the post-Soviet world to the West over the past two decades. Peter Pomerantsev had a front seat to this shift and is one of the people trying to figure out how to make the Internet more democratic and combat disinformation from both the supply side and the demand side. Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at the London School of Economics and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality and Nothing is True and Everything Is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia. He has a forthcoming project with Anne Applebaum that will examine why people believe in conspiracies and how to create content that fosters collaboration, rather than sows division. Additional InformationRegister to watch Pomerantsev's lecturesPomerantsev on TwitterThis is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against RealityRelated EpisodesA path forward for social media and democracyCan pranksters save democracy?How conspiracies are damaging democracy 
3/28/202240 minutes, 54 seconds
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Ro Khanna on dignity and democracy

The concept of dignity comes up a lot when we think about the condition of American democracy. Francis Fukuyama wrote about the demand for dignity and the politics of resentment and Chris Bail talked with us how dignity offline impacts our behavior online, just to name a few.Rep. Ro Khanna  combines his experience in politics and technology policy to address the question of dignity in his new book,  Dignity in the Digital Age. Khanna presents a vision for how the digital economy can create opportunities for people all across the country without uprooting them. He argues that democratizing digital innovation to build economically vibrant and inclusive communities. Instead of being subject to tech’s reshaping of our economy, Khanna says  we must channel those powerful forces toward creating a more healthy, equal, and democratic society.We begin this conversation by talking about the war in Ukraine and whether it might help bring unity to America. We also discuss why it's essential to make sure companies are contributing more than just jobs to the communities they operate in, as we heard from Alec MacGillis in his work on Amazon.Khanna represents Silicon Valley in Congress. He has taught economics at Stanford, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration, and represented tech companies and startups in private practice. Additional InformationDignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of UsRelated EpisodesHow Amazon is disrupting democracy
3/21/202241 minutes, 16 seconds
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Russia and Ukraine: How we got here

Was the war in Ukraine inevitable? What is Vladimir Putin trying to achieve? What does the conflict say about Ukraine as a democracy? Those are just a few of the questions Michael Berkman explores this week with Donna Bahry, professor emerita of political science at Penn State and an expert in  Soviet and post-Soviet politics and democratization. Donna has studied Russia and the Soviet Union for decades and traveled to the country dozes of time from late Gorbachev era through 2018. She also talks about the challenges of doing scholarly work in the region and how that task will become even more difficult in the wake of the current crisis. Related EpisodesWill Alexei Navalny make Russia more democratic? 
3/14/202234 minutes, 55 seconds
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Defending democracy at home and abroad

Robert Kagan is a foreign policy expert who turned his focus to the United States last fall in a Washington Post column titled "Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here" that became one of the Post's most-read pieces of 2021. We're lucky to have Kagan with us this week to discuss the ongoing crises of democracy at home and abroad as Russia's war on Ukraine continues to unfold.Kagan has argued that there was nothing inevitable about the relatively peaceful liberal democratic order that followed World War II, and that there is nothing inevitable about the perseverance of American democracy. In fact, he says that because so many reject the 2020 presidential election, we are already in a constitutional crisis, and it will take deliberate actions by the public and members of both political parties to get us out. For too many politicians, a recognition of our condition, let alone a commitment to those actions, appears to be a long way off.Kagan is the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board in the U.S. State Department. He is the author of The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World and The New York Times bestseller, The World America Made.Additional InformationKagan's piece on constitutional crisisKagan's piece on UkraineKagan's lecture at Penn StateRelated EpisodesSore losers are bad for democracyHow national parties are breaking state politics
3/7/202242 minutes, 27 seconds
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What academic freedom really means in a democracy

What should academic freedom look like in 2022? How has it become conflated with the idea of free speech? Who should decide how issues regarding faculty speech should be adjudicated? Those are just a few of the questions we explore this week with Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth, authors of It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. The book considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Bérubé and Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever.  They argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech.Bérubé is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Penn State; Ruth is a professor of film at Portland State University. They've also coauthored Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments. Additional InformationIt's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy and the Future of Academic FreedomRelated EpisodesJonathan Rauch on The Constitution of KnowledgeAre land-grant universities still democracy's colleges? 
2/28/202243 minutes, 55 seconds
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Tracing the rise of illiberalism

Thomas Main's new book The Rise of Illiberalism explores the philosophical underpinnings of this toxic political ideology and documents how it has infiltrated the mainstream of political discourse in the United States. By the early twenty-first century, Main writes, liberal democracy’s failure to deal adequately with social problems created a space illiberal movements could exploit to promote their particular brands of identity politics as an alternative. While illiberalism has found a home across the political spectrum, it is far more prevalent on the right — so much so that it appears to have taken over the modern-day Republican Party as evidenced on January 6, 2021. We explore those ideas with Main this week and also revisit the foundations of liberal democracy as outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Additional InformationThe Rise of IlliberalismThomas Main on TwitterRelated EpisodesSore losers are bad for democracyDaniel Ziblatt on how democracies die
2/21/202242 minutes, 28 seconds
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Moving beyond news deserts and misinformation

We've talked a lot on this show about the problems that news deserts, misinformation, and information silos present to democracy. Our guest this week says these things are all downstream from a much more fundamental disconnect between the need for a free press in a democracy and the models the United States has set up to make it happen.Victor Pickard is the C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society. We discuss the history of market failures and policy choices that led to the decline of local journalism and the spread of misinformation. Victor walks us through his vision for what a re-imagined public media ecosystem in the United States might look like and what it will take to get there. Examples like WBEZ's recent acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times provide examples of what's possible. Candis and Chris discuss how Victor's arguments about the assault on public media are similar to what we heard from Derek W. Black about public education last year.Additional InformationDemocracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation SocietyWBEZ acquires the Chicago Sun-TimesRelated EpisodesNews deserts are democracy deserts tooPublic schools, not government schoolsHow democracies can win the war on reality
2/14/202242 minutes, 57 seconds
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How national parties are breaking state politics

Over the past generation, the Democratic and Republican parties have each become nationally coordinated political teams. American political institutions, on the other hand, remain highly decentralized. In his forthcoming book, Laboratories Against Democracy, Jake Grumbach argues that as Congress has become more gridlocked, national partisan and activist groups have shifted their sights to the state level, nationalizing state politics in the process and transforming state governments into the engines of American policymaking in areas from health care to climate change. He also traces how national groups are using state governmental authority to suppress the vote, gerrymander districts, and erode the very foundations of democracy itself.Grumbach is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington. He was recently granted tenure. Congratulations, Jake! Additional InformationLaboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State PoliticsGrumbach's websiteGrumbach on TwitterRelated EpisodesFederalism in uncertain times
2/7/202242 minutes, 23 seconds
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Can the courts save civics education?

Recent elections and the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection have underscored worrisome trends in the present state of our democracy: the extreme polarization of the electorate, the dismissal of people with opposing views, and the widespread acceptance and circulation of one-sided and factually erroneous information. Only a small proportion of those who are eligible actually vote, and a declining number of citizens actively participate in local community activities.In Flunking Democracy, Michael Rebell makes the case that this is not a recent problem, but rather that for generations now, America’s schools have systematically failed to prepare students to be capable citizens. In the book and in this interview, he specific recommendations for how the courts can and should address this deficiency. He also talks about his efforts to make those ideas a reality — including petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court later this year.Rebell is Professor of Law and Educational Practice and Executive Director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College.Additional InformationCook v. McKee - the case Rebell and his colleagues are taking to the U.S. Supreme courtCenter for Educational Equity at Columbia UniversityFlunking Democracy: Schools, Courts, and Civic ParticipationRelated EpisodesPublic schools, not government schoolsCitizenship, patriotism, and democracy in the classroom
1/31/202240 minutes, 44 seconds
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When religion and democracy collide

Correction: In this episode, we referred to St. John's Church in Lafayette Square as a Presbyterian Church. It is an Episcopalian Church. We apologize for the error.Around the world, religion is being used to fuel "us vs. them" narratives and undermine the foundations of democracy. This week, we dive into what this means and how people of faith can chart a different path forward.Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy.  It examines the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. The book is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, which is why we're excited to have author David M. Elcott on the show this week. Elcott is the Taub Professor of Practice in Public Service and Leadership at the Wagner School of Public Service at NYU and director of the Advocacy and Political Action specialization.Additional InformationFaith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal DemocracyDemocracy and the language of faith - article in Democracy Journal
1/24/202237 minutes, 55 seconds
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Sore losers are bad for democracy

We're back for a new season and our 200th episode! Penn State's Jim Piazza returns to the show this week to discuss a new study on why the loser's consent is a critical part of a healthy democracy — and what happens when politicians and other elites fail to abide by it. Piazza found that countries where one of the main political parties lost the election but refused to accept the results experienced five domestic terrorist attacks per year, compared to one attack every two years in countries where political parties accepted election results. The “sore loser” effect also makes terrorism more acceptable, with one-third of people in countries that reject election results saying terrorism is justified, compared to 9% of people in countries where election results are accepted.At a time when many experts are sounding the alarm that "it can't happen here" might not hold, Piazza's work and the principles behind it are critically important to consider.Additional InformationArticle in Political Research QuarterlyArticle in The ConversationHow Civil Wars StartRelated EpisodesUnderstanding domestic terrorism - Piazza's first appearance on the show
1/17/202240 minutes, 50 seconds
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On democracy's doomsayers

There's no shortage of articles these days about how democracy is doomed in 2022 and/or 2024. Michael, Chris, and Candis discuss them this week and work through how much weight to give the doomsayers and how to take antidemocratic forces seriously without falling too far into despair. We also touch on what's happened in schools and at school board meetings over the past year, and what these developments mean for long-held theories about the power and stability of local government. Finally, we discuss the University of Austin, which is led by several former guests of this show, and whether it will really solve the problems it aims to.Thank you to everyone who's listened to and supported the show over the past year. We are taking a few weeks off and will be back with new episodes in January. Happy holidays! Additional InformationTrump's next coup has already begin - The AtlanticOur constitutional crisis is already here - The Washington PostTrump won't let America go. Can Democrats pry it away? - The New York TimesRelated EpisodesAmerican democracy's violent disruption 
12/20/202139 minutes, 10 seconds
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What does it take to sustain democracy?

Political disagreements are everywhere these days and most experts agree that too much political polarization is bad for democracy in the long run. How do we move beyond those disagreements, or at least not make them worse? Does the solution come from individual actions or institutional reform? Or perhaps a mix of both? This is what Robert Talisse describes as the "democrat's dilemma" and he argues the solution starts with introspection that he calls "democratic reflection."Drawing on social science research concerning political polarization and partisan identity, Talisse's new book Sustaining Democracy suggests that when we break off civil interactions with our political opponents, we imperil relations with our political allies. In the absence of engagement with our political critics, our alliances grow increasingly homogeneous, conformist, and hierarchical. Moreover, they fracture and devolve amidst internal conflicts. In the end, our political aims suffer because our coalitions shrink and grow ineffective.Michael and Chris contrast the need for democratic introspection and collaboration with the prospect of institutional reform and discuss how to make sense of Talisse's arguments as we approach the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection. Talisse previously joined us in December 2019 to discuss his book Overdoing Democracy.Additional InformationSustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other SideRelated EpisodesIs it possible to overdo democracy?
12/13/202139 minutes, 56 seconds
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Fannie Lou Hamer's fight continues today

In her book Until I Am Free, Keisha N. Blain situates Fannie Lou Hamer as a key political thinker alongside leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks and demonstrates how her ideas remain salient for a new generation of activists committed to dismantling systems of oppression in the United States and across the globe.Despite her limited material resources and the myriad challenges she endured as a Black woman living in poverty in Mississippi, Hamer committed herself to making a difference in the lives of others and improving American democracy for everyone. She refused to be sidelined in the movement and refused to be intimidated by those of higher social status and with better jobs and education. As she saw it, no one was free until everyone was free.Blain is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States with broad interests and specializations in African American history, the modern African diaspora, and women’s and gender studies. She is an associate professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and the president of the African American Intellectual History Society. She is currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. She is also a columnist for MSNBC, covering race, gender, and politics in historical and contemporary perspectives.Additional InformationUntil I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to AmericaHamer's 1964 Democratic National Convention speechBlain's websiteBlain on TwitterRelated EpisodesThe ongoing struggle for civil rightsCivil rights, civil unrest
12/6/202139 minutes, 59 seconds
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Andrew Yang and Charlie Dent on the future of America's political parties

This week, we broadcast a recording from a virtual event with Andrew Yang and Charlie Dent on political parties and democracy reform. We discuss open primaries, ranked-choice voting, universal voting, and more. Dent was the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s fall 2021 visiting fellow. He spent seven terms in Congress representing Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley and served in the Pennsylvania state legislature before that. He’s currently executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a CNN political analyst, and a 501c3 adviser for the Renew America Movement, which supports candidates who are committed to democracy and the rule of law. Yang ran for president in 2020 and mayor of New York City earlier this year. Most recently, he founded the Forward Party, a movement that brings together people interested in solving America’s problems, debating ideas in good faith, and advocating for policies like open primaries and ranked-choice voting. Before that, he started Humanity Forward to advance policies aimed at ending poverty. His latest book is Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy.Both Dent and Yang spend a lot of time thinking about how to fix what’s broken in American politics  but have different ideas about how to do that and where go from here, which made for a very interesting discussion.Additional InformationWatch the event on YouTubeForward Notes on the Future of Our DemocracyForward PartyRenew America MovementRelated EpisodesThe case for open primariesYour guide to ranked-choice votingHow to end democracy's doom loopA roadmap to a more equitable democracy
11/29/20211 hour, 14 minutes, 47 seconds
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The soul of democracy

As we've heard from Carol Anderson and others on this show, the fight for voting rights often breaks down along racial and partisan lines. Desmond Meade saw that as a problem and set out to change it by channeling our shared sense of humanity and the common good to push for change.Meade is a formerly homeless returning citizen who overcame many obstacles to eventually become the President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), Chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, and a graduate of Florida International University College of Law. He led the FRRC to a historic victory in 2018 with the successful passage of Amendment 4, a grassroots citizen’s initiative which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions. He is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow — a recipient of the organization's prestigious genius grant — and was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2019. He received the 2021 Brown Democracy Medal from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State.Additional InformationAmerica's Disenfranchised: Why Restoring Their Vote Can Save the Soul of Our DemocracyLet My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning CitizensMeade's Brown Democracy Medal lectureFlorida Rights Restoration CoalitionRelated EpisodesVoter suppression doesn't repeat, but it rhymesDanielle Allen on achieving democracy's ideals
11/22/202137 minutes, 34 seconds
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Jonathan Haidt on democracy's moral foundations [rebroadcast]

Jonathan Haidt is part of the newly-announced University of Austin, created in response to what its founders deem a lack of viewpoint diversity among college faculty. Haidt was beginning to explore those themes when he joined on the show in March 2019.We say on this show all the time that democracy is hard work. But what does that really mean? What it is about our dispositions that makes it so hard to see eye to eye and come together for the greater good? And why, despite all that, do we feel compelled to do it anyway? Jonathan Haidt is the perfect person to help us unpack those questions.We also explore what we can do now to educate the next generation of democratic citizens, based on the research Jonathan and co-author Greg Lukianoff did for their latest book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.Jonathan is social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. His research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures — including the cultures of American progressive, conservatives, and libertarians.Additional InformationThe University of AustinHeterodox AcademyThe Coddling of the American MindRelated  EpisodesA love letter to democratic institutions Andrew Sullivan on democracy's double-edged sword
11/15/202141 minutes, 44 seconds
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Why social media is so polarizing — and what we can do about it

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Bail's book, Breaking the Social Media Prism, challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail is professor of sociology and public policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. He is the author of Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream.Additional InformationBreaking the Social Media PrismThe Polarization LabBail's websiteBail on TwitterRelated EpisodesA path forward for social media and democracyFacebook is not a democracy
11/8/202144 minutes, 5 seconds
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What makes a campaign deplorable?

Political campaigns in the United States, especially those for the presidency, can be nasty—very nasty. And while we would like to believe that the 2020 election was an aberration, insults, invective, and yes, even violence have characterized U.S. electoral politics since the republic’s early days. By examining the political discourse around nine particularly deplorable elections, Mary E. Stuckey seeks to explain why. Stuckey is the Sparks Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State. She specializes in political and presidential rhetoric, political communication, and American Indian politics.After the interview, Michael Berkman and Candis Watts Smith discuss how the despicable discourse Stuckey describes trickles down to local politics, particularly school board races in the current election cycle.Additional InformationDeplorable: The Worst Presidential Campaigns from Jefferson to TrumpMary Stuckey on TwitterRelated EpisodesDemagogues are more common than you think
11/1/202142 minutes, 42 seconds
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Fighting for democracy in the GOP

As another election cycle approaches, moderates in the Republican Party have some choices to make. Will they continue to fight Trumpism from within? Or break out to form a new political party, perhaps in coalition with moderate Democrats who feel alienated by the party's leftward turn? Miles Taylor and Charlie Dent are two Republicans at the forefront of addressing that question through the Renew America, a movement to deepen America’s pro-democracy bench.By working together across party lines, the group hopes to shift the balance of power in Washington, DC away from those who want to dismantle democracy’s guardrails and back to real leaders who will put country over party.Taylor is the co-founder of Renew America, former chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security and author of the New York Times bestseller A Warning. Dent is the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s fall 2021 visiting fellow. He served seven terms in Congress representing and is now executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program and CNN political analyst.Additional InformationRenew AmericaMiles Taylor on TwitterCharlie Dent on TwitterRelated EpisodesWhat really motivates Trump supportersCongressional oversight and making America pragmatic again 
10/25/202135 minutes, 50 seconds
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Tom Nichols on democracy's worst enemy

Over the past 30 years, citizens of democracies who claim to value freedom, tolerance, and the rule of law have increasingly embraced illiberal politicians and platforms on both the right and the left. Democracy is in trouble, but who is really to blame?In Our Own Worst Enemy, Tom Nichols challenges the current depictions of the rise of illiberal and anti-democratic movements in the United States and elsewhere as the result of the deprivations of globalization or the malign decisions of elites. Rather, he places the blame for the rise of illiberalism on the people themselves. Ordinary citizens, laden with grievances, have joined forces with political entrepreneurs who thrive on the creation of rage rather than on the encouragement of civic virtue and democratic cooperation. While it will be difficult, Nichols argues that we need to defend democracy by resurrecting the virtues of altruism, compromise, stoicism, and cooperation — and by recognizing how good we've actually had it in the modern world.Nichols is Professor of National Security Affairs, at the US Naval War College, a columnist for USA Today, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Death of Expertise, No Use: Nuclear Weapons and US National Security (2013), and Eve of Destruction: The Coming Age of Preventive War.Additional InformationOur Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy Tom Nichols on TwitterRelated EpisodesPrimaries, parties, and the publicChris Beem on democratic virtues
10/18/202144 minutes, 58 seconds
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Independent commissions alone can't create fair maps

Gerrymandering is one of the topics we've discussed most on this show, with good reason. But those conversations mostly stopped at the solution of creating independent redistricting commissions to draw electoral maps, taking the process out of partisan-controlled state legislatures. While that's undeniably a good thing, this week's guest argues it's just one part of a bigger solution. An independent nonpartisan commission is not always going to create a nonpartisan map. Christopher Fowler is an associate professor of geography at Penn State and a member of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf's Redistricting Advisory Council. His research  examines the way our choices about geographic boundaries shape the outcomes we are able to observe. He examine neighborhoods, school catchment areas, electoral districts, metropolitan areas, and labor markets with a focus on how these units of observation reflect the distribution of populations in space. After the interview, Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith discuss whether ideas like ranked-choice voting and multi-member districts can take hold in America's political landscape. Regular listeners of the show will not be surprised to hear that Chris is doubtful, while Candis is optimistic.Additional InformationFowler's Monkey Cage article on redistrictingPennsylvania Redistricting Advisory CouncilRelated EpisodesExtreme maps, extreme politicsOne state's fight for fair maps
10/11/202144 minutes, 43 seconds
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Voter suppression doesn't repeat, but it rhymes

Carol Anderson's book One Person, No Vote was written before COVID-19, but many of the patterns she discussed are more salient than ever as states enact new voting restrictions ahead of the 2022 midterms. In the book and in this conversation, Anderson traces the history of voter suppression since the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder,  which nullified critical pieces of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.She draws parallels between poll taxes and literacy tests in the Jim Crow era to voter ID laws and other modern-day barriers designed to keep people of color from voting. As Mark Twain famously said, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." After listening to this conversation, it's hard not to think that's the case with voting. This week is National Voter Education week, an effort to bridge the gap between registering to vote and casting a ballot. Visit votereducationweek.org to learn more about this important effort.Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of the bestselling books One Person No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation's Divide, and The Second: Race and Guns in a  Fatally Unequal America. Additional InformationAnderson's websiteAnderson on TwitterBrennan Center for Justice on DMV closuresRelated EpisodesLaboratories of restricting democracy
10/4/202144 minutes, 29 seconds
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A love letter to democratic institutions

The problems of disinformation, conspiracies, and cancel culture are probably familiar to many of our listeners. But they're usually talked about separately, including on this show. In his new book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, Jonathan Rauch ties these threads together and shows how they contribute to a larger problem of a departure from facts and truth in favor of feelings and falsehoods. The book reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”—our social system for turning disagreement into truth. The institutions that Rauch describes as "reality-based communities," universities, media, government organizations, and the courts, need our support now more than ever as they face attacks from illiberal forces across the political spectrum. But are the problems on the left and the right really the same? Rauch argues they are. Michael Berkman and Chris Beem consider that equivalency after the interview.Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program and the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer of The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.  He has also authored research on political parties, marijuana legalization, LGBT rights and religious liberty, and more.Additional InformationThe Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of TruthKindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free ThoughtJonathan Rauch on TwitterRelated EpisodesHow democracies can win the war on realityAndrew Sullivan on democracy's double-edged swordJonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracyHow conspiracies are damaging democracy
9/27/202142 minutes, 6 seconds
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How Amazon is disrupting democracy

As we've said many times on this show, democracy is long and slow, which is the exact opposite of the ethos that Amazon has pushed into our culture through quick shipping, easily accessible entertainment, its takeover of cloud computing, and more.Amazon's expansion across America, from distribution facilities to data centers, is exacerbating regional inequities and contributing to the unraveling of America's social fabric. Not only that, cities competing for Amazon's  new facilities offer tax breaks that prevent funding from going to basic government services. And, the company's takeover of government procurement has taken lucrative contracts away from local businesses.Alec MacGillis, a senior reporter at ProPublica, chronicles these trends in new book Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America. The book chronicles how Amazon contributed to the gap between the country’s winning and losing regions, and how its workplace practices foster isolation and competition, rather than camaraderie and shared goals. Was Amazon deliberately trying to undermine democracy? Or using the existing system to its benefit?  We talk with MacGillis about founder Jeff Bezos's political philosophy and how it's impacted the company's decision-making over the years. We also discuss what we as democratic citizens can do to push back against some of these forces.  Additional InformationFulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click AmericaAlec MacGillis on TwitterAlec's websiteRelated EpisodesCan corporations be democratic citizens?Reimagining citizenship in a consumer world
9/20/202145 minutes, 15 seconds
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Abortion is not always a clash of absolutes

Candis Watts Smith takes a turn in the interviewer's chair this week for a conversation about abortion and American democracy following the passage of SB8 in Texas and the Supreme Court's response to it. Like a lot of things in American democracy, it's complicated.As Candis says in the episode, it isn’t typical for us to discuss “hot topics” or policy matters, per se, on Democracy Works. But, this policy and the Supreme Court’s response to it throws a great number of matters related to democracy into relief, including federalism, the role of the Court to protect and uphold the U.S. Constitution and constitutional rights, state politics as laboratories of democracy and policy innovation, and partisan strategies to create the country in their ideological image. Candis talks with Rebecca Kreitzer, associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert on gender and political representation, reproductive health policy and political inequality.  Rebecca was one of our first guest on Democracy Works back in 2018 and we're thrilled to have her back for a second appearance on this critically-important topic.Additional InformationRebecca's Monkey Cage article on Texas's  heartbeat lawPostscript podcast on abortion from the New Books NetworkRebecca Kreitzer on TwitterRelated EpisodesBehind the scenes of the "year of the woman" - Rebecca's first appearance on the show  
9/13/202131 minutes, 31 seconds
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Millennials' slow climb to political power

Generational divides in American politics are nothing new, but they seem particularly striking now as the oldest Millennials turn 40 this year. This generation has different lived experiences than its predecessors, but has been sidelines from political power as Baby Boomers live longer and benefit from incumbency advantages. Charlotte Alter has spent the past four years documenting these dynamics and join us this week to discuss.Alter is a senior correspondent at Time magazine and author of The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America. The book covers national-level politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elise Stefanik, as well as local leaders like mayors Svante Myrick (Ithaca, New York) and  Michael Tubbs (Stockton, California). Alter's reporting defines the class of young leaders who are remaking the nation–how grappling with 9/11 as teens, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, occupying Wall Street and protesting with Black Lives Matter, and shouldering their way into a financially rigged political system has shaped the people who will govern the future.Additional InformationThe Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform AmericaCharlotte Alter on TwitterThinking Is Cool podcastRelated EpisodesWill Millennials disrupt democracy?
9/6/202141 minutes, 51 seconds
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A summer of the individual vs. the common good

We're back after our summer break. Michael, Chris, Candis, and Jenna catch up on what happened over the summer, from COVID vaccine mandates to school board chaos to the refugee crisis in Afghanistan. The underlying theme of it all is one of democracy's central tensions — the collective vs. the individual. The tension between individual liberty and the common good plays itself out in America's COVID response, debates over how race and history are taught in schools, and how we respond to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. We discuss all of those issues this week and reflect on what our responsibilities are as democratic citizens. Related EpisodesRefugees and the politics of displacementThe clumsy journey to antiracismAdditional InformationChris Beem in The Conversation: Why refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is immoral and un-AmericanCandis Watts Smith in The Fulcrum: Experts fear ban on critical race theory could harm civics educationHurt Your Brain newsletter
8/30/202130 minutes, 11 seconds
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Extreme maps, extreme politics [reboradcast]

As redistricting begins across the country, we revisit our conversation with journalist and author David Daley about the consequences for American democracy if gerrymandering happens again this time around.  This episode originally aired in January 2021, not long after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.Daley has spent the past decade covering attempts by politicians to draw those maps to their advantage in a practice known as gerrymandering. He's also covered the groups of citizens across the country who pushed back against them to win some major reforms that will make the process look different now than it did in 2010.Daley is a journalist and author of Unrigged: How Citizens are Battling Back to Save Democracy. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Slate, the Washington Post, and New York magazine. He is a senior fellow at FairVote, the former editor of Salon, and lives in Massachusetts.Additional InformationDaley's op-ed on democracy deserts in The GuardianUnrigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save DemocracyDaley on TwitterRelated EpisodesOne state's fight for fair mapsNext-generation democracy: An interview with high school student Kyle Hynes, who won Pennsylvania's citizen mapmaking contest.
8/23/202139 minutes, 46 seconds
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Jan-Werner Müller on democracy's rules

Democracy and populism diverge at a single point. It’s like a fork in a road where both traditions depend on a common history, but they split in two. At first it may seem the choice doesn’t matter. You believe that eventually they will both lead to the same destination except they don’t. The choice leads to two different outcomes. Populism uses some of the same language of democracy. It has a similar vocabulary. But as we go farther down its path, the less in common they have with each other.Jan-Werner Müller is among the most recognizable voices on the subject of populism and democracy.  This conversation from the Democracy Paradox podcast touches on some of their most challenging aspects from political leadership to majority rule to militant democracy. This conversation explores some of the ideas at the heart of this podcast. Ideas that give definition to the very meaning of democracy.Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and author of Democracy Rules and What is Populism? Additional InformationDemocracy ParadoxDemocracy RulesJan-Werner Müller at Princeton Politics 
8/16/202149 minutes, 8 seconds
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Does Congress promote partisan gridlock? [rebroadcast]

Some of the most talked-about issues in Congress these days are not about the substance of policies or bills being debated on the floor. Instead, the focus is on the partisan conflict between the parties and the endless debate about whether individual members of Congress will break with party ranks on any particular vote. This behavior allows the parties to emphasize the differences between them, which makes it easier to court donors and hold voter attention.Some amount of competition between the parties is necessary in a healthy democracy, but have things gone too far? Frances E. Lee joins us this week to explain.Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs. She is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era with James M. Curry.Additional InformationLee's book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual CampaignHer lecture at Penn State on lawmaking in a polarized eraLee's websiteRelated EpisodesCongressional oversight and making America pragmatic againUnpacking political polarization
8/9/202139 minutes, 25 seconds
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Pete Davis is dedicated to the hard work of democracy

Many of us can recall the experience of scrolling through our phones or streaming TV apps without ever choosing something to focus on. Pete Davis describes this an "infinite browsing mode" and argues that it creates a culture where democracy can't fully thrive. Davis is cofounder of the Democracy Policy Network and author of Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing. His work is grounded in the notion of "long-haul heroes," or the people who show up day in and day out to make progress on the issues they care about while building stronger communities in the process. This could be anyone from the go-to event organizer in your town to people who work on nationwide campaigns for issues like racial equality and LGBTQ rights. This work has always been difficult, but Davis argues it's even harder now because of the constant distractions that our media environment provides, along with the FOMO and related feelings that prevent us from dedicating ourselves to anything in the long term. We unpack all of that in this episode and discuss how Davis is turning his ideas into action through the Democracy Policy Network.Related EpisodesThere is no "I" in democracyAdditional InformationDedicated : The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite BrowsingDemocracy Policy NetworkThis is What Democracy Looks Like podcastPete Davis on Twitter
8/2/202136 minutes, 25 seconds
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Masha Gessen on the Moscow duel

Three pillars hold up autocracy in Russia, author and New Yorker staff writer Masha Gessen says: media control, sham elections and downright terror. But the opposition movement spearheaded by imprisoned activist Alexei Navalny has struck at the heart of all three. This time on the show, Gessen explains how — and measures the power of democratic aspirations in a country struggling against corruption with hope, against the past with visions of a happier future.Navalny, a lawyer who has become President Vladimir Putin’s chief political rival, leads the Russia of the Future party, whose motto is “Russia will be happy.” In prison, his health failing, and recently off a 24-day hunger strike, Navalny continues to command respect — and a vast YouTube following — in part because he is brave enough to fight the system, even if it costs him his life, Gessen says. It’s a powerful message for a generation from whom many of the tools of critical social analysis have been withheld. Against the odds, Navalny’s resistance is inspiring young people who have grown up with no ruler other than Putin, a former KGB officer who views the totalitarian past with nostalgia.This episode comes from our colleagues at Democracy in Danger, a production of the Deliberative Media Lab at the University of Virginia. Additional InformationDemocracy in Danger podcastSurviving Autocracy by Masha GessenRelated EpisodesWill Alexi Navalny make Russia more democratic?
7/26/202128 minutes, 57 seconds
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Walter Shaub on transparency, ethics, and democracy

Can transparency, oversight, ethics and accountability save American democracy? What can Congress do to create lasting ethics reforms? How would the For the People Act change ethics rules for the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the U.S. government and are the changes enough? How can the Office of Government Ethics and Office of the Inspector General contribute to democratic accountability? How can Congress get a toe hold into reigning in presidential power?In this episode of the Democracy Matters podcast from the JMU Center for Civic Engagement, hosts Abe Goldberg, Carah Ong Whaley, and Angelina Clapp talk with Walter Shaub, who leads the Ethics and Accountability Initiative at the Project on Government Oversight about what elected and other government officials and the public can do to create and implement long-lasting reforms to shore up the barricades against authoritarianism.Additional InformationDemocracy Matters podcastProject on Government OversightWalter Shaub on TwitterJMU Civic 
7/19/202149 minutes, 25 seconds
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A different take on local news and democracy

Local news and democracy have been intertwined since the days of Alexis de Tocqueville. As we've discussed on this show before, news outlets are one way that people who live in a city or town keep up on what's happening in their local government. However, our guest this week argues the "watchdog" effect of local journalism might be overstated, along with the correlation between local news consumption and political participation.Nikki Usher is an associate professor in the College of Media at the University of Illinois and author of News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism.  In the book and in this conversation, Usher recasts the challenges facing journalism in terms of place, power, and inequality. She questions longstanding beliefs about the relationship between local news and civic engagement and separates observed behavior from myths about American democracy and the media's role within it. This conversation originally appeared on New Books in Journalism, part of the New Books Network.Additional InformationNews for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American JournalismNew Books NetworkRelated EpisodesNews deserts are democracy deserts tooFacebook is not a democracy
7/12/202135 minutes, 22 seconds
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How to end democracy's doom loop [rebroadcast]

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America. He is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America and The Business of America is Lobbying. He is also the co-host of the podcast Politics in Question, and writes for the New York Times, Vox, and FiveThirtyEight, among other outlets. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California.Hear more from Drtuman at a virtual event on "Democracy's Crises and Failure of Imagination" sponsored by The Democracy Group podcast network. Lee will be joined by Carah One Whaley of James Madison University, democracy entrepreneur Turi Munthe, and Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle. Join us Wednesday, July 7 at 2:00 p.m. ET or watch the recording at democracygroup.org.  Additional InformationJuly 7 event with The Democracy GroupBreaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in AmericaRelated EpisodesDoes Congress promote partisan gridlock?Primaries, parties and the publicHow the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending politics  
7/5/202142 minutes, 41 seconds
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Democracy as a way of life

We live in an era defined by a sense of separation, even in the midst of networked connectivity. As cultural climates sour and political division spreads, our guest this week suggests there is no better time to reconsider ideas of unity in democracy.In his book, The Ethics of Oneness, Jeremy David Engels argues that if the lessons of oneness are taken to heart, particularly as they were expressed and celebrated by Whitman, and the ethical challenges of oneness considered seriously, it is possible to counter the pervasive and problematic American ideals of hierarchy, exclusion, violence, and domination. Engels is professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State and the Barry Director of the Paterno Fellows Program. He's also a yoga and meditation instructor who has spent time studying yoga and philosophy in India. He is the author of The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita, The Art of Gratitude, The Politics of Resentment, and Enemyship: Democracy and Counter-Revolution in the Early Republic. Additional InformationThe Ethics of OnenessJeremy's websiteJoin The Democracy Group podcast network on July 7, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. ET for a virtual event on "Democracy's Crises and Failure of Imagination" featuring Lee Drutman of New America, Carah Ong Whaley of James Madison University, and Turi Munthe of Parlia. Register here or visit democracygroup.org to watch the recording.
6/28/202132 minutes, 26 seconds
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Your guide to ranked-choice voting [rebroadcast]

The New York City mayoral primary is this week and will be the first one to use ranked-choice voting. This week, we revisit an episode that aired not longer after the city's voters approved ranked-choice voting via ballot measure  in November 2019. What is ranked-choice voting? How does it work? And, is it more democratic than the single-vote method we’re used to? This week’s guest has answers to all of those questions.Burt L. Monroe is Liberal Arts Professor Political Science, Social Data Analytics, and Informatics at Penn State and Director of the university’s Center for Social Data Analytics. He says ranked-choice voting is generally a good thing for democracy, but not entirely without problems of its own. We also talk about bullet voting, donkey voting, and other types of voting that have been tried around the world.As Michael and Chris discuss, ranked-choice voting falls into a category of grassroots organizing around pro-democracy initiatives like gerrymandering and open primaries. These efforts signal a frustration with the status quo and a desire to make the rules of democracy more fair and equitable.Additional InformationFairvote, an advocacy group for ranked-choice voting and election reformBurt’s Google Scholar listingRelated EpisodesHow to end democracy's doom loopThe case for open primariesOne state’s fight for fair maps
6/21/202139 minutes, 44 seconds
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Is it possible to overdo democracy? [rebroadcast]

As we enter summer vacation season and emerge from pandemic isolation, Robert Talisse thinks it’s a good idea to take a break from politics. In fact, he might go so far as to say democracy is better off if you do.Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and author of a new book called Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place. The book combines philosophical analysis with real-world examples to examine the infiltration of politics into all social spaces, and the phenomenon of political polarization.Talisse's next book,Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe The Other Side, will be out later this year. He's also the host of the Why We Argue podcast.Additional InformationOverdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its PlaceSustaining Democracy: What We Owe the Other SideWhy We Argue podcast
6/14/202141 minutes, 58 seconds
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Looking back to move forward

We end this season the way it began, with a roundtable discussion on the state of American democracy. Michael, Chris, and Candis reflect on the January 6 insurrection, the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's death, and the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre.On the one hand, it's easy to be pessimistic about where things are as state legislatures continue to pass restrictive voting measures and Congress seems more polarized than ever. Yet, it's our duty as democrats to persevere despite these challenges and push the limits of our imagination about what democracy can and should be.We've touched on both of those dynamics this season — from journalists David Daley and Chris Fitzsimon talking about state legislatures creating "democracy deserts" to Harvard professor Danielle Allen discussing how we can establish a new common purpose as Americans and Peter Pomerantsev on how to combat misinformation online. If you missed any of those episodes, check out the links below.This is our last new episode with the entire team for the summer. Over the next few months, we'll be airing bonus episodes, rebroadcasts, and episodes from other podcasts we think you might enjoy.Related EpisodesAmerican democracy's violent disruptionDanielle Allen on achieving democracy's idealsLaboratories of restricting democracyExtreme maps, extreme politics Additional InformationThe Vital Center podcastOn Opinion podcast
6/7/202128 minutes, 10 seconds
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The people vs. the bureaucrats in Flint

