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Democracy Paradox

215 episodes - English - Latest episode: 17 days ago -

Is it possible for a democracy to govern undemocratically? Can the people elect an undemocratic leader? Is it possible for democracy to bring about authoritarianism? And if so, what does this say about democracy? ​​My name is Justin Kempf. Every week I talk to the brightest minds on subjects like international relations, political theory, and history to explore democracy from every conceivable angle. Topics like civil resistance, authoritarian successor parties, and the autocratic middle class challenge our ideas about democracy. Join me as we unravel new topics every week.

Government Science Social Sciences democracy political science politics philosophy political theory conservatism liberalism polarization constitution human rights
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Episodes

Peter Pomerantsev on Winning an Information War

March 12, 2024 09:00 - 48 minutes - 34 MB

All this stuff about half of America just won't listen to this. You're just not trying. You're just not trying. I fear in America people don't try to reach people in echo chambers. Peter Pomerantsev Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Learn more at https://carnegieendowment.or...

Is Democracy Still in Decline? Yana Gorokhovskaia on the Freedom in the World Report

March 05, 2024 10:00 - 46 minutes - 31.6 MB

Without an elected government, without a government that truly represents... a lot of things are imperiled - rights, democracy, freedom, certainly peace. I think that's another kind of challenge as we go into this year of widespread elections. It's not just about preserving democracy. It's also laying the foundation for peace. Yana Gorokhovskaia Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International S...

When We Misread Dictators... Steve Coll on Saddam Hussein and the American Invasion of Iraq

February 27, 2024 10:00 - 57 minutes - 39.6 MB

As a writer I had the space to try to humanize him without sanitizing him. That was my mission: to try to see the world from behind his eyes in order to explain his otherwise inexplicable behavior. Steve Coll Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Read Justin Kempf's essay "The Revolution Will Be Podcasted." A full transcript is available...

Why is the Immigration System Broken? Jonathan Blitzer on How American Foreign Policy in Central America Created a Crisis

February 20, 2024 10:00 - 54 minutes - 37.6 MB

Written into the DNA of American immigration policy, which we tend to regard as a kind of domestic policy - and which in many ways it is - has to do with US foreign policy. Jonathan Blitzer This episode was made in partnership with the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy. Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Read Justin Ke...

The Surveillance State in China Began With Mao Says Minxin Pei

February 13, 2024 10:00 - 43 minutes - 29.6 MB

I think a powerful surveillance apparatus will continue to be a major obstacle to the development of democratic forces, but it will not be the decisive factor. Minxin Pei Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Read Justin Kempf's essay "The Revolution Will Be Podcasted." A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Minxin ...

After a Coup, Can the Constitutional Order Be Repaired? Adem Abebe on Rebuilding Constitutions in West Africa

February 06, 2024 10:00 - 54 minutes - 37.5 MB

As democracy promoters, we also need to pay a lot of attention to the material needs of people... When these material needs are not satisfied, people will be more willing to give nondemocratic forms a chance. Adem Abebe This episode was made in partnership with the Constitution Building Programme at International IDEA Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https...

Can Poland Repair its Constitutional Democracy? Tomás Daly Believes it Can

January 30, 2024 10:00 - 51 minutes - 36 MB

Poland will be showing us the endless ingenuity of constitutional thinkers who are genuinely committed to democracy in its many forms. Tomás Daly This episode was made in partnership with the Constitution Building Programme at International IDEA Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Read Justin Kempf's essay "The Revolution Will Be Podca...

Simon Shuster on Zelensky in War and Peace

January 23, 2024 10:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MB

I think his heart is in the right place. I've talked to him about these things. He's very sensitive to the judgment of history. He knows that. Ukraine has been fighting since long before he became president to be an independent sovereign democracy with freedom of speech. Simon Shuster Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcrip...

Marcela Rios Tobar on the Failed Constitutional Process in Chile

January 16, 2024 10:00 - 50 minutes - 34.7 MB

When politics has to solve the problems that it has caused, how can politics do that? Marcela Rios Tobar This episode was made in partnership with the Constitution Building Programme at International IDEA Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Marcela Rios Tobar is the Director...

