Politics in Question
143 episodes - English - Latest episode: 15 days ago - ★★★★★ - 70 ratingsA podcast about how our political institutions are failing us and ideas for fixing them. Join hosts Lee Drutman, Julia Azari, and James Wallner, three lively experts on American political institutions and reform, as they imagine and argue over what American politics could look like if citizens questioned everything. Politics In Question is a joint venture of New America and the R Street Institute.
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Episodes
Why is it amateur hour on Capitol Hill?
July 08, 2024 20:17 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Rachel Porter joins Lee to consider the consequences of political amateurs in Congress. Porter is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her research interests include American political institutions and political methodology, with a particular focus on Congress, elite behavior, and methods for computational social science. Most recently, her work has sought to explore and explain the rising success of political amateurs in elections for ...
Is American democracy in crisis?
July 01, 2024 12:31 - 1 hour - 61 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Jake Grumbach joins Lee and James to consider whether American democracy is in crisis. Grumbach is an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He studies the political economy of the United States, with interests in democratic institutions, labor, federalism, racial and economic inequality, and statistical methods. And he is the author of Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Po...
What is the state of American Democracy?
May 16, 2024 18:53 - 42 minutes - 39.1 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Congressman John Sarbanes, D-Md., joins Lee to talk about the health of American democracy. Sarbanes has represented Maryland’s third congressional district in the House of Representatives since 2007. He serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is chair of the Democracy Reform Task Force. Sarbanes was born and raised in Baltimore and has experience working in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. What does it mean to live...
Do white rural Americans pose a threat to democracy?
April 29, 2024 12:45 - 52 minutes - 48.2 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman join Lee and James to discuss the urban-rural divide in American politics. Schaller is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Waldman is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in numerous publications, including MSNBC. Their new book is White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy (Random House, 2024). Why is Mingo County, West Virginia important? How...
What is the right way to do politics?
March 25, 2024 19:38 - 46 minutes - 42.1 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Matt Glassman joins Lee and James to discuss the right way to do politics. Glassman is a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. Before that, he worked on congressional operations, separation of powers, appropriations process, agency design, and congressional history at the Congressional Research Service. He also served as professional staff on the Legislative Branch Subcommittee of the House Appropriations C...
Is the House broken?
February 23, 2024 14:33 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBIn this week's episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James ask Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas, if the House of Representatives is broken. Roy is a devoted husband and father of two, serving his third term in Congress representing Texas's 21st Congressional District. He serves on the House Judiciary, Rules, and Budget Committees and is the House Freedom Caucus Policy Chair. Roy previously served as First Assistant Attorney General of Texas under Ken Paxton, Chief of Staff to Sen. Ted Cru...
Why can't Americans compromise?
February 12, 2024 20:52 - 46 minutes - 42.7 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Jonathan Rauch joins Lee and James to consider why Americans can’t compromise. 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. His many Brookings publications include the 2021 book “The Constit...
Are Americans democracy hypocrites?
February 04, 2024 01:45 - 37 minutes - 34.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James talk about Bonnie Tyler, Tina Turner, and Americans’ views of democracy. What is democracy? How do Americans view it? Do they think about democracy differently when it gets in their way? Does that make them “democracy hypocrites?” Why are Americans holding out for a hero in such moments? And does democratic self-government need another hero to make it work? These are some of the questions Lee and James ask in this week’s episode.
What does 2023 tell us about what could happen in American politics in 2024?
January 08, 2024 14:11 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia, Lee, and James discuss what happened in 2023, and what could happen in 2024. What did we learn in 2023? Was American politics less fluid and surprising than it was in 2022? Will the 2024 presidential election be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump? What are the consequences of divided parties? Why is Congress such a hot mess? And why aren’t more people talking about the first-in-the-nation island prima...
How can Americans bridge the urban-rural divide in their politics?
December 30, 2023 00:00 - 46 minutes - 42.8 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Jonathan Rodden joins Julia and Lee to discuss the challenges presented by urban-rural polarization in American politics. Rodden is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. His work focuses on the comparative political economy of institutions. He has written on various topics, including federalism and fiscal decentralization, the geographic distribution of political preferences within countries, legislative bar...
What does political polling miss?
December 04, 2023 21:04 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee takes a big picture look at political polling with Michael Podhorzer. Podhorzer is a senior fellow at the Center for American Process where he writes weekly on election data and political strategy. He is the former political director of the AFL-CIO. Podhorzer founded the Analyst Institute, the Independent Strategic Research Collaborative (ISRC), the Defend Democracy Project, and the Polling Consortium, and helped found America Votes, Workin...