This week, we explore the questions of who governs in a democracy and what happens when the power is taken away from the people. Ashley Nickels, associate professor of political science at Kent Sate University, examines these questions through the lens of a municipal takeover in Flint, Michigan in 2011 that replaced elected city officials with an emergency manager appointed by the state. Nickels also challenges the notion that policy can be removed from politics and treating it as such has implications for democracy. The focus on austerity and cost cutting set the stage for the Flint water crisis in 2014 and, Nickels argues, left the city's residents with little power to change the situation. Nickels is the author of Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan: Unpacking the Policy Paradox of Municipal Takeovers, which won the American Political Science Association's  Robert A. Dahl Award in 2020 — an award given to recognize scholarly work in the field of democracy. Michael and Candis discuss how Nickels's work picks up some of the questions that Dahl's landmark work on democracy introduced in the mid-20th century.Additional InformationPower, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan: Unpacking the Policy Paradox of Municipal TakeoverAshley Nickels's websiteGrowing Democracy podcastRelated EpisodesThe power of local governmentTen thousand democracies
5/31/202139 minutes, 13 seconds
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There is no "I" in democracy

Shaylyn Romney Garrett is a writer, speaker and changemaker pursuing connection, community, and healing in a fragmented world. She is the co-author with Robert Putnam of The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, which charts what the authors describe as the "I-We-I" curve in American democratic engagement and civic life. In the book and in this interview, Romney Garrett takes us back to the Gilded Age, another time when America was highly unequal and divided. We discuss the reforms that came out of that era and how it led to decades of a "we" culture that got us through war and economic hardship with a reimagined civil society.These trends reversed throughout the 1970s and 80s, but Romney Garrett argues that we could be on the cusp of making a shift back to 'we" — if we're willing to put in the work to get there. As a social entrepreneur, she talks about some of the organizations and projects that she sees as starting down the path toward this transformation.Additional InformationThe Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It AgainShaylyn Romney Garrett's websiteRelated EpisodesHow democracies can win the war on realityColored Conventions show us where democracy really happens
5/24/202140 minutes, 32 seconds
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How democracies can win the war on reality

Misinformation, disinformation, propaganda — the terms are thrown around a lot but often used to describe the same general trend toward conspiratorial thinking that spread from the post-Soviet world to the West over the past two decades. Peter Pomerantsev had a front seat to this shift and is one of the people trying to figure out how to make the Internet more democratic and combat disinformation from both the supply side and the demand side. These issues came to a head in the United States last week as Liz Cheney was removed from her leadership position in Congress for not pledging her support to the lies surrounding a rigged 2020 election. Michael and Chris begin with a discussion of this dynamic before the interview.Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at the London School of Economics and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality and Nothing is True and Everything Is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia. He has a forthcoming project with Anne Applebaum that will examine why people believe in conspiracies and how to create content that fosters collaboration, rather than sows division. Additional InformationThis is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against RealityHow to Put Out Democracy's Dumpster Fire - article with Anne Applebaum in The AtlanticPeter Pomerantsev on TwitterRelated EpisodesA path forward for social media and democracyCan pranksters save democracy?How conspiracies are damaging democracy
5/17/202139 minutes, 42 seconds
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Conspiracism finds a home on the intellectual right

Chris Beem takes the interviewer's chair this week for a conversation with political theorist Laura K. Field about her recent work that examines how the conspiracism described by Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead in their book A Lot of People Are Saying has made its way to prominent conservative intellectuals and the institutions that support them. The conversation ends with ways that listeners can take conspiracy-minded arguments with the appropriate grain of salt and perhaps disconnect from politics a little in the process. Field is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and scholar in residence at American University. She he writes about current political affairs from a vantage point informed by the history of political thought. Her academic writing spans antiquity and modernity, and has appeared in the The Journal of Politics, The Review of Politics, and Polity. She earned a Ph.D. in political theory and public law from the University of Texas at Austin.Additional InformationThe Highbrow Conspiracism of the New Intellectual Right: A Sampling From the Trump YearsRevisiting "Why Liberalism Failed:" A Five-Part SeriesLaura K. Field on TwitterThe Niskanen Center's podcasts: The Science of Politics and The Vital CenterRelated EpisodesHow conspiracies are damaging democracy?Is it possible to overdo democracy?
5/10/202129 minutes, 58 seconds
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The Federalist Society's ideas have consequences for democracy

Is the Federalist Society bad for democracy? There's nothing inherently wrong with groups of like-minded people organizing to share and disseminate their ideas — everyone from James Madison to Alexis de Tocqueville would agree on that. However, our guest this week argues that the group's outsized role in the courts has undermined the notion of judicial independence, one of the hallmarks of our democratic experiment.Amanda Hollis-Brusky is an associate professor of politics at Pomona College. She is the author of Ideas with Consequences, which examines the history of the Federalist Society and how it's shaped the courts and their relationship to the other branches of government over the past 40 years.Additional InformationIdeas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative CounterrevolutionAmanda's September 2020 congressional testimony Related EpisodesThe Supreme Court's politics and power
5/3/202144 minutes, 31 seconds
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Colored Conventions show us where democracy really happens

For nearly 100 years, African Americans gathered in cities across the United States to participate in state and national-level political meetings that went far beyond slavery and conventional racial narratives to discuss education, labor, and what true equal citizenship would look like. This rich history went largely unnoticed for decades until P. Gabrielle Foreman and her colleagues formed the Colored Conventions Project to collect and categorize convention records and associated documents.Foreman and Colored Conventions Project Co-Director Jim Casey, both professors at Penn State, join us this week to explain what the Colored Conventions were and how they fit into the larger arc of the Black freedom struggle and the ongoing effort to make the United States a fully-inclusive multiracial democracy. In addition to co-leading the Colored Conventions Project, Foreman and Casey are also co-authors ofThe Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century, released in March 2021 by the University of North Carolina Press.Additional InformationThe Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth CenturyThe Colored Conventions ProjectP. Gabrielle Foreman on TwitterRelated EpisodesThe long road to a multiracial democracy 
4/26/202141 minutes, 38 seconds
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Can pranksters save democracy?

Srjda Popovic and Sophia A. McClennen have appeared on our show separately and are now joining forces to apply a research framework to dilemma actions, a nonviolent organizing tactic that works by capitalizing on a belief that's commonly held by the public but not supported by those in power. Rather than simply getting people together to protest in the streets, you organize them to do something that causes a scene, like kissing on a crowded subway platform or planting flowers in potholes that line a city's streets. Authority figures are faced with the dilemma of making themselves look foolish by taking the bait or doing nothing and looking weak. Either way, the pranksters win and can gain media attention, new members for their cause, and in some cases, a much-needed morale boost.Popovic is co-founder and executive director of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), an organization that trains nonviolent activists around the world. McClennen is a professor of international affairs and comparative literature at Penn State. She studies how satire and irony impact political actions and behavior. Popovic and McClennen collaborated on the new book Pranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent Activism, written as part of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy's 2020 Brown Democracy Medal.Additional InformationPranksters vs. Autocrats: Why Dilemma Actions Advance Nonviolent ActivismCenter for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS)Related EpisodesA playbook for organizing in turbulent timesSatire is good for more than just a few laughs 
4/19/202130 minutes, 43 seconds
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Public schools, not government schools

The Trump administration infamously referred to public schools as "failing government schools," illustrating how education has been caught up in the broader attack on the roots of American democracy. While the language is new, Derek W. Black argues the sentiment very much is not.Black is a professor of law at the University of South Carolina and one of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy, focusing  on school funding and equality for disadvantaged students He is the author of Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy. The book traces the legal history of public education, and how the right to education was challenged during Reconstruction, the Civil Rights era, and other pivotal moments in American history.After the interview, Candis and Chris discuss the ways that neoliberalism has impacted public education, the promise and peril of teacher's unions, and how COVID-19  has further complicated our already complex relationship with public education.Additional InformationBlack's websiteSchoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American DemocracyBlack's talk for Penn State's Center for Education and Civil RightsThis week's featured show from The Democracy Group podcast network: How Do We Fix It? Related EpisodesSchool segregation then and nowCitizenship, patriotism, and democracy in the classroom
4/12/202143 minutes, 51 seconds
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Reforming criminal justice from the inside out

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner joins us to discuss the promise and peril of institutional reform and how he built a coalition of voters who are traditionally overlooked in politics. He spent his career as a civil rights attorney, not a as a prosecutor like his predecessors. He's part of a growing movement of progressive district attorneys who focus on ending mass incarceration, not solely on enforcing law and order. Krasner won in 2017 and increased voter turnout in an off-year election; he is up for re-election this year. He is the subject of the new PBS Independent Lens documentary Philly D.A., which follows his campaign and first three years in office. He is also the author of For the People: A Story of Justice and Power. Both the book and the documentary series will be released April 20.Additional InformationPhilly D.A. from PBS Independent LensFor the People: A Story of Justice and PowerThis week's featured show from The Democracy Group podcast network: Let's Find Common GroundRelated EpisodesWhat Serial taught Sarah Koenig about criminal justiceThe world's most punitive democracy
4/5/202140 minutes, 57 seconds
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Laboratories of restricting democracy

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, legislators in 43 states have introduced more than 250 bills aimed at restricting access to voting in person, by mail, or both. Chris Fizsimon, director and publisher of States Newsroom, returns to the show to give us a birds-eye view of what's happening on the ground in state legislatures. We discuss how Republican legislators are pushing things like shortened mail-in voting windows, expanded voter ID requirements, and other cumbersome administrative changes under the guise of protecting or restoring election integrity after the 2020 election. After the interview, Michael and Candis reflect on the broader question of voting as a partisan issue and what that means for the future of American democracy.States Newsroom is a nonprofit news organization with newsrooms across the country specifically focused on state politics. Fitzsimon joined us last spring to discuss COVID-19 protests at state capitols. Additional InformationStates NewsroomBrennan Center State Voting Bills TrackerChris Fitzsimon on TwitterLeadership Now: How Businesses Can Support DemocracyRelated EpisodesGive me liberty or give me COVID-19? - Fitzsimon's first appearance on the showThis Week's Democracy Group podcast network featured show: Our Body Politic 
3/29/202141 minutes, 50 seconds
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Danielle Allen on achieving democracy's ideals

Danielle Allen is a leader of two large-scale efforts to make democracy truly inclusive and reimagine the way we teach new generations of democratic citizens. She joins us this week to discuss both initiatives and how to build coalitions for effective changeAllen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and Director of Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. She is a leader and spokesperson for Our Common Purpose from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Educating for American Democracy, a collaboration among dozens of civics-focused organizations and educators.These projects share a theme that democracy is in crisis and the only way out of it is to double down on democratic reforms while wrestling with our complicated past and admitting that the United States has never been a fully inclusive democracy. Allen says that reforms are achievable and desired by many people across the country and across the political spectrum. Getting there won't be easy, however. Chris describes these efforts as the "Manhattan Project for democracy," but Allen says she is a "not an optionalist," meaning that, if we want democracy to succeed, we have no other choice but to push forward despite the naysayers out there.Additional InformationOur Common PurposeEducating for American DemocracyAllen's lecture for the McCourtney Institute Allen on TwitterRelated EpisodesCitizenship, patriotism, and democracy in the classroomYour guide to ranked-choice votingThe case for open primaries
3/22/202134 minutes, 48 seconds
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Reimagining citizenship in a consumer world

If you're listening to this podcast, you probably don't fit Ethan Porter's definition of a consumer citizen, but you probably know someone who does — someone who tunes out of politics and would rather focus on just about anything else. Porter argues that appealing to consumer behavior might be on way to spark civic engagement among this group. In The Consumer Citizen, Porter also makes the case that Americans would trust the government more if it did a better job of communicating about its services. He has some ideas about how businesses can join the effort to increase civics education for everyone, not just students in school. We cover all of those topics in this conversation, and Michael and Chris offer their reflections — and a healthy dose of skepticism — after the interview.Porter is an assistant professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 2016. He is the author of The Consumer Citizen and the forthcoming False Alarm: The Truth About Political Mistruths in the Trump Era.  Additional InformationThe Consumer CitizenEthan Porter on TwitterRelated EpisodesWhen the "business of business" bleeds into politics
3/15/202137 minutes, 10 seconds
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Understanding — and addressing — domestic terrorism

When the social fabric and institutions the hold a democracy together are weakened, it can create a breeding ground for extremism that radicalization that might eventually lead to acts of domestic terrorism like the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. It's a vicious cycle — weaker democracy breeds more distrust which leads to more extreme actions. As Anne Applebaum reminded us last week, democracy is not inevitable and takes hard work to sustain. This week, we break down what domestic terrorism is and how it largely spread unnoticed for much of the 21st century while the focus was on international terrorism after 9/11. Our guest is James Piazza, Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science at Penn State and an expert on the study of terrorism, including its socioeconomic roots, the role of minority rights, and state repression of terrorist activity. Piazza talks about why it seems to have taken so long for the U.S. to recognize domestic terrorism as a threat and what 20 years of studying international terrorism can teach us about radicalization and deradicalization.Additional InformationPiazza's websitePiazza in The Conversation on hate speech and political violenceMcCourtney Institute Mood of the Nation Poll on trust in the FBI
3/8/202135 minutes, 30 seconds
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Anne Applebaum on why democracy is not inevitable

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and a senior fellow at The Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She joined the McCourtney Institute for Democracy for a virtual event on February 17, 2021 to discuss her most recent book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. This episode includes the closing remarks from Applebaum's lecture, followed by a Q&A with Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle that covers the future of the Republican Party, how the Cold War served as a unifier for Republicans and Democrats, and why she believes economic inequality and democratic erosion are not as closely linked as some people think. Additional InformationVideo of Applebaum's Feb. 17 lectureTwilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of AuthoritarianismApplebaum's work in The AtlanticRelated EpisodesDaniel Ziblatt on How Democracies DieViktor Orban's "velvet repression" in HungaryBrexit and the UK's identity crisis 
3/1/202144 minutes, 3 seconds
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The long road to a multiracial democracy

Seizing Freedom is a new podcast from Virginia Public Media that tells the stories of Black Americans during Reconstruction who fought for the everyday freedoms that many of us take for granted, like the right to decide how to make a living or which causes to support. Drawing from host Kidada Williams's research on historical records of formerly enslaved people, the show brings to light voices that have been muted throughout American history.Williams is associate professor of history at Wayne State University, author of They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I, and editor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism and Racial Violence. Additional InformationSeizing Freedom podcastKidada WilliamsRelated EpisodesThe clumsy journey to antiracismCivil rights, civil unrestThe ongoing struggle for civil rights 
2/22/202128 minutes, 24 seconds
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A path forward for social media and democracy

Sinan Aral has spent two decades studying how social media impacts our lives, from how we think about politics to how we find a romantic partner. He argues that we're now at the crossroads of a decade of techno-utopianism followed by a decade of techno-dystopianism. How to reconcile the promise and peril of social media is one of the biggest questions facing democracy today.Aral is the David Austin Professor of Management, Marketing, IT, and Data Science at MIT; director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy; and head of MIT’s Social Analytics Lab. He is the author of The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health — And How We Must Adapt .In his book and in this conversation, Aral goes under the hood of the biggest, most powerful social networks to tackle the critical question of just how much social media actually shapes our choices, for better or worse.Additional InformationThe Hype MachineSinan Aral on TwitterRelated EpisodesFacebook is not a democracyFree speech from the Founding Fathers to Twitter
2/15/202139 minutes, 7 seconds
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Will Alexei Navalny make Russia more democratic?

Alexei Navalny has been a figure in Russian opposition for years, but garnered international attention recently though social media and what's widely believed to be an assassination attempt by the Russian government in the fall. This week, we unpack the complicated nature of Russian democracy and how the U.S. and other countries should respond — or not —  to what's happening there now.Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America and a non-resident allow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He is the author of two books on American history and culture, and he has published articles and essays on the transatlantic relationship, on U.S.–Russian relations, and on international affairs in The New Republic, The New York Times, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.Additional InformationKimmage's New Republic article on Russian democracyKimmage at the German Marshall FundOut of Order podcastRelated EpisodesHong Kong's fight is everyone's fightBrazil's tenuous relationship with democracy
2/8/202136 minutes, 49 seconds
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Direct democracy's dark side

From gerrymandering to ranked-choice voting to expanding voting rights, the ballot initiative has been essential to expanding and reforming democracy in recent years. However, the initiative has also been used to constrain minority rights and push the public to act on polarizing issues like the death penalty and immigration.Ted Lascher and Joshua Dyck are the authors of Initiatives Without Engagement: A Realistic Appraisal of Direct Democracy's Secondary Effects. In the book, they develop and test a theory that can explain the evidence that the ballot initiative process fails to provide the civic benefits commonly claimed for it, and the evidence that it increases political participation. Ultimately, they argue that the basic function of direct democracy is to create more conflict in society — something that runs counter to the way initiatives are often framed by scholars and democracy reformers.Lascher is Professor of Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Sacramento. Dyck is  Associate Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Center for Public Opinion at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.Additional InformationInitiatives Without Engagement: A Realistic Appraisal of Direct Democracy's Secondary EffectsJoshua Dyck on TwitterRelated EpisodesThe democracy rebellion happening in states across the U.S.Winning the "democracy lottery"Extreme maps, extreme politics
2/1/202137 minutes, 7 seconds
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Check out our partners in The Democracy Group

We'll be back with a new episode of Democracy Works next week. In the meantime, we invite you to check out our partner podcasts in The Democracy Group podcast network. Here's a small sampling of what the network's shows have covered recently:Politics in Question examines the future of the Republican Party with the author of a new book on the Tea Party and insurgent factions in American policies.How Do We Fix It? explores free speech and big tech with former ACLU president Nadine Strossen.Future Hindsight discusses the link between Christianity and white supremacy in United States history. Another Way by Lawrence Lessig shines a light on what political reform lessons the United States can draw from Alaska.Democracy Matters from James Madison University explores the history of insurrection and section in the United States with a panel of faculty experts.70 Million explores the push for criminal justice reform in jails throughout the United StatesThe Science of Politics from the Niskanen Center explores the politics of homeschoolingOut of Order from the German Marshall Fund of the United States takes stock of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which recently ended.Learn more about the network and subscribe to its newsletter for updates at democracygroup.org.
1/25/20212 minutes, 20 seconds
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Extreme maps, extreme politics

Despite ongoing threats of violence, the wheels of democracy continue to turn, and in 2021, that means redistricting. States will draw new electoral maps this year using data from the 2020 Census. Our guest this week has spent the past decade covering attempts by politicians to draw those maps to their advantage in a practice known as gerrymandering. He's also covered the groups of citizens across the country who pushed back against them to win some major reforms that will make the process look different now than it did in 2010.David Daley is a journalist and author of Unrigged: How Citizens are Battling Back to Save Democracy. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Slate, the Washington Post, and New York magazine. He is a senior fellow at FairVote, the former editor of Salon, and lives in Massachusetts.Additional InformationUnrigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save DemocracyDavid Daley on TwitterFair Districts PA on judicial gerrymanderingRelated EpisodesOne state's fight for fair mapsNext-generation democracy: An interview with high school student Kyle Hynes, who won Pennsylvania's citizen mapmaking contest.
1/18/202138 minutes, 34 seconds
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American democracy's violent disruption

Democracy Works hosts Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, and Candis Watts Smith reflect on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and what it says about the condition of American democracy. They also discuss whether it's possible to learn from this moment and what guideposts they'll be looking for to determine whether all the talk about protecting and restoring democracy we've heard since the attack will translate into action.This episode was recorded on Friday, January 8, 2021. Additional InformationStatement from Michael Berkman and Chris Beem on January 6, 2021 attackRelated EpisodesAndrew Sullivan on democracy's double-edged swordWhat really motivates Trump supportersDaniel Ziblatt on "How Democracies Die" 
1/11/202132 minutes, 40 seconds
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What neoliberalism left behind [rebroadcast]

Neoliberalism is one of those fuzzy words that can mean something different to everyone. Wendy Brown is one of the world’s leading scholars on neoliberalism and argue that a generation of neoliberal worldview among political, business, and intellectual leaders led to the populism we’re seeing throughout the world today. But is it mutually exclusive to democracy? Not necessarily.Brown joins us this week to help make sense of what neoliberalism is, and where things stand today. We were lucky enough to get an advance copy of her book, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, which will be released in July. It’s a follow up to her 2015 book, Undoing the Demos, and you’ll hear her talk about how her thinking has changed since then.Brown is the Class of 1936 First Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches political theory. Additional InformationWendy’s books: In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, Undoing the DemosWendy’s website Our episode with David Frum
1/4/202139 minutes, 59 seconds
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How conspiracies are damaging democracy [rebroadcast]

From Pizzagate to Jeffrey Epstein, conspiracies seem to be more prominent than ever in American political discourse. What was once confined to the pages of supermarket tabloids is now all over our media landscape. Unlike the 9/11 truthers or those who questioned the moon landing, these conspiracies are designed solely to delegitimize a political opponent — rather than in service of finding the truth. As you might imagine, this is problematic for democracy.Democracy scholars Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum call it “conspiracy without the theory” and unpack the concept in their book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Russell is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth. Nancy is the Senator Joseph Clark Research Professor of Ethics in Politics at Harvard.As you’ll hear, the new conspiricism is a symptom of a larger epistemic polarization that’s happening throughout the U.S. When people no longer agree on a shared set of facts, conspiracies run wild and knowledge-producing institutions like the government, universities, and the media are trusted less than ever.Additional InformationA Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
12/28/202037 minutes, 16 seconds
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Did democracy work in 2020?

This episode was recorded on December 15, 2020, the day after the Electoral College voted to confirm Joe Biden as the next United States President. However, some Republicans refuse to accept the result and vow to continue fighting the result until Inauguration Day. Michael, Chris, and Candis discuss what these challenges mean for the long-term health and legitimacy of American elections and American democracy. They also discuss damage to the institutions that comprise America's liberal democracy and what it will take to repair them moving forward. Finally, they touch on increasing polarization and whether a generational shift will change the dynamics over time. This our final new episode of the year. We'll be on a winter break for the next few weeks, during which time we'll be rebroadcasting some episodes from our back catalog that you might have missed. If there are any guests or topics you would like us to cover in 2021, please email [email protected] to share your ideas.Thank you to our colleagues at WPSU for helping us produce the show every week — Andy Grant, Emily Reddy, Kristine Allen, Anne Danahy, Jen Bortz, Chris Kugler, and Mark Stitzer.From our team to your and your family, best wishes for a happy holiday season!
12/21/202028 minutes, 59 seconds
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The people want pot

Lee Hannah and Dan Mallinson have been studying marijuana policy for several years and watching as initiatives pass in states across the country. We discuss how the process of organizing around a ballot initiative has changed as the marijuana industry grows, and whether the growing number of states legalizing marijuana will lead to changes at the federal level.Hannah is associate professor of political science at Wright State University and Mallinson is assistant professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg. Both received their Ph.Ds from Penn State, where they worked with Democracy Works host Michael Berkman.This episode hits many of the items on the Democracy Works bingo card — federalism, states as laboratories of democracy, ballot initiatives, social justice, and more. Additional InformationHannah and Mallinson's article on federalism and marijuana legalization for the London School of EconomicsHannah on TwitterMallinson on TwitterRelated EpisodesThe democracy rebellion happening in states across the U.S.Using the tools of democracy to address economic inequality 
12/14/202041 minutes, 42 seconds
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What really motivates Trump supporters

John Hibbing is the Foundation Regent University Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska. He studies the manner in which these biological variations mitigate the way in which individuals respond to politically relevant environmental occurrences. His latest book is The Securitarian Personality: What Really Motivates Trump's Base and Why It Matters for the Post-Trump Era. The book draws from an original national survey that includes over 1,000 strong Trump supporters and Hibbing's own experience at a Trump rally in the Midwest. Hibbing argues Trump's base is driven by the desire for security, not fear or authoritarianism as others claim. In the book, and in this interview, Hibbing also provides insight into the approaches likely to increase levels of political civility in the future.Additional InformationThe Securitarian Personality: What Really Motivates Trump's Base and Why It Matters for the Post-Trump Era Hibbing's University of Nebraska faculty pageHibbing on TwitterWe are conducting a listener survey in partnership with our colleagues in The Democracy Group podcast network. Take a few minutes to help us learn more about how we can make epodes that will better serve you in 2021 and beyond and receive a Democracy Group notebook. Take the survey.Related EpisodesJournalist Salena Zito on Trump voters and her book "The Great Revolt"Jonathan Haidt on psychology and political polarization  
12/7/202038 minutes, 39 seconds
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The myth of the "Latino vote"

We are conducting a listener survey in partnership with our colleagues in The Democracy Group podcast network. Take a few minutes to help us learn more about how we can make epodes that will better serve you in 2021 and beyond and receive a Democracy Group notebook. Take the survey.Geraldo Cadava is a professor of History and Latina and Latino Studies at Northwestern University. His book,"The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity from Nixon to Trump," examines little-understood history of Hispanic Americans with a cultural study of how post–World War II Republican politicians actively courted the Hispanic vote.In the book and in this interview, Cadava offers insight into the complicated dynamic between Latino liberalism and conservatism, which, when studied together, shine a crucial light on a rapidly-changing demographic that will impact American elections for years to come.Additional InformationThe Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity from Nixon to TrumpCadava's lecture for Penn State Latinx StudiesCadava's websiteCadava on TwitterRelated EpisodesLatino immigrants and the changing makeup of American democracyStreet-level bureaucrats at the border 
11/30/202037 minutes, 45 seconds
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Can corporations be democratic citizens?

Dawn Carpenter is the creator and host of What Does It Profit? - a podcast that explores how we can reconcile capitalism’s demand for profit with the long term well-being of people and the planet, She is a former investment banker who had a mid-career pivot to studying applied ethics, the nature work, and the responsibilities of wealth. Dawn and Jenna discuss the rights and responsibilities corporations have to both shareholders and stakeholders, and how those dynamics have evolved from the postwar Keynsian period through the neoliberal era to the crossroads we seem to be at today.We'll be back with a full episode next week. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving from our team to yours and we hope you enjoy this interview.Additional InformationWhat Does It Profit?Related EpisodesWhat neoliberalism left behindWhen business bleeds into politics 
11/23/202029 minutes, 55 seconds
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Is common ground hiding in plain sight?

Will Friedman is president of Public Agenda, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and public engagement organization that strives to strengthen democracy and expand opportunity for all Americans. One of the organization's major projects is the Hidden Common Ground Initiative, which challenges the increasingly dominant narrative of a hopelessly-divided America by identifying and elevating the areas and narratives where Americans agree on solutions to politically-polarized issues, and by fostering productive dialogue on those areas where we truly disagree.This work, along with the Hidden Tribes initiative, Common Ground Committee, and others begs the question — if this common ground is already prevalent in our society and our democracy, then why is it hidden? We explore that question in this episode and ask how to work toward common ground in a way that does not simply maintain the status quo.Additional InformationHidden Common Ground InitiativeRelated EpisodesTrust, facts, and democracy in a polarized worldDoes Congress promote partisan gridlock?
11/16/202030 minutes, 31 seconds
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When four threats to democracy collide

Lieberman is co-author with Suzanne Mettler of the book "Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy." He is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power—alone or in combination—have threatened the survival of the republic, but it has survived—so far. What is unique, and alarming, about the present moment in American politics is that all four conditions exist.By revisiting how earlier generations of Americans faced threats to the principles enshrined in the Constitution, Lieberman sees the promise and the peril that have led us to today and, in this conversation, we chart a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy.Additional InformationFour Threats: The Recurring Crises of American DemocracyRobert Lieberman on TwitterRelated EpisodesA brief history of "people power"The ongoing struggle for civil rightsUsing the tools of democracy to address inequality 
11/9/202034 minutes, 24 seconds
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Wynton Marsalis on democracy as jazz and The Ever Fonky Lowdown

The Ever Fonky Lowdown from Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra addresses the timeless cycle and methods used by the elite to exploit their fellow citizens in order to acquire, expand and maintain power.In the words of Mr. Game himself, ”We are here tonight, but this is an international hustle. It has played out many times across time and space, and is not specific to any language or race. It takes on different flavors according to people’s taste, but always ends up in the same old place.”Clips from The Ever Fonky Lowdown are used with permission from Blue Engine Records. Additional InformationThe Ever Fonky Lowdown - Jazz at Lincoln Center storeThe Ever Fonky Lowdown libretto, written by Wynton MarsalisThe Sound of Democracy - virtual event for Penn State's Center for the Performing ArtsRelated EpisodesHow music transcends political polarization
11/2/202036 minutes, 41 seconds
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News deserts are democracy deserts, too

The connection between local news and democracy goes back to the Founding Fathers and particularly to Alex de Tocqueville. We explore the rise, fall, and potential rebirth of local news this week with Jennifer Lawless, Commonwealth professor of politics at the University of Virginia and co-author with Danny Hayes of the forthcoming book News Hole: The Decline of Newspapers and the Future of American Democracy.In the golden age of newspapers, the "news hole" was the section of the paper not taken up by advertising — aka where the stories, photos, sports scores, TV listings, weather, and everything else lived. Though that dynamic still exists, the term news hole has taken on a whole other meaning that's literally a hole in a community without a local news organization.This conversation is critically important in the height of election season as people across the U.S. vote for the more than 500,000 local elected positions across the country. As we heard from Mirya Holman in the Sheriffs 101 episode, it can often be difficult to find accurate, credible information about these candidates without local news organizations.Additional InformationResources for finding local news in your area: Institute for Nonprofit NewsLION PublishersStates Newsroom (for state government coverage)UNC research on news desertsJennifer Lawless on TwitterIs that a fact? podcast from the News Literacy ProjectRelated EpisodesSheriffs 101Defending the First Amendment and the Fourth EstateFake news, clickbait, and the future of local journalism  
10/26/202042 minutes, 48 seconds
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The Supreme Court's politics and power

A lot of people are thinking about the Civil War era these days, whether it's asking questions about whether we're in a second civil war now, or thinking about what happened during the election of 1876. In addition to our discussion of the Supreme Court, we talk about both of these things with Rachel Shelden, associate professor of history at Penn State and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center.If it sounds like we covered a lot in this episode, it's because we did. Like any good historian, Shelden does not use her knowledge of history predict the future, but she does offer some very useful insights for how the past can help all of us frame and interpret what's happening now.Related EpisodesThe perfect storm for election disasterA brief history of "people power"Additional InformationShelden's article in the Washington PostStanford's Jonathan Gienapp on originalism and historyPenn State Richards Civil War Era Center
10/19/202043 minutes, 21 seconds
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The perfect storm for election disaster

In this episode, we review the mechanics of how election results are certified and the work of the Electoral College between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Most of their work has historically happened behind the scenes, but it could become very public this fall if results are contested. We also look at what elections in 2000 and 1876 can tell us about what might play out over the next few months, and why the act of conceding an election is important for democratic legitimacy. Our guest is Lawrence Douglas, the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. He is the author of seven books and a regular contributor to The Guardian.Additional InformationWill He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020Lawrence Douglas in The GuardianRelated EpisodesThe people who choose the PresidentAndrew Sullivan on democracy's double-edged swordThe constitutional crisis episode
10/12/202035 minutes, 12 seconds
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The 2020 election from WPSU's Take Note

We really enjoy collaborating with the team at WPSU on Democracy Works and were happy to give the interviewer's chair to WPSU News reporter Anne Danahy for an episode that also aired on the station's interview show Take Note. This interview was recorded on Tuesday, September 30, 2020, before the first presidential debate and President Trump's diagnosis with COVID-19.
10/5/202036 minutes, 9 seconds
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Hong Kong's fight is everyone's fight

In some ways, the fight for democracy in Hong Kong is unique to the region and its relationship with China. However, the protests also feel familiar to anyone who's been watching the Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. or what's happening in countries like Hungary and Brazil.  This week, we examine what's driving Hong Kongers into the streets, the generational divides that are emerging over issues like universal suffrage and income inequality, and what Hong Kong's relationship with China might look like moving forward.Our guest is On-cho Ng, head of the Asian Studies Program at Penn State and Professor of History, Asian Studies, and Philosophy. He is a native Hong Konger and received both his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Hong Kong. Related EpisodesChina's threat to democracies around the worldViktor Orban's velvet repression in HungaryPopulism is not a monolithInside the world's largest democracy
9/28/202037 minutes, 10 seconds
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Sheriffs 101

Our guest is Mirya R. Holman is an associate professor of political science at Tulane University. She was drawn to researching sheriffs after growing up in rural Oregon, where sheriffs were the only type of law enforcement, and identifying a lack of research about them once she got to graduate school.In this conversation. Holman  discusses what sheriffs do, how those responsibilities have changed in light of COVID-19 and ongoing civil unrest, the difference between sheriffs and police, and where to go to find information about sheriff elections that might be happening in your city or town this fall.Additional InformationHolman's websiteHolman on Twitter
9/21/202039 minutes, 35 seconds
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Students learn, students vote

Nancy Thomas is director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, an applied research center at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. Over the past decade, the IDHE has worked to understand how college students vote and make recommendations to university leaders about both short-term voting challenges and long-term obligations to creating democratic citizens. This conversations covers both of those areas, as well as what role faculty can play in fostering democracy and civic engagement in their courses.Additional InformationInstitute for Democracy and Higher EducationNational Voter Registration DayFaculty Network for Student Voting RightsCampus Election Engagement ProjectAll In Campus Democracy ChallengeRelated EpisodesThe promise and peril of early votingAre land-grant universities still democracy's colleges?Citizenship, patriotism, and democracy in the classroom
9/14/202039 minutes, 25 seconds
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A dark side to "laboratories of democracy"

Virginia Eubanks examines the relationship between technology and society in her book Automating Inequality: How High-Tech tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor and joins us this week for a discussion about who matters in a democracy and the empathy gap between the people who develop the technology for social systems and the people who use those systems.Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is also the author of Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age; and co-editor, with Alethia Jones, of Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith. Her writing about technology and social justice has appeared in Scientific American, The Nation, Harper’s, and Wired. She was a founding member of the Our Data Bodies Project and a 2016-2017 Fellow at New America.Additional InformationAutomating Inequality: How High-Tech tools Profile, Police, and Punish the PoorEubanks will present a lecture on her work for Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute on October 1, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. The event is free and open to anyone. Register here.Related EpisodesA roadmap to a more equitable democracyWill AI destroy democracy?Facebook is not a democracy
9/7/202039 minutes, 37 seconds
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A fall preview — with a new cohost!