Kurt Weyland on the Resilience of Democracy

January 09, 2024 10:00 - 52 minutes - 36.1 MB

Populist leaders want polarization. They start polarization. They confront.  Kurt Weyland Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Access Episodes Ad-Free on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Kurt Weyland is the Mike Hogg Professor in Liberal Arts. He has written many books. His most recent is Democracy's Resilience to Populism's Threat: Cou...

Is a New Jim Crow Emerging in India? Ashutosh Varshney Gives a Warning

January 02, 2024 05:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MB

That's the point here. It's not there yet. But if electorally the BJP keeps winning, this is a prospect that must be faced. Ashutosh Varshney Proudly sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Learn more at https://kellogg.nd.edu Listen ad-free for just a $5/month on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Ashutosh Varshney is the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social ...

Does Democracy Rely on a Civic Bargain? Josiah Ober Makes the Case

December 26, 2023 10:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MB

What we really need to do is recommit to the idea that this is difficult, it is valuable, and in order to keep this valuable, difficult thing going, we need to basically pay the cost of educating ourselves, educating the next generation, the background knowledge and skills that citizens need if they are to continue to govern themselves... Josiah Ober Support the podcast on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. ...

Is Islamism Democratic? Sebnem Gumuscu on Islamist Parties in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey

December 19, 2023 10:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MB

If these Islamist organizations want to stay in these contexts and keep playing the democratic game, they need to commit to the democratic game in the longer run. Sebnem Gumuscu Support the podcast on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Sebnem Gumuscu is an associate professor of political science at Middlebury College and the author of Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt, and...

Can America Fight Back Against the Authoritarian Economic Statecraft of China? Bethany Allen Believes We Can

December 12, 2023 10:00 - 53 minutes - 36.7 MB

In the past 26 years, to this day, there has not been one major Hollywood production that has gone against a major Chinese Communist Party red line. Not one. Twenty-six years of silence. Bethany Allen Support the podcast on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Bethany Allen is the China reporter at Axios and the author of Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World. Key Highlights I...

Does Democracy Die in Darkness? Katlyn Carter on Transparency and Secrecy in Early Representative Governments

December 05, 2023 10:00 - 47 minutes - 32.8 MB

If we're thinking about democracy as something broader that is producing equality, justice or these kind of things, often those policies that we might describe as democratic policies can emerge from processes that are undemocratic. I think that's uncomfortable for us to think about. Katlyn Carter Support the podcast on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Katlyn Carter is an assistant professor of history at N...

How Can Democracy Survive in an Age of Discontent? Rachel Navarre and Matthew Rhodes-Purdy on Populism and Political Extremism

November 28, 2023 10:00 - 47 minutes - 32.6 MB

I think populism is rather a specific form of discontent. Discontent is the umbrella term. It's this vague sense that the way things are being done is not working. That democracy is not effective. That it's not serving my interests. Matthew Rhodes-Purdy Support the podcast on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Rachel Navarre is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Master of Publi...

Rachel Schwartz on How Guatemala Rose Up Against Democratic Backsliding

November 21, 2023 10:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MB

This was an election that was meant to cement authoritarian rule and it became a democratic breakthrough. Rachel Schwartz Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Rachel Schwartz is an assistant professor of international and area studies at the University of Oklahoma. Recently, she cowrote an article with Anita Isaacs for the Journal of Democracy called, “How Guatemala Defied the Odds." S...

Who is Alexey Navalny? David Herszenhorn Paints a Picture

November 14, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour - 41.3 MB

It's impossible not to admire somebody who is willing to stand up for their country, for freedom and democracy, for the idea that Russians should be able to chart their own future and have a say in what their government looks like. David Herszenhorn Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. David Herszenhorn is the Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe editor at The Washington Post and was a ...

Leadership is Not a Formula Says Moshik Temkin

November 07, 2023 10:00 - 52 minutes - 35.9 MB

Leadership is not a formula. It's not something that happens in a vacuum. It's not just something that you can declare about yourself. Moshik Temkin Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Moshik Temkin is a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership and History at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, and a fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International...