Why are political leaders important?
November 27, 2023 20:51 - 46 minutes - 43 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, James discusses the importance of political leadership with Daniel Stid. Stid is the Executive Director of Lyceum Labs. He previously served as the founding director of the Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. Democracy Program. From 2013-22, Daniel led $180 million in grantmaking to shore up U.S. democracy in a time of polarization. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at The Bridgespan Group, where Daniel advised nonprofit, foundation, and government...
What will American democracy look like in the 21st century?
November 20, 2023 16:18 - 58 minutes - 54.2 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee considers what American democracy will look like in the 21st century with Archon Fung. Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at Harvard Kennedy School and director of Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation,...
Why does the House need a Speaker?
October 30, 2023 16:15 - 56 minutes - 51.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James reflect on the House’s Speaker drama. Why did it take so long for the House to select a Speaker? What is the House for? Why does it need a Speaker - and other powerful leaders - to operate? And what can the House’s history teach us about alternative ways to manage the institution? These are some of the questions that Lee and Jams ask in this week’s episode.
What can social movements teach us about American politics?
October 19, 2023 13:34 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia considers social movements and political parties with Marcus Board Jr. Board is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University. His research engages social movements, radical Black feminist theories of power, and public opinion. He is the author of Invisible Weapons: Infiltrating Resistance and Defeating Movements (Oxford University Press, 2022). Board most recently co-authored a chapter on social movem...
What's wrong with American politics and how can we make it right?
October 10, 2023 13:39 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James assess what’s wrong with American self-government? Why is it dysfunctional? What will it take to change the status quo? And will Lee and James ever get a chance to open a vegetarian piano bar restaurant? These are some of the questions that they ask in this week’s episode.
Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?
September 18, 2023 16:28 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Steven Rogers joins Julia and Lee to discuss state legislatures. Rogers is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Saint Louis University, where he teaches and conducts research on elections, state legislatures, and public opinion. How many people can name their state representative? Does it matter if they have no idea who represents them in the state capital? What are the implications of low electoral accountability i...
How did Trump threaten American self-government when he was president?
August 22, 2023 13:30 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Miles Taylor joins Julia and Lee to talk about the resistance to Donald Trump when he was president. Taylor is the author of Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump. He served in the Trump administration as the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Before that, Taylor worked in Congress and served in the George W. Bush administration. How did administration officials counter the threat to Ame...
Where do busy people find the time to participate in democratic self-government?
July 25, 2023 15:07 - 48 minutes - 44.8 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Kevin Elliott joins Lee and James to talk about how busy people can make democracy work for them. Elliott is a political scientist and Lecturer in Ethics, Politics, and Economics (EP&E) at Yale University. His main research interests are in political theory, particularly democratic theory, and focus on the ethics of democratic citizenship, political epistemology, and the normative justification and design of political institutions. He is the au...
What can storytelling teach us about politics?
July 14, 2023 00:00 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Jake Tapper joins Lee and James to talk about his latest novel, All the Demons Are Here (Little, Brown and Company, 2023) and how storytelling helps us understand politics. Tapper is CNN’s chief Washington correspondent and hosts its award-winning program, The Lead with Jake Tapper, and its Sunday morning show, State of the Union. He is also the author of five novels, including The Hellfire Club and The Devil May Dance. What does fiction allow...
Why Congress?
July 10, 2023 14:09 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Philip Wallach joins Lee and James to talk about Congress, how it’s broken, and how we can fix it. Philip is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies America’s separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state. Philip’s latest book is Why Congress (Oxford University Press, 2023). How broken is today’s Congress? What is Congress’s job? ...
Why is it so hard to buy things with nickels? (plus questions about the debt limit debate and 2024 presidential election)
June 30, 2023 00:00 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBIn this week’s episode, Julia, Lee, and James deconstruct the debt limit debate and the 2024 presidential election. What does the debt limit debate tell us about polarization in American politics? Why did the debt debate play out like it did? Does it tell us anything about the 2024 presidential election? Will it be a rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Is Trump winning the Republican nomination inevitable? What is a Substack? And why is it so hard to pay for a latte with ni...
Does America have a representation problem?
June 20, 2023 20:16 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MBIn this week’s episode, Lee speaks with Lisa Disch about the state of America’s representative democracy. Disch is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on contemporary continental political thought, especially feminist theory, political ecology, and theories of democracy in both the United States and France. She is the author of Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy (The University of Chicago Press, 2021), The Tyra...
Can podcasts save America?