In this episode, Michael, Chris, and Candis discuss:The dynamics at play in national, state, and local elections this fallHow politics impacts the Census Bureau and other organizationsWhether all politics are really localWhat we've learned since 2016 about how democracy functionsWe are excited to welcome Candis to our team. As you'll hear, she doesn't always agree with Michael and Chris and brings some important perspectives to the table.Related episodesThe clumsy journey to antiracismBreaking down Black politicsPublic health depends on the CensusFree and fair elections during a pandemicEpisode creditsThis episode was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Mark Stitzer, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
8/31/202039 minutes, 39 seconds
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YIMBYs and NIMBYs in a democracy

Many of us are spending more time at home these days than we ever have before. In the United States, owning a home has come to symbolize the American Dream and homeowners have more political capital than those who don't. Over the past decade or so, this has led to showdowns at local government meetings between YIMBYs, who want more housing, and NIMBYs, who do not.Dougherty covers economics and housing for the New York Times and is the author of "Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America." The book focuses on San Francisco, but as you'll hear Dougherty say, he could have written it about just about any major city in the U.S. We also discuss the role that ballot initiatives play in the fight for housing, particularly in California. Born during the Progressive era to give more power to the people, Dougherty they've become co-opted by money and other influences that plague other areas of our democracy.Related EpisodesThe power of local governmentTen thousand democraciesAdditional InformationGolden Gates: Fighting for Housing in AmericaDougherty's work in the New York Times
8/24/202039 minutes, 14 seconds
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After 100 years, there's still no "woman voter"

In their new book A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage, Christina Wolbrecht and Kevin Corder examine women’s (and men’s) voting behavior, and traces how women’s turnout and vote choice evolved across a century of enormous transformation overall and for women in particular. The work shows that there is no such thing as ‘the woman voter. Instead, there is considerable variation in how different groups of women voted in response to changing political, social, and economic realities. The points Wolbrecht makes in this interview about how women are perceived by pundits and scholars alike are worth reflecting on as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of suffrage and prepare for an election this fall.Wolbrecht is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy. Her areas of expertise include American politics, political parties, gender and politics, and American political development.Additional InformationA Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since SuffrageRooney Center for the Study of American DemocracyChristina Wolbrecht on TwitterRelated EpisodesBehind the scenes of the "year of the woman"The connective tissue of democracy
8/17/202031 minutes, 5 seconds
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She Votes! — Susan B. Anthony and "voting while female"

This episode examines the arrest, trial, and conviction of suffragist Susan B. Anthony for the crime of "voting while female." Rather than sitting on her heels, Anthony launched a campaign to raise awareness about voting rights for women that would set the stage for the next 50 years of work through the passage of the 19th Amendment.You might be familiar with parts of this story, but you've never heard it quite like this — Anthony is voiced by actress Christine Braranski in this episode. She Votes! is hosted by Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Boston Globe and founder of The Conversation Project, and Lynn Sherr, a longtime correspondent for ABC News and author of "Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words."The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment is coming up at the end of August and we're planning an episode of Democracy Works on a century women's voting on August 24.You can find more episodes of She Votes at shevotespodcast.com or in any podcast app. Thank you to the Wonder Media Network for sharing this episode with us.
8/10/202032 minutes, 55 seconds
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Reason in politics and hope for democracy

"Hope for Democracy" recognizes the primary problems that plague contemporary democracy and offers a solution. It tells the story of one civic innovation, the Citizens' Initiative Review (CIR), which asks a small group of citizens to analyze a ballot measure and then provide recommendations on that measure for the public to use when voting.It relies on narratives of the civic reformers who developed and implemented the CIR and the citizens who participated in the initial review. Coupled with extensive research, the book uses these stories to describe how the review came into being and what impacts it has on participants and the public.In this episode, we also discuss the ways that deliberative democracy challenges existing power structures and how it can change participants' thoughts on civic engagement and how they can impact government outside of partisan politics.Gastil is Distinguished Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Political Science and Senior Scholar in the McCourtney Institute. Knobloch is Assistant Professor in the Communication Studies Department at Colorado State University and Associate Director of the university's Center for Public Deliberation.Additional InformationHope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back Into PoliticsMcCourtney Institute for Democracy Virtual Book Club on Hope for Democracy - August 31, 2020, 4 p.m. ETCitizens Initiative ReviewRelated EpisodesFrom political crisis to profound changeWinning the democracy lottery
8/3/202030 minutes, 21 seconds
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The people who choose the President

At the end of its 2020 term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling on what might seem like an obscure question in Constitutional law, but could have huge ramifications in elections this November and beyond. We dive into the ruling on "faithless electors" in this episode from The Democracy Group podcast network.Democracy Works podcast host and producer Jenna Spinelle leads a discussion with:Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, founder of Equal Citizens, and host of  the podcast Another Way by Lawrence Lessig. Lessig and Equal Citizens Executive Director Jason Harrow argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the electors in Washington and Colorado.Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One and one of the nation’s foremost experts on Congress and ethics in politics. Issue One was part of an amicus brief filed by the Campaign Legal Center on behalf of the states.Michael Baranowski, associate professor of political science at Northern Kentucky University and host of The Politics Guys, a bipartisan American politics and policy podcast. Baranowski is an expert on political institutions and discusses the practical implications of the Supreme Court's decision with Lessig in the second half of the episode.The first half of the episode focuses on the Supreme Court's decisions in Chafalo v. Washington and Baca v. Colorado. Lessig and McGehee explain what led them to get involved in the cases and have a spirited discussion about the role special interests could play in the Electoral College.Then, Lessig and Baranowski discuss the Supreme Court's opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan, and how to make the Electoral College more democratic though measures like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.A huge thank you to The Democracy Group Network Manager Katie DeFiore for editing this episode!Note: Severe thunderstorms hit Washington, D.C. when we recorded this episode on July 22, 2020 and Meredith McGehee lost power halfway through. We were not able to get her back on the line before the end of the recording session. We apologize and are grateful for the time she was able to join us!Additional InformationEqual CitizensIssue OneThe Democracy Group podcast networkThe Politics Guys podcast
7/27/202042 minutes, 10 seconds
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Broken Ground: Robert Bullard on environmental justice

This week, we're bringing you an episode from another podcast we think you might enjoy, Broken Ground from the Southern Environmental Law Center.Broken Ground digs  up environmental stories in the South that don’t always get the attention they deserve, and giving voice to the people bringing those stories to light. While the show focuses on the South, the conversations — including the one in this episode — resonate far beyond the region's confines.In the latest season, the podcast explores how Southerners living along the coast are navigating sea level rise as they race against the clock. How will people on the front lines protect themselves from the immediate and impending threats of rising tides?This episode features a conversation with Dr. Robert Bullard, widely considered the father of environmental justice. He talks with Broken Ground host Claudine Ebeid McElwain about how communities of color are disproportionally impacted by climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction. Bullard was scheduled to visit Penn State in April and organizers are hopeful that he'll be able to make the trip in April 2021.If you enjoy this episode, check out Broken Ground wherever you listen to podcasts.Additional InformationBroken Ground websiteDr. Bullard's websiteSouthern Environmental Law CenterRelated EpisodesMichael Mann's journey through the climate warsChanging the climate conversationThe ongoing struggle for civil rights
7/20/202022 minutes, 47 seconds
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The world's most punitive democracy [revisited]

We're digging into the archives this week for another episode on race and criminal justice. Peter K. Enns, associate professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University, Executive Director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, and author of Incarceration Nation: How the U.S. Became the Most  Like the conversation with Frank Baumgartner last week, we look at how public opinion around criminal justice has changed over the past two years and how that translates into public policy.Enns argues that, while public opinion around criminal justice continues to shift, we still don't have anything close to a clear picture about what's happening inside correctional institutions. That, he says, makes it tough for the public to fully grasp the gravity of how incarcerated people are treated and inhibits progress toward a more just, rehabilitative system. We also talk about whether it's possible to both deal with COVID-19 in prisons and jails while also pushing for long-term structural change — and how making conditions healthier and safer benefits everyone.Additional InformationIncarceration Nation: How the U.S. Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the WorldPeter K. Enns on TwitterRoper Center for Public Opinion ResearchThe Marshall Project - nonprofit journalism on criminal justiceRelated EpisodesSuspect citizens in a democracyCivil rights, civil unrestA roadmap to a more equitable democracy
7/13/202038 minutes, 49 seconds
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Suspect citizens in a democracy [revisited]

This week marks the beginning of our summer break here on Democracy Works. We are going to be rebroadcasting a few episodes from our back catalog — with a twist. In fall 2018, we did two episodes on police, criminal justice, and race that are directly relevant to what’s happening today. We caught up with those guests recently to talk about what’s changed in the past two years and how they think about the research in our current moment. First up is Frank Baumgartner, Robert J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He directed the team that analyzed the data published the book Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race.  In the book and in our initial conversation, Bamgartner makes the case that an empathy gap exists between people with political and social power and the people who are most likely to be pulled over. The result is that segments of the population who are already disenfranchised become even more distrustful of the police and the government and less likely to vote and otherwise engage with democracy. During our follow-up conversation in late June 2020, Baumgartner reflected on whether the empathy gap has closed over the past two years and how common-sense police reform can work — even in the midst of a pandemic. Additional Information Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race Frank’s profile on the Scholars Strategy Network Related Episodes The full episode with Frank from October 2018 What Serial taught Sarah Koenig about criminal justice The clumsy journey to antiracism
7/6/202036 minutes, 29 seconds
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The second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag

Michael, Jenna, and Chris in the studio in summer 2019. Before we take a short summer break, Michael and Chris answer your questions about democracy in our current moment. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions; they were excellent! Some of the things we talk about in this episode include: The difference between federalism and the federal government The definition of an institution How media coverage of the 2020 election will compare to 2016 What mask wearing says about the health of American democracy What the U.S. can learn from other democracies Why the “hard work of democracy” is that way For the next few weeks, we’ll be revisiting some of the episodes in our back catalog (with a twist) and bringing you episodes from other podcasts that we think you’ll enjoy. We’ll be back with new episodes before the end of August. If you have suggestions for episodes topics or guests for us to tackle in the fall, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would love to hear from you. Contact us Related Episodes Last summer’s listener mailbag A democracy summer reading list Federalism in uncertain times Free and fair elections during a pandemic Episode Credits This episode was recorded on June 18, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
6/29/202039 minutes, 40 seconds
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How to end democracy’s doom loop

As we bring this season of Democracy Works to a close, we’re going to end in a place similar to where we began — discussing the role of political parties in American democracy. We started the season discussing the Tea Party and the Resistance with Theda Skocpol and Dana Fisher, then discussed presidential primaries with David Karol and the role of parties in Congress with Frances Lee. All of those episodes looked at the party system as it currently stands. This week’s conversation invites all of us to imagine how we can break out of the status quo and create something very different. Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America. He is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America and The Business of America is Lobbying, and winner of the 2016 American Political Science Association’s Robert A. Dahl Award, given for “scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy.” He has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Drutman  is also the co-host of the podcast Politics in Question, and writes for the New York Times, Vox, and FiveThirtyEight, among other outlets. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California. We have one more new episode next week before we take a summer break. We’ll close the season with the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag. Additional Information Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop audiobook Politics in Question podcast Political Reform at New America Uniting for Action America – registration deadline July 31 Related Episodes Does Congress promote partisan gridlock? Primaries, parties and the public How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending politics Your guide to ranked-choice voting Congressional oversight and making America pragmatic again
6/22/202043 minutes, 55 seconds
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The clumsy journey to antiracism

This week, we are bringing you another interview that we hope will give some context to the discussions about racism and inequality that are happening in the U.S. right now.We’re  joined by Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, assistant professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University and Candis Watts Smith, associate professor African American Studies and political science at Penn State. She was recently named the Brown-McCourtney Early Career Professor in the McCourtney Institute for Democracy.Bunyasi and Smith are coauthors of a book called Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making all Black Lives Matter, which looks at the history of structural racism in the U.S. and gives people information and tools to become antiracists.We talk about the clumsiness associated with changing patterns of thinking and behavior and how that’s playing out across our online and offline lives and among both individuals and companies. We also discuss the inherent messiness of the Black Lives Matter movement and why that’s not necessarily a bad thing.Additional InformationStay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making all Black Lives MatterThree Myths about Racism – Candis’s TEDxPSU talk from February 202024 podcasts that confront racism in America – list from the Bello CollectiveRelated EpisodesBreaking down black politicsCivil rights, civil unrestA roadmap to a more equitable democracyThe ongoing struggle for civil rightsEpisode CreditsThis episode was recorded on June 9, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. 
6/15/202034 minutes, 52 seconds
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Civil rights, civil unrest

As protests continue throughout the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd’s death, we’ve been thinking a lot about comparisons to the Civil Rights era and whether the models for demonstrations created during that era are still relevant today. As we’ve discussed on the show before, public memory is a fuzzy thing and we’re seeing that play out here amid discussions of how peaceful protests should be. Our guest this week is uniquely suited to speak to questions of civil rights and civil unrest. Clarence Lang is the Susan Welch Dean of Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts and professor of African American Studies. He is a scholar in African American urban history and social movements in the Midwest and Border South. He is the author of Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, 1936-75, and Black America in the Shadow of the Sixties: Notes on the Civil Rights Movement, Neoliberalism, and Politics. In addition to his scholarly work, Lang also has a personal connection to what’s happening right now. He grew up on Chicago’s South Side and a family member who was a police officer. He’s a humanist at heart who believes that our country can pull together and overcome these trying times. Additional Information Lang’s website Grassroots at the Gateway Black America in the Shadow of the Sixties Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates A list of podcasts about racism and inequality from the Bello Collective Uniting for Action: America Related Episodes The ongoing struggle for Civil Rights School segregation then and now What neoliberalism left behind Episode Credits This episode was recorded on June 2, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy.
6/8/202040 minutes, 9 seconds
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Aaron Maybin on doing the hard work of democracy [rebroadcast]

We are working on an episode about the social and democratic context for the protests taking place around the U.S. after George Floyd’s death; we’ll have it for you on Monday. In the meantime, we are going to share a few episodes from our archives that we hope can provide context for our current moment. One voice we want to lift up during this time is Aaron Maybin, a former Penn State and NFL football player who is now an artist, educator, activist, and organizer in Baltimore, which is where we interviewed him in August 2019. Maybin has been a tireless advocate for Baltimore’s black community long before protests over the death of George Floyd hit the city. His work will continue long after the protests end — whenever that might be. He believes that the hard work of democracy happens when the cameras and outsiders go away and community members can be empowered to fight for the change they want to see. He also seeks to move people through his art and his work as an art teacher in some of the city’s most underfunded schools. His perspective is worth listening to, or perhaps even revisiting if you’ve already heard it, as we all make sense of what’s going on and how we can do our part to confront structural inequalities and racism in the U.S Learn more about Aaron’s work on his website or by following him on social media: Twitter Instagram Facebook Finally, our colleagues at the Bello Collective also put together a list of 20 podcasts that confront racism in America. You can find it here.
6/3/202033 minutes, 55 seconds
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Free speech from the Founding Fathers to Twitter

This is another episode that we recorded in our final days together in the office before COVID-19. However, the topic is just as relevant — if not more so — in our new reality.The topic is free speech and our guest is Stephen D. Solomon, Marjorie Deane Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and founding editor of First Amendment Watch. He is the author of Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech.Stephen lays out how the Founding Fathers, particularly James Madison, thought about free speech, free press, and the freedom to assemble. The ways we communicate have changed drastically in the past 250 years, but the concerns about protecting the free expression of ideas remains the same.We also discuss free speech on college campuses and how social norms around speech can be just as powerful as laws in place to protect it. It’s too soon to tell how the virtual environment will impact this dynamic, but it will be interesting to watch as colleges prepare for whatever the coming academic year has in store.Additional InformationStephen’s websiteRevolutionary DissentUniting for Action: AmericaRelated EpisodesDefending the First Amendment and the Fourth EstateFacebook is not a democracyJonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracy 
6/1/202042 minutes, 7 seconds
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Bonus: Mayors and bipartisanship during COVID-19

Today we’re bringing you a special episode produced by Nicole Gresen, our intern on Democracy Works during the spring 2020 semester. Nicole spoke with Bob Buckhorn, who was mayor of Tampa, Florida from 2011-2019, about the role that mayors have played during COVID-19 and how they have to put partisans allegiances aside during times of crisis. As Bob says, people look to mayors for empathy and solidarity in the face of uncertainty — whether it’s a natural disaster or a pandemic. Bob also talks about his history in politics, which began not long after he graduated from Penn State. Under his leadership, Tampa became known as a city on the rise for startups and economic development. Though he’s no longer mayor, he continues an active role in the city’s government. Nicole graduated from Penn State in May and is currently pursuing career opportunities in digital media. We  really appreciate all of her help behind the scenes on the show over the past few months and wish her success in her career.
5/29/202019 minutes, 26 seconds
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The people vs. the experts — and those caught in the middle

These days, it can feel like some politicians are working against experts in public health and other fields when it comes to actions surrounding COVID-19. There’s always been a tension between populism and expertise, but our media landscape and strong partisan polarization are pushing that tension to its breaking point — or so it seems, anyway. As with many issues we’ve covered on this show, there’s more to it than meets the eye, and we are digging into the relationship between expertise and democracy this week in a  collaborative episode with our colleagues at Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. The Huck Institutes produce The Symbiotic Podcast, a show that explores how scientists are collaborating in new ways to solve complex global problems. In this episode, you’ll hear Symbiotic Podcast host Cole Hons and Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle in conversation with Taylor Scott, associate director of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, and Democracy Works host Michael Berkman. We discuss how organizations like the Research-to-Policy Collaboration seek to promote engagement between researchers and legislators and what both groups can do to make the relationship stronger. We also talk about why expertise is important in a democracy and what happens when it is undermined. Don’t forget, we are still taking questions for the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag episode. We’ll read your questions on the show and choose three submissions to win Democracy Works mugs. Submit your question here. Additional Information The Symbiotic Podcast Research-to-Policy Collaboration Listener mailbag questions Related Episodes Does Congress promote partisan gridlock? How conspiracies are damaging democracy Michael Mann’s journey through the climate wars Episode Credits This episode was recorded on May 6, 2020. Thank you to Cole Hons of The Symbiotic Podcast for engineering the recording session. The episode was edited by WPSU’s Mark Stitzer and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy.
5/25/202035 minutes, 30 seconds
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China’s role in the COVID-19 infodemic

As if the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t enough to deal with, the World Health Organization says we’re now in an infodemic alongside it. We’ve seen this play out as misinformation and conspiracy theories move from digital to mainstream media and cast a shadow of doubt about information coming from the government and public health experts. Our guests this week have been tracking China’s role in this infodemic and argue that Beijing is taking a few pages out of Russia’s playbook for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and its broader efforts to undermine democracy around the world. Jessica Brandt and Bret Schafer are part of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks online information manipulation through its Hamilton 2.0 dashboard. Early on in the pandemic, they saw an uptick in tweets from Chinese diplomats and embassies that were amplifying conspiracy theories about the virus’s origin and casting doubt on information from the World Health Organization and other official sources. The goal is not necessarily to have people believe these claims, but to stir up enough doubt to discredit democratic norms and institutions. If you enjoy this episode, we recommend checking out the Out of Order podcast, produced by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and part of The Democracy Group podcast network. Finally, it’s time for the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag episode! In a few weeks, we will record an episode answering your questions before we take a summer break. Send us your question about democracy and we’ll answer it on the show, plus you’ll have the chance to win a Democracy Works mug. Additional Information Jessica and Bret’s article on China’s COVID-19 disinformation efforts Hamilton 2.0 Out of Order podcast The Democracy Group podcast network Listener mailbag question submission Related Episodes Protecting democracy from foreign interference How conspiracies are damaging democracy Episode Credits This episode was recorded on April 28, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
5/18/202035 minutes, 12 seconds
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A roadmap to a more equitable democracy

COVID-19 has exposed longstanding racial and economic inequalities in American life, which is evident in the fact that communities of color are being hit the hardest by both the medical and the economic impacts of the virus. Our guest this week argues that now is the time to empower those communities to have a stake in building a better future for themselves and making our democracy stronger in the process. Our guest this week is K. Sabeel Rahman, president of Demos and co-author of the new book Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis. He is also an associate professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, where he teaches constitutional law, administrative law, and courses on law and inequality. His last book, Democracy Against Domination, won the Dahl Prize for scholarship on the subject of democracy. Rahman argues that the old ways of thinking about and participating aren’t working for under-represented groups. His book lays out a framework for how to make democracy reform more inclusive and how to balance liberalism and democracy by making institutions more representative of the communities they serve. The book was written before the pandemic hit, but feels even more relevant today. After the interview, you’ll hear an ad for Future Hindsight, one of our fellow podcasts in The Democracy Group podcast network.  The show’s new season on misinformation and democracy launches Friday, May 15. Additional Information Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis Demos Future Hindsight The Democracy Group It’s time for the second annual Democracy Works listener mailbag episode! Send us your question about democracy and we’ll answer it on the show. Related Episodes Civic engagement, social distancing, and democracy reform Doing the hard work of democracy in Baltimore The ongoing struggle for civil rights Episode Credits This episode was recorded on April 16 and May 5, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
5/11/202039 minutes, 53 seconds
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Trust, facts, and democracy in a polarized world

This episode was recorded before COVID-19 changed everything, but many of the themes we discuss about public opinion polling and the importance of trust and facts to a democracy are perhaps more relevant now than ever before. We talked with Michael Dimock, president of the Pew Research Center, about how the organization approaches polling in a world that increasingly presents competing partisan visions of reality. Trust in the media and government has been declining for years, if not longer, and may be exacerbated by COVID-19. What’s more concerning for democracy, Pew’s Trust Facts, and Democracy project found, is that our trust in each other is also declining. People don’t trust their peers to use good judgement when comes to evaluating information or making political decisions — especially when it comes to people from the opposing political party. Polling done as part of Trust, Facts, and Democracy found that about 60% of adults said they have little or no confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions. What does that mean for democracy? Dimock doesn’t shy away from talking about the grim realities of our current political climate, but does offer a few glimmers of hope from the Trust, Facts, and Democracy work. Additional Information Pew’s Trust Facts and Democracy project Pew polling on COVID-19 After the Fact podcast from the Pew Charitable Trusts The McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s Mood of the Nation Poll The McCourtney Institute for Democracy is starting a virtual book club! Our first selection will be How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Join us for online meetings May 20 and 21. Visit democracy.psu.edu/book to learn more and RSVP. Episode Credits This episode was recorded on March 10, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
5/4/202041 minutes, 19 seconds
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Bonus: Civic engagement, social distancing, and democracy reform

Democracy is very much a group activity. Inside, we come together to debate, discuss, do the work of government, and make laws. Outside, we protest and hold rallies. But much of this is not possible. Social distancing presents a tremendous challenge. In this episode from The Democracy Group podcast network, we look at the barriers and the opportunities as we all deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.  “COVID, the pandemic … has really brought to bear not just the inequities and the inequalities, but also the necessity to have a much more active sense of democracy as a verb — democracy as an action that we can all be part of.” -Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, 70 Million Host Richard Davies Co-host, How Do We Fix It? @DaviesNow Guests Mila Atmos Host, Future Hindsight @milaatmos Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, Founder and CEO of Lantigua-Williams and Co. Creator and Executive Producer, 70 Million @JuleykaLantigua Carah Ong-Whaley, Associate Director at James Madison Center for Civic Engagement at James Madison University Co-host, Democracy Matters @CarahOng Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow at New America Co-host, Politics in Question @leedrutman
5/1/202037 minutes, 28 seconds
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Give me liberty or give me COVID-19?

From Maine to California, people across the country have gathered at their state capitols over the past few weeks to protest stay at home orders issued by their governors in response to COVID-19. Protest is a hallmark of any democracy, but what happens when doing so comes with health risks? What is motivating people to take to the streets? How should media organizations cover the protests, and how do the people protesting feel about the media? Joining us this week to explore some of those questions is Chris Fitzsimon, director and publisher of States Newsroom, a collective of nonprofit news sites that cover state politics in many of the places where the “reopen” protests have occurred. Fitzsimon talks about what his organization’s reporters have observed on the ground and the challenges that states face in deciding when to lift stay at home orders and restart economic activity. We also discuss how this movement came together and whether it might have staying power beyond the immediate concerns related to COVID-19. Additional Information States Newsroom Visit ratethispodcast.com/democracy to leave a rating or review for Democracy Works. The McCourtney Institute for Democracy is starting a virtual book club! Our first selection will be How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Join us for online meetings May 20 and 21. Visit democracy.psu.edu/book to learn more and RSVP. Related Episodes Federalism in uncertain times COVID-19 exposes democracy’s tensions Tracing the past, present, and future of protests How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending American politics Episode Credits This episode was recorded on April 22, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
4/27/202034 minutes, 12 seconds
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Bonus: COVID-19 and Democracy with The Democracy Group

We are excited to collaborate with our partners in The Democracy Group podcast network to bring you a bonus episode on how COVID-19 is impacting democracy in the United States and around the world.  COVID-19 brings together several issues that have long been talked about separately — political polarization, misinformation, international cooperation, democratic norms and institutions, and many others. We dive into some of those issues in this episode and discuss how we can all work together to protect, and even strengthen, democracy as we emerge from the first wave of the pandemic. For more information about The Democracy Group podcast network, visit democracygroup.org. Thank you to Democracy Group Network Manager Katie DeFiore for producing this episode! Host: Jenna Spinelle, Communications Specialist at the McCourtney Institute for Democracy Host, Democracy Works @JennaSpinelle Guests: Luke Knittig, Senior Director of Communications at the McCain Institute Host, In The Arena @LukeKnittig Jeremi Suri, Mack Brown Distinguished Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas Austin Host, This is Democracy @JeremiSuri Rachel Tausenfreund, Editorial Director at the German Marshall Fund of the United States Host, Out of Order @thousandfriend Weston Wamp, Senior Political Strategist and Consultant at Issue One Host, Swamp Stories @westonwamp
4/24/202054 minutes, 34 seconds
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Federalism in uncertain times

With each passing day, the relationship between states and the federal government seems to grow more complicated. States are forming coalitions and working together to chart a path out of COVID-19, while sometimes competing with one another for resources. A lack of clear guidance from the federal government will likely lead to a fragmented return to business and social life state by state in the coming weeks and months. This situation is unique in many ways, but brings to light the complexities of American federalism — our topic of discussion this week. Charles Barrilleaux, Leroy Collins Professor and Political Science Department Chair at Florida State University, is an expert on American federalism and joins us to discuss the relationship between states and the federal government, and how that manifests itself during the response to COVID-19. The episode begins with Michael and Chris explaining the history of federalism and what powers the Constitution gives states and the federal government. Related Episodes COVID-19 exposes democracy’s tensions When states sue the federal government Episode Credits This episode was recorded on April 13, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
4/20/202035 minutes, 45 seconds
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Will COVID-19 create a one-issue campaign?

The general election is going to happen in November, and candidates still need to figure out ways to get their messages out to voters. COVID-19 has changed everything about the way candidates communicate with potential voters and how they position themselves in relationship to the virus. This episode addresses the nuts and bolts of campaigning during a pandemic, but we also discuss a broader question — should we even be talking about politics at a time like this? Our guest this week makes an interesting case about why the answer is always “yes.” John Sides is a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and publisher of the Monkey Cage, a political science blog published by the Washington Post. Sides talks about the novel coronavirus has impacted campaigns up and down the ballot, and why it’s valuable to consider it as a political problem apart from a public health issue. Note: You’ll hear a reference to Bernie Sanders during the interview. We recorded on April 6, before Sanders announced he was dropping out of the race. Additional Information John’s website The Monkey Cage A look at ethics of campaigning during COVID-19 Related Episodes Free and fair elections during a pandemic COVID-19 exposes democracy’s tensions Primaries, parties, and the public Episode Credits This episode was recorded on April 6 and 7, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Mark Stitzer, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
4/13/202039 minutes, 4 seconds
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Public health depends on the Census

The COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. intensified just as the 2020 Census was getting underway in earnest. As Americans fill their days with news about the new coronavirus, the Census Bureau is doing everything it can to spread the word about completing the Census online while grappling with how to do critical in-person follow up during a time of social distancing. As our guest this week explains, the consequences of an undercount directly impact public health in significant ways.Jenny Van Hook is the Roy C. Buck Professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State and a former member of the Census Advisory Board. She was an expert witness in the legal fight over the efforts to add a citizenship question to this year’s Census and has written about the Census in The Conversation and other outlets.Census Day was April 1, but there’s still time to complete your Census online at 2020census.gov.This episode begins with an ad for Lyceum, a new app that’s specifically for educational podcasts. Learn more and join the conversation with other listeners at lyceum.fm.Related EpisodesIt’s good to be counted – our interview with Jenny from May 2018Episode CreditsThis episode was recorded on March 31, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle, edited by Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.  
4/6/202038 minutes, 52 seconds
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Free and fair elections during a pandemic

As COVID-19 intensifies throughout the U.S., questions about the future of the remaining primary elections and the general election in November are beginning to surface. The last thing you want are large groups of people standing in line near each other for long periods of time. At a time when seemingly everything in life has gone remote, states are starting to think about what a remote election would look like, too.Our guest this week is one of the people helping them figure it all out. Charles Stewart III, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT and a contributor to the Election Updates blog, a partnership between MIT and the California University of Technology. He’s spoken with election officials across the country and about how to implement voting by mail and change processes to make in-person voting safe. Voting by mail does not come without its problems in terms of election security and electoral integrity. We explore those with Charles and discuss how planning now can help mitigate those risks in the fall. Democracy Works is proud to be part of Lyceum, a new platform dedicated to educational audio. The app includes curated lists of shows around topics like climate change, linguistics, and ancient history, as well as opportunities for listeners to connect with podcast creators and with each other. Visit lyceum.fm to learn more. Additional Information Election Updates blog Ted Recommendations to Ensure a Healthy and Trustworthy 2020 Election – a piece Charles c0-wrote for Lawfare Related Episodes The promise and peril of early voting How states are working to keep you vote safe Episode Credits This episode was recorded on Wednesday, March 25, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle and edited by WPSU’s Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
3/30/202041 minutes, 59 seconds
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COVID-19 exposes democracy’s tensions

As we’ve seen over the past weeks and months, democracies and authoritarian countries respond to pandemics very differently. There are balances to be struck — liberty and community, human rights and disease mitigation — that every country’s government and culture handle a little differently. We dive into that this week with our first ever all-remote episode as we adjust to the new normal of life during COVID-19. Our guest is Nita Bharti, assistant professor of biology at Penn State and faculty member in the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics. Nita’s research focuses on the interactions between social and biological processes as underlying determinants of human health — making her the perfect person for us to talk to about the response to COVID-19. There are no silver bullets when it comes to outbreak mitigation, but there are lessons we can take from other outbreaks about how information affects behavior and how the government can help or hinder that process. As Nita says, we’re likely only beginning to see what the new normal looks like in the U.S. Additional Information Nita’s article on COVID-19 in The Conversation  The Bharti Lab of Human Infectious Diseases The Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State is taking questions about the Coronavirus pandemic at [email protected]. Each week, experts will answer your most commonly asked questions, anonymously. They will attempt to provide the most current accurate information, informed by scientific evidence. Episode Credits This episode was recorded on Thursday, March 19, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle and edited by WPSU’s Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
3/23/202042 minutes, 31 seconds
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Populism is not a monolith

We know that there are a lot of episodes about COVID-19 out there right now. We’re working on one of our own that we hope to bring to you soon, but in the meantime, consider something different to focus on while you practice social distancing this week. We’ve talked a lot on this show about the rise of authoritarian leaders around the world — from Viktor Orban in Hungary to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. We sometimes tend to paint these countries with same brush, often referring to the book How Democracies Die. While the book remains of our favorites, this week’s episode is a reminder that populism does not look the same everywhere. We welcome back Penn State’s Vineeta Yadav to look at some of the forces that are pushing back against populism around the world, and how those efforts look different in each place. She joined us last fall to discuss the rise of Narendra Modi in India. We reusume that conversation in this episode, but also touch on what’s happening in Turkey and Brazil. Michael and Chris also give an important overview of the difference between liberalism and democracy — and how the two work together to form the system of government practiced in many countries around the world today. Stay tuned to the end of the episode for more information about Ways&Means, a podcast produced by the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. The show’s current season is taking a deep dive into the relationship between politics and policy, covering topics like reparations and the decline of local news. Related Episodes Inside the world’s largest democracy – Vineeta Yadav’s first appearance on Democracy Works Brazil’s tenuous relationship with democracy How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the “grinding work” of democracy Episode Credits This episode was recorded at WPSU’s studios and engineered by Cole Cullen. It was edited by Chris Kubler and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
3/16/202036 minutes, 41 seconds
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Swamp Stories: Cashing In

It’s spring break at Penn State this week and we’re going to take a brief hiatus to bring you an episode from a new podcast that’s part of The Democracy Group, our new podcast network. Swamp Stories is produced by Issue One, a group that takes a cross partisan approach to democracy reform. The podcast follows the host — millennial Republican and former candidate for office, Weston Wamp — as he shines a light on the swampiest practices in Washington that repulse Republicans and Democrats alike: Slush funds in Congress, dark money in elections, gerrymandered districts, foreign interference in our elections, dialing for dollars on Capitol Hill, and more. The show debuted at the end of January and we are sharing its first episode with you. There are five others available if you want to binge them while we’re away. We’ll be back with a new episode of Democracy Works next week. Additional Information Swamp Stories website You can find Swamp Stories and all of our other network shows at democracygroup.org
3/9/202025 minutes, 20 seconds
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The promise and peril of early voting

Super Tuesday is this week, but voters in many states have already cast their ballots for races happening this week and throughout the rest of the primary season. From Florida to Pennsylvania, states are expanding access to early and absentee voting to give people more options to make their voices heard in our democracy.Sounds great, right? However, early voting is not without its problems for candidates, election officials, and even voters. Daniel Smith, one of the country’s leading elections experts, joins us this week for a look at the pros and cons of early voting, and how it might improve voter turnout among young people specifically.Smith is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Florida and President of ElectionSmith, Inc. He is a nationally-recognized expert on direct democracy, campaign finance, and voting rights in the American states. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison  and his B.A. in History from Penn State.Stay tuned to the end of the episode for more information about another great higher ed podcast, Ways & Means from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. The show’s fifth season launched Feb. 19 and covers issues in politics and policy ahead of the 2020 election.Additional InformationDan’s website: ElectionSmithWays & Means podcastRelated EpisodesWhat should voting look like in the 21st century?Primaries, parties, and the publicEpisode CreditsThis episode was recorded at WPSU’s studios and engineered by Andy Grant. It was edited by Mark Stitzer and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.Interview Highlights[5:40] What is early voting?There are a lot of different definitions of early voting. The one that Pennsylvania still does not have, and about a dozen states don’t have any form of this, is allowing voters to come in before election day to some type of polling location. It can be at the county level, multiple locations, it might just be the county seat. It allows you to come in, you don’t have to request an absentee ballot, and you prove your identity one way or the other, and are able to vote a regular ballot. The ballot looks just like a ballot you would do on election day in your own local precinct. Those windows might be as much as a month before Election Day.[7:55] How do states decide to adopt early voting?It could be just the culture that you have the idea that let’s make voting easier, and we’re going to see about making it more convenient for voters so they don’t have to come on that first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and extend the absentee ballot or make it an all-mail ballot election. Others there’s certainly a political game going on, and it’s often on partisan lines, where Democrats generally want to expand the electorate, and make it more easy to vote. One way to do that is to give people more opportunities to turn out to vote, either in person or by getting ’em an absentee ballot and mailing it in.[9:38] What do we know about people who vote early?Early in-person voting is certainly geared to people who can’t necessarily come out to vote easily on a Tuesday. And so what we have seen is a demographic on those early voting days that isn’t necessarily representative of the overall electorate. It happens to be more people of color, more women, younger voters are often using early in-person voting.Early in-person voting is different from absentee voting, which is typically seen most among  older people, whiter people, more partisans, people who have already made up their decision on how to vote. They don’t need to wait for an eleventh hour surprise, they’re gonna vote a Republican or Democratic ticket.[18:16] What happened in the early voting program the was piloted at several colleges in Florida?It was fascinating to see  the excitement where these students were first kind of curious about the opportunity. And then you started to see the drives of get out the vote efforts by different coalitions. The University of Florida has a lot of Democrats as well as Republicans. And so, it was utilized by both of the political parties at the local level. The students are very energized and organized relative to a lot of other universities so I’m not surprised that we had the high turnout. And I can tell you that if the supervisor of election wanted to eliminate this or the administration wanted to eliminate it, there would be a huge backlash.[19:22] What will voter turnout look like in November’s election?I think it’s really going to hinge a lot on who the Democratic nominee is. The Democrats certainly have the never-Trumpers who are going to vote for a box of rocks over the incumbent. They’re going to come out regardless. But there are a lot of other folks who are not terribly excited about a potential Democratic candidate. And if you don’t have that excitement and that enthusiasm, we know that it is going to play with respect to younger voters. If they can’t get behind the Democratic candidate, if President Trump does some things that are going to turn off some moderate Republicans, who really don’t like what he’s doing but are going to hold their nose and come out any way, he could still turn them off. They’re not going to come out and vote for the Democratic nominee.[21:52] Will we see more states adopt early voting between now and November?I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some more legal challenges. Is Pennsylvania going to adopt early in-person voting this cycle? No. But New York did last election cycle. And they had some issues rolling it out, but I think it takes a, a bit of time. But again, New York’s not a competitive state. There’s not going to be a lot of attention. There’s not going to be a lot of money spent there in the presidential election. Turnout is going to be probably a lot lower  just because people on either side know that their vote is probably not going to be decisive. And there’s a lot of literature suggesting that that’s one of the things that drives people whether or not that the margins are going to turn out to vote.
3/2/202036 minutes, 25 seconds
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Breaking down Black politics

As the South Carolina primary approaches, all eyes are on the African American vote. This week, Michael Berkman is taking over the interviewer’s chair for a roundtable discussion on black politics with Ray Block and Candis Watts Smith, who are associate professors of African American studies and political science at Penn State. Ray is the author of Losing Power: Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics. Candis is the author of Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics. They discuss the history of black politics and how it’s evolved in the years since the Civil Rights movement, how President Trump and the Democratic presidential candidates are received by African Americans, and how the Civil Rights movement and Black Lives Matter are informed by broader social and generational trends. With so much punditry going on around appealing to black voters, we hope you’ll enjoy the opportunity to take a step back from the punditry and look at the broader issues in black politics and how they relate to things like representation and inequality. Additional Information Ray’s book, Losing Power: Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics Candis’s books Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics Candis’s website Ray’s website Related Episodes School segregation then and now The ongoing struggle for civil rights Episode Credits This episode was engineered by Craig Johnson at the WPSU studios, edited by Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support comes from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
2/24/202034 minutes, 6 seconds
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Does Congress promote partisan gridlock?