Patricia Evangelista Says The Philippines is an Example of What Happens When Autocrats and Dictators Rise and We Let Them

October 31, 2023 09:00 - 48 minutes - 33.6 MB

For people like me or just your ordinary Joes who speak of democracy, I thought it meant freedom. I thought it meant a free press. I thought it meant that people would not die on the streets. Patricia Evangelista Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Patricia Evangelista is a trauma journalist and former investigative reporter for the Philippine news company Rappler. She has received th...

Cenk Uygur is Running an Unorthodox Campaign for President

October 24, 2023 09:00 - 57 minutes - 39.5 MB

You could take that populism and turn it negative, which often happens... But populism could also be a wonderful thing where you're actually appealing to what the voters want instead of what the powerful want. Cenk Uygur Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Cenk Uygur is a host of the show The Young Turks and the founder, president, and CEO of its parent company TYT. He is a Democratic...

Shadi Hamid on Democracy, Liberalism, and the Middle East

October 17, 2023 09:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MB

Autocracy as we understand it today is a modern creation. I think there we see very few successful examples of modern autocracies that are able to sustain themselves. Shadi Hamid Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Shadi Hamid is a columnist and member of the Editorial Board at The Washington Post. He is also a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary and the co-host o...

Branko Milanovic on Different Visions of Inequality

October 10, 2023 09:00 - 47 minutes - 32.4 MB

Writing a book like that makes you really think brutally about the past. It makes you really think about the current time and also how the future would look at you. Branko Milanovic Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Branko Milanovic is a Research Professor at the City University of New York and a Senior Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality. He served as the lead ...

Yascha Mounk Warns Against a Misguided New Ideology

October 03, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutes - 34.9 MB

I really do think that what we've witnessed over the last decades is the emergence of a new ideology that is meaningfully distinct... I think it really is meaningfully distinct from other forms of what is meant to be left wing in the past from other ideological traditions. Yascha Mounk Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Yascha Mounk is a Professor of the Practice of International Aff...

Heather Cox Richardson on History, Conservatism, and the Awakening of American Democracy

September 26, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 43 MB

It would be a lovely thing if before I die, I get to see a younger generation reclaim democracy and rebuild it in a new, more expansive way. Heather Cox Richardson Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Heather Cox Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College. Her daily newsletter Letters from an American is read by millions. She has a new book out as of today called Democracy ...

Daniel Ziblatt on American Democracy, the Republican Party, and the Tyranny of the Minority

September 19, 2023 09:00 - 47 minutes - 32.9 MB

I think one of the greatest barriers to reform is thinking that reform is impossible. Daniel Ziblatt Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Daniel Ziblatt is the Eaton Professor of Government at Harvard University and director of the Transformations of Democracy group at Berlin's Social Science Center. He is the coauthor with Steven Levitsky of How Democracies Dieand a new book The Tyran...

Is Reunification Still Possible? Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo on Korea

September 12, 2023 09:00 - 55 minutes - 38.3 MB

North Korea is stable up until the day it's not... The day that it collapses, there'll be a lot of people out there who will say this was inevitable. Victor Cha Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Victor Cha is a professor of government at Georgetown University and holds the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is a former director f...

Deng Xiaoping is Not Who You Think He is. Joseph Torigian on Leadership Transitions in China and the Soviet Unio

September 05, 2023 09:00 - 47 minutes - 32.7 MB

People still think of Chinese history as this two-line struggle because that's the story the Chinese tell. But everything from Mao Zedong's relationship to Liu Shaoqi to anything that happened during the 1980s, it was not a problem of competing policy platforms. It was a problem of getting the politics of your relationship with the top leader right when it was hard to guess what they were thinking and they were changing their mind and they were suspicious of you. Joseph Torigian Access Bon...

Robert Kaplan on the Politics of the Past and Future of the Greater Middle East

August 29, 2023 09:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MB

Great developments by nature are not linear. Things just don't always continue as they have been. That's why this idea that the Arab Spring came, it went, it happened, it didn't work, therefore the Middle East will always remain an autocracy - that's linear thinking. Great events are great precisely because they're not linear. Robert Kaplan Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Robert r...