Some of the most talked-about issues in Congress these days are not about the substance of policies or bills being debated on the floor. Instead, the focus is on the partisan conflict between the parties and the endless debate about whether individual members of Congress will break with party ranks on any particular vote. This behavior allows the parties to emphasize the differences between them, which makes it easier to court donors and hold voter attention. Some amount of competition between the parties is necessary in a healthy democracy, but have things gone too far? Frances E. Lee joins us this week to explain. Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs. She is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and the forthcoming The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era with James M. Curry. As you’ll hear at the beginning of the episode, we are excited to announce that we are starting a podcast network! We are thrilled to bring together some of our favorite podcasts in democracy, civic engagement, and civil discourse in The Democracy Group. Visit democracygroup.org to learn more about our member shows and sign up for our mailing list to receive updates with new episodes, deep-dive playlists, and more. Additional Information Frances’s book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign Her lecture at Penn State on lawmaking in a polarized era Frances’s website Related Episodes Congressional oversight and making America pragmatic again Unpacking political polarization Episode Credits This episode was recorded at WPSU’s studios and engineered by Andy Grant. It was edited by Chris Kugler and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane. Interview Highlights [8:28] How did we get to the current situation Congress? So we are in a remarkably competitive period in terms of our two-party politics. Now, we’ve been in this era for a long time so that people have sort of come to take it for granted that this is how Congressional elections work that  the majority’s in play every two years in the House,  and potentially in the Senate. If you reflect back on congressional history, you’ll see that that this is not normal. The Democrats were the majority party in Congress for roughly 50 years in the 20th century between the Great Depression and 1994 in the House of Representatives and 1980 in the Senate. There was not speculation in the lead up to the 1980 elections that Republicans might take the Senate majority. But when the votes were counted, they did. The same was true in 1994. It was not expected for that Republicans would win in 1994. There was a great deal of complacency about Democrats retaining control, as you might expect considering that it had been more than a generation of the Democrats being in power. [11:30] What roles to the majority and minority parties occupy in Congress? The American system fragments power to such an extent that there is always ambiguity about who really is in power. Having a presidential election occur separately from Congressional elections means that we regularly have an outcome where you have one party in control of the Executive Branch and the other party in control of Congress. A party may not have full control of Congress, they may have a majority in one chamber but not a majority in the other. And then, of course, there’s always the question of the Senate where a simple majority is not enough to govern in the Senate. One might even ask, does any party ever really have control of American government? It’s a fair question and the answer is not very often. [14:13] How do the parties talk about compromise and conflict? Party messaging does go out in public and say, “Look at all these great deals that we’ve cut with the opposing party. That, you know, we sat down and worked out things in a reasonable basis, and here’s what we produced working cooperatively together.” That is not how party messaging plays out. The party not in power wants to say that the party in power is doing a bad job. How can it say that if it’s taking credit for accomplishments that were bipartisan? So, it has to say what the majority wants to do is bad, and their agenda is misguided or wrong. They’re continually criticizing one another and party messaging is disproportionately negative. [20:05] Does the increase in party conflict affect the number of bills Congress passes? The number of bills has come down, so the number of individual laws is less than it was before this highly partisan, closely contested era got underway. But the bills that passed these days are much longer, so they are more omnibus in character so that if we look at the total number of legislative pages enacted in a Congress, it’s not less than it was in the 1980s. So what you tend to see is relatively few bills going through navigating this grueling process, but they pack a lot into them. [22:55] How does party conflict impact trust in Congress as an institution? They are cognizant of the low level of trust in Congress and it has provoked some reform effort. Right now, there is a select committee on the modernization of Congress, which, you know, sees its mission as to take action to improve public, trust in, in Congress. But these institution-wide incentives are not as powerful as the incentives to gain or maintain majority control. So  the second set of imperatives are more driving of behavior. They’re more important to party leaders, to donors. The power struggle takes precedence over these institutional considerations. But the institutional considerations are something they care about. [24:37] What, if anything, would need to happen to shift this paradigm? You’d have to have one party win firm grip on power, so that the other party doesn’t see an immediate path back in. That would reduce incentives for constantly messaging and seeking a political angle to impeach the performance of the party in power. It would reduce the focus on partisan politics if key questions about which party the public trusted with power were sort of settled. But there’s no sign of that happening.  So it really boils back down to the public’s views of the parties. And neither party in American politics is a majority party. They’re both minority parties. And when one party wins power it tends to generate a backlash against that party in power because the public simply doesn’t trust either party with power. [27:10] Would things be better if member of Congress from opposing parties interacted more socially? What I hear from members and former members is a complaint about not being able to get to know people from across the aisle. They don’t have time. They’re not in Washington very much and when they’re there, they have to meet with constituents or with their party caucuses. And then there’s fundraising, so there’s just not much chance for them to get to know each other. I’ve heard former members complain about how hard it is to be seen as friendly to the other side. To go to dinner is something that can get you in political trouble. Somebody takes a picture, Tweets about it and your constituents see you shaking hands or being friendly and negative feedback in terms of calls coming into the office. I think they feel constrained by their supporters in the electorate to seem more hostile, maybe, than they actually feel. [28:48] Can individual voters do anything to change the situation in Congress? Voter preferences do make a difference. Now, the individual voter that’s a high bar. But what voters want does restrict what parties do. Republicans struggled to repeal the Affordable Care Act because it was not seen as the popular thing to do. Republican states have expanded Medicaid in wake of the creation of the Affordable Care Act. Even though their voters never approved of Obama, the policy was popular. And so you’ve seen a steady growth in the number of states that have done this. So, there’s a responsiveness of both parties to what voters want. It’s hard for them to buck what voters want, to the opposite of what voters want.
2/17/202040 minutes, 37 seconds
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How states are working to keep your vote safe

Elections are the bedrock of any democracy. Without confidence in the process or the results, confidence in democracy itself is vulnerable. With the primary season underway and the general election just a few months away, conversations about election security are starting to enter the public conscience. We saw this firsthand in Iowa last week as conspiracy theories about results hacking swirled despite no evidence of malicious interference in caucus results. Since 2016, states have taken measures to add paper trails, intrusion detection, audit systems, and other measures to safeguard the voting records from voting interference. However, elections are conducted county by county, which means resources are spread thin, and large-scale efforts can be difficult to coordinate. Adding this additional layer of security might also mean longer wait times at the polls on Election Day at a time when turnout is already expected to be high. Our guest this week is Bill Theobald, a senior writer at The Fulcrum, a news site devoted to covering democracy-related issues. He covers election security and frequently talks with both election officials and security experts about how they are working together to safeguard the voting process and ensure a process the public can trust. If you enjoy Democracy Works, please take a minute to visit ratethispodcast.com/democracy and leave us a rating in your podcast app. Additional Information The Fulcrum’s story on election security in swing states Related Episodes Protecting democracy from foreign interferance  What should voting look like in the 21st century? Episode Credits This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU’s Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane. Interview Highlights [8:20] What do we know about the extent of hacking of voting in the 2016 election? I believe the public thinks that a lot more happen than really did happen. I think it was so shocking that somebody tried to do this, that the fact that they were unsuccessful sort of gets lost. There are really only two things that we know about in which they actually broke into some particular system. One is the Illinois voter registration rolls and apparently they downloaded some names of people who are registered to vote. Nothing was changed and also there was some attempts and maybe success to break into some election offices, computers in Florida, but there’s not entirely clear what they actually accomplished. And the bottom line is no votes were changed. No voter names were taken off or added to the voting rolls. Again, I think people were so outraged and concerned about it that they think that things were a lot worse than they were. [10:45] What are states doing to make this year’s elections more secure? They are implementing systems that create a paper record of some sort. When you cast your ballot, you have a piece of paper and they have a piece of paper that shows what you intended to do with your vote. And that way they can check it against what the actual results are and make sure that there wasn’t some problem in the way it was counted. They’re also adding audits, which allows them to go back and actually check the results versus the ballots themselves. [20:44] Are there specific states leading the charge for reform? The one that I hear the most about is Colorado and the reason for that is that they went to paper ballots or a ballot system or voting system that creates a paper record. And they were one of the first to mandate these risk limited audits after every election. And I think that they’re considered to have a pretty well run operation and a uniformity of belief and a bipartisan support for some of these things. I think the places where this happens where it’s going well are where there’s an agreement that no matter what your political outlook is or what candidate you’re going to vote for or who you support, that we have to come together and make sure that these systems are secure. [24:05] Has election security managed to stay above the partisan fray? I guess you could say that there’s probably politics and partisan politics these days in almost anything. But it’s among the least partisan of the issues and if anything it’s because of the great level of concern that’s out there. I think there is certainly different policy positions on how to address it, whether to have a consistent funding mechanism from the federal government or whether that should be something that’s left more to the states and the local governments. So one of the things that Republicans as part of their just general philosophy is that they have a concern about federal control of local elections in that they believe that the decision-making should be left at the local level. [25:55] What changes can voters expect on Election Day? I think one of the things that’s not getting a lot of attention now it’s going to continue to emerge as an issue is that with the additional steps and concerns about security, there’s real and with a huge turnout that’s now sort of being expected you’re going to have a combination of lot of people and longer process, which means a longer wait time to vote if you actually voting on Election Day.
2/10/202036 minutes, 32 seconds
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Primaries, parties, and the public

The 2020 primary season officially begins today with the Iowa caucuses, followed by the New Hampshire primary on February 11 and Nevada and South Carolina later this month. It’s easy to forget that the primaries have not looked like they do now. In fact, it was not until 1968 that things really began to morph into the system of state-by-state contests that we know today. Before that, nominees were largely chosen by party leaders in preverbal smoke-filled back rooms. While the parties once ruled the primary process, they seem to have lost some of that control, particularly in recent years. Donald Trump, a candidate the Republican Party opposed for much of his candidacy, received the nomination in 2016. Bernie Sanders one of the top candidates in this year’s Democratic candidate field, even though he is officially an independent. What does this change mean for democracy? We explore that question this week. David Karol is an associate professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. He is an expert on primaries and the role that the political parties play in them and join us this week to help make sense of how we got here and where things might go moving forward. Additional Information David’s website David’s book, The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform Related Episodes The case for open primaries Your guide to ranked-choice voting How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the “grinding work” of democracy Episode Credits This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU’s Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane. Interview Highlights [7:30] What did the primary process used to look like? The first candidates were chosen by an informal congressional caucus, they had no legal authority, just more like a kind of a parliamentary arrangement. The members of Congress from a party selected the candidate and by the middle of the 19th century that conventions that we know today existed, but the delegates to those conventions were chosen at meetings that were not necessarily so well publicized and the participation while incorporating many more people than the congressional caucus did, it was a relatively small number of people who were involved. It wasn’t very transparent. By the early 20th century in the Progressive Era, primaries were established. Some candidates entered primaries selectively when they need to show strengths. A really strong candidate could hope to be drafted at a convention, which was kind of a fiction because in fact, they were running for the nomination, but the stronger they were the less visible they had to be in their efforts. That system existed more or less until the end of the 1960s. [13:17] What happened in 1968? People had for several years seen primaries as part of the process, if not dominant. But in 1968, what happened is President Johnson was being challenged by Eugene McCarthy, the general candidate. Johnson withdraws and Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President, then enters the race and doesn’t run in any primaries because the filing deadlines have passed. At the Democratic Convention, Humphrey had the majority of the delegates. But there were these anti-Vietnam War protestors who as many people know were violently suppressed by the Chicago police. There were big protests at the convention and it was very messy on live television. And to reunify the party, hopefully, Humphrey agreed to establish a commission that after the election would try to reform the process and make it more open and participatory. [19:05] How did the Republican Party come on board with the changes to the process? There wasn’t a negotiation or a formal agreement at the national level between the parties, but the same trends to decline the favorite sons.  The favorite son tradition was already in decline, and that was true in both parties. As I said, Barry Goldwater had run in primaries in ’64, but what happened is, as I said, many states in 1972 and more in 1976 created primaries and that just carried both parties along and it had important implications for the Republicans as well. [24:00] What role do parties play in primaries today? What’s happened is I think, because to a large extent because of the internet and social media, cable news, other changes in media, obscure candidates can become well known more easily than in the past and can raise significant funds from small donors much more easily than in the past. This open process that party elites had seemingly been able to steer somewhat effectively in the ’80s and the ’90s and the early aughts has become messier. Some of the recent nominees have still been of the story that they don’t hide support from traditional party elites. Hillary Clinton, of course, the most prominent example. I’d also say Mitt Romney, in 2012. I would say parties have an important role in democracy. And there’s a school of thought that democracy is really people having a choice between candidates and those candidates should be screened by political parties and should represent them. And that the current ethos in American politics though is very populist, very skeptical of elites, any idea that people are, that somebody making a decision for them is a hotly contested.
2/3/202040 minutes, 12 seconds
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The connective tissue of democracy

The Women’s March 2020 was held in cities across the country on January 18. What began as a conversation on social media has evolved into a network of groups and organizations that are united in opposition to the Trump administration. From 2017-2019, Dana Fisher and her research team interviewed participants at Washington, D.C. protests, including the Women’s March, March for Our Lives, and the People’s Climate March. They asked protesters about their motivations and how marching in the streets translates into longer-term political action. Fisher argues that the groups in the Resistance are the “connective tissue of democracy,” bringing together people who are working to make their voices heard and advocate for the environment, reproductive rights, and other causes. But will the connective tissue hold through the election in November? What about beyond that? Fisher shares her thoughts based on her research on the Resistance and collective organizing more broadly. Fisher is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and author of American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave, which chronicles the birth and growth of the anti-Trump resistance following the 2016 election. This episode is a nice follow up to our conversation with Theda Skocpol last week about how the Tea Party transformed Republican politics. Additional Information Dana’s book, American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave Dana’s website Related Episodes How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending American politics Grassroots organizing to reboot democracy Tracing the past, present, and future of protests Episode Credits This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU’s Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane. Thank you to Meredith Howard at Columbia University Press for sending us a copy of American Resistance and helping arrange an interview with Dana. Interview Highlights [8:25] How do you define the Resistance? I think of the resistance as a counter-movement to the Trump regime. So, it involves people working individually and through organizations to challenge the Trump administration and its policies. And because it’s specifically about targeting and the Trump administration and its policies, people in the administration who are writing anonymously in the New York Times or publishing books anonymously calling themselves the resistance don’t fit into my definition of resistance. [10:05] Is there anything that unites the Resistance beyond opposition to the Trump administration? Well, I think that we could say that this movement is unified also in its progressive ideals. One of the things that unifies all the people who participated is their concern about a number of different progressive issues. And depending on the event where I’m collecting data, different issues take precedence. So obviously, women’s rights, reproductive rights are very prominent in the Women’s Marches. But at the People’s Climate March, climate change is obviously a prominent feature. At the March for Racial Justice, racial justice and Black Lives Matter tends to be a prominent issue. [12:50] Does the initial outrage that takes people into the streets translate into long-term political engagement? At the early marches, like the Women’s March 2017, a third of the crowd reported never having participated in a protest before. And in fact, I got lots of people telling me, “I’ve never done this before, but I had to come out after this election.” And what we saw in the crowd was very much this sense of group therapy taking place at these events. Organizations, be they civil society organizations, social movement organizations, whatever you want to call them, these groups are the connective tissue of democracy in a lot of ways in America because they do a lot of the work of coordinating among individuals. And so in a lot of cases, the people who at first just felt like they had to get out in the streets, and in many cases, they weren’t particularly connected to organizations, then channeled their outrage into real activism through organizations, and in many cases, targeting the election, particularly the midterm election in 2018. [16:10] Where does the Democratic Party fit in here? In a lot of ways, the Obama administration, the Obama campaign in 2008, masked over a lot of the problems that we saw with regard to real grassroots infrastructure being built at the local level among the Democratic Party or Democratic Party operatives. And so when we get to 2016, resistance groups in a lot of ways formed to fill the void because there are not a lot of opportunities for local people to get involved in progressive left-leaning activities in their communities. [19:04] What is distributed organizing? Distributed organizing is this new way of coordinating and organizing activism and electoral political activism. Let me say that over again. Distributed organizing is a new way of organizing at the local level, and basically, it’s coordinated digitally. And it means that it’s something new that has only come up as people have become much more connected through all these different technologies that are now available. And distributed organizing means that no longer do people attend meetings and sign up and pay dues to organizations. But instead, they sign up to participate in a specific action, in many cases, a protest, through a website. And all of a sudden, they’re on a list, and they’re considered a member of an organization that was sponsoring this event. [26;16] What does the Resistance look like after the 2020 election? An optimistic outcome where the resistance succeeds, and there is a Democrat taking office in the White House and continues to be a democratic majority in the House of Representatives and even the long shot democratic majority in the Senate. In that case, I think that it will be a real question about what happens to the resistance, this fragile coalition of organizations that have bonded together and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people across the country to work together across a range of progressive issues will have a very hard time once they’re working within an issue based specific political realm because all of a sudden, they’re going to have to compete for attention and resources in ways that they don’t right now because everybody’s just working on defense. If President Trump is re-elected, I think that we’re going to see a resistance, a coalition of groups and individuals, who are extremely frustrated with the idea of what will come for the next four years, another four years of retrenchment. I think as a result of that, we’re going to see a resistance that’s becoming increasingly confrontational and reactionary. And I think a lot of the people who are willing to go out into the streets are going to be more interested in something less peaceful and more about pushing confrontation.
1/27/202036 minutes, 34 seconds
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How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending politics

Since 2008, the Tea Party and the Resistance have caused some major shake-ups for the Republican and Democratic parties. The changes fall outside the scope of traditional party politics, and outside the realm of traditional social science research. To better understand what’s going on Theda Skocpol, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Strategy at Harvard and Director of the Scholars Strategy Network, convened a group of researchers to study the people and organizations and at the heart of these grassroots movements. Skocpol joins us this week to discuss their findings and the new book Upending American Politics: Polarizing Parties, Ideological Elites, and Citizen Activists from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance. Her work in particular focuses on the Tea Party and includes interviews with Tea Party members across the country. We also discuss the Resistance and whether these oppositional forces to the party in power are likely to continue after November’s election. Additional Information Upending American Politics from Oxford University Press Skocpol on the Scholars Strategy Network Related Episodes Grassroots organizing to “reboot” democracy Salena Zito’s deep dive into Trump’s America When states sue the federal government The democracy rebellion happening in states across the U.S. Episode Credits This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU’s Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. A huge thank you to Abby Peck in Theda Skocpol’s office for arranging the interview and providing technical support. Interview Highlights [6:45] How did we arrive at our current moment in American politics? Well, I was surprised in the early Obama presidency by the sudden emergence of the Tea Party and perhaps I wasn’t surprised for exactly the same reason that a lot of other people were. First there were some demonstrations, but then there were hundreds of regularly meeting local groups of tea partiers and that attracted our attention because we realized that since the 1960s a lot of the organizing on the civic side in the United States had taken the form of national advocacy groups and maybe some local things, but usually not very connected into anything national. Then if you fast forward eight to 10 years later, the same thing happened when Trump was elected and in both cases these were presidents that shocked the other side, elected at the same time as Congress was controlled by their own party. And the grassroots resistance emerged even more quickly after the Trump election, which was an even bigger shock to the people on the other side. [10:01] What was it about Barack Obama’s election that changed the paradigm? It’s in Americans’ DNA to organize when something strikes citizens as needing action and both grassroots tea partiers and the grassroots resisters, now they faced a shocking event and that event is probably very important. I think social movement scholars often don’t pay attention to events. But it’s a pretty shocking thing in American democracy when a president who looks like they’re going to carry through radical changes is elected at the same time as a Congress of their own party. And in the case of Barack Obama, of course it was an African American. He looked like he was coming to power at a moment of economic crisis that was going to lead to sweeping changes led by Democrats, and at that moment, a lot of grassroots conservatives just said to themselves, we can’t depend on the Republican Party to do anything. We don’t trust the Republican Party. Who’s going to do it? We’re going to do it. And so they started organizing face to face. [12:15] How does today’s organizing relate to older styles of civic engagement and civil society? In the Tea Party it was more men and women often married couples together, but women were more present than you might think and more present than you would think for conservatives because women tend to do things and these are almost always in both sides people who’ve had experience organizing in their workplaces, their churches, maybe they’ve been part of the local political party or a local civic movement on the left or the right. And so in a way they do remember older fashioned ways of organizing and then they will usually pick up some of the new internet techniques and kind of meld them together with what they know. [16:46] Tell us about the “uneasy marriage” in the Republican party I personally write about the dual roots of Republican party extremism and they really are quite different. I mean the Koch Network and other multimillionaires and billionaires have organized since 2004 really with roots going back even further than that to try to persuade Republican Party politicians in office or running for office that they should ruthlessly pursue more and more tax cuts that benefit the very, very rich, i.e. the people who are doing the organizing and block any kind of environmental or global warming response through government, disable unions, labor unions, that’s a top priority and deregulate business at all levels. The Koch network likes immigration, makes labor cheaper, but the grassroots tea parties were angry that Hispanic immigrants in particular, central Americans and Mexicans were coming in large numbers and changing the cultural composition of the society that they thought they grew up in or that they did grow up in. [21:25] How does Donald Trump benefit groups like the NRA and the Fraternal Order of Police? When Donald Trump appears before actual groups, ongoing organizations, they tend to be the gun rights groups, the NRA, the Christian right conventions or the values summit that the Christian right holds every year. Or we saw that he also visited fraternal order of police lodges where he would routinely give a speech saying those black lives matters. People are being backed by the Democrats to attack our hero policemen and I’m with you and we can be sure that they’re doubling down on all of that. And that’s very advantageous to Donald Trump because it gives him networks that reach into just about every community in every state that he needs to carry in the Electoral College. [23:06] How does the Resistance compare to the Tea Party? The Resistance and the Democrats face a harder set of tasks. Because the Tea Party, when it organized at the grassroots in 2009 and ’10 it formed probably about a 1,500 groups spread all over the country. They didn’t engage in a lot of voter registration efforts that we could observe at the time. And they didn’t have to because they were older, conservative minded whites, angry at Democrats and an African American president and they sort of knew that their friends and neighbors were going to vote because old people vote in this country and conservatives vote very, very regularly and Christian evangelical conservatives really vote regularly. So it was more a matter of changing the agenda, changing the public discussion, creating a sense of urgency and fear, which a lot of people that were there surrounding them of like minded people already felt. [26:14] Will organizing against the party in power become the norm moving forward? It’s very likely that if a Democrat wins the White House this time, that the Democrats will hold the house but not take the Senate. And they certainly will not take most of the state legislatures and governorships. So in that scenario, I expect the right not to stand down in any way. We’ll see the same kind of fierce and unremitting opposition that Barack Obama faced. The outcome might be a little different this time because Barack Obama and many Democrats in the Congress spent three years thinking they could work out compromises with people that weren’t about to compromise with them.
1/20/202041 minutes, 21 seconds
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A 2020 preview

This week, we begin a new year and a new season with a look ahead what 2020 will mean for democracy in the United States and around the world. We know that there will be a Census and an election, but will they be carried out in a democratic way? The escalating conflict with Iran is another unknown, but one that will no doubt have ramifications for democracy in the U.S. and abroad. We also look at how political polarization has changed since 2016 and the implications of that change on just about every aspect of our lives. From impeachment to Iran, we see that Americans are more divided than ever. It’s unclear what that will mean as tensions with Iran escalate. Underlying some of this polarization is our media environment. Little about the way Americans consume news on social platforms has changed since 2016. Disinformation and fake news are already starting to spread in advance of the 2020 election. Note: You’ll hear some discussion in this episode about Facebook and deepfake videos. After we recorded, Facebook announced that it would begin taking steps to remove videos that have been manipulated using artificial intelligence, making exceptions for satire, parody, and videos that have been edited solely to omit or change the order of words. Related Episodes A few of the episodes we reference in this one: Protecing democracy from foreign interference  It’s good to be counted Facebook is not a democracy The complicated relationship between campaign finance and democracy Will Millennials disrupt democracy? How conspiracies are damaging democracy Episode Credits This episode was recorded at the WPSU studios and engineered by Craig Johnson. The episode was edited by Mark Stitzer and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Finally, don’t forget to leave a rating for Democracy Works if you enjoy what you hear on the show. Visit ratethispodcast.com/democracy to give us some stars in your favorite podcast app.
1/13/202035 minutes, 15 seconds
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Grassroots organizing to “reboot” democracy [rebroadcast]

Happy New Year! Our winter break continues with a rebroadcast from fall 2018 with Lara Putnam on grassroots organizing in suburban America. This episode was recorded before the  2018 midterms, but many of the trends we discuss bore out in the election. Putnam is a Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author with Theda Skockpol of the article “Middle America Reboots Democracy.” in Democracy, a Journal of Ideas and a new book called Upending American Politics. She argues that grassroots work is happening behind the scenes in “purple” suburbs, areas that are ignored in the red state/blue state and urban/rural media narratives. Grassroots groups like those Putnam observed in western Pennsylvania are mixing traditional organizing tactics with social media to raise awareness and push for change at the local and state levels, far away from the divisions that bog down national politics. To borrow a line from the article, “If your question is how the panorama of political possibility has shifted since November 2016, your story needs to begin here.” Finally, you’ll hear Michael and Chris talk at the end about”giving us some stars.” Over the holidays, we came across a new site that makes giving us a rating very simple. Visit ratethispodcast.com/democracy to get started. Additional Information Middle America Reboots Democracy in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas Upending American Politics – a new book with two chapters by Putnam Related Episodes The “democracy rebellion” happening in states across the U.S. Salena Zito on understanding Trump’s America Interview Highlights [5:28] As a history professor, how did you come to write about a political movement? Lara: After the 2016 election, I looked around at local politics to see where I could make a change. Based on the national political coverage, I expected to see high levels of energy and organization for progressive politics in the city and little in the suburbs. However, what I found was actually that I was missing the real story. What I saw in these smaller towns was people engaging again in the political process through organization. This wasn’t getting covered nationally. This is where I kicked into historical gear. We know that large scale changes nationally have their roots in local developments. Therefore, it leads us to believe that these changes at the local level should be looked at as the possible motivation behind future national changes. So face to face groups which appear insignificant, can actually lead to large political changes. [8:35] What does middle America mean to you after your research? Lara: These movements are being started by women. Particularly, women who had already been involved in the political movement prior to the 2016 election. What we mean by “middle America” here is that these democrat movements are taking place not in the stereotypical coastal democrat strongholds, but rather in small rural towns in the middle of the country. [11:30] Why do you think the national media is missing this trend? Lara: The national media is really obsessed with candidates. While this does impact the spread of movements like the ones we’re seeing, it doesn’t completely stop them. Remember that politics is local. Most political conversations and political knowledge is shared in local conversations such as when people are running errands in town. This is how information is usually shared. The media tends to underreport this type of grass roots kitchen table politics. [13:30] Do these groups still see support from the Democratic Party? Lara: Part of the story here is that the Democratic Party changed. This is why we’re seeing many of these groups being created recently. The party used to be structured in such as way that you could join it and know your fellow democrats. You had a sense that you belonged to an actual place with real people rather than simply an email list. How the party today has embraced these new organizations has varied around the country. In some places, the local party structure has embraced these new groups while in other places you’re seeing more resistance to bringing them into the fold. Whether or not this osmosis process happens depends a lot on the level of maturity of these groups. What I mean by that is how organized and structured they are. When a group is very structured, it tends to more naturally fold into a larger equally as organized group. [19:25] Do you think there is room in these left leaning groups for someone who voted for Trump in 2016 but have since changed their minds? Lara: I think there are many different “middle Americas” out there. People are complicated and terms such as progressive means different things in different places. [23:31] How are these groups communicating and utilizing technology to advance their causes? Lara: Some groups have become hybrids of older and newer models in that they’re utilizing both face to face as well as technological forms of communications. For example, groups will often have several facebook pages. One will be public where as the other will be private. This private page has sort of become the 21st century face to face conversation.
1/6/202036 minutes, 45 seconds
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E.J. Dionne on making America empathetic again [rebroadcast]

While we enjoy a holiday break, we are rebroadcasting an episode with E.J. Dionne that was recorded in March 2019. The McCourtney Institute for Democracy brought Dionne to Penn State for a talk on “protecting free expression and making America empathetic again.” After spending some with him, it’s clear that he walks the walk when it comes to empathy. Dionne has the unique perspective of studying the horse race and the big picture of American politics. He writes a twice-weekly column for the Washington Post and appears regularly on NPR, but he’s also a senior fellow at Brookings and professor in Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University. We talked with him about the relationship between partisan politics and democracy, the need for empathy across the political spectrum, and a few policy ideas to help make America more democratic. We could have talked all day and hope to return to some of these topics in future episodes. Additional Information Dionne’s Washington Post columns Dionne’s lecture at Penn State  Dionne’s paper on universal voting for Brookings Chris Beem’s TED talk on how young people can improve democracy Interview Highlights [3:52] In One Nation After Trump, you wrote that a partisan response was required to protect democratic values. What did you mean by that? Trump had done something to our politics that was very dangerous and needed to be reversed, and given that the Republican Party had chosen almost to a person (with a couple of exceptions in Congress) to support Trump, the only way to hit back, to create any sense of accountability, was to give at least one house of Congress to Democrats. There a lot of people out there who aren’t necessarily partisan Democrats, who aren’t necessarily liberals or lefties, who believe that there are abuses here that need to be checked, and that there is a threat to democracy that needs to be reversed, and that’s exactly what happened after the 2018 midterms. [5:19] Should that approach continue heading into 2020? My view is that the Republican party has moved to a point where it needs a real rebuke in order to look inside itself and analyze where they want to continue to be. [6:54] ]What happens to the people who are conservative but don’t may be aligned with where the Republican party is currently? I think there are still a lot of conservatives who made a deal that they think is still worth making on behalf of low taxes deregulation and Supreme Court appointments. There is a pattern in which some districts that 30 or 40 years ago would happily have sent a moderate Republican to the house are now sending Democrats. [11:00] You’ve also called for making America empathetic again. Have you seen any indication that it’s happening? Yes, I have seen it in the reactions of the people when the Muslin ban. The number of people who rush to the airports over the Muslim ban and people who may not have met a Muslim in their life and said “wait a minute, this isn’t who we are.” There is also the reaction of the people to the kids being taken away from their parents at the border. I think we’ve taken some steps forward, but we still have a lot of work to do. [12:51] What can people do to develop a sense of empathy? Chris Beem gave a TED talk in which he said we need people to do three things. First, people need to tell the truth. Second, they need to engage in democratic humility, and third, people need to join an organization. I think one of the terrible things about the Trump age is that the division is so deep that friends who disagree about politics don’t even talk about politics anymore because they’re afraid of busting the friendship, and that’s a problem. [14:54] Why do you think it’s so hard for people to have constructive arguments? I think some of it is that our allegiances are all aligned together in a package. So people’s political commitment and people’s party commitments are aligned with their ideological commitments or often aligned with their religious commitments that includes people who are religious or secular combined with where they live. The “big sort” argument and many things combined in one party has come to stand for it. [16:00] How we can make civil society work given the world we live in today? I think we people need ways in which they can get together face-to-face and do things together. Sports teams are part of that, by the way. There is enormous life in civil society when where kids sports are concerned about it. What I want to tell to my conservative friends is: I’m with you, I want a stronger cvil society, but you have to acknowledge the cost of inequality and the cost of economic collapse. [19:08] Can you give us an overview of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact? We have a problem in our country that’s going to keep growing with the Electoral College. Since 2000, we’ve had just two elections where the Electoral College went against the popular vote. The way in which population is getting concentrated in big states, the over-representation of low population states in the Electoral College will get even greater. This is a problem for democracy and you can’t change it very easily under the Constitution. [22:26] You’ve also worked on what you describe as universal voting. Can you explain what that is and how it might work? This idea comes from Australia. Australia has compulsory attendance at the polls, but not the United States. I’m working on an initiative with Miles Rapoport at the Ash Center at Harvard on this. We’re trying to see what would this look like If we did it in the United States. Our theory is if you can ask people to serve on juries, if you can ask people for going to say to potentially give their lives in war, then asking people to vote is not an over ask for civic life. It finally reverses the role of local officials. They can’t suppress the vote anymore. Their job is to help make it as easy as possible for all the people in the country to vote.
12/30/201935 minutes, 42 seconds
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Is it possible to overdo democracy?

As we enter the holiday season, Robert Talisse thinks it’s a good idea to take a break from politics. In fact, he might go so far as to say democracy is better off if you do. Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and author of a new book called Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place. The book combines philosophical analysis with real-world examples to examine the infiltration of politics into all social spaces, and the phenomenon of political polarization. In the middle of an impeachment inquiry and with a presidential election looming on the horizon, this might seem like precisely the wrong time to try to balance your political engagement with other things. But Talisse argues developing that sense of “civic friendship” through a sports league, book club, cooking class, or just about any other type of activity that’s not political, can help you see past the partisan identity that’s so prevalent these days. If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution, this episode might be a good place to start.  We also discuss deliberative democracy and efforts to bring people from across the political spectrum together to find that sense of common ground. This is our last new episode for 2019. We are going to do a few weeks of rebroadcasts and return in mid-January with a look ahead at what 2020 will have in store for democracy — we have a feeling there will be no shortage of things to discuss. Listener Survey As we head toward the end of the year, we are conducting a listener survey to find out how we can make the show even better in 2020. Complete the survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works mug. We’ve already sent one batch of mugs to our listeners around the country and will do another one after the holidays. Additional Information Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place Talisse’s TED talk on putting politics in its place Talisse’s website Related Episodes Unpacking political polarization The closing gap between business and politics Is it time to revive civility? Interview Highlights [7:17] In the book, you seem to use politics and democracy interchangeably. How do you define each term? I think of democracy as a series of institutional, procedural, constitutional norms that are all underwritten by a more fundamental moral principal. That is, I think that democracy is, at its core, the moral proposition that a relatively stable and relatively just social order is possible in the absence of rulers, and bosses, and kings, and the like. Democracy is also a broader social ideal. It’s the ideal of living together as equals in a political and social context, and what I think that means is that democracy is a moral solution, or proposes a moral solution, to a problem. The problem that democracy proposes a solution to is the problem of severe, sometimes heated, disagreement about politics. [9:55] How did you arrive at the notion of “overdoing” democracy? I think democracy is a capital social good. However and because it’s a capital social good, we in our roles as democratic citizens  have to do some hard work. Democracy requires a lot of us. It’s a demanding social ideal. Don’t want to deny any of that. What  I want to push back on the idea that the best strategy that we have for pursuing those lofty social ideals by means of democracy is to perpetually be enacting democracy, perpetually be acting in the role of democratic citizen. I think that if we want to perform well as democratic citizens, and do well by or do right by our goals, our moral goals for a better society, we have to find or as the case may be try to construct venues where we can interact with one another in contexts where our politics is simply beside the point. [17:46 ] How has politics become a bigger part of our identities? As the country at the macro level has become more diverse, the local spaces we inhabit in our walkabout daily activities have become increasingly homogenous, so in the aggregate it’s a more diverse country, but in our day to day social environment, the atmosphere within which casual, non-planned social interactions occur, this has all become increasingly homogenous and politically homogenous, such that the person sitting next to you on the bus, the person standing behind you on line in the grocery store or in the coffee shop, is increasingly likely to have a political profile that’s just like your own. 25 years ago, workplaces, schools, local parks, beaches, these sort of public venues, these places where people would get together were far more politically heterogeneous than they are today. [25:49 ] What do you make of efforts to bring people from opposing political perspectives together for dialogue and deliberation? I count myself as a democratic theorist, as a deliberate democrat, so I’m on board with deliberative democracy as a theoretical approach to thinking about democratic legitimacy and political authority, and also to thinking about good democratic practice, so I’m sort of an omnivorous kind of deliberative democrat. I’m on board with the project in the broadest sense, and also I’ve theorized it in some of its particulars in some other work. The dinner table conversations initiatives, initiatives about deliberative polling, and citizen assemblies, and citizen juries, and all the rest, those are all incredibly promising initiatives and the data that come out of those experiments and those endeavors strike me as really, really promising. I am skeptical, though, about the prospects for these kinds of interventions, which I would say are good, necessary steps towards repairing democracy. [30:24] How do you recommend people “put politics in its place?” What I think the first step is to putting politics in its place is sort of recognizing that your conception of what the people, the rank and file citizens on the other side, are like. That’s the product of these phenomena. Maybe you need to recognize that.  It’s part of the profile of this cognitive phenomenon, belief polarization, that not only do you become a more extreme version of yourself, you start to adopt more negative attitudes towards the people who you perceive to be different from yourself, and here’s the crucial part: you also start to adopt an unreasonably monolithic and un-nuanced conception of what the other side is like, and you could even hear this in pronouncements among citizens and politicians. We’re lead to think that there’s just one kind of person on the opposite side of the aisle that is our political rival, and that’s an unduly homogenized conception of how politics works.
12/23/201942 minutes, 11 seconds
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Chris Beem on democratic humility and virtues

Earlier this fall, our own Chris Beem traveled to Notre Dame to appear on With a Side of Knowledge, a podcast produced by the university’s Office of the Provost. The show is recorded over brunch, and this happened to the last meal served at campus institution Sorin’s. Bacon and eggs aside, Chris talks with host Ted Fox about his most recent book, Democratic Humility: Reinhold Niebuhr, Neuroscience, and America’s Political Crisis, and his current work on democratic virtues. They discuss why democracy runs counter to the way we’re wired, and why it’s so difficult to sustain. This episode is a cool collaboration for a few reasons: Chris is a Notre Dame alumnus — we won’t tell you what year he graduated Ted Fox, the host of With a Side of Knowledge, and our own Jenna Spinelle have become podcast kindred spirits since they met earlier this year. Tracy and Ted McCourtney are generous supporters of both Penn State and Notre Dame. In many ways, this collaboration would not have been possible without them. We’ll return to our normal format next week for one final episode in 2019 before taking a holiday break. Listener Survey We we head toward the end of the year, we are conducting a listener survey to find out how we can make the show even better in 2020. Complete the survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works mug — the perfect holiday gift for the democracy enthusiast in your life. Additional Information With a Side of Knowledge Democratic Humility: Reinhold Niebuhr, Neuroscience, and America’s Political Crisis
12/16/201935 minutes
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Next-generation democracy

Credit: Rachel Franklin Photography/Draw the Lines PA One of the things we heard in our listener survey (which there’s still time to take, by the way) is that we should have more young people on the show as guests. It was a great suggestion and, after having this conversation, we’re so glad to have received it. Joining us this week is Kyle Hynes, a junior at State College Area High School and a true advocate for democracy. He is the statewide champion in the youth division of the Draw the Lines PA mapping competition and winner of the Future Leader in Social Studies from the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies. Kyle is an expert on the ins and outs of gerrymandering, but he also has interesting perspectives impeachment, political engagement among his peers, and the generational divide in American politics. We’ve had a lot of guests tell us that they put hope in Generation Z to solve some of the challenges we face. If Kyle is any indication, that hope is in the right place. Listener Survey We we head toward the end of the year, we are conducting a listener survey to find out how we can make the show even better in 2020. Complete the survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works mug — the perfect holiday gift for the democracy enthusiast in your life. Additional Information Draw the Lines PA Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies Related Episodes One state’s fight for fair maps What can Pennsylvania voters do about gerrymandering? Generation Z and the future of democracy Citizenship, patriotism, and democracy in the classroom Interview Highlights [3:05] How did you become interested in redistricting? I’ve always been really interested in math. I’ve also been interested in politics for quite a while, and so I’m really interested in the areas where they intersect, where math and politics come together. I feel like gerrymandering is one of those places. Redistricting is a logistical puzzle and you try to put it together. So I’ve always thought this is really interesting, and then when I saw that there was a competition, you can draw your own map, see if you can do it better. I was like, “I want to try that.” [3:40] Where does your interest in politics come from? Our family’s really politically engaged, and my political interest kind of sparked during the 2016 primaries, where it seemed almost, especially on the Republican side, just because there were more candidates, it seemed almost like a giant game. It’s like the Hunger Games, who can get to the cornucopia first? And it was like, “Is this really how we choose our politicians? Really?” And so that kind of sparked an interest for me, and then it’s kind of carried through ever since. [6:00] What do your friends think about your involvement in politics? Some of my friends are interested in politics, all have a lower tolerance for politics than I do. But yeah, so sometimes there’s the reaction of, “Oh Kyle, just shut up about the damn politics.” But often sometimes they are interested in politics and stuff like that. On the one hand, there’s some ambivalence. People think Republicans and Democrats are the same and everyone is corrupt and in it for their own ends. But there’s also a bunch of people, I would say a majority even, among kids my own age who actually do care, and who are actually interested in finding solutions to problems. And I feel like to a certain extent it’s less tribal, especially among high schoolers and young adults. The tribal mentality really isn’t there. [8:36] What’s been your experience with civics education? I took a civics class in eighth grade,  which was pretty good. And then the only thing after that is the AP government class in 12th grade, so both those classes have certainly played a role. I feel like another big contributor to my civics education, my parents are both really politically minded, civically minded, and they both raised me from an early age to care about this stuff. [10:42] What was your process for creating the district map for Draw the Lines PA? I had certainly seen a lot of alternate Pennsylvania congressional maps that people had drawn saying, “Hey, I can do this better than the politicians in Harrisburg.” And so I feel like I drew some from a lot of those different maps, and different attitudes towards districting. And I feel like I also kind of pulled on my math background, because I wanted to create as many districts that were competitive, for both sides, as possible, and I feel like at some point that was just a pure puzzle. It was just, how do I cobble the precincts together in such a way that you get as many 50/50 districts as you can? I wanted to use competitive districts, because in my perfect world, if we had an electoral system of my choice, it would be a proportional representation system, so that everyone could actually have a say in choosing the government. But obviously this competition didn’t allow for that, you drew the districts. And so I felt like I wanted to draw a map that gave every single voter as much say as physically possible [14:20] People often put faith in younger generations to fix what’s broken in politics. Are you aware of that pressure and how do you feel about it? Yeah, sometimes. I feel like the youth in any generation are always the least jaded. As people go through life, they often become more and more and more jaded. But I feel like a lot of the issues that have been prevalent in the past, and even today, there is, like I certainly hope that our generation or generations above us can take care of the issues, because somebody’s got to. So I feel like on the one hand, it’s a little bit of pressure like, “We’re going to give it to the youth, see what they can do with it.” But on the other hand, I think in the future, our generation will end up taking the reins of power, and I feel like, I hope that we can do good things with them. [15:40] What’s your biggest “OK Boomer” moment when it comes to politics? I feel like it’s tough to answer the question because like a lot of things, even though like almost everything, there are a lot of people in that, a lot of Boomers who agree with what I think, and a lot who don’t. And a lot of people who have been doing things to advance what we need to do in a bunch of these different categories, and a bunch who don’t. But I feel like of all of the issues that, I feel like older generations, like the one currently in power now in DC has failed in, and this is not a dispersion on any generation as a whole, but just the part of it that is currently in power, is climate change, because I feel like they’ve had a long time, and by they, I mean the caucuses in Washington, a long time to deal with this, and it hasn’t been dealt with. And so I feel like that’s something that’s going to end up being passed down to our generation, which we’re going to have to deal with. [25:53] What does democracy mean to you? People are only actually exercising democracy when they’re actually making their voices heard. I feel like it goes beyond voting. Sure, the right to vote is a key part of democracy and you can’t have democracy without it, but there’s the right to meet with your representatives. There’s the right to free speech. The right to a free press. And all of these things I feel like are so key to democracy. It’s like it is rule of the people, by the people, but it’s also rule of the people, rule for the people. So having a system where you can actually talk about what you want to talk about, you can make your voice heard, you can vote in situation where every single person has the same key right to vote, which is really fundamental, and where you don’t have certain people blocking other people’s right to vote or right to vote meaningfully.
12/9/201928 minutes, 52 seconds
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The democracy rebellion happening in states across the U.S.

Hedrick Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of bestselling books The Russians, Who Stole the American Dream? and many others. Over the course of his nearly 60 years in journalism, he’s interviewed some of the biggest politicians and power brokers on the national and international stage. Now, his reporter’s curiosity has led him to places like Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Hartford, Connecticut to report on efforts to end gerrymandering, remove money from politics, and fight corruption through grassroots organizing. Smith joins us this week to talk about what he learned from these organizers while filming his latest project, a documentary called The Democracy Rebellion: A Reporter’s Notebook with Hedrick Smith that will air on PBS this January. He says that the grassroots are not nearly as polarized as politicians and political insiders, as evidenced by the fact that many of these pro-democracy ballot initiatives passed with large bipartisan majorities. Smith also reflects on the state of the media today and why grassroots movements can’t seem to capture the attention that horse race politics do. It’s part of the reason why he’s still out there pounding the pavement as a reporter and getting out of his home in Washington, D.C. to meet people doing the hard work of democracy every day. Listener Survey We we head toward the end of the year, we are conducting a listener survey to find out how we can make the show even better in 2020. Complete the survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works mug — the perfect holiday gift for the democracy enthusiast in your life. Additional Information Hedrick’s website, Reclaim the American Dream Related Episodes One state’s fight for fair maps Winning the “democracy lottery” The complicated relationship between campaign finance and democracy Interview Highlights [8:26] How did the story of democracy reform come onto your radar? It’s a great story nobody else is covering and that’s always interesting to me. I wrote a book some years ago called, Who Stole the American Dream? that was really about how we got to the terrible economic inequalities we have today, and to the dysfunctional political system we have today. And as I went around the country giving talks about that, people said, “What are we going to do about that?” or “Do you know about this?”And I began to discover there was a lot more going on around the country, at the grassroots, at the state level, and it was totally being ignored by Washington. [10:20] What motivates the grassroots organizers you met? They’re, they’re angry that democracy doesn’t work right. They don’t feel as though their votes count, they don’t feel as though Washington listens to them. You look at poll after poll and it says lobbyists have too much power, corporations have taken over, Washington, they’ve captured the congress, and our system is broken. [18:14] How should organizations strike a balance between making changes through ballot initiatives and longer-term political reforms? There is a sense that reform as an issue is something people are looking for candidates to advocate is certainly front and center now. It’s coming, though it’s not yet high enough on the priority list for people to really be concerned about. I mean, you still have people worried, understandably, about jobs, about immigration, about climate change and so forth. So it’s among the top tier issues but it’s not at the top. [20:09] Is it possible that there could be too many groups competing for money, attention, and other resources? The answer is yes. I did a documentary for PBS Frontline some years ago called Poisoned Waters, which is an effort to look at what happened to the Clean Water Act 35 years later. And when I went into the field, I was just amazed at how many, environmental groups were competing for time, money, and resources. There’s no question that the political reform movement suffers from the same kind of thing. It is sprawling. [26:11] What happens to the organizers after whatever they’re working toward is successful? Do they move on to other causes or organizations? In a number of states, they fight off the effort of the other side to reverse the reform. So they’re often very engaged in that. Then once they’ve survived that cycle, then they start to look around and see what else they need to do. In Florida, they moved from the gerrymander reform into restoring the, the voting rights of former felons and that kind of stuff. So I think what happens is, not everybody does it, but usually the leaders and some of the people that are important say, “Well this other issue is important to us. Let’s, let’s move ahead on it.” I think there’s a sense that people power can work and does work and we got a victory here and our system is going to be better for it. [30:50] Why don’t these issues receive more media attention? I think there’s  a sense that nothing can be done and it’s all a result of hyper-partisanship. That’s the easy story to tell. Trump news is also big and media outlets are making enormous money off of it. It’s really easy to produce and something I call fire engine journalism. There’s lots of drama but you haven’t really told people anything they really need to know. We’re so caught up in easy reporting and profitable journalism  that we’re not doing our job. We’re also very comfortable sitting in New York, Los Angeles and Washington and telling everybody what’s going on in the rest of the country
12/2/201942 minutes, 26 seconds
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A roundtable on impeachment, institutions, and legitimacy

This week’s episode is a conversation between Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, and Michael Baranowski of The Politics Guys, a podcast that looks at political issues in the news through a bipartisan, academic lens. Baranowski is an associate professor of political science at Northern Kentucky University. His focus is American political institutions, public policy, and media — which makes him a great match for our own Michael and Chris. They discuss impeachment from the standpoint of political institutions and the legitimacy of our democracy. Regardless of what happens with the current impeachment inquiry, some of our government’s norms and institutions may be irreversibly damaged, while others may develop in response to the Trump administration. They also touch on the growing epistemic divide we discussed with Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead in our episode on conspiracies. The Politics Guys is a bipartisan show, but Baranowski increasingly feels like he and his colleagues are talking past each other rather than having meaningful discussions. Listener Survey As we head toward the end of the year, we are conducting a listener survey to find out how we can make the show even better in 2020. Complete the survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works mug — the perfect holiday gift for the democracy enthusiast in your life. Additional Information The Politics Guys Related Episodes Understanding impeachment — from the Federalist Papers to the whistleblower Checking the President’s power How conspiracies are damaging democracy
11/25/201955 minutes, 31 seconds
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Your guide to ranked-choice voting

Ranked-choice voting has been in the news a lot lately. It was adopted in New York City’s November 2019 election, used for the first time in U.S. Congressional elections last year, and will be the method by which at least a few states choose a Democratic primary candidate in 2020.But, what is it? How does it work? And, is it more democratic than the single-vote method we’re used to? This week’s guest has answers to all of those questions.Burt L. Monroe is Liberal Arts Professor Political Science, Social Data Analytics, and Informatics at Penn State and Director of the university’s Center for Social Data Analytics. He says ranked-choice voting is generally a good thing for democracy, but not entirely without problems of its own. We also talk about bullet voting, donkey voting, and other types of voting that have been tried around the world.As Michael and Chris discuss, ranked-choice voting falls into a category of grassroots organizing around pro-democracy initiatives like gerrymandering and open primaries. These efforts signal a frustration with the status quo and a desire to make the rules of democracy more fair and equitable.If you enjoy our show, please take a minute to leave a rating or review in your podcast app. Thank you!Additional InformationFairvote, an advocacy group for ranked-choice voting and election reformBurt’s Google Scholar listingRelated EpisodesThe case for open primariesOne state’s fight for fair mapsInterview Highlights[6:52] What is ranked-choice voting?Ranked-choice voting is used to describe a lot of different systems, but mostly what people mean is something that’s usually referred to as instant run-off.  In a traditional runoff election, you vote as you normally would and if no one gets a majority, everybody but the top two is eliminated and you come back in  four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks and vote again and somebody has a majority.Ranked-choice voting does that all at one time. Voters rank the candidates in a pure system from first choice to last choice and the votes are tallied based on the first choices and if no one has a majority, then the last place candidate is eliminated and the voters who had voted for that candidate first, their vote is transferred to their second candidate. And it goes on and on until there’s a majority.[8:33] Does a voter have to rank all candidates on a ballot?The only place I know of that requires you to rank everybody is Australia, which uses it for their national elections. In most places you can rank as few as you want. If you rank only one, that’s called bullet voting. Most of the U.S. variations of this, you can only rank up to a certain number. The New York one that just passed is five, I believe San Francisco’s three. But you can vote for as many as you like, just as long as you don’t vote more than one for first or second and so on.[11:24] Does ranked-choice voting change the way a candidate campaigns?This is one of the key points of contention about how this system works. One of the main arguments for it is that it encourages candidates to try to broaden their appeal so they can get those second choice, third choice, fourth choice. And that seems to be largely what happens. Although, there are examples where it didn’t. Fiji uses ranked-choice voting and had a lot of antagonistic ethnic based voting. In that case, the electorate was so polarized that more extreme candidates were able to get more first choices and more moderate candidates were punished and didn’t get enough first choices to stay in the race.[14:26] How does ranked-choice voting account for third-party candidates?If voters can be more sincere about their true preference for Jill Stein or Ralph Nader or what have you, but those candidates don’t make the cut of on the first choices, their second choices are presumably the one- the more moderate that’s closer to them. It’s very handy for elections that have lots and lots of candidates. For example, New York is anticipating 17 candidates in one of their races coming up for advocate, And so you can imagine if you’re just picking your first choice, with 17 candidates somebody could win with 5% of the vote.[16:18] Does ranked-choice voting give an advantage to low-information voters?Yeah, that’s definitely a thing. Even in our current system, there’s spoiled ballots that people fill out wrong. But there two ways I’m familiar with that this happens. One is bullet voting that I mentioned earlier, which is just voting for one candidate. Those votes are more likely to be, I think the term they use is exhausted. That is, their candidate gets eliminated and they don’t have a second choice for it to pass to so their vote isn’t used in the final tally. The other one I’m familiar with is Australia where everyone has to fill out he full ranking and there you get a phenomenon called donkey voting  where people rank rank just in the order they appear on the ballot paper. So if they’re alphabetical, they vote alphabetical.[17:58] Is there an impact on voter turnout?It’s always hard to attribute increased turnout in a particular election to one thing because many thing change, but in San Francisco there was dramatic turnout raised in the first election that used this. In some districts, it went from like 17% to over 50%. So really dramatic changes when there wasn’t much obvious else that was different about the election other than the ranked-choice option. The argument is that people want to be able to express themselves and this helps people who might otherwise want to vote for a candidate that doesn’t have a chance or they think doesn’t have a chance.[28:10] Is ranked-choice voting more democratic?I think the system we have now, there’s so many ways it can elect somebody that a lot of people don’t want. This is a pretty easy change to make to keep some bad things from happening and so I think it’s pretty easy to advocate for. 
11/18/201938 minutes, 16 seconds
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Latino immigrants and the changing makeup of American democracy

We’ve talked about immigration several times on this show with good reason. The role that people coming to the United States play in our democracy is an important question and something states, cities, and towns across the country will continue to grapple with as demographics shift. This week’s guest offers a historical perspective that sets the stage for the debate about immigrants we hear so often today. A.K. Sandoval-Strauss is director of the Latina/o Studies program at Penn State and author of the new book Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City. In the book, and in this conversation, he argues that immigrants moved into cities like Dallas and Chicago and revitalized downtowns that were beginning to hollow out because of white flight and discriminatory practices designed to keep African-Americans out. The same thing, he says, is happening again as Latino immigrants move into smaller cities and towns from Hazleton, Pennsylvania to Sioux City, Iowa — bringing economic and cultural vitality to places industry left behind. We also discuss the role that Latinos played in the Civil Rights movement, and how that ties into their complicated identity during the 1950s and 60s, as well as what the future looks like as the Latino population increases while other ethnic groups decrease. Additional Information Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City A.K.’s op-ed in The Washington Post Our sponsor: Penn State World Campus Related Episodes Immigration enforcement at the border Immigration, refugees, and the politics of displacement Interview Highlights [8:12] Latino immigration really started to grow in the 1950s and 60s? How did immigrants at that time view themselves? Did they see themselves as part of the Civil Rights movement? At that point, under American law, they were technically white. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, specified that they were full citizens. However, in actuality they rarely enjoyed full citizenship rights. At the grassroots, there were certainly some sense of commonality in the face of discrimination, but sadly the main Mexican-American civil rights organizations really clung to their status as technically white and often tried to avoid being associated with black people because they felt that that would lead to their being classified as minorities, and discriminated against further. So, there strategy was to really present themselves as like other immigrant stock Americans, and thereby to claim a sort of European ancestry that would entitle them to rights and privileges of whiteness. [12:40] You devote a whole chapter in your book to the year 1965. Why was that such a big year for this population? Most commonly recognized is the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965, which dramatically expanded the range of people who could come to the United States and become citizens, but which also simultaneously in effect, reduced those kinds of opportunities for Hispanics, and people from Latin America. The other reason was that time was the beginning of a series of agricultural crises in Mexico that drove a substantial number of people to migrate to the United States. [14:21] How did white flight impact Latino immigrant into American cities? I think we have to remember that urban America in terms of the total number of people living in cities and the total amount of economic activity happening in cities really peaks in 1950. It begins to decline thereafter, especially because of white flight. Part of that is the story of simple racism of white residents that will not have even one black family as their neighbor. Even if that black family is of a similar economic background just themselves. And the other part of the story is that the United States government subsidizes suburbanization through a number of enactments from highway construction to the mortgage interest deduction. The result of this is that there are overall fewer people living in cities. Remember also, that the African American great migration comes to an end in about the late 1960s. So, literally there is no American born population that is increasing its presence in cities and there are entire neighborhoods with falling populations. As a result, you have falling rents. And that is very attractive to newcomers who are looking for inexpensive places to live. [16:05] Does Latino representation in government follow the rate of immigration? As of the late 1960s, at the time of the establishment of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. There are three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. If we want to jump ahead very briefly to the present. Now, where you have four U.S. Senators who are Latino and 39 members of the House of Representatives as a much more commensurate representation. Somewhat less than the 10-11% of votes that are cast by Latinos. And certainly much less than the roughly 17-18% of the population, who are of Hispanic origin. [19:41] What accounts for the discrepancy in eligible Latino voters and the number of people who actually vote? Some people are coming from countries in which the government is highly corrupt and unreliable and they don’t necessarily see what advantages they would have through voting or supporting particular candidates for president. Others are just part of a lower-income population, so again lower-income people of all backgrounds tend to vote at a lower rate. There have not necessarily been the voter turnout efforts you might expect. [22:18] You argue that fear of Latino immigrants comes mostly from people who do not regularly interact with those immigrants. Can you talk a little more about what that dynamic looks like? I think it’s very important to remind ourselves that, that initial, initial mythology of the blue-collar revolt simply was not true. Subsequent examination of the actual voter data files show that there was no correlation between people who had, had a factory shut down in their community and voting for Donald Trump. There was no correlation in people being in direct competition with immigrants for jobs and voting for Donald Trump. In fact it was not the poorest members of  white communities, but those who were somewhat more well off that were most likely to vote for him. More broadly, it was precisely those people with the most acquaintance with Latino and Latina and other immigrants that were most likely to vote for Hilary Clinton because they simply did not by and large, buy into the anti-immigrant agenda that Trump brought into politics. So, it becomes a sort of cities and inter metropolitan areas versus rural areas divide, whereby those who don’t know very many immigrants were the most likely to want to exclude them [23:56] Are we now seeing the same population changes happen in small towns that we saw in cities a generation ago? Between about 1970 and the 2010s immigrant Latinos were the single biggest factor in solving a huge problem of 20th century America, the Urban Crisis, and turning the cities around. Now there’s rural areas that are suffering some of those same kinds of symptoms, right? Depopulation, aging of the population, lack of economic opportunities, and a lot of rising drug addiction and crime. When you have declining native-born populations and you desperately need new residents, new workers, new school children, new baseball players that Latinos are the solution to this newer problem as well. And again, ironically, some of the places most dependent upon immigration generally, including Latino immigration, which is the sort of single biggest part of it, are where you see the greatest negative reactions. [27:18] What’s the way forward from here? I think it’s very important to recognize that, you know, as you say, some of these candidates will be themselves Latinos some will not. So, Mark Levin for example, who is representative the 39th district of California, which is coastline between Long Beach and San Diego, he’s not a Latino guy but he’s part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus precisely because he understands that part of his responsibilities are  looking after his constituents. So, again the GOP had made dramatic strides in that direction beginning with the 2013 growth and opportunity  program report also called the, the autopsy of the 2012 election where they said, you know, “We must make progress on courting Latino votes, especially by not being anti-immigration.”  One might in the interest national well being, hope to see a return to a more sane attitude toward immigration given the fact that the United States desperately needs more people, but that seems not to have figured into the current GOP strategy.
11/11/201941 minutes, 50 seconds
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Inside the world’s largest democracy

More than 600 million people voted in India’s most recent election, but that does not mean all is well with democracy there. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP recently won re-election on a platform based on Hindu nationalism. As we’ve seen with other countries experiencing democratic erosion, the people and parties coming to power do not value the liberalism that’s essential to liberal democracy. But, as our guest this week argues, what’s happening in India is not exactly the same as what we see in places like Hungary and Brazil — or even the United States. Vineeta Yadav is an associate professor of political science and affiliate faculty in the School of International Affairs at Penn State. She studies politics and democracy in India. Vineeta visited India over the summer and talks about what she saw when Modi and the BJP eliminated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted special status to the Muslim-majority state. She also discusses India’s strong civil society and how it’s pushing back against the BJP’s illiberal tendencies. Additional Information Vineeta’s website More on Kashmir and Article 370 Related Episodes Viktor Orban’s “velvet repression” in Hungary Brazil’s tenuous relationship with democracy Yellow Vests and the “grand debate” in France Brexit and the UK’s identity crisis Interview Highlights [6:40] How did India come to be a democracy and how do Indians view democracy? India didn’t really exist as a country before 1947. The British colonized that part of Asia for about 200 years. And when they left that territory was divided up into India and Pakistan. Their leaders gained experience with elections and a Parliamentary system under British colonial rule. And so that was adopted in India in 1950 and India has kept the same constitution and Parliamentary system through its entire post-independence period. One of the unique things about India is that voter turnout is actually higher in rural areas and not just in urban areas. And that tells you something about how deeply democratic values, norms, and practices have really sunk into ordinary citizenry. [8:50] What does India’s commitment to democracy look like today? I think it’s definitely part of this larger global trend where democratically elected regimes are undoing a lot of the liberal protections and liberal rights, and weakening institutions. In the last I would say five or six years, India has become part of that unfortunate trend. If you look back at history, it’s not the first time this has happened in India. We had a period like this in the 1970s, through the early 80s, but it’s definitely, I would say, declining as a democracy right now. [10:22] How does Narendra Modi view democracy? So I would say that Norendra Modi, the BJP, and the organizations and the movements associated with them, have a very different vision of what a democratic society should look like in India. They are committed to the processes and procedures of democracy, but not to the values of liberal democracy. Because they don’t think Indians want liberal democracy. They don’t think liberal democracy is appropriate given India’s values. And again, this is their concept of what Indian values are. The BJP’s  envisions Indian society and Indian government as being based on Hindu values. [14:54] What is the BJP’s appeal? What is I think unique about the BJP is they were so effective in projecting this image of competence and being corruption-free and having this coherent agenda. Their support also crossed caste lines. They had people from lower class supporting them and they had people who were highly educated supporting them. They had people from different religious groups supporting them. They had urban and rural groups supporting them. So, they are one of the very few parties in maybe the last three decades, maybe one of two parties, that has been able to develop that kind of coalition that cuts across class and religion and cost in India. [19:02] Is anyone pushing back against the BJP? India has a very vibrant civil society that’s been its saving grace so far. You have groups organizing on every issue under the sun and from very different angles. These civil society groups really have been the key force of opposition. There are also political parties that exist at the regional level that have defeated the BJP. [31:33] Where do things go from here? The floor of my expectations would be that India will continue as an electoral democracy. Elections will be held, they’ll be reasonably fair,  and people will continue to participate. But I think, unless there is either a single party or a set of parties that really emerges that has the same organizational capacity as the BJP has to mobilize people, we’ll see the what we will see is the BJP remain power and they’ll continue weakening rights and liberties.
11/4/201938 minutes, 50 seconds
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Changing the climate conversation

Climate change is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time, but it’s so big that it can be difficult to imagine how you as an individual can make an impact — or even know how to talk about it with other people in a meaningful way. This episode offers a few creative suggestions for addressing both of those things. Our guest is Graham Bullock, associate professor of political science and environmental studies at Davidson College. His work covers everything from public policy to deliberative democracy, and the ways those things interact when it comes to climate and sustainability. He’s used some innovative methods to break out of traditional modes of argument and encourage his students to think differently about climate and citizenship. We hope this episode inspires you to do the same, whether you are a teacher or simply looking to broach difficult topics like climate change with friends, family, or colleagues. We also talk with Graham about what it means to be a responsible climate citizen and how that manifests itself in everything from buying sustainable products to attending climate rallies. Related Episodes Michael Mann on climate activism Peter Buckland on local government and climate change Forrest Briscoe on corporate action and corporate social responsibility Additional Information More on duty-based vs. engaged citizenship Graham’s book- Green Grades: Can Information Save the Earth? The Responsible Consumers Club Penn State’s Mark Kissling, who joined us last year to talk about civics education, has a new article out on how climate and citizenship are taught in K-12 social studies classrooms.
10/28/201939 minutes, 22 seconds
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From political crisis to profound change

October 21, 2019 Last week, we heard from Andrew Sullivan about the challenges facing the future of democracy in the United States and around the world. This week’s episode offers a glimpse into what can happen when a country emerges from a political crisis with stronger democratic practices in place. About 10 years ago, Ireland found itself facing an economic recession, distrust in government, and polarization about how to move forward. Our guests this week, David Farrell of University College Dublin and Jane Suiter of Dublin City University, proposed using deliberative democracy to bring citizens and politicians closer together. The approach worked, and it’s garnered attention from other places around the world who want to do the same thing. Farrell and Suiter are the winners of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s 2019 Brown Democracy Medal, which recognizes new and innovative work in democracy. We are now seeking nominations for next year’s medal; please email [email protected] if you know someone who might be a good fit.Thank you to our sponsor, Penn State World Campus. Learn more about their Master of Professional Studies in the Psychology of Leadership at worldcampus.psu.edu/leadership. Additional Information Farrell and Suiter’s project, We the Citizens Democracy R&D – highlighting deliberative democracy efforts around the world Farrell and Suiter’s book, Reimagining Democracy: Lessons in Deliberative Democracy from the Irish Front Line Brown Democracy Medal lecture video Interview Highlights [7:12] What was the political climate like leading up to the Citizens Assembly Project? Farrell: It was bad. It’s hard to imagine almost a decade later just how bad things were, but it was a severe economic crisis. Almost overnight our unemployment doubled, our national debt just went through the roof, our banks, all our banks collapsed, all international banks just left. Buildings were being boarded up, public employees had their pay cut,  private employees lost their jobs, emigration went through the roof, and then major protests against governments. Trust in government plummeted. So this was about as existential a crisis as you can get. [9:13] What was the reaction when you introduced the idea of a citizens assembly? Farrell: What we were saying at that time, it sounded quite bizarre. We were saying, “Imagine a scenario where you bring a bunch of regular citizens into a room and you give them a chance to talk about the future of Ireland. Why don’t we give that a go, and other’s have done it, why don’t we try it?” We had senior journalists from all the media organizations and many senior politicians saying, “You’re daft, you know. You academics really don’t have a clue. That’s how how politics is run here. We have a citizens’ assembly, it’s our Parliament. Citizens are not for that role, you know. You can’t trust citizens to take tough decisions, that’s the job of professional politicians, so just forget about it.” Suiter: At the same time, they knew they had to rebuild trust with the citizens It was a real, it was a real moment of crisis, and those crises can go either way. Politicians obviously preferred the shift that could do something positive, that would rebuild relationships, rather than keeping going down the same path increasing distress, marches, and protests. [12:35] What did citizens think about the idea? Farrell: There was a lot of cynicism and uncertainty, you know. Effectively what you are saying is, “You should trust a regular citizen who’s selected randomly, like jury duty.” We’ve all been through the process of jury duty, where you get picked randomly, and that same principle applies here. You’re saying “We’re going to get a hundred regular citizens into the room together,  who’ve never met before, and the only reason they’re in the room is because they run the lottery, they got selected.” They’re not there to represent sectors, they’re not there to represent communities, they’re not there because they got a mandate because they ran for office. There are there as individual citizens just to represent themselves about the issues that they’ve been asked to consider. [15:45] How did the citizens assembly change the relationship between politicians and their constituents? Suiter: I think that’s really crucial. A lot of the time, politicians don’t hear from regular people about these kind of issues. Someone will contact a politician about their local school, or traffic with the road, but they don’t contact them about these kind of big issues like abortion or marriage equality. On those issues, they hear from interest groups and lobbyists who are quite polarizing. There would have been a very strong pro-life force that would have been campaigning in Ireland since the early 1980s, and unbalance on the media, it would always be somebody from that group who’d be heard against other people. So this gave the impression, I think, to a lot of politicians, that the country was as divided. [26:20] Were there other factors that made this approach work in Ireland? Farrell: The country’s small size helps, but it doesn’t have to be a factor. The other thing is that you really need a good crisis. We can only hope that you have something that just gives that seed bed for something like this to be tried. You need a receptive year so there was a degree of courage on the part of the leadership of the government in 2011 to go down this road they had no idea where this was going to go, but they, they took a punt with us.
10/21/201937 minutes, 41 seconds
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Andrew Sullivan on democracy’s double-edged sword

This is one of the most pessimistic episodes we’ve done, but it’s worth hearing. Andrew Sullivan, New York magazine contributing editor, Daily Dish founder, and former editor of The New Republic, is a longtime observer of American politics who does not shy away from controversial opinions. In this episode, we discuss the tension between liberalism and democracy, and how that tension manifests itself around the world. The way Sullivan sees it, the “us vs. them” rhetoric and attitudes in our culture have gone so far that the moderating values and virtues of liberalism will no longer be able to intervene. We also discuss the relationship between dignity and identity politics, and the parallels between the United States and the United Kingdom. Thank you to our sponsor, Penn State World Campus. Learn more about their Master of Professional Studies in the Psychology of Leadership at worldcampus.psu.edu/leadership. If you like what you hear on this show, please take a minute to share it on social media or text it to a friend, family member, or colleague who might enjoy it, too. More from Andrew Sullivan New York magazine column His lecture at Penn State on “American Democracy in the Age of Trump”  Interview Highlights [6:18] How do you think about democracy in your work? There are two core types that I think about, liberal democracy and illiberal democracy. Democracy itself I think is a two-edged sword. Pure democracy, Plato would tell you and so would Aristotle, is extremely unstable and the founders certainly believed that as well. They were very cognizant of what happened to the Rome of Republic.  Liberal democracy requires certain virtues. It requires the ability to have a deliberative conversation to use reason, as well as emotion, but reason is the core function of it, and openness to other ideas and toleration of radical different world views than you, within the same culture. And that’s hard. It’s really, really hard. It’s harder than we think. [7:56] Of those things, what concerns you most right now? I think that it is human nature in fast changing societies and fast changing economies and the world is changing extremely fast, to seek security. Democracy’s promise is not ultimately security, it’s freedom. And there are moments in history where freedom is more popular than non-freedom. And I think the massive migrations across the world and the globalizing of the economy has created the seeds for the need for not having every view represented and not being tolerant of everything. And actually stopping things that might otherwise be associated with liberal democracy. [10:20] What role does dignity play here? I think one of the eternal human demands is meaning and youthfulness. And I think large numbers of people in the West, especially those who are unskilled. Who’ve earned their livings in the past by rather honest labor, but aren’t educated or intelligent or in the new media. I think they’re confronting the fact, and it’s not that they’re inventing this or imagining this. The fact that they’re not really needed anymore for the economy, for the society. And that’s a terrible thing to feel. I think that simultaneously, we see a decline in religion and that also helps people keep it together. You see across the West, but especially in the U.S., a huge crisis in opioid addiction in these very communities that feel that meaning has disappeared. [13:40] Is democracy equipped to respond to our current political moment? One can certainly hope so. It’s certainly been rather resilient facing other crises, but the last time we had a major, huge global economic crisis, the 30s, it didn’t do too well. And liberal democracy has also been I think held up somewhat by the generations  who still remember that and don’t want to return to it. But as generations emerge who don’t remember that at all, liberal democracy will seem like as if, maybe we should do away with this. That’s why I’m concerned that younger generations seem to have much less support for democracy than older generations. I don’t think they see very clearly, what the alternative actually is, and it tends not to good. I mean, democracies are actually better adapting than authoritarian societies to change. But authoritarian societies can arrest change more successfully. They can seal off a country, they can make it so that, they’re more resilient against it and that changes that are happening also don’t happen there. [17:54] Can small-scale efforts to reform democracy add up to a greater change? Yes, they do because liberalism is also about the maintenance of rules and norms and institutions that keep a society free and open. And what you saw for example in the decline of the Roman Republic was small, tiny little breaks in tradition. That suddenly created a new baseline for future actions politically. So the minute a consul, for example, overstays his term limit because of some emergency or some question, suddenly the whole idea of term limits is open and the next one will be three year until you get someone with six years as consul. This is laying the grounds for someone permanently in control maybe if that’s the essential question. [29:40] We’ve identified several problems with the state of liberal democracy around the world. Which one needs to be tackled first? The rule of law. As simple as that, really. And constitutional norms. And you must defend them against these forces that want to undercut, undermine them. The other thing is simply the force of moderation. Liberal democracy emerged as a response to religious warfare, in which groups of people, again, consumed internally with their own cult, their own religion, could not tolerate  living with another. And therefore, fought, for hundreds of years, creating incredible change. It was the moment when western Europe decided, “You know what? We just don’t think it’s worth it. Let’s just live and let live.” That was when liberal democracy began to emerge. If we go back to these warring religions, whether they be political or actually religious, then we’re back to what liberal democracy was supposed to solve. I am not an optimist. Liberal democracy is alien to human nature. It’s existed in a sliver of human history — a few hundred years at most, in only a few countries, with a particular culture. It’s not really what most people find emotionally satisfying.
10/14/201940 minutes, 15 seconds
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The case for open primaries