Is India Still a Democracy? Rahul Verma Emphatically Says Yes

August 22, 2023 09:00 - 40 minutes - 27.8 MB

India should be understood as a test case of democracy outside the Western world. Rahul Verma Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Rahul Verma is a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. He is also Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Ashoka University. Recently, he wrote “The Exaggerated Death of Indian Democracy” in the recent Journal o...

Cass Sunstein on Interpreting the US Constitution

August 15, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutes - 34.5 MB

It would be a miracle if the original understanding of the Constitution just landed time and time again with the views in 2023 of the right-wing of the Republican Party. That would be too amazing a coincidence. That's more than troublesome. Cass Sunstein Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Cass Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. During Obama’s ...

Marc Plattner Has Quite a Bit to Say About Democracy

August 08, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutes - 29.8 MB

I think we have a more complex notion of what democracy is.  - Marc Plattner Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Marc Plattner is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and the founding codirector of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies. Until 2016, he also served as NED’s vice president for research and studies, and from 1984 to...

Is McKinsey and Company a Threat to Democracy? Michael Forsythe Shares His Reporting

August 01, 2023 07:00 - 54 minutes - 37.2 MB

It's too simplistic to call it an evil company. There are certainly a lot of very good people that work there. It's just the system itself and the corporation itself and the system that it's embedded in is what causes the problems. Michael Forsythe Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Michael Forsythe is a reporter on the investigations team at The New York Times. Until February 2017 h...

Sergei Guriev Revisits Spin Dictators

July 25, 2023 09:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MB

Spin dictators have fewer political prisoners, fewer political killings. This is good. This is really good. On the other hand, we want to tell everybody that they are still dictators. Sergei Guriev Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Sergei Guriev is a professor of Economics at Sciences Po in Paris. He was a former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Developmen...

Berk Esen and Sebnem Gumuscu on the Disappointing Elections in Turkey... or How Democratic (or Autocratic) is Turkey Really?

July 18, 2023 09:00 - 58 minutes - 40 MB

Elections are not free or fair, but they matter greatly because this is how Erdoğan comes to power and stays in power and in this case he was almost about to lose that power. Sebnem Gumuscu Support Democracy Paradox on Podurama. Listen here. Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Berk Esen is an assistant professor of political science at Sabancı University. Sebnem Gumuscu is an associa...

Hal Brands Thinks China is a Declining Power... Here's Why that's a Problem

July 11, 2023 09:00 - 54 minutes - 37.7 MB

The most dangerous states in the international system aren't necessarily revisionist powers that think that their trajectory points continually upward. It's those countries that have been growing, rising for a long time, and then fear that they are peaking and are about to decline. Those are the countries that are inclined to take the biggest risks to try to improve their position in the the here and now before things get worse for them in the future. Hal Brands Access Bonus Episodes on Pa...

Natasha Wheatley Raises Some Really Difficult Questions About Sovereignty

July 04, 2023 09:00 - 51 minutes - 35.7 MB

My book is in some ways trying to help us see not only the kind of deep intermingling of pre-modern and modern ideas of sovereignty, but how we repeat some of those more fantastical attributes of sovereignty that we might otherwise presume to be long gone remnants of a more superstitious or religious age. Natasha Wheatley Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Natasha Wheatley is an assi...

Sebastian Edwards on the History of Neoliberalism in Chile

June 27, 2023 10:00 - 49 minutes - 33.9 MB

I think that the most important reform is openness. Once the country is open, really open to the rest of the world, the rest follows. Sebastian Edwards Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Sebastian Edwards is the Henry Ford II Professor of International Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was the former Chief Economist for Latin America at the World Bank where f...

Dan Slater on Thailand's Revolutionary Election

June 20, 2023 09:00 - 51 minutes - 35.5 MB

Democracy is Eastern as well as Western. Dan Slater Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Dan Slater is the James Orin Murfin Professor of Political Science, the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of Emerging Democracies, and director of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan. His most recent book (coauthored with Joseph Wong) is From Development to Dem...