In about a dozen U.S. states, the only people who can vote in primary elections are those who are registered with a party. Republicans vote in the Republican primary and Democrats vote in the Democratic primary. This leaves out independents, who make up a growing share of the electorate. This week’s guest argues that’s problem for democracy. Jeremy Gruber is the Senior Vice President at Open Primaries.  He is a lawyer, writer, and internationally recognized public policy advocate who has helped enact more than 60 state, federal and international laws and regulations. He joins us to make the case for why all primaries should be open, and how our democracy will be stronger because of it. But what happens to the parties in an open primary system? We’ve talked on the show before about the role they play as gatekeepers in our democracy and revisit some of that discussion in this episode. ICYMI, we are holding an event at the National Press Club on October 22. It would be great to meet some of our listeners in the area. More information at democracy.psu.edu/dc. Finally, thank you to our brand new sponsor, Penn State World Campus. Learn more about Penn State’s online The Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Psychology of Leadership degree at worldcampus.psu.edu/leadership. Additional Information Open Primaries website Interview Highlights [6:10] How do open primaries work? Every state has different election laws, and in most states the primary election, which is the first round of elections that voters have an opportunity to participate in is often times in most cases run by the parties. Even though the tax payers pay for the elections and you, as a voter, experience those elections the same way you do as the general election, the parties are the gate keepers of the primary elections, and they can decide who can and can’t participate. In a closed primary state, only members of the parties may participate in the primary. In an open primary state, Independents, unaffiliated voters, can participate in the primaries. In some states, like California, Washington, Nebraska, they have a nonpartisan primary system where the parties don’t run the primaries. The state runs the primaries the same way it runs the general election. [8:35] How many states have open primaries? 38 states have some form of open primary, and that can vary state by state. Most of those states have a traditional open primary,  where you as Independent choose a ballot line. Not every primary election in those states are necessarily open, but at least some of the elections are open to unaffiliated or Independent voters. 12 states have a completely closed primary, where only members of the parties may participate in the primary election. [12:15] How does a state moved from a closed to an open primary? There’s generally three ways that primaries have been opened in various states. The first is through ballot initiative. California, for example, adopted a top two nonpartisan open primary via ballot initiative. Second is is through legislation. Pennsylvania’s legislatures is currently considering an open primary. And finally there’s the parties themselves, because the Supreme Court has ruled in a very important case called that the parties have an absolute right to open their primaries to Independent voters if they choose, without any act of a state legislature or any other body, for that matter. [13:49] How does an open primary impact voter participation? Open primaries are about enfranchising voters. With 43% of the registered voters being independent, simply allowing them to vote is a critical and perhaps and most important outcome of open primaries is letting every voter vote in every election. Studies have looked at traditional open primary states versus traditional closed primary states have certainly seen an increase in voter participation. [17:40] What role should the parties have? Parties are going to, to exist, and they do play a role in helping put out the views of their members, and organizing voters and sharing information. There, there’s all kinds of value that, that parties have and they’re important to a functioning democracy. The question is not whether, should there be parties or not? The question is, what is the role of the parties? When parties play a gatekeeper role, they are changing the relationship between the voters and their democracy. And when parties start to play a gatekeeper role, voters start to lose their power. They start to lose their choice in a democracy, and they start to lose the ability to vote for who they want to in every election. Parties should compete in elections. They should participate in elections, and they should put forth candidates in elections, and all the valuable things that parties do. But parties shouldn’t decide in a functioning democracy, who can and can’t vote.
10/7/201934 minutes, 47 seconds
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Understanding impeachment — from the Federalist Papers to the whistleblower

We bring you special episode of Democracy Works this week that’s all about impeachment. Michael Berkman takes the lead on this episode and talks with Michael Nelson, the Jeffrey L. Hyde and Sharon D. Hyde and Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor in Political Science and affiliate faculty at Penn State Law. Michael and Michael discuss the constitutional framework for impeachment and what the Framers had in mind when they set it up. They also discuss how impeachment is a unique cooperation between the three branches of government, where the inquiry launched last week against President Trump is likely to go, and what it all means for our democracy. We recorded this episode on Friday, September 27, 2019. Everything we talk about is accurate as of that recording. Episode Highlights [1:20] Impeachment in the Constitution [2:35] “High crimes and misdemeanors” [6:21] Impeachment in the Federalist Papers [10:30] Impeachment vs. “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal law [11:25] The role each branch of government plays in impeachment [12:15] Separation of powers [15:30] The rules of the Senate, and how those rules change [19:03] John Roberts and Supreme Court [21:40] What could an impeachment proceeding look like? [23:30] Political motivations for launching an impeachment inquiry [24:53] Why the Ukraine phone call is important to democracy [28:10] Comparing Trump to Nixon
9/30/201931 minutes, 46 seconds
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Street-level bureaucrats at the border

Immigration is one of the most complex issues of our time in the United States and around the world. Enforcing immigration law in the U.S. involves a mix of courts and executive agencies with lots of opportunities for confusion, miscommunication, and changes in approach from administration to administration. While these things are nothing new, they take on a new dimension when the lives of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers are at stake. Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar and Founding Director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State Law in University Park, is an expert in immigration law and joins us this week to discuss how discretion, checks and balances, and the rule of law figure into immigration enforcement — particularly in the Trump administration. Her new book, Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump, includes interviews with former immigration officials and people impacted by the Trump administration’s immigration policies. This episode is a nice compliment to our conversation earlier this year with Jan Egeland, chair of the Norwegian Refugee Council, about the politics of immigration. Additional Information Shoba’s book Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump Our interview with Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council  Interview Highlights [6:15] How does the law define immigrants and asylum seekers? Immigrant refers to someone who is seeking admission to the United States permanently. Non immigrant is a label we use to apply to someone seeking admission to the U.S. temporarily. For somebody who is without an immigration status, that person might be labeled as undocumented.  However, the status is constantly changing. It’s possible for someone to have entered the United States without papers or cross the border and too many years later be a U.S. citizen. In terms of where asylum seekers fall into the mix, that’s also a little complicated because you could be in a lawful status and apply for asylum. You could also be undocumented and apply for asylum. [8:50] How much discretion exists in immigration enforcement? There are a lot of different ways that the law can be enforced. It can be enforced to arrest somebody, interrogate, place somebody in detention, or place somebody in removal or deportation proceedings. So that might be how immigration enforcement happens on an individual level. And then there are these macro decisions that can be made about immigration enforcement. For example, if the enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, one arm is known as Immigration Customs Enforcement, issues a policy that applies to a whole class of people. So one difference that I’ve seen with this administration is that there is expanded enforcement. Not so much in terms of the resources the government has to enforce the law, but in terms of who is being targeted for immigration enforcement, where, how, and why. [13:35] What agencies are responsible for enforcing immigration laws? DHS is a large cabinet level agency. It does not house only immigration, but it does house three main immigration functions. One is called Customs and Border Protection, or CBP. They’ve been in the news a lot this past summer, too. They are responsible for enforcement at the border. They also have responsibility for short-term detention. They are the first people that an asylum seeker might interact with if they arrive at the border and they are expressing a fear. ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is another enforcement arm and it is responsible for investigations, long-term detention of immigrants and families, as well as the actual or physical removal of non-citizens. USCIS, or US Citizenship and Immigration Services, for many years was dubbed as the customer service agency. Until recently, had nation of immigrants in their mission statement. And is responsible for processing applications for asylum, green cards, citizenship. So you can imagine if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, there’s a lot of room for um, lack of coordination, or discord. [19:00] Where does the rule of law fit in here? Compassion has always been a- a key component in our immigration system, and discretion is very healthy and necessary because of the limited resources that I just described earlier. I think of compassion and discretion together as the rule of law.I think any discretionary choice made at the macro level, by an administration for example, or a federal agency, or at the micro level towards an individual or a family, should favor the non-citizen. Discretion is a powerful sword, and how it’s used really matters. That’s one reason we’ve seen a breakdown in the rule of law. [22:54] What’s the argument for moving immigration enforcement out of the Department of Justice? As it stands, the immigration court system is in the justice department. This is a- a bit unusual if we were to compare it to what we think about courts. In that way, immigration courts are not real courts. The federal rules of evidence don’t apply, the judges are not truly independent, they’re not article one judges, they are employees of the Department of Justice. The volume of cases they have to handle are astronomical compared to your federal court judge. In fact, one immigration judge in San Francisco has analogized immigration cases as doing death penalty cases in traffic court. And there’s a lot of pressure to be compliant with directives from the attorney general. And these directives can sometimes undermine independence too, even though we do have a regulation that favors and supports judicial independence. So there have been many calls over the years, but in particular in the time of Trump, for there to be an immigration court that is independent, that is free of the Department of Justice, where judges can truly act independently.
9/23/201939 minutes, 30 seconds
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Out of Order: A conversation with Mitch Landrieu and Margaret Carlson

Today we’re bringing you a bonus episode from Out of Order, a podcast produced by the German Marshal Fund of the United States. Out of Order is a podcast about how our world was, is, and will be ordered. How do we save democracy, rule of law and global cooperation? Why do some people not want to? Much-maligned experts try to come up with answers here. The Out of Order podcast brings together different international experts from the German Marshall Fund of the United States and beyond to talk about politics, economics, technology and everything else that might help us understand our disordered world. With election season ramping up and political divisions on display, two veterans of U.S. politics — Margaret Carlson, columnist at The Daily Beast, and Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans and founder of E Pluribus Unum — joined Out of Order for an insightful conversation on the state of U.S. political discourse, how society became so fractured and where some solutions might be found. Above all: Is there a way out of this mess? You can find Out of Order at gmfus.org or wherever you listen to podcasts.
9/20/201937 minutes, 18 seconds
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China’s threat to democracies around the world

Larry Diamond joins us this week to talk about the threat China’s model of authoritarian capitalism poses to liberal democracy in the United States and around the world. Economics drives politics, and it’s easy to admire China’s growth while looking past things like increasing surveillance and lack of respect for norms and the rule of law. We’ve wanted to do an episode on China for a long time, and we are very excited to have Larry Diamond with us to discuss it. China plays an integral role in his new book, Ill Winds and he’s studied the region and its politics for decades. Larry is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. Additional Information Larry Diamond’s book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency Interview Highlights [6:15] How does China pose a threat to liberal democracy? China is increasingly trying to become, I think, the dominant power in Asia, the dominant economic, power in the world, the technological leader of the world, and, the geopolitical shaper of the future direction of the world. China is becoming more authoritarian even neo-totalitarian  with its social credit system, it’s intense repression of religious and cultural minorities, its tightening repression and concentration of power under Xi Jinping and it’s domineering claims to the South China Sea and other Asian countries buying up ports and, and infrastructure and frankly politicians as well. I think all of these trends have gone from being concerning to being alarming. [11:24] Why might other countries find China’s model appealing? I think what appeals to people around the world, our public opinion data show, is China’s rapid economic growth, not it’s suppression of religious freedom, freedom of expression, the internet and so on. There’s no way you can sell that to ordinary people as an appealing model, that they want to live under themselves. But the allure is that, somehow, if countries can achieve China’s rapid economic growth and if China can downplay, minimize or mask, which it is certainly trying to do, the intensely authoritarian and in the technological elements I’d say, Orwellian aspects of it’s increasingly authoritarian rule, then that model can be appealing to people around the world because people want to get rich fast, like China did. [14:10] How is China trying to control the narrative about how it’s perceived? One of the most alarming elements of China’s rising international profile is its accelerating efforts to project sharp power, not the soft power of open and transparent persuasion to it’s culture and it’s model and it’s institutions, but the sharp power of disinformation, deception,  coercion, bribery, and penetration of the political and civil institutions of open societies to try and shape the narrative about China. To censor any mention of the dark side of what it’s doing and where journalists and professors are increasingly under rigid monitoring and ideological control. They don’t want people to know about any of this. [23:12] Are western democracies prepared to deal with these threats from China? I think it’s very hard for Americans to get their arms around this, and there are a lot of people who sincerely have a more benign and sympathetic view of China and think those of us who are ringing these alarm bells now are not new cold warriors. We don’t want a Cold War, we just want a fair, balanced, and transparent set of relations, trade relations, political relations, based some minimal degree of respect for the international rule of law and the human rights and privacy of our own citizens. [26:20] Will the protests in Hong Kong impact how the west perceives China? I think we’re really reaching a crunch point now on Hong Kong, as the world wakes up to the desperation and passion and commitment of the more than two million people in Hong Kong who’ve come out at one time or another to protest for democracy and against Beijing’s encroachments on the civil liberties and rule of law that, um, have made Hong Kong a distinctive part of the Chinese, firmament. I think the world is waking up to how serious the situation is. I think the real question now is to what extent ordinary Americans in a variety of institutions that have never found the need to worry that China might be a threat or that China might be seeking to compromise the integrity of our values and institutions. People in local government, state legislatures, universities, the mass media, think tanks, businesses, whether they are going to come to a sufficiently clear-eyed, knowledgeable, and resolute understanding of the rising risks coming from relations with the Chinese Communist Party state, and insist on educating themselves about these risks.
9/16/201939 minutes, 46 seconds
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One state’s fight for fair maps

Pennsylvania is one of several states trying to ensure fair congressional maps are drawn after the 2020 Census. As we say in the episode, redistricting is one of democracy’s thorniest problems. It’s easy to say you want a  map that’s fair, but far more difficult to determine what that actually looks like. The Keystone State received a new congressional map in 2018 following a decision from the state Supreme Court. However, that was a temporary fix designed to counter partisan gerrymandering that occurred after the 2010 Census. Since then, several groups have been working to implement a more permanent change for the next map drawing in 2021. One of those groups is a bipartisan Redistricting Reform Commission chartered by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Penn State’s Lee Ann Banaszak, a professor of political science, was part of that commission and joins us this week to talk about how they tackled the question of fairness, and what they learned at public hearings throughout the state earlier this year. Following in the footsteps of states like Arizona and California, the commission recommended that Pennsylvania create an independent 11-member citizens’ commission to develop maps that would be submitted to the legislature for approval. The Pennsylvania House State Government Committee will hold a public hearing on the commission’s Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. in the Irvis Office Building in Harrisburg. One more thing: We are hosting an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, October 22 and we would love to meet our listeners in the Washington area! The featured speaker is Penn State’s Abe Khan, the guest on our very first episode. He will be discussing the “Renaissance of the Activist Athlete.” More information and registration at democracy.psu.edu/dc. Additional information Redistricting Reform Commission report Our interview with the Committee of Seventy’s Chris Satullo Draw the Lines PA Fair Districts PA  Interview Highlights [7:09] Why is redistricting important to democracy? In our electoral system, we elect people via a process of voters in a district vote for one person in that district. In the course of setting up those districts you determine a lot of how that legislature looks. What you have now in some places are the people who are being elected selecting their voters instead of voters selecting who’s going to represent them. And so the issue is one of representation on the one hand and also of kind of the democratic process of who’s making the decision. [8:20] What are some of the factors that go into drawing a fair map? The one that people think about most often is equal population, which means that each district is approximately equal size based on the most recent Census. Another important measure is compactness, which means you don’t want to draw districts that have unusual boundaries. One of the most famous examples of this is Pennsylvania’s “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” district that existed prior to the state receiving a new map in 2018. The Voting Rights Act provides representation as another important factor to consider, which connects to communities of interest. Communities that share the same interest and they should as much as possible be represented by the same individual. [11:15] How did Pennsylvania’s redistricting commission gather public opinion? There was a website where individuals could both answer questions and provide written statements if they wanted to, upload documents. Wee also ran an online survey that people could provide feedback on. And we also reached, tried to reach out extensively to different populations to make sure that we were really hearing all voices. [12:20] What did you learn from the public hearings? Uniformly, people were concerned about the way the re-districting process affected the way democracy works in Pennsylvania. That is, they were concerned that the current re-districting process created difficulties for voters, created difficulties for candidates and really depressed both turnout but also increased the mistrust of the legislature over the long term. So we heard a lot of those sorts of statements from people who engaged us in the public hearings. There was a sense that incumbents were determining their re-election and that that was not democratic or a word we heard a lot was “fair.”  I think all of that kind of led to an increased mistrust or distrust of the process. [18:12] Did you hear any differences in the concerns across partisan lines? There were a few differences but what amazed me was the degree to which there was uniformity. Among the ordinary citizens there was general agreement that the process was problematic although they might see different parts of the process as problematic but that the process currently going on is problematic.  And secondly, there was uniform support for the idea of an independent Commission somewhere in that process. There are different parts of the process that people have concerns about so I do think there are Republicans who had concerns about the most recent re-districting by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. I think they saw that as problematic. But in terms of creating a normal process by which re-districting could occur, I think there was actually quite a lot of agreement that having an independent Commission somewhere in that process would be good
9/9/201935 minutes, 31 seconds
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How music transcends political polarization

Last week, we heard from Aaron Maybin about the ways visual art relates to his conception and practice of democracy. This week, we are going to look at the relationship between art and democracy through the lens of music. Music has always been political, but what that looks like changes based on the culture. Joining us to unpack it is Adam Gustafson, associate teaching professor of music at Penn State Harrisburg. As you’ll hear, Adam is a certified music nerd who thinks deeply about how artists and the music they create influences politics and culture. He’s written about Prince, Ella Fitzgerald, and Aretha Franklin — just to name a few. In this episode, we talk about everything from disco to bluegrass to EDM and how collaborations between artists and fans coming together at concerts counter some of the narratives we hear about polarization in our lives. We also look at how the ways we consume music has changed — or not — the statements that musicians make through their art. Additional Information Adam’s articles in The Conversation
9/2/201930 minutes, 32 seconds
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Doing the hard work of democracy in Baltimore

You might remember Aaron Maybin from his time on the football field at Penn State or in the NFL. These days, he’s doing something much different. He’s an artist, activist, and educator in his hometown of Baltimore and talked with us about the way that those things intersect. Celebrities and philanthropists often want to help places like Baltimore, but do so without understanding the needs of the local community. Aaron is in an interesting position because he can talk the talk and walk the walk. To him, organizing is about much more than weighing in on the latest Twitter outrage or showing up at a protest to take a photo for Instagram. The real work begins once the cameras go off and the attention fades away. Aaron has a really unique— and really inspiring — perspective that might change the way you think about places like Baltimore. A huge thank you to WYPR in Baltimore for letting us use their studio for the interview. Additional Information Aaron’s website Art-Activismbook Interview Highlights [6:25] How did you transition from athlete to activist? From the beginning,  my work here in the city of Baltimore wasn’t always a big priority for me. I’m so appreciative of everything that the game has given me in my life, what it’s given my family. But I think that I’m prouder now of the work that I’m doing and the impact that I’m having in people’s lives and on my city in general. I’m proud of then that, that anything that I ever did as an athlete. [8:41]  How does teaching fit into your art and activism? I was doing art workshops and programming at schools all across Baltimore starting in 2009. By 2010, 2011, I realized how naive I was as like a 20-year-old  coming into the League thinking that like this contract I’ll get will be enough for me to fix all the problems in my city. It sounds crazy to say, but when you’re that young and ambitious you’re really ignorant enough to believe that you’re gonna be able to do that yourself. So I said, “All right, I’ve got to find a school, one school, that I can plant myself in and actually hammer out this curriculum and see over the course of a year, two years, you know, what we can accomplish with the same group of kids over an extended period of time.” [14:45] What’s the difference between organizing on social media and the deeper-level work you try to do? If there’s a topic that’s trending, everybody wants to weigh in on it. But at the end of the day,  how much do you really think this tweet is getting you? Not much unless you are actually showing up to meetings and getting boots on the ground and staying informed about what’s going on. [20:33] Do you think that someone needs to be part of a community to affect the greatest change in one? I do think that a person that’s going to create the greatest change is probably going to be a person that comes from there. You know, and that’s not saying that great ideas can’t come from outsiders, bcause sometimes you can get too isolated in your bubble. But I think that too often the people that are in positions to make the decisions that really affect the lives of the people that live in these areas, the constituents that truly need to be represented. [36:40] What does democracy mean to you? To me democracy is a beautiful idea, but it’s an idea, and with any idea you have to work constantly, constantly to manifest it. And even once some of that work is done and you feel like progress has been made, the beauty of democracy is we have to go back and we have to continuously self evaluate and see if we’re on the right side of history. And I think that um the more that we have a true understanding of what democracy is um the better Americans we’ll all be.
9/1/201943 minutes, 27 seconds
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How conspiracies are damaging democracy

From Pizzagate to Jeffrey Epstein, conspiracies seem to be more prominent than ever in American political discourse. What was once confined to the pages of supermarket tabloids is now all over our media landscape. Unlike the 9/11 truthers or those who questioned the moon landing, these conspiracies are designed solely to delegitimize a political opponent — rather than in service of finding the truth. As you might imagine, this is problematic for democracy. Democracy scholars Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum call it “conspiracy without the theory” and unpack the concept in their book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Russell is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth. Nancy is the Senator Joseph Clark Research Professor of Ethics in Politics at Harvard. As you’ll hear, the new conspiricism is a symptom of a larger epistemic polarization that’s happening throughout the U.S. When people no longer agree on a shared set of facts, conspiracies run wild and knowledge-producing institutions like the government, universities, and the media are trusted less than ever. This is not one of our optimistic episodes, but it’s one worth listening to. Additional Information A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy A look at the science of conspiracy theories from The University of Chicago’s Big Brains podcast Interview Highlights [5:30] What is the new conspiracism and how does it differ from what we’ve seen in the past? Nancy: In the past we’ve had conspiracy theory. That is an explanation that works the way any explanation works which is in terms of evidence and dots and patterns that often try to make the unbelievable believable and the unconceivable conceivable. What we have now is conspiracy without the theory. That is the two things have become decoupled. And we have claims of a conspiracy that come without the dots, without the patterns, without the evidence, without the argument. [6:23] When did you begin to see this pattern emerge? Russell: As scholars of parties, we-we kind of take an interest in conspiracism and conspiratorial thinking. Parties were-were thought of as conspiracies before the idea of a legitimate opposite took hold. That’s how parties were-were conceived. We began to notice that um, that today’s conspiracism involves are assertion, like a one-word accusation like rigged, onstead of an effort to carefully explain the world as it is. It’s more of an effort to impose um, a kind of unreality and idiosyncratic understanding of the world on others, rather than to describe the world as it is. [10:24] What’s the goal of the new conspiracism? Russell: Often, the goal is certainly not to equip us to really understand our world so that we can navigate our way, you know, control you might say our fate more successfully. Classic conspiracism starts with something in the world that many people have hard time understanding, like the September 11 attacks. If you look at Pizzagate on the other hand, what is that trying to explain? It doesn’t take a world that’s hard to explain and make it more understandable. It takes a world that’s shared, that’s transparent and makes it one that is very disorienting, confusing, and disempowering. Nancy: The validation of these claims has nothing to do with argument or evidence or dots or patterns. It has to do with the number of followers. And that, I think that explains part of the importance of social media for this kind of conspiracism. It’s obvious that it increases the scope of it and the speed of the spread of these things. But these Tweets and Facebook likes and so on actually allow you to measure that a lot of people are saying this. [14:46] What is epistemic polarization and how does it relate to conspiracy? Russell: Epistemic polarization bears on whether we think something really happened, or didn’t really happen. It gets at the basic factual question of how many people were there on the Washington mall on that particular day of the inauguration? And once we can’t even agree on the most elemental aspects of our shared reality, it starts to become really hard not just to compromise, it becomes really hard even to disagree intelligibly with each other. [19:13] Is there an opportunity for things to go in a different direction? Russell: One of things that Nancy and I think is really crucial is that people who really care about politics understand that this, this force the new conspiracism which might seem to help their cause really ends up destroying it. We’re hopeful that if we can reveal how, how universally destructive this is, people will understand that t’s not friendly to any cause, and that partisan officials will be more courageous in standing up to it. [22:20] What role does the media play in spreading conspiracy? Nancy: I think that what’s important about social media for this kind of conspiracism is, is just the numbers of people who like and retweet and tweet, because it’s what gives, it’s a form of political participation that gives them gratification and it gives validation to these crazy claims. I will say that there are some studies that show that it’s not just social media, that we shouldn’t put all of our emphasis on it and trying to explain what happens. That Fox News for example has enormous audiences, and enormous audiences of people who aren’t necessarily paranoid and conspiracist or even going along with this stuff. And insofar as this is the news they get, or insofar as this is the discussion or the news that goes on in local, you know channels, where most people still get their news, through these things. It’s, dangerous and unstoppable so long as these privately-owned corporations that find that their profits go up when they do this. [28:05] Can common sense serve as a counter to the new conspiracism? Russell: If I say, looking back to the dawn of democracy, and Thomas Payne in his essay is that, you know modern democracy was founded on this conviction that the, that they might say, you don’t want to use the word common sense, the epistemic capacities of ordinary citizens are sufficient for, for them to understand the world in a way that equips them to make good decisions. We believe that this basic capacity is, we, we share the faith that is widely distributed across the entire population, and, and that it can prevail. And so we really do want to call on people to use their common sense in responding to things that seem too fabulous to be true. They just very well might be untrue.
9/1/201936 minutes, 55 seconds
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Defending the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate

We are back with new episodes this week, and we’re starting with an interview that we recorded in New York City earlier this summer. David McCraw is the Deputy General Counsel of the New York Times and author of Truth in Our Times: Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts.The First Amendment and a strong Fourth Estate are essential to a healthy democracy. McCraw spends his days making sure that journalists can do their work in the United States and around the world. This includes responding to libel suits and legal threats, reviewing stories that are likely to be the subject of a lawsuit, helping reporters who run into trouble abroad, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, and much more.Additional InformationDavid’s book: Truth in Our TimesInterview Highlights[3:30] There was a lot of speculation about the future of the First Amendment after the 2016 election. How are things holding up today?We have a free press if the people want it. It really, in the end, depends on having an engaged citizenry. Donald Trump has talked about changing the libel laws. That doesn’t really worry me a lot. I think it’s a long process, and it’s probably not going to happen. What really is important is whether people, average voters, are going to make use the free press we have.[5:00] How often does someone threaten a libel suit vs. actually filing one?It’s a really important point, because when we talk about libel, it was originally intended to fix people’s reputations. Somebody says something about you that’s untrue, hurts your reputation, you go to court, you get that fixed. And, that really hasn’t changed much. We get a lot of threats. Not a lot of threats, but we get threats. We get very few lawsuits. But, those threats are really designed to use litigation, the threat of litigation, to get us to say something other than what we think should be said to the American people.[6:28] How does the New York Times v. Sullivan case impact press freedom?At the end of the day, Times versus Sullivan is really, a fairly simple concept. And that is, a publisher has a right to make a mistake. That if a publisher gets something wrong, and actually, even if that statement hurts somebody’s reputation, that person, if that person’s a public figure or public official, can’t win a libel suit unless the person can prove that the statement was made with actual malice.[10:40] Where does social media fit into this picture?One of the things that I find very curious about the President is that, in the recent years, when he’s been involved in libel suits, it’s because he’s been sued. And, he’s been sued for things he’s said on Twitter. When he starts criticizing the libel laws, he’s completely lining up on the wrong side of the ball. He should be siding with me, because he needs those defenses.[13:45] Tell us about the letter you wrote to Donald Trump’s lawyers in October 2016.We published a story in which, two women claimed that they had been inappropriately touched by Donald Trump many years earlier. The story happened right after the controversy over the Access Hollywood tape. Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, had appeared at the debate on a Sunday night and defended his reputation and his conduct towards women. This story followed that. They had posted their demand to us online.I knew that we were going to post our response online. And so, while I do think I followed exactly what the law says in these situations, and summarized it accurately, it was pointed. And, it was pointed in part because I don’t like to be threatened. It was pointed in part because I think people expect us to stand up.[17:20] What work do you do with Freedom of Information Act requests?The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law on July 4, 1966 by Lyndon Johnson. And, Michael Schudson at Columbia has a great book about the rise of the right to know, which details this and other parts of the history of that concept, the right to know. But, that was the heart of it, that the public has a right to know what the government’s up to. And, that includes getting documents. What we’ve seen since then is the law being gnawed away until it’s taken much much away from what one would expect to get when filing a FOIA request.[21:15] Civil servants are often painted with a very altruistic brush. It seems like that might not be the case here.I had this epiphany at the beginning of the Obama administration when I was invited to go to a conference of FOIA officers and speak, therefore, meeting a lot of people I’d written angry letters to. And, it’s a lot easier to write angry letters to anonymous people when you don’t know what they look like. Now, you’re in a room with a bunch of them.They were conscientious. They didn’t have the resources, and they didn’t have the power to do what needs to be done. What’s interesting is, as I’ve gone around and talked about this with people from other countries is, a country like Mexico actually has an office that overrides agencies, so that it takes it out of the political process, and some independent agency’s deciding. And, other governments, other countries have that same sort of setup.[27:33] What should people to do protect the First Amendment moving forward?At the end of the day, what I’m really interested in is, seeing an American public that listens to things they disagree with, read things they disagree with, and make discerning judgment. That’s a long ways away from where we are now. It’s hard because there’s so much information out there. But, to me, that’s the only real check is that, people are going to make wise decisions about policies because they’ve made wise decisions about the information they’ve chosen.Somebody wrote to me, and the email started out with the ominous words, “Why did you write this book?” And, I assume that’s an email that’s going someplace whereas, a sensitive author with thin skin, I don’t want to know. But, it wasn’t. She was right. She’s, “Why did you write this book? Because you should be writing for young adults.” And, that’s really an important point. We need to start much earlier in helping children understand how to read and how to discern, and how to evaluate sources.Tthe analogy I use is that, the Internet is to information what the Las Vegas buffet is to eating. You walk in, and there’s just incredible choices. Some of them are really bad for you, but they sure taste good for awhile. And, we just need to have people who say, “I’m not going to hang around the dessert table of cable news, and make my entire diet that.” 
8/12/201932 minutes, 49 seconds
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Standing up for science and fighting the climate wars [rebroadcast]

For the last of our summer rebroadcasts, we are revisiting the conversation with Penn State’s Michael Mann, a world-renowned climate scientist. We’ve just finished the warmest month in global recorded history, so it felt like a good time to share this episode. We talk with Mann, a Nobel Prize winner and Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, about his journey through the climate wars over the past two decades and the role that experts have to play in moving out of the lab and into the spotlight to defend the scientific process. Doing so is more important now than ever, he says, as corporation-funded think tanks continue to churn out information that deliberately sows skepticism among the public about our role in climate change. But it does beg the question: How do you reconcile the fact that, in a democracy, everyone’s vote is equal but everyone’s opinion is not? Mann was part of the team that created the now-infamous hockey stick graph that showed how quickly the rate of warming on the planet had accelerated during the latter half of the 20th century. In the 20 years since graph was published, he’s had his email hacked, been called to testify before Congress, and been hounded by Internet trolls long before social media existed. He chronicled those experiences in his 2012 book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. Despite it all, he’s more passionate than ever about spreading the good word about science and cautiously optimistic that things might turn out ok after all. Additional Information Michael Mann on Twitter  Michael’s books: The Madhouse Effect The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
8/5/201937 minutes, 58 seconds
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Tracing the past, present, and future of protests

Since we started this show, we’ve had the opportunity to speak with several organizers, from Joyce Ladner in the Civil Rights movement to Srdja Popovic in Serbia to the students involved with the March for Our Lives. Today, we think of protests as a pillar of democratic dissent, but things didn’t necessarily start out that way. L.A. Kauffman is a longtime organizer and author of the book How to Read a Protest: The Art of Organizing and Resistance. She traces the history of the modern protest movement since the March on Washington in 1963 and joins us to talk about what has — and has not — changed since then. If you are an organizer or have ever attended a protest, we think you’ll find L.A.’s insights interesting. Additional Information L.A.’s book, How to Read a Protest Our episodes on protest and organizing: Civil Rights activist Joyce Ladner Srdja Popovic of the Serbia’s Otpor! movement Interview Highlights [2:49] How was the 1963 March on Washington organized and what made it something that organizers today still look to? This book and the 1963 march is about a particular kind of protest above all, which are mass mobilizations where huge numbers of people come together out in the streets. I hadn’t quite realized that before 1963, we never had anything on this scale in American history. It ended up bringing 250,000 people. One of the ways that the organizers compensated for those fears was by going on overdrive with an organizing model. We think of this as a high water point in American democracy, and yet the messages were so controlled, there was no room for individual voices there. [6:00] What was it about that moment that lead to such a large event? Were there efforts to try something similar prior to that? There was a march that was threatened during During World War II, but it never happened. The threat of a civil rights march over discrimination in the military forced FDR’s hand and led to desegregation. The scale of protests at the time were more like 25,000 or 50,000 people. No one had ever dreamed of an event that could bring together these large numbers of people. [8:12] What compromises were necessary to make the march happen? The very first idea of the 63 march in Washington was it was going to not just be a march, but it was also going to be an occasion for nonviolent civil disobedience. I mean, it was going to represent a real tactical escalation. And those plans got dropped almost immediately, as soon as the organizers began negotiating with the Kennedy Administration. The Kennedy Administration was walking a very complicated line, because they very clearly did not want the march to happen. And then once the march was clearly going to happen whether they agree to it or not, they did everything they could to control it. And part of that was by orchestrating the choreography of it so that it didn’t actually, they changed the march route, so that the march never went past the White House, or the Capitol.  [10:04] How does that approach compare to today’s model of organizing? There was more disunity behind the scenes in the 1963 march than the mythology would lead you to believe, There weren’t open divisions and splits among the players, but they were definitely very substantial differences of opinion about strategy and direction of the movement, and a lot of internal tension. Sometimes those things stay behind the scenes, and sometimes they split out in the open. When I look at what happened with the women’s marches, my takeaway is the resilience of the grassroots. There were more than 300 local events around the country, which I think is quite extraordinary three years on, and shows how much a movement that has many leaders, many organizing centers, can persist in ways that maybe are hard for the national media to see and perceive, but they have very powerful effects when it comes to things like organizing, get out the vote operations in the midterm elections. [12:49] What can we learn about a protest from the signs that people bring to it? The moment that first got me working on this book was when I attended the 2017 women’s march in DC. I was immediately struck that there was a far higher percentage of homemade signs than I had ever seen before. And then I discovered the detail that I alluded to earlier about the 63 march, that whatever we may think of it, however many ways that they represent a high point of American democracy in this one interesting respect, in the messaging, it was a moment of total control because all of the signs were produced by the organizers, and you could not bring your own slogan to that march. At the women’s march, there was such a power in what people did. They weren’t putting pressure on the Trump administration, per se. We were finding each other. It was a moment for people to come together in the streets, and feel a sense of community, engage in a political conversation, all those signs they mounted to like a rich political conversation in the streets, and feel a sense of collective power. Which in turn made possible the resistance organizing we’ve seen since. [16:43] What motivates people to attend a protest? I think people do sometimes go to protests with unrealistic ideas of what they’ll accomplish by going. And that are fed by, and a mass media myths about protest. They tend to think, to frame protest as short term pressure tactics, when that’s often not how they work. So, I think sometimes what happens is people come to a protest and they have some idea, they’re drawn because they want to take action. But then they have an expectation that just turning out once in large numbers is going to bring change. And those of us who have been in the trenches for a long time, know that any protests, however large is usually just one step in an unfolding process of change. And you rarely see decision-makers shift or change based on one event. It’s usually a very long and protracted process to create change [20:10] How do people in power respond? There’s a dominant discourse that tells us that protest doesn’t work. Which very effectively discourages people from participating in protest, because they feel it’s pointless. People are always really surprised when I tell them that there is more people taking part in protest now  than there were in the height of the Vietnam era. Because there again, we have this myth, we have these ideas about these events that have been made larger than life. [25:21] Where do things go from here? There’s a lot of new openings and possibilities now, but as always, they rely on active engaged participation by people. And it’s not clear to me right now. We saw, I think a solid turnout for the women’s marches. The energy levels were not as high as they were two years ago. You wouldn’t expect them to be. But the real question for me is whether we’re going to see a new upsurge now going into the spring as we build on these new openings.
7/29/201926 minutes, 51 seconds
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A conversation about conversation [rebroadcast]

This week, we are revisiting another episode from the Democracy Works back catalog. This discussion is a nice companion to our episode with Timothy Shaffer on civility. Laurie Mulvey This episode seeks to answer one simple, but very important, question: Why is it so hard for people to talk to each other? There are a lot of easy answers we can point to, like social media and political polarization, but there’s another explanation that goes a bit deeper. Laurie Mulvey, executive director of World in Conversation, is the perfect person to help us explore this question. World in Conversation has facilitated more than 10,000 dialogues over the past 15 years. They bring people from all walks of life together to have dialogues about important issues from climate change to race relations. In the process, they break down the misconceptions and preconceived notions that often get in the way of one person understanding — and relating to— someone else. Of course, most dialogues do not happen in a controlled environment with a facilitator in the room. Laurie shares some advice for how to handle your next family dinner or other situation where things might get a little heated. She also shares how the World in Conversation is preparing the next generation of democratic citizens to overcome the partisan divides that bog down political discourse. As we say in the episode, Laurie raises the optimism quotient of this podcast quite a bit.
7/22/201933 minutes, 28 seconds
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Politics and Polls: Blue state federalism

Democracy Works summer break 2019 continues with an episode from Politics and Polls, a podcast produced by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. The show’s hosts are Sam Wang and Julian Zelizer. If you enjoyed our conversation with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro about states suing the federal government, you’ll want to check out this episode that dives deeper into the concept of federalism. In recent history, federalism has been favored by the Republican party, while Democrats have aimed to nationalize certain policies. But given Republicans’ current control of the federal government, progressive Democrats may need to aim to achieve their policy goals at the state level. Daniel Hemel joins this episode to discuss what he calls “blue state federalism” and how states themselves can be “laboratories of democracy.” Hemel, a law scholar, explains how states can set precedents for the federal government with regard to social issues. For example, Massachusetts did this by legalizing gay marriage and through adopting Romney-care, a precedent to the Affordable Care Act. Hemel is assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. His research focuses on taxation, nonprofit organizations, administrative law and federal courts. Additional Information Politics and Polls podcast Our conversation with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post Politics and Polls: Blue state federalism appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
7/15/201937 minutes, 26 seconds
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The Pledge: Are you scared of the cafeteria lady?