Peter Turchin Wants to Avoid Political Disintegration

June 13, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutes - 33.7 MB

If you have grown up in a household which had decent quality of life and now you are struggling, you cannot even match the degree of wellbeing that your parents achieved, this is very obvious and makes people feel completely dissatisfied with the system that we have now. Peter Turchin Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Peter is a complexity scientist who has established a new field o...

Isabel Kershner on Israel and its Divisions

June 06, 2023 09:00 - 52 minutes - 35.8 MB

It's very hard to understand what's happening today without looking at the roots of all these divisions and at the interests of the different communities and their long-held resentments against the establishment of the country. Isabel Kershner Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Isabel Kershner is a reporter at The New York Times and the author of a new book called The Land of Hope an...

Cole Bunzel on Wahhābism

May 30, 2023 09:00 - 47 minutes - 32.8 MB

The Jihadis today root themselves theologically and ideologically in a particular movement that is exclusivist, that is militant, that is activist, and that is the movement known as Wahhābism. Cole Bunzel Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Cole Bunzel is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the editor of the blog Jihadica. He is the author of the book Wahhā...

Daron Acemoglu on Technology and the Struggle for Shared Prosperity

May 23, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutes - 34.4 MB

If you have this model of AI, which is geniuses design machines and those machines or algorithms are going to scoop up all the data and they're going to make better decisions for you. That's fundamentally anti-democratic. Daron Acemoglu Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Daron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. He is coauthor (with James A. Rob...

Serhii Plokhy on the Russo-Ukrainian War

May 16, 2023 09:00 - 44 minutes - 30.6 MB

The fact that Ukraine can be a democracy.... presents a threat to the authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Minsk of the sort that NATO would never actually present. Serhii Plokhy Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Serhii Plokhy is a Professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University and the Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. He’s written many books including The G...

Anne Applebaum on Autocracy, Inc

May 09, 2023 09:00 - 40 minutes - 27.6 MB

We are at a moment of very, very high risk and I'm not sure that people really know that or understand it, or if they do, if they care. Anne Applebaum Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. Some of her books include Gulag: A History, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, and most recently Twilight of ...

Marsin Alshamary on Iraq’s Struggle for Democracy

May 02, 2023 09:00 - 51 minutes - 35.5 MB

The thing that really astonishes me is that there's never any agency given to Iraqis, both during the war and the occupation, but also 20 years later. It always goes back to what the Americans did. There's a defeatism about Iraq's ability to do anything on its own and I think that's at the heart of why people can't see anything democratic in the country. Marsin Alshamary Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www....

Jamie Susskind Explains How to Use Republican Ideals to Govern Technology

April 25, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MB

The problem in both cases is not Zuckerberg or Musk, but the idea of a Zuckerberg or Musk. The idea that, simply by virtue of owning and controlling a particular technology, someone wields arbitrary or unaccountable power which can touch every aspect of our liberty and our democracy. Jamie Susskind Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Jamie Susskind is an author and barrister. He has h...

James Goldgeier on NATO, its Enlargement, and its Future

April 18, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutes - 34.3 MB

Who would be a better ally than Ukrainians? These are people who are fighting so bravely and have shown so much resilience. That's what we should want in an ally. James Goldgeier Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. James Goldgeier is a a Professor of International Relations at American University. He is also a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center on International Security ...

Steven Simon on American Foreign Policy in the Middle East including Iran and the Wars in Iraq

April 11, 2023 09:00 - 44 minutes - 30.7 MB

The Iraqis suffered so heavily and not just because of the 2003 war. The first war in 1991 inflicted terrible damage on Iraq and then the next 10 years of sanctions immiserated the populace and inflicted an especially punishing blow on Iraqi women and children. Steven Simon Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Steven served on the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999 and again fro 2011 to...

Larry Bartels Says Democracy Erodes from the Top

April 04, 2023 09:00 - 53 minutes - 37.1 MB

Democracy is a much more complicated thing than we often give it credit for and certainly speaking dichotomously about democracy being in crisis or not is an oversimplification. Larry Bartels Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com. Larry Bartels is the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University and a Co-Director for the Center for the Study of Democratic Institu...

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