Our summer break continues this week with an episode of The Pledge, a podcast about people who are taking an active role in improving democracy in the U.S. The show’s first season features a group of women working in grassroots political organizing in Alabama. This episode tells the story of Oni Williams. As a resident of one of Birmingham’s poorest neighborhoods, Oni regularly visits barbershops and strip clubs to speak with members of the community, inform them of their rights, and encourage them to speak out. She is a stellar example of what democracy in action looks like. Since this episode was recorded, Oni announced that she’s running for Birmingham City Council in a special election to be held October 8. Listen to the rest of The Pledge at thepledgepodcast.com. For more on the impact of grassroots organizing on democracy, listen to our conversation with the University of Pittsburgh’s Lara Putnam on how middle America is rebooting democracy. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post The Pledge: Are you scared of the cafeteria lady? appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
7/15/201917 minutes, 53 seconds
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How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the “grinding work” of democracy [rebroadcast]

Our summer break continues this week with a rebroadcast of one of our very first episodes, a conversation with How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt. He spoke at Penn State in March 2018. Both the book and the conversation are worth revisiting, or checking out for the first time if the episode is new to you.Ziblatt has done a lot of interviews since the release of How Democracies Die, the bestselling book he co-wrote with Steven Levitsky. But we asked him a question he’d never gotten before — about a line toward the end of the book when he refers to democracy as “grinding work.”The idea that democracy isn’t easy is a central theme of this podcast. As How Democracies Die illustrates, it’s much easier to succumb to the power of an autocratic leader than it is to stand up and protect the institutions that serve as the guardrails of democracy. Ziblatt, a professor of government at Harvard, talks about how the book came about and the impact it’s had since it was released. 
7/8/201932 minutes, 42 seconds
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A democracy summer reading list [rebroadcast]

Democracy Works is taking a few weeks off for the summer. While we do, we are going to share some older episodes you might have missed, along with a few from other podcasts we think you’ll enjoy. First up is our democracy summer reading list, which we recorded last summer but holds up well today. Since we recored this, we’ve been lucky to have a few of the authors on the show — David Frum, Salena Zito, and E.J. Dionne. Here’s the rundown of the books we discuss: How Democracies Die (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt) The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It (Yascha Mounk) The Retreat of Western Liberalism (Edward Luce) Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (Joshua Green) The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics (Salena Zito and Bradd Todd) Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic (David Frum) One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported (E.J. Dionne Jr., Norman Ornstein, Thomas Mann)  Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)  The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels (Jon Meacham) The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis (Martha C. Nussbaum) And here are a few others we’ve read since last summer that are also worthy of your time: Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (William Galston) Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life (Eric Klinenberg) Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President (Kathleen Hall Jamieson) Finally, if you enjoy Democracy Works, consider checking out The Politics Guys. This podcast is hosted by a bi-partisan groups of academics and other experts who provide a weekly rundown of the biggest news and events in American politics and interview experts from a variety of fields. Check it out at politicsguys.com. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post A democracy summer reading list [rebroadcast] appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
7/1/201954 minutes, 3 seconds
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Answering your questions about democracy

Is the United States really a democracy? What will the EU look like in 50 years? What should 2020 candidates be doing to demonstrate civility? Those are just a few of the questions we received from Democracy Works listeners around the country and around the world. We close our third season by answering some of your questions about democracy and the topics we’ve covered on the show. We’ll be on summer break for the next few weeks. New episodes resume August 12. In the meantime, we’ll be rebroadcasting some of our older episodes you might have missed and sharing episodes from other podcasts we think you’ll enjoy. Additional Information The Market as Prison article by Charles Lindblum – for more on the relationship between democracy and plutocracy Books we recommend reading this summer: Uncivil Agreement by Lilliana Mason The Last Palace by Norman Eisen In the Ruins of Neoliberalism by Wendy Brown Truth in Our Times by David McCraw Episodes mentioned: Jonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracy Using the tools of democracy to address inequality Immigration, refugees, and the politics of displacement A playbook for organizing in turbulent times Breaking the silence in Syria The ongoing struggle for civil rights School segregation then and now
6/24/201946 minutes, 23 seconds
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Congressional oversight and making America pragmatic again

We tend to think about congressional oversight in very academic terms — checks and balances, the Framers, etc. But what does it actually look like on the ground in Congress? To find out, we’re talking this week with Charlie Dent, who served Congress for more than a decade until his retirement in 2018. He argues that amid all the talk about subpoenas, impeachment, and what Congress is not able to do, we’re losing sight of the things they can do to hold the executive branch accountable. Dent is a lifelong Republican, but one that does not fit in with the direction the party’s taken under Donald Trump. We talk with him about why so few Republicans are willing to speak out against the Preisdent, and what the party’s post-Trump future might look like. He also talks about the difference between separation of parties and separation of powers — and where he thinks we are right now. Dent was the chair of the House Ethics Committee and a member of the Homeland Security Appropriations committees. These days, he is a CNN political analyst and senior policy adviser at DLA Piper. He was a recipient of the 2019 Penn State Distinguished Alumni Award, which is the university’s highest honor presented to alumni. Additional Information Charlie Dent on Twitter Discussion/Reflection Questions Is there still room for moderates in politics? If so, where can they have the most impact? What do you make of Charlie’s argument that the U.S. now operates like a Parliamentary system? What do you think the Republican Party will look like post-Donald Trump? Interview Highlights [6:00] Can you describe the district you represented and your decision to leave office? I represented a district in eastern Pennsylvania largely the Lehigh Valley for my first four terms and for my, my last three terms, the district included parts of south central Pennsylvania. It was what we’d call a swing or marginal district, had a pretty good mix of urban, suburban, rural communities. It was, in many respects, a bellwether for the country in terms of how it  performed from an election standpoint. dI anticipated early on that House Republicans would be in the minority in the new session of Congress that they’re in now. The current administration was also a factor. Just dealing with the never ending drama and chaos. [9:44] Now that you’ve had some time away, are there things you wish you would have done differently to speak out against things like increasing polarization? I think about that quite a bit. There’s only so much you can do as one person to change the direction that the herd is moving in. Increasingly, Republicans in Congress are hesitant to speak out against President Trump because they’re concerned about a primary challenger, which has created a political paralysis. In my view, we have two political parties now — a pro-Trump party and an anti-Trump party. It’s no longer about ideology or specific policies, which is always what the Republican Party has been known for. It’s now about loyalty to a man. You have to figure out how to manage that and work within it. [15:38] Have Republicans who oppose President Trump resigned themselves to holding their breath until the next election? Yeah I think that’s true. Although if you’re a member of Congress in a swing  district you simply can’t be labeled as a generic Republican or a generic Democrat. You have to develop your own brand. That was always my advice to my colleagues. You don’t survive that way in those types of districts. The fact that these elected officials can’t always be seen as rubber stamps for the President is something we should be talking more about. [17:06] What does congressional oversight look like in practice? In some respects, oversight is a serious responsibility of Congress, and it’s done on a daily basis. When I was on the Homeland Security committee, we spent a lot of our time really looking at what the department was doing. At that time, it was a relatively new department and there were growing pains so we exercised a lot of oversight. A lot of it wasn’t particularly glamorous or sexy, but it was necessary. Now I find that oversight seems be more about getting your name on television as opposed to the hard, mundane work of analyzing what these departments are doing and how they’re spending money. [21:05] How do you explain the shift toward prioritizing partisanship over the institution? I believe, in many respects, we no longer have a system of separation of powers, but a system of separation of parties. Whichever party controls the presidency, it seems like their obligation is to protect the president above defending institutional interests. It flies in the face of what Madison intended and it’s been a big problem. They’re behaving, in many respects, as if they’re operating in a parliamentary system rather than this system of separation of powers and checks and balances that we have. [24:06] Where do we go from here? I would always tell my constituents, “You elected me to be a member of Congress, not to be in the executive branch.” Until voters insist on change, things won’t change. I talk a lot about the pragmatism that’s necessary to get things done. You can be ideologically or philosophically conservative or liberal and and that’s fine, but at the same time, I worry about the capacity to be pragmatic. We need people who can set aside the things they disagree on, find common ground, and move forward.
6/17/201946 minutes, 34 seconds
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Will AI destroy democracy?

Jay Yonamine Some political scientists and democracy scholars think that it might. The thinking goes something like this: inequality will rise as jobs continue to be automated, which will cause distrust in the government and create fertile ground for authoritarianism. Jay Yonamine is uniquely qualified to weigh in on this issue. He is a data scientist at Google and has a Ph.D. in political science. He has an interesting perspective on the relationship between automation and democracy, and the role that algorithms and platforms play in the spread of misinformation online. In some ways, this conversation makes the counterargument to our conversation with Penn State’s Matt Jordan about the relationship between social media and democracy. The conversation with Matt is worth revisiting for two perspectives on some of the most complicated questions facing democracy today. Additional Information Episode with Matt Jordan: Facebook is not a democracy Profile on Jay from Sync Magazine The Fourth Age by Byron Reese – a look at the relationship between technology, humanity, and democratic values Yuval Noah Harari on the relationship between technology and tyranny in The Atlantic Discussion/Reflection Questions What do you see as the relationship between AI and democracy? Should Google and other platforms regulate the contact that users see? Do you feel that you have control over the content you see on Google and other sites? Are you concerned about AI’s impacts on democracy? Interview Highlights [3:40] How do you define AI? AI is has to be something that’s not just a human brain relying on itself. Most of the time, when folks think about AI, what they mean is computers, which is to say a computer is doing the thinking or doing the analysis as apposed to a human brain. How I think of intelligence is the ability to make nontrivial, falsifiable, accurate predictions. I think most folks would agree that the act of a robot by itself is not necessarily artificial intelligence, but  the AI aspect of a robot would actually still be the, sort of computer engine that interprets the world and makes predictions [6:25] What is the relationship between AI and democracy? A few things have happened simultaneously that might not be as causal as maybe we might believe. There’s definitely been an increase in populist-based politicians in the United States and abroad and a move towards more heavy handed political ideologies. And then of course there’s also been a fairly rapid growth in the prevalence of AI and machine learning in our day-to-day. It’s not clear that those two are connected, but you can see the reasons why people draw their connections. And I think primarily they revolve around news, and around platforms, and around the increase ease of sharing information, and around the increase ease of sharing disinformation. [8:26] Does one influence the other? What’s interesting to me as a political scientist and someone who has studied the history of political institutions and political dynamics is for almost all of history, increased access to information and increased access to create and assimilate information has almost always driven an increase in what you might call liberal democratic values. Free speech, democracy, things that have generally been held up as good. And it’s almost always been some autocratic force that has fought against the spread of information that’s going back to the printing press. What’s interesting now is we’re seeing for the first time, the possibility of that actually shifting. We’re now starting to see that the ease of access to information and the ease of creating and assimilating information might actually now be contributing to the spread of more antidemocratic values. [10:03] Is AI’s impact on democracy being discussed at tech companies? The degree of regulation is definitely a hot issue. It’s an immensely complicated issue and one with no easy answers. There’s folks who are arguing for increased regulation ti decrease the spread of misinformation, create a better informed populous, aversion to some of the antidemocratic stuff that we’ve been seeing. But the counter to that is that you don’t want some centralized control over what can be shared and by whom. And so there’s definitely merits to that argument as well. And it’s an immensely complicated challenge. If you’ve got a team of experts in the room and, and gave them, a handful of pieces of content, I suspect they would have a hard time even reaching consensus. And then when you imagine that scale that a lot of companies operate at it’s, it’s tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of millions of pieces of content a day, a week, a month. [13:24] How are companies balancing these big issues with their day-to-day work? What a lot of companies are trying to do is, hire or create teams and departments and groups whose full time job is just to think about these types of ethical issues. And then create scenarios where those voices have sufficient authority or discretion to actually impact product roadmaps. Companies are big, complex organisms and it’s hard to introduce that type of, of thinking in a really productive way. It’s not like there’s a blueprint where you can say, “Oh, well this is how company A did this in ’98” and now there’s someone who wrote a book on the best practices for introducing ethics and normative guidelines into an AI-based product. [18:31] How should candidates be talking about these issues in 2020? It’s very easy to be optimistic about the societal benefit of technological adaption here’s the self driving story where it’s feasible to imagine a world where 50 years from now there’s one one hundredth of the car fatalities that there are today. So that I think is a pretty easy, legitimate story to tell about the benefits of innovation. The counterargument is that when someone comes up with some new device, it displaces a meaningful number of jobs and what do you do with those people? To go back to self-driving cars, we could see a very quick reduction in the number of truck drivers that are needed in the coming years, which is a major industry in a lot of places. The optimist would say that new jobs will be created to do things like work on the self-driving cars and trucks and do additional road maintenance because the quality of the roads will become increasingly important, but it remains to be seen whether that will actually happen and those jobs will actually be created. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post Will AI destroy democracy? appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
6/10/201939 minutes, 24 seconds
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The 2019 version of Democracy in America

Lindsay Lloyd. Photo by Grant Miller If Alexis de Tocqueville visited America today, what would he have to say about the condition of our democracy? We hear a lot in the news and on Twitter about how support for democracy is waning. We’re perhaps even a little guilty of it on this show. But, what do everyday Americans think? Some of the biggest names in politics from across the ideological spectrum teamed up to find out. The Democracy Project, an initiative of the George W. Bush Center, Penn Biden Center, and Freedom House, found that people support the ideal of democracy, but worry that the United States is not living up to that ideal in practice due to factors like economic inequality and the decline of civics education. Lindsay Lloyd, director Bush Center’s Human Freedom Initiative and part of The Democracy Project, joins us this week to discuss the report and what its findings mean for citizens across the United States. We’ve collaborated with the Bush Center on several projects in the past few months and highly recommend checking out their podcast, The Strategerist. Additional Information The Democracy Project report Our episodes on economic inequality and civics education The Strategerist podcast from the Bush Center Discussion/Reflection Questions How does your perception of democracy align with The Democracy Project’s findings? What do you make of the report’s recommendations for action? Do you agree with Lindsay that there is strong support for democracy-based initiatives in Congress? What role should the U.S. play in promoting democracy in other countries? Have your feelings about democracy changed since 2016? Or 2018? Interview Highlights [5:19] What is the Democracy Project and how does it relate to the Bush Center’s mission? The Bush Center opened in 2009 and one of the areas we work in is democracy and human rights. Historically, it’s been focused outside the United States. A few years ago, we noticed that something was happening in American democracy regarding partisanship and wanted to see what we could do about it. We partnered with the Penn Biden Center and Freedom House and launched a public opinion project related to American democracy. We did focus groups with constituent groups around the country, as well as a national public opinion poll. [7:10] How are people feeling about the state of democracy in the U.S.? There was a flurry of articles in early 2017 suggesting that people living in democratic societies were looking for alternatives, particularly among young people. We did not find that in our survey. The people we talked to overwhelmingly felt it was important to them to live in a democracy. On the flip side, our respondents felt that America’s democracy was weak and getting weaker and isn’t delivering in the way it traditionally had. [9:04] What role do you see the Bush Center playing in addressing the issues identified in the research? The second half of the survey covered perceptions of democracy outside the U.S. We’re starting a bipartisan working group to look at support for democracy and human rights overseas. It’s taken a hit under the Trump administration and we believe it’s important that the U.S. speak out when human rights abuses are happening and continue to support democracy around the world. Our adversaries are advocating for authoritarianism and democracies need to advocate for their point of view. We found that respondents agreed and found that having a more democratic world makes America safer and makes the world safer. [11:35] Who do you see as your allies in this work? There’s still strong support across party lines in Congress for democracy-related initiatives. The Trump administration proposed cutting the budget for groups like the National Endowment for Democracy and Congress has put it back in and, in some cases, increased funding. Newer democracies are also very interested in this work, countries that were formerly under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. [16:25] President Trump is not mentioned anywhere in the report. Did he come up at all in the focus groups? We intentionally did not ask about approval of the President because it’s not a political poll. He did come up in the focus groups, including one group of people who supported the President in 2016 and another group who supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary. His name came up early and often, but nothing particularly surprising. The President has some strong supporters and some strong detractors. But, it’s also important to remember that democracy is about more than what happens in the White House. Democracy needs to deliver at the local level, or else confidence in the system suffers. [19:58] Did you see any evidence of polarization in your work? Is it still possible to find middle ground? One of the complications is that people think that getting rid of partisanship means everyone needs to agree with them. It’s of grave concern, but we did still hear from people who were in the middle. It’s much less of a concern at the local level, where local officials are often nonpartisan. There’s frustration across the board that Washington can’t solve problems. Ideas are examined based on who’s proposing them, rather than on their merits. In the end, most people don’t care who’s behind a proposal, they just want to see it get done. Both of the parties have seen a hollowing out — the days of Rockefeller Republicans and blue democrats are largely gone. One way people change that is by voting in primaries for candidates who support compromise and trying to find middle ground on issues. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post The 2019 version of Democracy in America appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
6/3/201935 minutes, 43 seconds
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What neoliberalism left behind

Neoliberalism is one of those fuzzy words that can mean something different to everyone. Wendy Brown is one of the world’s leading scholars on neoliberalism and argue that a generation of neoliberal worldview among political, business, and intellectual leaders led to the populism we’re seeing throughout the world today. But is it mutually exclusive to democracy? Not necessarily.Brown joins us this week to help make sense of what neoliberalism is, and where things stand today. We were lucky enough to get an advance copy of her book, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, which will be released in July. It’s a follow up to her 2015 book, Undoing the Demos, and you’ll hear her talk about how her thinking has changed since then.Brown is the Class of 1936 First Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches political theory. You might also recognize her from Astra Taylor’s documentary, What Is Democracy? If you enjoy this episode, we recommend checking out the Political Theory Review podcast, produced by Jeffrey Church at the University of Houston.Additional InformationWendy’s books: In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, Undoing the DemosWendy’s website Our episode with David FrumThe Political Theory Review podcastDiscussion/Reflection QuestionsWhat do you see as the relationship between neoliberalism and democracy?Do you think it’s possible for two to coexist?What do you see as the future of neoliberalism? Will Millennials and Generation Z move in a different direction?Interview Highlights[5:45] How do you define neoliberalism and how is it related to democracy?North Americans are a little bewildered by the term, and we don’t have it as part of our everyday lexicon although I think it’s finally beginning to seep in. But having said that, I also want to suggest that we understand it at a social and political level and not just an economic level. We recognize it as the undoing of the Keynesian welfare state and the substitution of free market policies, low taxes, everyone’s responsible for themselves and getting rid of all the social supports except for a bare minimum safety net, but I want to add that it’s also a whole from of governing reason.[7:45] How does neoliberalism relate to authoritarianism?One of the things I felt compelled to understand with our hard right turn in the West over the last several years with Trump and Bolsonaro and Brexit and so forth was the connection of that to neoliberalism. One thing you can say is rising inequality and open borders produces rage about being at the bottom end of that inequality and also about immigrants, but there was something else on the horizon that I had never noticed, which is that the neoliberal scheme was not just to substitute markets for social policy.It was also to substitute traditional moral values for understandings of social justice and institutions of social justice. And so part of what we’re experiencing now is what I call the kind of scorpion tail of neoliberalism — the lashing out against the inequality and the continued insistence that traditional morality, moral values, and traditions more generally from white supremacy to patriarchal families, religion in the public sphere, that those are more appropriate governors of human conduct than any state-mandated practices of equality or inclusion.[11:04] How did neoliberal ideas make their way from academics to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher?First, there was a very serious economic crisis often called a crisis of profitability in the 70s that was also often seen as a crisis of the welfare state. Too much taxation, unions that were too strong, corporations that were too large and lazy, and a real problem of stagflation. It was a moment where you could strike with a new set of ideas. At the same time, neoliberalism had already been experimented with extensively in Latin America. The IMF was already solidly neoliberal, so bringing it up to the north wasn’t so difficult once Reagan and Thatcher were in power.[14:37] What will Millennials and Gen Z make of neoliberalism?Millennials and Generation Z are living in a kind of schizophrenic subjectivity that comes from the rejection of capitalism and the sluggish, dinosaur-like pace of parliamentary or constitutional democracy that is now so deeply corrupted by neoliberal money and corporate power. One of the things I see coming from these generations is the rejection of those two things as the necessary coordinates of the political and economic future, and I think all the hope rests there.[17:46] Is there a way for neoliberalism and democracy to coexist?Why I’m impatient with a neoliberal conception of democracy as a way to redress either the gross inequality or the serious existential dangers that we face now is that it’s basically saying, “Go join something, go feel like you’re part of something,” but let the major powers that shape our lives run through markets that presumably run through no hands at all. We rather desperately need to get our hands on those powers.[20:37] Is it possible to move past the neoliberal worldview given that it’s been dominant over the past generation?Yes. The Keynesian system lasted for fifty years. No one thought it could be taken apart and everyone thought it was here to stay. The question for the neoliberals was always to try to figure out how to keep it from getting worse and how to prevent this straight on drive toward complete socialism, and keep some markets in the picture. So, one generation is not a lot of time. The second thing I want to say is that we are obviously in a very serious political crisis where there’s an impatience with the current system and a belief that it’s not serving people or the planet. not just the left and right edges, but left and right mainstreams now um, the impatience with the- with the current system, and the belief that it’s not serving people, or the planet, is very strong.
5/27/201939 minutes, 5 seconds
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Demagogues are more common than you think

Patricia Roberts-Miller When you think of the word “demagogue,” what comes to mind? Probably someone like Hitler or another bombastic leader, right? Patricia Roberts-Miller is a rhetoric scholar and has spent years tracing the term and its uses. She joins us this week to explain a new way of thinking about demagoguery and how that view relates to democracy. She also explains what she’s learned from what she describes as years of “crawling around the Internet with extremists.” Patricia is a Professor of Rhetoric and Writing and Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of two new books on demagoguery. Demagoguery and Democracy is a short book in the style of On Tyranny that covers the basics of her argument in about 100 small ages. Rhetoric and Demagoguery is a longer, more academic book for those looking for more on the rhetorical roots of demagoguery and its relationship to democratic deliberation. Additional Information Patricia’s books: Demagoguery and Democracy, Rhetoric and Demagoguery Patricia’s website Episode on civility with Timothy Shaffer of Kansas State University Discussion/Reflection Questions After listening to Patricia, do you feel better equipped to notice demagoguery in media you consume, or even in your own language and writing? What do you see as the relationship between demagoguery and democracy? Do you see parallels between the increase of demagoguery and the decline of civility we discussed with Timothy Shaffer? Can you think of a time when you’ve tried to appreciate the other side’s point of view in a conversation or something you read? Did doing so change your perspective? Interview Highlights [5:18] How do you define demagoguery and why is it bad for democracy? It’s useful to think about it as reducing all political issues or even all issues to questions of identity. And specifically in-group versus out-group. And it’s oriented toward providing a lot of certainty and reducing nuance. When you have a culture that is reasoning about everything in that way, you can’t actually explore multiple solutions. What I have to say about demagoguery in politics is pretty similar to what people will say about how a business should come up with a good business plan or how people should make decisions about health. It’s just better decision making. [7:04] How does the media landscape influence the culture of demagoguery you describe? We’re in an economy of attention and what matters most is w- whether you are doing things that get viewers and get likes, and get clicks and shares, and all that. It’s extremely difficult to do a good argument on Twitter, one that takes into consideration the nuance of a situation, what other people have said, represents the opposition fairly. [10:44] Why is demagoguery so often associated with political leaders? Because demagoguery is about reducing politics to identity. And so if you’re thinking about politics in terms of identity you’re going to be looking for a person on whom you can blame bad politics. And it better not be you. Right? So I think that’s one reason that we really like that notion the demagogue who is the source of all of our problems. And often when you have a culture of demagoguery, at some point somebody will come up. [13:14] What are some strategies people can use to identify demagoguery? We assume that demagoguery is going to be vehement, and we assume it’s going to be aggressive. And so we have a tendency to make that judgment on the basis of affect. The affect of the person speaking, but also our own. Do we feel threatened? And if we don’t feel threatened then we’re not likely to think of it as demagoguery. So I think, but what that means is that you don’t recognize the demagoguery on behalf of your in-group. People have to perspective shift and imagine how would we feel about this if we were in the other group? Would we feel threatened by it under those circumstances? How would we feel if exactly that same argument was made about our group? Um, how would we make, how would we feel about that kind of argument? Would we assess it as a rational argument if it was made on the part of the opposition? [16:16] Is there ever a time when it’s not worth trying to understand the other person or side’s point of view? One of the things you always have to figure out about anyone you’re interacting with is whether they are open to change and persuasion. One of the problems with conspiracy theories is by definition they’re not. They have a way of discounting any kind evidence that doesn’t conform to their beliefs. Often, the people don’t believe in climate change have an almost 19th century notion about a scientist is, and what science is. So if a mechanical engineer tells them that climate change is a hoax they’re like, “There’s a scientist who doesn’t believe in it.” Without understanding that a mechanical engineer is not actually an expert on either of those areas.Sometimes I get really interesting insights into people’s beliefs from doing that. And sometimes it’s sort of like kicking over a rock and just going, “Ew.” [21:50 ] Do you think we’ll be able to move beyond the “us vs. them” rhetoric to a more deliberative model? I’m really worried, but I’m hopeful that at least Facebook is starting to take this really seriously, and try to think through some better strategies that they have. What we actually need to emphasize is understanding other points of view. Instead of just relying on the facts I’ve been given by my in-group, to see what the facts are on other sides. And to see, especially why they reject the facts.
5/20/201938 minutes, 44 seconds
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What does the Mueller report mean for democracy?

Laura Rosenberger By now, you’ve no doubt head all about the report issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the drama in Washington that’s ensued in the time since its release. But, if you only focus on the information about collusion and obstruction in the Trump administration, you are missing a whole other part of the story about Russian interference in democracy leading up to the 2016 election. Laura Rosenberger and her colleagues at the bipartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy have been working to raise awareness about this threat since the 2016 election. Laura joins us this week to discuss what she learned from the report, and where the efforts to combat Russian interference stand. She is our first repeat guest on the podcast. We last spoke with her in the fall of 2018, just before the midterm elections, during a live event at the National Press Club. Additional Information Alliance for Securing Democracy Our conversation with Laura in fall 2018 Discussion/Reflection Questions Whose should be taking the lead on combating Russian interference in our democracy? What role does the government have to play? Social media platforms? Everyday citizens? Do you think that Russian interference will influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election? Interview Highlights [5:15] What did you learn from the Mueller report? I think it is one of the most important things to remember is that Special Counsel Mueller was appointed to investigate a number of different things. One of them was Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. We learned through the course of his investigation, including through some indictments that he brought against Russian officials and entities, some of what he was finding, but the report definitely added to that. In many ways, I would say his report and the investigation that he led really built on what we found and saw from the findings of the intelligence community and its own assessment of the Russian interference operations, as well as investigations by a number of bipartisan committees in Congress. [9:58] Are you seeing any evidence that calls to respond to Russian interference are being heeded? I think we have seen some incremental steps. I think that maybe we are in a slightly better position than we were in 2016, but I think that we have a whole lot of progress that we still need to make if we’re actually going to better protect our democracy against the threats that we face. I think the social media companies need to do a whole lot more to take this issue on in a very systemic way, really going after the root of the problem. I worry right now that some of the approach is too focused on eliminating what they’ve dubbed harmful content. [11:35] Who do you see as your allies in these efforts? I think there’s a lot of really great folks out there trying to work on different components of this problem. One of them, there’s a really robust community of researchers that have been taking on this problem and trying to better understand it and provide information. I think transparency and exposing these kinds of operations is one of the really important things that we can do to help combat them. [14:20] Did we see any changes in election security between 2016 and the 2018 midterms? We definitely have seen some steps being taken around the midterm elections, including better information sharing between the federal government and state and local officials, getting more information to those officials to be able to ensure that they understand the threat picture, getting a little bit more funding to them, although the funding that was given to them was really for addressing existing vulnerabilities even before the Russian attempts were made. One of the things, though, that’s really concerning to me is in the wake of the Mueller Report, one of the things that he had in there that was new was talking about a county in Florida that had it’s networks penetrated by Russian cyber hackers. In the wake of that, there’s been a big dispute between the federal government and the state of Florida about whether that was true, whether there was evidence of that, claims that the FBI hadn’t shared what they needed. [19:29] What changes do you think we’re most likely to see between now and the 2020 election? Since 2014 we’ve basically seen an ongoing effort by the Russians that has had different chapters at different times. Sometimes targeting different elections and different election cycles, sometimes targeting different issues that are highly divisive in the media. It’s important to understand that these operations are ongoing and they evolve at different points in time. Some of the things that I’m worried about that we might see in terms of evolution targeting the 2020 elections, first is we’ve seen the Internet Research Agency getting even better at insinuating itself to different activist groups. We are a very fertile target surface for our adversaries to take aim at. I think that we’ve got to really turn that table around to ensure that we’re better protected. [24:01] What would you recommend our listeners do if they are concerned about Russian interference in our democracy? Voting is something everything can do and it’s also really important for people, as on any other issue, for peoples elected officials to hear from them if this is an issue that they’re concerned about. Dozens of bipartisan pieces of legislation were introduced in the last Congress to address these tactics by the Russians, and we have seen none of them become law. It’s also really important for people to engage in critical thinking on any piece of information. That includes online, and that includes elsewhere. It’s really easy in the political campaign context, when people are very emotional and you’re really trying to make a point, it’s very easy to hook onto something that we agree with, that we think is a really solid thing, even if we don’t know who’s saying it or what their interest or motivations may be, or where the information came from.
5/13/201932 minutes, 38 seconds
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School segregation then and now

It’s been 65 years since the Brown v. Board of Education changed public schooling throughout a large portion of the United States. In his opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that public education was important to democratic society and the “very foundation of good citizenship.” Integrated schools, the Court argued, would expose children to new cultures and prepare them for an increasingly diverse world.How do you balance the public good against the inherent desire every parent has to do what’s best for their children? It’s a question that schools across the country are still wrestling with today.To help us understand the history of integration and the Brown decision’s impacts on public policy, we’re talking this week with two experts at Penn State. Crystal Sanders is an associate professor of history and African American studies and director of the Africana Research Center. She’s an expert on 20th century African American history. Erica Frankenberg is a professor of education and demography and director of the Center for Education and Civil Rights. She is an an expert on the connection between school segregation and public policy.Crystal and Erica co-chaired a conference at Penn State on the 65th anniversary of the Brown decision.Additional InformationBrown@65 ConferenceBrown v. Board of Education opinionOur episode on school boards with Robert Asen of the University of Wisconsin-MadisonA note to our listeners in the New York City area: Jenna Spinelle will be participating in a panel called “Podcasts to the Rescue! An Emerging Medium for Learning About Civics, Government, and the Social Contract” on Thursday, May 30 at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. The event is free and open to the public. We would love to meet you!Discussion/Reflection QuestionsWhat is the relationship between school segregation and democracy?Did you attend an integrated or a segregated school? How did that impact you once you finished school?How should the education system change to become more integrated?How is the re-segregation that Erica and Crystal affecting students in the U.S.? How is it impacting the country more broadly?Interview Highlights[5:52] What was the political climate when the decision of Brown v. Board of Education was madeThere were many people on the ground; black teachers, black principals, black parents who had been organizing for generations for quality educational opportunities for their students. Decades prior March 1954, black parents were mobilizing to ensure that their students had the resources to ensure that their students to get to school.[7:43] How was the Brown decision received?There was a massive resistance at the beginning. The reason because Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 for sending troops to Little Rock was essentially because the rest of the world was watching and laughing at us. We see white parents taking their kids out of public schools, we see entire school system shutting down, as was the case in Prince, Edward County, Virginia. It takes a very long time before we even began to see real implementation. We are seeing now a widespread re-segregation across the country.[9:37] What are some of the factors that are causing re-segregation?One of the things that most people might not be aware of is that more than 25 states allow communities to secede from a school system and create their own new school system. Across the country, but especially in wealthy suburbs and Southern states, we see wealthy white communities pull out from school systems and create their own new school system that allows them to maintain racial segregation.[12:24] A lot of the conversation around school segregation focuses on the South. What was going on in other parts of the country?It’s important to think about how School desegregation look different in the South versus the North. In northern states there were a lot of ways in which structures were used to create segregated schools. There was the first two decades after the Brown decision in which there were a lot of questions legally as to how Brown would apply outside of the South. When we think of re-segregation today, whether we’re talking about the north or the south, we have to look at housing patterns. We have to look at the lack of affordable housing and the ways in which we still have very weak fair housing laws, and that has been detrimental to ensuring that our public schools are as diverse and inclusive as they can and should be.[15:56] What’s the relationship between school integration and the public good?I believe that most Americans still believe that public education is a public good. I don’t believe that most Americans believe integration is a public good. Those are two separate things. There’s still some investment in public education, but there is no investment in integration as a public good.[17:59] What do we know about the outcomes of integrated schools?There are social and psychological benefits of integrated schools for all students. Students from integrated schools are less likely to have racial stereotypes and prejudice formation. There are important benefits in terms of being more likely to live and work in diverse spaces as an adult. Some research even finds you’re more likely live in more integrated neighborhoods.[23:11] Are there particular cities or communities that that have been particularly successful at integration?No district is perfect, but some communities are intriguing. Jefferson County, Kentucky had court-ordered desegregation in the 1970’s, and in 2000 the court said they had met the requirements. The Wake County school system in North Carolina has done a phenomenal job by ensuring that they have diverse schools across the district. They created a plan that used race to ensure that all of the high schools in the district had proportional levels of different populations. Share Tweet  Google Plus  ShareThe post School segregation then and now appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
5/6/201939 minutes, 21 seconds
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What Serial taught Sarah Koenig about criminal justice — recorded live at Penn State

Sarah Koenig spent a year inside Cleveland’s criminal justice system for season three of the Serial podcast. Along the way, she met some interesting people and had a birds-eye view of what justice (and injustice) look like for lawyers, judges, defendants, police officers, and the countless others who pass through the building’s courtrooms each day.It’s once thing to study criminal justice empirically, as many academics do, but something else entirely to be embedded within the system as Koenig and her team were in Cleveland.We invited Koenig to Penn State for an on-stage conversation with Democracy Works host and McCourtney Institute for Democracy Director Michael Berkman. They discuss community policing, the lack of data about what works and what doesn’t, and where college students should focus their energy if they’re looking to reform the criminal justice system.Additional InformationSerial podcastCornell’s Peter Enns about the U.S. as the world’s most punitive democracyUNC’s Frank Baumgartner on race and policingA note to our listeners in the New York City area: Jenna Spinelle will be participating in a panel called “Podcasts to the Rescue! An Emerging Medium for Learning About Civics, Government, and the Social Contract” on Thursday, May 30 at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. The event is free and open to the public. We would love to meet you!Discussion/Reflection QuestionsIf you’ve listened to Serial season 3, what did you find most surprising?Which part of the criminal justice system do you think is most in need of reform?How should that part of the system change?How much discretion should judges have when it comes to sentencing?What kind of data is needed to understand how to reform the criminal justice system?What is the relationship between law and justice?Interview Highlights[2:45] What about this season of Serial do you think captured people’s attention?We tried to do what we know how to do, right? Which is to know how to make it narrative, as narrative as we could, and to introduce difficult concepts kind of slowly and not overload you with information. It’s become a topic that people are talking about and caring about in the last however many years and that’s personally a thrill to me, but I think that helps. The timing of it helped.[3:54] Does season 3 relate to season 1?A lot of people after season 1 were like “Well, what does this mean about the whole system? Can you extrapolate?” And it felt like, well that, no you can’t extrapolate off of one case that is pretty extraordinary. So it really did feel like, well let’s just go look and see the ordinary stuff. What is the baseline functionality of our system in a very, kind of day to day, mundane way, honestly. Let’s treat the courthouse as an office.[6:10] What did you learn about the police in Cleveland?So it was just a very typical, I mean if you read about for example, what’s happening in Baltimore, what’s happened in some other places. And it seems like the places where there has been any successful, true successful outcome from those consent decrees, I think Seattle has actually had a pretty good result if I’m not mistaken. It’s where they get buy-in from the police union, and it’s hard. In a place like Cleveland it’s very hard. It’s very old school. It’s very like, “Don’t tell me how to do my job, I put my life on the line every day.”[9:40] What do people in Cleveland think about the idea of community policing?They see the value of it and they think it’s valuable and they don’t want to be the people who, in a place like Cleveland, all you do is just get in your car and just race from call to call to call to call. And half the time, you’re at a call trying to deal with something and you get a call for a more major thing and so you’re ripped away, so then that person that you’re trying to help is like, there goes my guy. So, it’s bad for everyone, that kind of policing. They, they want it and they want, I think, to be able to have real interaction with people in communities.[14:03] Judge Gaul comes up in several episodes throughout the series. Tell us about him.His dad had been in county politics. He was getting near retirement age, so he was like mid-60’s. He’d been on the bench a long time, and in Cleveland, in Ohio, you know, county judges have an extraordinary amount of of discretion and latitude.I mean, it’s sort of like a cliché of the courthouse, but like they really do treat it as their own little kingdom. And so he had his style and his way of berating almost every defendant who came before him. He saw it as tough love. That’s how you get elected in Cuyahoga county. No one pays attention to judicial races, so you see the Democratic name, it’s an Irish name, you’re like, it’s vaguely familiar because there’s like ten thousand people named Gaul in the county and you’re like, “Oh yeah, that guy. I’m sure he’s fine.” And so that’s how these people stay on the bench forever.[20:40] What did you learn about the way probation works in Cleveland?Half the docket when I was watching would be a probation violation. Most of them were for things like staying out after curfew or going out of state for a funeral somebody’s funeral smoking weed. They’re having to come back through the thing and if you piss off the judge, especially, someone like Judge Gaul who has a temper, you can end up incarcerated. Part of the hugely frustrating thing we saw in Ohio, but I think this is again true in lots of parts of the country, there’s no data. We don’t keep data on this stuff. Nobody is tracking outcome say for when is probation is effective and when people start to slide off and violate more.[27:50] What do you make of the momentum around electing progressive prosecutors to reform the system?The focus that we have lately on progressive prosecutors and the big money that’s going into these prosecutors races across the country is fantastic, but it is one piece of the puzzle. This system is enormous and it has many different machines working at once. They do not often interact with each other well or at all. I get a little nervous when we start saying, “Oh, we’ve, we’ve figured out how to fix it, just elect a bunch of progressive prosecutors.” My fear is, yes, you can elect progressive prosecution, but you can also unelect those same prosecutors. So I would rather see a more systemic change.[30:15] Where can young people have the biggest impact in criminal justice reform?I would say like those kinds of agencies that are so unsex and it just feels like why would I want to go be a government bureaucrat and like a thankless job? If you’re asking where you can make a difference, boy, wouldn’t it be fantastic to have, um, the smartest, most compassionate, most energetic brains be working on juvenile crime.
4/29/201933 minutes, 33 seconds
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Is it time to revive civility?

Timothy Shaffer There are a lot of calls these days to “revive civility” in politics. While there are plenty of examples of uncivil behavior, there’s far less agreement about what civility should look like in 2019. Timothy Shaffer joins us this week to talk about work being done to create a new definition of civility and a playbook to put that definition into practice. Shaffer is an assistant professor in communication studies at Kansas State University, assistant director of the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy, and principal research specialist at the National Institute for Civil Discourse. He is the editor of a new book called A Crisis of Civility? Political Discourse and its Discontents. Additional Information Kansas State University Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy National Institute for Civil Discourse Timothy’s book: A Crisis of Civility?  NPR story on civility in politics Our episode on the Citizens Initiative Review Our “conversation about conversation” episode Discussion/Reflection Questions Do you think we are in a crisis of civility? If so, does the crisis exist among citizens, politicians, or both? What do you see as the relationship between civility and democracy? What do you think is the best approach for making political discourse more civil? Who do you look to as a model of civility in politics? What is the right balance between deliberative democracy and policy changes? Interview Highlights [3:50] How do you define civility? There is no one single notion of civility. In our book, the first chapter puts forward two ways to think about it: civility as politeness and civility as responsiveness. As someone who studies this work and engages it in practical situations and settings, it’s important that we think about civility as being more than just kind of minding your manners or abiding by the rules or the expectations of kind of a dominant society. [5:48] Given that definition, what does it mean to “revive” civility as we’ve heard people call for lately? I would say somewhat of an analog to that is the language of civic renewal, which gets used quite a bit. If we’re trying to revive something or trying to renew something, it presupposes that there-there was something in the past. And I think part of the Revive Civility campaign, um, from the National Institute for Civil Discourse I think is rooted more in this notion that we have, in recent times, seen the increases in various studies and people’s experience, right? People are recognizing, noticing, that politicians, as well as just folks in their neighborhoods and in their communities, are really ratcheting up some of the-the kinda partisan divisions and rancor. [14:20] How do you connect exercises in democratic deliberation with more tangible policy outcomes? One example I’ll point to is the Citizens Initiative Review, which creates those kinds of conditions where ordinary people come together and hear expert testimony, wrestle through ideas that are gonna show up on a ballot initiative, and at the end of a few days, they come out and make these statements about how they’ve, have come to a decision. A historical example I’ve researched is a cooperative extension program run by the USDA in the 1930s and 40s. They created these discussion guides on a whole host of topics, things like soil erosion and taxes and imports. They held meetings that gave people in these communities a chance to participate in discussion, but also paired that with formal land-use planning processes. [18:40] What’s the relationship between civility and free expression? How do you have one without limiting the other? the tension between um, free-speech and this notion of civility I don’t think has to be kind of, it’s, it’s over here or it’s over there. Uh, the, the capacity to create conditions for kind of expression of contentious views is really important. Uh, I think where we start to, to see some rub is the, the expectation of kind of “safe spaces” um, where if, if people are feeling uncomfortable or, or maybe even challenged or attacked, that if you know, we set that as a ground rule, for example, that is going to become a very significant tension that we have to acknowledge. [22:05] Is there anyone you look to as an example of modeling civility in politics? I don’t have an immediate go-to as kind of like, here’s the classic example of someone who ought to be our kind of exemplar. Given the state of things as they have been recently and it seems like it will continue for a bit, I will point to someone like Senator John McCain. He embodied the notion that you can have your strong views but you can engage and, and recognize when you need to give a little bit or also when you might be wrong.
4/22/201936 minutes, 8 seconds
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E.J. Dionne on empathy and democracy

E.J. Dionne has the unique perspective of studying the horse race and the big picture of American politics. He writes a twice-weekly column for the Washington Post and appears regularly on NPR, but he’s also a senior fellow at Brookings and professor in Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University.We talked with him about the relationship between partisan politics and democracy, the need for empathy across the political spectrum, and a few policy ideas to help make America more democratic. We could have talked all day and hope to return to some of these topics in future episodes.Additional InformationE.J.’s Washington Post columnsE.J.’s lecture at Penn State E.J.’s paper on universal voting for BrookingsChris Beem’s TED talk on how young people can improve democracyDiscussion/Reflection QuestionsDo you agree with E.J.’s notion that a partisan response was required to protect democracy?Have you noticed a difference in political argumentation over the past few years? Is it more difficult to have arguments now than it was a few years ago?What do you see as the relationship between civil society and democracy? How could one help the other?What do you make of the National Fair Vote Interstate Compact and universal voting?Interview Highlights[3:52] In One Nation After Trump, you wrote that a partisan response was required to protect democratic values. What did you mean by that?Trump had done something to our politics that was very dangerous and needed to be reversed, and given that the Republican Party had chosen almost to a person (with a couple of exceptions in Congress) to support Trump, the only way to hit back, to create any sense of accountability, was to give at least one house of Congress to Democrats. There a lot of people out there who aren’t necessarily partisan Democrats, who aren’t necessarily liberals or lefties, who believe that there are abuses here that need to be checked, and that there is a threat to democracy that needs to be reversed, and that’s exactly what happened after the 2018 midterms.[5:19] Should that approach continue heading into 2020?My view is that the Republican party has moved to a point where it needs a real rebuke in order to look inside itself and analyze where they want to continue to be.[6:54] ]What happens to the people who are conservative but don’t may be aligned with where the Republican party is currently?I think there are still a lot of conservatives who made a deal that they think is still worth making on behalf of low taxes deregulation and Supreme Court appointments. There is a pattern in which some districts that 30 or 40 years ago would happily have sent a moderate Republican to the house are now sending Democrats.[11:00] You’ve also called for making America empathetic again. Have you seen any indication that it’s happening?Yes, I have seen it in the reactions of the people when the Muslin ban. The number of people who rush to the airports over the Muslim ban and people who may not have met a Muslim in their life and said “wait a minute, this isn’t who we are.” There is also the reaction of the people to the kids being taken away from their parents at the border. I think we’ve taken some steps forward, but we still have a lot of work to do.[12:51] What can people do to develop a sense of empathy?Chris Beem gave a TED talk in which he said we need people to do three things. First, people need to tell the truth. Second, they need to engage in democratic humility, and third, people need to join an organization. I think one of the terrible things about the Trump age is that the division is so deep that friends who disagree about politics don’t even talk about politics anymore because they’re afraid of busting the friendship, and that’s a problem.[14:54] Why do you think it’s so hard for people to have constructive arguments?I think some of it is that our allegiances are all aligned together in a package. So people’s political commitment and people’s party commitments are aligned with their ideological commitments or often aligned with their religious commitments that includes people who are religious or secular combined with where they live. The “big sort” argument and many things combined in one party has come to stand for it.[16:00] How we can make civil society work given the world we live in today?I think we people need ways in which they can get together face-to-face and do things together. Sports teams are part of that, by the way. There is enormous life in civil society when where kids sports are concerned about it. What I want to tell to my conservative friends is: I’m with you, I want a stronger cvil society, but you have to acknowledge the cost of inequality and the cost of economic collapse.[19:08] Can you give us an overview of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?We have a problem in our country that’s going to keep growing with the Electoral College. Since 2000, we’ve had just two elections where the Electoral College went against the popular vote. The way in which population is getting concentrated in big states, the over-representation of low population states in the Electoral College will get even greater. This is a problem for democracy and you can’t change it very easily under the Constitution.[22:26] You’ve also worked on what you describe as universal voting. Can you explain what that is and how it might work?This idea comes from Australia. Australia has compulsory attendance at the polls, but not the United States. I’m working on an initiative with Miles Rapoport at the Ash Center at Harvard on this. We’re trying to see what would this look like If we did it in the United States. Our theory is if you can ask people to serve on juries, if you can ask people for going to say to potentially give their lives in war, then asking people to vote is not an over ask for civic life. It finally reverses the role of local officials. They can’t suppress the vote anymore. Their job is to help make it as easy as possible for all the people in the country to vote.
4/15/201934 minutes, 3 seconds
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No Jargon: Who controls the states?

We are excited to bring you an episode from No Jargon, a podcast from the Scholars Strategy Network. Much like Democracy Works, No Jargon aims to break down some of the biggest issues in politics and society in a way that’s not partisan and not punditry. New episodes are released every Thursday, and we hope you’ll check it out if you enjoy this conversation. We like to think that state governments make decisions based on their particular situations. But it turns out, often that’s not the case. In fact, three large conservative groups have gained massive influence in state houses across the country, working to pass legislation in line with their views and corporate sponsors. In this episode of No Jargon, Columbia University’s Alexander Hertel-Fernandez explains their rise and strategies, why state governments are so susceptible to their influence, and what this all means for American democracy. Additional Information No Jargon website Alex Hertel Fermandez’s book, State Capture The McCourtney Institute’s John Gastil on No Jargon discussing the Citizens Initiative Review
4/8/201929 minutes, 48 seconds
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The ongoing struggle for civil rights

Joyce Ladner was at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was mentored by Medgar Evers, expelled from Jackson State University for participating in a sit-in, and failed Mississippi’s voter literacy test three times. She discusses those experiences with us, along with the disconnect between learning the principles of civics education knowing that some of them didn’t apply to her.Joyce also describes how Emmett Till moved her generation to action, and how Trevon Martin is doing the same for a new generation of organizers. She visited Penn State to deliver the annual Barbara Jordan lecture, hosted by the Africana Research Center.Additional InformationPenn State Africana Research CenterInterview Highlights[4:44] What was the catalyst for you to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement?The catalyst for us was the lynching of 14-year-old Emmitt Till in Mississippi[5:15] How did that make you feel and how you did you translate those feelings into your actions?I remember feeling very very powerless back then. Sort of visceral reaction came when I saw the photograph of Emmett Till on the cover of Jet Magazine. That photograph made me feel that I had to one day do something.[9:42] Did you see any changes or any integration efforts following Brown v. Board of EducationNo, what happened to the Deep South was that the Southern states immediately after the Brown decision came down rushed to build new schools for black children, so we got a new school.[14:42] What do you think is missing from how civics education and democracy are being taught today?I took high school history and social science civics to become good citizens. We were informed with a knowledge base in ethics and values, and about what democracy was. I think that one of the worst things that’s happened in subsequent years is the decline of civics education. A lot of social science type courses have suffered tremendously.[16:55] What do you think about Black Lives Matter Movement?Black Lives Matter is to this generation what’s SNCC was to my generation, and also Trayvon Martin is to this generation what Emmett Till was to mine. Here you have a case of a young man who was just shot and murdered and the response to it is a national outpouring of anger and eventually that anger was channeled by young people (college students and non-college students). I should say is the case in a manner that was very similar. I was so excited to see that finally we have some movement activity.[20:16] What was the process to become a registered voter?I tried to register to vote three times in Harrisburg, but I failed the voter register literacy test because all black people who went to register were failed. At the same time all white people were registered. I was required to write essays on two questions, one was an interpretation of section in the U.S. Constitution. They never gave us reasons. They just says “you failed to pass this test, you didn’t answer these questions adequately”.[24:41] Was there something that united all the different organizing that you did, whether for civil rights, voting rights or all of those?Freedom was the reason to do all of this. Equality was later added but freedom remain the constant.[26:57] What advice did you have to say to young people or anyone who wants to get involved in organizing and trying to impact what they perceive as injustice?Freedom is not free. Each generation has to fight for those same rights all over again because they’re not permanent.
4/8/201937 minutes, 2 seconds
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Immigration, refugees, and the politics of displacement

Jan Egeland From Brexit to Hungary to the U.S. border wall, many of today’s political conflicts center around immigration. Moving people from one place to another is easier said than done, and as we’ve seen around world, there are inherent tensions between people who want to enter a country and the people who are already there. On top of that, climate change will continue to create situations where people are displaced from their homes. Jan Egeland doesn’t have all the answers to these issues, but he’s committed to figuring them out. He is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council and former Special Adviser to the UN Special Envoy for Syria. Despite the challenges that immigration poses, he remains optimistic about the progress the world has made and the power of democratic governments to find solutions. Jan visited Penn State as guest of the Center for Security Research and Education. Additional Information Norwegian Refugee Council Penn State Center for Security Research and Education Discussion/Reflection Questions How should governments and organizations address immigration? What’s the relationship between immigration and democracy? Did hearing Jan’s interview change the way you think about migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers? How will climate change affect migration? Interview Highlights [4:58] What do the terms migrant and refugee mean and how they might differ? Migrants are everyone who leaves a country and goes to another place. Refugees are people who flee from persecution. It could be political, religious, or cultural. [6:38] What is the Norwegian Refugee Council and how this organization works with these various groups? The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a humanitarian organization working for both refugees and the internally displaced people providing them relief in the in the form of shelter (housing, water, sanitation, and food). We also provide legal help and legal advice, including civil documentation. There are two main solutions that we seek. The first one is to return the person, but this solution is very difficult when a war is going on. The other one is local integration. It could be that little by little they would be integrated, get their get jobs and education and maybe even citizenship, and the third solution is relocation to another place. Traditionally the United States generously receives more than a 100,000 refugees, but most of the rich industrial countries have become colder places for refugees. [9:00] When did that that transition start and how has it evolved since then? It’s always been there really in Europe, in the United States, and in places like Japan and in other industrialized countries. We are now in a new period of great difficulty for us who work for and with refugees because there is a wave of nationalism in very many places. [10:50] What is the right balance between helping refugees and people in need while still paying mind to people who are already living in the countries where the refugees want to go? First of all, we have to recognize that the main solution for people who have fled their homes is to return home. We need to have more work and diplomacy peacemaking conflict resolution to make it safe and protected for people to return home and help them then rebuilt. [16:15] Do you find that the populism we’ve seen throughout Europe and elsewhere also extends to humanitarian efforts? What I find now is that there is a race to the bottom. Really many countries are willing to give us money if we keep them away from from that country. Europe and North America have been traditionally the most generous places for receiving refugees, but there are many rich nations who are not receiving refugees. [18:44] There’s a long-term strategy but there’s also a lot of things that come up that you can’t anticipate. How do you account for those unknown elements? We have very good people who in the field try to meet every eventuality. We have preparedness programs as we have prevention programs. But but in the longer term, perhaps the most worrying longer term problem is that many more people will be displaced not by conflict, but by the forces of nature in the age of climate change and we have to be prepared for that. [19:56] What role does civil society have to play in terms of refugees? The civil society groups play an enormously important role. We work with civil society groups like women’s groups, student groups, church groups, religious groups, and tribal groups. We need to help people who are knocking on our door, we need to help them in their hour of greatest need! [22:22] How do you see democracies countering these anti-refugee and anti-immigrant policies? There are a few sensational stories about one or two immigrants doing something bad in the media and everybody believes that that immigrants are worse than others, but that’s not what statistics demonstrates. Europeans and the media is in panic with the amount of refugees. For example, Europeans felt overwhelmed when 1 million people came to a continent of 500 million. Let’s imagine you have a school yard of 500 kids and one girl comes in to the school. Should we panic for one to 500? We shouldn’t, but that’s what Europe did. [25:26] You’ve said previously that you feel the world is getting better for most people. Do you still feel that way? Absolutely, specially in terms of private consumption, public consumption, education, health care, life expectancy, dropping child mortality, equality between the sexes, and opportunity for girls. However, it is worse for those who live in war zone or in areas with gangs. The challenge moving forward will be to maintain this sense of progress and momentum.
4/1/201936 minutes, 10 seconds
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A playbook for organizing in turbulent times

Srdja Popovic 20 years ago, Srdja Popovic was part of a revolution — literally. He was a founding member of the Otpor! movement that ousted Serbia Slobodan Milsovic from power in 1999. It’s easy to characterize social movements as a bunch of people rallying in the streets, but successful movements require a lot of planning and a unified vision around a singular goal — things that are often easier said than done. Srdja joins us this week to discuss why Otpor! was successful and anyone can use the same principles of what we describes as “laughtivism” to fight for change. He is the director of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CAVNAS) and author of Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World. At the end of the episode, Michael and Chris compare Srdja’s discussion of anger and fear with some of the results we’ve seen from our Mood of the Nation Poll. Srdja visited Penn State as a guest of the Center for Global Studies, the same organization that hosted Syrian journalist Abdalaziz Alhamza in the fall. Our episode with him is a nice companion to this conversation with Srdja. Additional Information CANVAS website Srdja’s book: Blueprint for Revolution A book Srdja references in the interview: The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy Another Democracy Works episode you might enjoy: Breaking the silence in Syria – Abdalaziz Alhamza Discussion/Reflection Questions How did the Otpor! movement achieve its goals? How should a social movement balance its members individuals goals and views against the larger goals? How do you see the apathy and fear Srdja described playing out in today’s political climate? Do you think Otpor!’s approach could be successful in a place like Hungary or Brazil? What are some recent examples of laughtivism? Are they effective? Interview Highlights [4:20] What was the the political climate in Serbia when the Otpor! movement began? We started with large students protests. We were occupying campuses and all the intellectuals were there. The first large-scale demonstrations started in Serbia and we figure out that in fact, we can win local elections if opposition is united, but we lost. After three months on the streets every day, we understood that it’s a very stupid way to have everyday protests because are very costly. The movement grew from 11 people into several hundred, then performed a large tactics of recruitment and and grew up up to 70,000. We had a pretty clear vision of tomorrow — we were trying to build unity among the civil sector and the opposition parties. We stayed cool and nonviolent and focusing in low-risk tactics. [10:15] What are some of the the strategies you recommend for people to build  broad coalitions or movements? The first thing is you need to understand what you really want to change. You need to look the terrain and your constituency. Try to listen and try to find the smallest common denominator that will bring groups to your side. Try to figure out why the people who are pro change and against change feel that way. [13:32] As these movements grow, people come in with their own ideas. How can you be receptive to them without curtailing the main goal? It is really important is to figure out your grand vision and the grand goal. Movements are driven by the people, and the best thing people bring to the movements are their ideas. The way the Serbian movement operated and several other movements we worked in in the past, like Egyptian movement, was to make a highly decentralized structure. That creates a culture in the movement where everybody can become a leader. [15:16] How do you push forward for social change given the prevalence of nostalgia? When you take a look at the biggest obstacles to the social change of any kind, it’s either apathy or fear, and if you really want to make a change you want to deconstruct these obstacles. The key for change in these cases is to turn up into enthusiasm. [20:39] How is laughtivism an effective tactic for authoritarian regimes? There are a few reasons why humor is so powerful in these situations. The first reason is that humor breaks fear and makes scary situations look a little less so. The second reason is that humor attracts people and gives them something they can get behind. The third is that it disrupts order, which dictators and authoritarians thrive on. [25:18] How are these tactics translated into public policy? Some politicians think that democracy is all about winning elections and then winner takes all, but social movements are now taking a new role which they call defending democracy. They are actually defending the courts, defending the parliament, and defending the pillars that are already there. [32:55] What does democracy mean to you? To me, it means having the right balance between strong and active state and strong and active people to hold the state accountable.
3/25/201939 minutes, 26 seconds
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Jonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracy

We say on this show all the time that democracy is hard work. But what does that really mean? What it is about our dispositions that makes it so hard to see eye to eye and come together for the greater good? And why, despite all that, do we feel compelled to do it anyway? Jonathan Haidt is the perfect person to help us unpack those questions.We also explore what we can do now to educate the next generation of democratic citizens, based on the research Jonathan and co-author Greg Lukianoff did for their latest book The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.Jonathan is social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. His research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures––including the cultures of American progressive, conservatives, and libertarians.One last thing: This week marks the first anniversary of Democracy Works! We are thrilled that the show has caught on with listeners around the world and are excited to bring you even more great episodes in year two. If you’d like to give the show a birthday present, consider sharing it with a friend or leaving a rating or review in your podcast app.Additional InformationJonathan’s books:The Coddling of the American MindThe Righteous MindThe Happiness HypothesisOpenMind Heterodox AcademyNew York Times article on free play and democracyDiscussion/Reflection QuestionsWhy is democracy so difficult to sustain?Does hearing about the moral foundations of politics change the way you perceive people from another political party?What can each of us to do make better decisions and resist the temptation to follow our inner elephants?What do you make of the relationship between free play and democracy?Interview Highlights[4:32] Why is democracy so hard to practice?Haidt: In the 20th century we developed this obsession with democracy and I think it’s because we fought a war to defend democracy and World War I and then we did it again in World War II and we were thinking that democracy is the greatest thing in the world. Then in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapses, It was clear that democracy won and there is no alternative into the end of history and every country as it developed is going to become a free market liberal democracy just like us. And we were wrong we were fooled. Democracy is a lot harder and lot less stable than we thought. Now it’s clear that’s the case.[7:12] Are there other things about the way we’re wired as people that make it so difficult to carry out democracy in practice?Haidt: Our founding fathers knew we were not rationals and we don’t relate to any people and that’s why you don’t want to have something that’s too, democratic because especially when there are hard times somebody’s going to come along and tell you the reason for our troubles is them, and it’s really easy to rally people to hate them and then attack them and kill them.[9:42] What motivates people to continue practicing democracy?Haidt: Tocqueville noted how we individualists come together very quickly and easily to solve problems, that was what he noted was really unique about us. So we’ve always been a democratic people in that sense. We’re ready to take things into our own hands, solve problems and, um, America in the, in the, you know, 20th century, we certainly see many cases of activism that were like that and that worked. Um, of course, taking things into your own hands can also lead to riots and violence.[11:49] Can you talk about how you see the way that we’ve organized ourselves into political parties here in the U.S.?Haidt: I think the worst number of political parties to have in a country is one, but the second worst number is two. Research shows that if you simply have three combatants, then the hatred of each for the other is much less. We have two parties and anyone who was psychologically disposed to leftism or progressivism is now a Democrat, and anyone who was psychologically predisposed to conservatism or traditionalism or stability is now Republican. My colleagues and I came up with a theory called the Moral Foundations Theory, which has five features of every society:Care vs. harmFairness vs. cheatingLoyalty vs.betrayalAuthority vs. subversionSanctity vs. degradation[17:12] Where do these moral foundations stand today?Haidt: Moral foundations never change, that’s the whole metaphors at their foundations. A moral or political order is a consensual hallucination. We hallucinate it together. We pretend that it’s real. It becomes real, we live in it, and we get angry within it.[24:42] What do you think about calls for restoring civility?Haidt: It’s absolutely the right approach, we need to restore that, but just saying it and signing some pledges we are not going to reach a change in civility. We’re not going to get very far by just doing this. I think we’re going to get really far by changing the path that the elephant is on.[28:01] What’s the relationship between free play and democracy?Haidt: The way to learn social skills that are essential for a democracy is through free play, and it has to be unsupervised. If there’s an adult there to settle disputes, you learn how to appeal to adults instead of learning to figure things out for yourself. Gen Z is the first generation in American history that was deprived of childhood. We freaked out in the 90s and thought even though the crime rate was plummeting and actually the crime wave ended in the 90s. Americans began to think because we’re frightened out of our minds by media, that if we ever take our eyes off our kids outside they will be abducted, and so in the 90s, we stopped letting kids out to play.[29:35] How will this impact the way Gen Z views democracy?Haidt: I think democracy is or democracy is in real danger now, but when Gen Z becomes more politically active, you know so in the 20, 30s when they’re the largest group let’s say, um I think our ability to govern ourselves will be much harder.[32:54] What can we do to reverse this trend?Haidt: The first thing is we have to give kids back childhood to create more resilient kids. We have to stop overprotecting kids. We have to let them develop skills. Secondly, I think we have to educate kids as if democracy was fragile. We have to be teaching skills of democratic engagement. I think that high schools should be teaching politics in a very different way. That is, teachers and social studies teachers in particular tend to be on the left. They either don’t teach anything about conservatism or they some of them let their politics intrude um and I think we should be teaching great respect for the long philosophical traditions of left and right, and then teaching skills of democratic discourse.
3/18/201943 minutes, 53 seconds
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Future Hindsight: Ian Bremmer on the failure of globalism

We are closing out our series on democracy around the world with a bonus episode from Future Hindsight, a show that features deep conversations with guests who are engaged in strengthening our society. This episode is a discussion with Ian Bremmer, author of Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism. Ian is a political scientist and president of the Eurasia Group, a political risk advisory and consulting firm. In this episode, Ian talks with Future Hindsight host Mila Atmos about populism, authoritarianism, and some of the other trends we’ve heard about over the past few weeks. Think of it as a 30,000-foot view of what we’ve covered in individual countries like Hungary and Brazil. Future Hindsight is in its fifth season and available at futurehindsight.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Here are the episodes from our series about democracy around the world: Hungary France Brazil UK/Brexit
3/14/201932 minutes, 48 seconds
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Brexit and the UK’s identity crisis

Sona Golder We’re just a few weeks away from the deadline for the UK to reach an agreement on its plan to leave the European Union. Nearly three years after the infamous Brexit vote, things appear to be as murky as ever. Rather than trying to predict the future, we invited Penn State’s Sona Golder to join us for a conversation about how Brexit originated, and the pros and cons of putting the decision directly in the people’s hands. Sona is a comparative politics scholar and co-editor of the British Journal on Political Science. Listen through to the end of the episode for information about the Big World podcast, produced by American University’s School of International Service. Additional Information Sona’s website For more on UK politics, check out The Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast. Discussion/Reflection Questions Do you think that Brexit should have been decided via referendum? If a second referendum happens, how would you phrase the question and the options people vote on? Do you see similarities between Brexit and Donald Trump’s election? Or with the rise of authoritarian leaders in places like Hungary and Brazil? How do you think Brexit will end? How do you feel about the state of democracy around the world after listening to the past four episodes? Has you opinion changed since the beginning of the series? Interview Highlights [4:45] How did the original Brexit referendum come about in 2016? When it comes to important EU initiatives, it’s not unusually to have a referendum. There were referenda in at least three countries back in 1992 when they were trying to get everyone to agree to the Maastricht Treaty. France’s treaty just barely passed and was known as the little yes. In the UK, various leaders have proposed having a referendum on whether to remain in the EU over the years but never followed through on it. Given that history, I don’t think it seemed out of place to the citizens of the UK. [5:52] What was it about 2015-2016 that finally allowed the referendum process to happen? Ever since the Maastricht Treaty was signed, there’s been a group of people in Parliament who are Euro-skeptical. That’s been going on for decades. More recently, countries from throughout Europe joined the EU. The UK was the only country that did not set restrictions on how people could move into the country so the UK ended up with a lot migrants that no one expected. On top of that, the financial crisis happened in 2008. David Cameron, the Prime Minister at the time, went into it thinking he was going to get a better deal from the EU and then there would be a referendum after that. He almost assuredly thought the outcome would be that the UK would end up in the EU. [7:53] Is Brexit indicative of a larger trend around immigration and economic inequality? One common issue that many countries are dealing with is the financial crisis, which gave people the feeling that they’d left behind and that political leaders on both sides of the aisle were not helping them. This feeling manifests itself in different ways based on the culture of that country. In the UK, people felt like Labour and the Conservatives were not really doing anything and the status quo doesn’t really seem very appealing. [8:50] Can you give us an overview of the parties in the UK and where they stand on Brexit? There are two main parties. Labour is on the left and is traditionally a socialist party, but you can think of it as akin the Democrats in the U.S. The Conservatives are on the right and are akin to the Republicans. The UK has the same voting structure as the U.S. does so those parties tend to get the most seats and one of them has a majority, even though there are other parties who will have smaller numbers of seats. [9:45] What do we know about the people who voted for Brexit? People who voted for Brexit tended to be more rural, older, and less educated. They were motivated by frustration with the current parties. Both parties have moved to the center. There was a sense that there was not much difference between them. [11:37] What was the rationale that each side presented for staying or leaving the EU? The remainers said it would be a disaster for the economy if the UK pulled out of the EU. They might have exaggerated it, but they thought it was so obvious that no one would want leave. The people who wanted to leave felt that the UK didn’t have control over its boarders and all of its policies were being set in Brussels. [13:23] What are some of the ways Brexit could end? After the referendum, it wasn’t immediate that the UK was going to leave the EU. They had to trigger Article 50, which Theresa May did in 2017. Since then, she’s been trying to negotiate a deal that would set up rules for the new relationship. If that doesn’t happen, there’s no deal and it’s unclear what happens. The UK is an island nation. It’s not clear what happens to goods at the border if there’s no deal in place. [15:22] What are some of the obstacles to a deal being put in place? Some members of Parliament still don’t want to leave and they’re hoping that a new referendum would be called or it would just be voted in Parliament that they wouldn’t leave. There’s some people who want the hard Brexit. Theresa May is having a hard time trying to build a coalition to back her deal. The people advocating for a second referendum hope that people will have come to their senses and change their mind. But it’s not clear that anything would change. The EU is trying to negotiate a trade agreement that would be beneficial to the countries that remain. My sense is that people will become more open to a deal as the withdrawal deadline gets closer. [19:25] How does Ireland and the “backstop” figure into Brexit? The issue is over the border between the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the UK, and Northern Ireland, which isn to part of the UK. The backstop is a way of saying the UK can pull out of the EU but not have a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. No one is quite sure how that would happen. The Good Friday agreement of 1998 went a long way toward solving the problems of terrorism in Northern Ireland. No one wants to go back to that, but it wasn’t a big part of the consideration during the Brexit vote. Most people who thought about the Good Friday agreement were confident that the UK would vote to remain in the EU. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post Brexit and the UK’s identity crisis appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
3/11/201928 minutes, 29 seconds
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Brazil’s tenuous relationship with democracy

Gianpaolo Baiocchi To say Brazil has had a complicated history with democracy is a understatement. The country has bounced in and out authoritarian regimes for hundreds of years, with democracy never having quite enough time to really take hold. Following the election of Jair Bolsonaro in October 2018, many are wondering whether the cycle is about to repeat itself again. Gianpaolo Baiocchi is a professor of individualized studies and sociology at NYU, where he also directs the Urban Democracy Lab. He’s from Brazil and has written extensively about the country’s politics and social movements. He joins us this week to talk about Bolsonaro’s appeal, the use of misinformation on WhatsApp during the election, and why Bolsonaro is often called the “Trump of the tropics.” We also discuss Brazil’s history of activism under authoritarian governments and whether we’ll see it return now. Next week is our final episode about democracy around the world. We’ll be talking with Penn State’s Sona Golder about all things Brexit. Additional Information Gianpaolo’s website Urban Democracy Lab Brazil’s unraveling political institutions – article by Gianpaolo in Democracy Journal Discussion/Reflection Questions What is the role of social movements in Brazil? Do you think Brazil will retreat from democracy under Bolsonaro? What is the role of the military in Brazil? How is Brazil politically involved with other Latin American countries? Interview Highlights [3:07] What is the history of democracy in Brazil? Brazil, a very unequal country, has had this relatively short and checkered history with democracy. Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery in the world. In 1964, Brazil had a military coup that lasted with a military regime that lasted until 1985. Social movements really played a very important role in the transition to democracy, but also in helping build the institutions of democracy. Brazil’s constitution of 1989 has some very progressive elements in it, has things about direct democracy, has gestures and participation municipalities, and have a lot of power. [7:08] Where did social movements  in Brazil come from? Social movements comes in the mid-1980s. There are urban movements, the movement for the right transport, the movement against poverty, student movements, a lot of movements to the progressive church, so kind of Liberation theology, we have movements very important of patients and users of the health system. [10:38] Who is Jair Bolsonaro and why was he appealing? People are going to be talking about the Bolsonaro phenomenon for a long time. He’s been a politician for a long time and he’s mostly known for shocking statements. He’s been a guy who likes to say provocative things about rape, about affirmative action, and sort of anti-political correctness. His platform is law and order, it’s about God, it’s against political correctness, and it’s pro-business. He definitely has the elite support in Brazil, but because Brazil is an unequal country, that won’t go very far. [16:18] Why is Bolsonaro compared to Donald Trump? There are definitely similarities between Trump’s Make America Great Again rhetoric and some of Bolsonaro’s language. They’re both populists and have both been involved in scandals, yet always seem to skate by and remain in power. Trump and Bolsonaro have also sought to undermine democratic institutions. However, the institutions in Brazil were weaker to begin with because democracy does not have the long history there that it does in the U.S. [19:05] Can you give us some examples of how institutions in Brazil are weaker? The judicial system, the courts begun to play a very openly political role. The Minister of Justice was the judge and prosecutor over Lula, the former president of Brazil, who’s currently under arrest and during the process of the prosecution investigation. This judge was very openly partisan in social media and releasing things and it has given people the sense that the law is just something that you use. One of the things that has happened because of Bolsonaro being elected is that people has a free license to commit hate crimes. The only openly gay member of Brazilian Congress has had to flee the country. [23:02] Did misinformation play a role in Bolsonaro’s election? Yes. Social media and fake news were a huge part of the election. In particular, a WhatsApp investigation a few days before the election itself revealed that foreign money and industrialists had paid for all these bots to repeat these fake news. [24:49] How is Bolsonaro playing throughout the rest of Latin America? The balance of the continent has definitely shifted. All eyes are in Venezuela right now and early on in his campaign. Bolsonaro said he would be for a military intervention and I don’t think that’s actually going to happen, but Bolsonaro’s election does feel like the region has definitely turn right and turned authoritarian in a very real way. [28:44] Social movements have risen up before in Brazil. Do you see the same thing happening again now or in the future? Yes! In the weeks before the election as it look like Bolsonaro was really going to win, people came together in a way that hadn’t really been seen in a long time in Brazil. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post Brazil’s tenuous relationship with democracy appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.
3/4/201939 minutes, 50 seconds
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Yellow vests and the “grand debate” in France

Cole Stangler This episode is the second in our series looking at democracy around the world. France is the focus this week. Our guest is Cole Stangler, an independent journalist based in Paris who covers French politics. The yellow vest movement, named for the safety vests that all drivers are required to carry in their cars, began in late 2018 over rising gas prices. The movement succeeded in having the gas tax repealed, but the protestors still took to the streets around the country every weekend. Why? Like a lot of social movements, it’s complicated. Cole has been on the ground covering the movement and joins to discuss its origins, the reaction from President Emmanuel Macron, and where things might go from here. Next week, we’ll focus on Brazil for a discussion about the appeal of Jair Bolsonaro, who has been called Brazil’s Donald Trump. Additional Information Cole’s website Interview with Cole about French politics on the Commonweal podcast Story from The Atlantic on the “Grand Debate” Discussion/Reflection Questions What do you think will be the future of the yellow vest movement? Will the “grand debate” be effective? What are some of the challenges associated with large-scale movements like this one? How can the movement overcome those challenges? Interview Highlights [5:03] How did the debate from Yellow Vest Movement in France come about? And what is President Macron looking to accomplish by doing it? This great national debate was rolled out as one of many concessions that was designed for the yellow vest protest movement. In addition to the government canceling the fuel tax, in response to these mass protests the government also increased a state wage subsidy and some other more modest measures. One of the big measures they design here to deal with that is to meet with Mayors. The government is going to take into account the results of what they’re hearing from from citizens and what they’re hearing from Mayors. [6:39] France has very high voter turnout levels. Do you think that that level of participation will carry over into this great debate? I don’t think so. In general in France in terms of elections participation is much higher than in United States and over 70 percent was a big deal last year. People are worried about participation dropping below 70 percent, but it was still much higher than that in the United States. [15:45]  What type of backgrounds do protesters have? That’s the huge question because even in France people don’t know exactly who these people are coming from. They seem to be people that don’t have much background in politics. The profile seems to be people protesting core economic issues. People think they are being taxed too much, they think the government is treating them unfairly and being overly generous to the rich and not to themselves. [22:09] Is there any consensus among protesters about what some solutions to these issues might be? No, but the citizen referendum seems to be the clearest actual coherent demand. In terms of actual coherent demands it remains very vague. [27:32] Where do things go from here for the movement? It depends a lot on what city you’re in and what town you’re in because this moment varies a lot from place to place. I suspect when the weather gets nicer you could have more people coming. In France, historically students have played a pretty integral part in protests or partisan moments and we’ve seen unrest from students for a variety of reasons. One key issue among others is the government trying to hike tuition fees. I think it’s kind of silly to speculate about the movement because no one knows where this is going. Share Tweet Google Plus Share The post Yellow vests and the “grand debate” in France appeared first on Democracy Works podcast.