June 08, 2023 11:14 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBIn this week’s episode, Mila Atmos joins Julia and James to discuss how podcasts can save American politics. Atmos is the producer and host of Future Hindsight, a weekly podcast that aims to spark civic engagement through in-depth conversations with citizen change-makers. She combines life experiences from living in multiple cultures ranging from Indonesia to Germany to the rural U.S., with her knowledge base in history, economics, and international affairs (B.A. & M.I.A. Columbia University...
How does public opinion influence policymakers?
May 22, 2023 20:03 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MBIn this week’s episode, Daniel J. Hopkins joins Lee and James to consider the influence of public opinion on American politics. Hopkins is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Stable Condition: Elites’ Limited Influence on Health Care Attitudes. How does public opinion influence policy outcomes in Congress? Do the American people have power over policymakers that they rarely use? How much leeway do policymakers have to act independent of pu...
Should lawmakers use the debt limit as leverage to cut spending?
May 08, 2023 17:01 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James discuss the federal debt limit. What is the debt limit? What is the case for raising it? Should lawmakers use the debt limit as leverage to obtain policy concessions that reduce the deficit and debt? And what does the present debate over the debt limit say about American politics more broadly? These are some of the questions that Lee and James ask in this week’s episode.
What is the relationship between populism and nationalism in American politics?
April 29, 2023 06:44 - 41 minutes - 39 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Bart Bonikowski joins Julia and Lee to discuss the relationship between populism and nationalism in American politics. Bonikowski is an associate professor of sociology and politics at New York University. He uses relational survey methods, computational text analysis, and experimental research to apply insights gleaned from cultural sociology to the study of politics in the United States and Europe. Bonikowski focuses on nationalism, populism,...
How do Americans define democracy?
April 24, 2023 14:25 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Nicholas Davis joins Julia and Lee to discuss how Americans define democracy. Davis is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on political psychology, public opinion, ideology, and how Americans understand democratic values more broadly. He is the co-author of Democracy’s Meanings: How the Public Understands Democracy and Why It Matters (the University of Michigan Press). How have Americans defined democracy ...
How do we regulate political parties?
April 14, 2023 13:55 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Tabatha Abu El-Haj joins Lee to discuss political parties and the law. El-Haj is a professor of law in the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University. Her work focuses on the process of politics, democratic accountability, and governmental responsiveness. She is the author of numerous articles on America’s politics and its government including, Changing the People: Legal Regulation and American Democracy (NYU Law Review 2011) and Networ...
Is America too polarized or too fragmented?
March 16, 2023 15:01 - 56 minutes - 51.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Rick Pildes joins Lee and James to consider two different explanations for America’s present political dysfunction. Pildes is the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at the New York University School of Law. His work explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the structu...
How do factions impact American politics?
March 06, 2023 19:08 - 36 minutes - 34.2 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Dan DiSalvo joins Lee and James to discuss party factions. DiSalvo is a professor and chair of the political science department in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York. He is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. DiSalvo focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including Engin...
What is the State of the Union?
February 22, 2023 14:08 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia, Lee, and James discuss the President’s State of the Union Address. What is the State of the Union? Does anyone watch it? What purpose does it serve? Can it be made better? These are some of the questions Julia, Lee, and James ask in this week’s episode.
What is conservative populism?
February 13, 2023 13:37 - 44 minutes - 42 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Paul Elliott Johnson joins Julia and James to discuss conservative populism. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Deliberation and Civic Life in the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on rhetorical theory, argumentation, and American politics, with a particular focus on the rhetoric of populism and American conservatism. He is the author of I the People: The Rhetoric of Conservative Populism in the Un...
How do extraordinary ordinary people change the world?
February 03, 2023 18:19 - 42 minutes - 39.8 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Rachel Lears joins Julia and James to discuss how filmmaking can help us understand how people make political change happen. Lears is an award-winning documentary director, producer, and cinematographer. Her film Knock Down the House (Netflix) won the U.S. Documentary Audience award and the Festival Favorite award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Knock Down the House was shortlisted for an Oscar and nominated for an Emmy in 2020. Lears’ late...
How much money should Americans spend on their elections?
January 24, 2023 17:19 - 25 minutes - 23 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Ryan Williamson joins James to consider how much money Americans spend on their elections. Williamson is a resident governance fellow at the R Street Institute. He researches and writes on issues related to election reform and administration and governance, such as legislative procedure and capacity. Who is responsible for funding elections in the United States? Do some jurisdictions underfund their elections more than others? How much should ...
What does the House Speaker election say about the Republican Party?
January 14, 2023 17:05 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia and Lee kick off a new year by considering what the House Speaker election says about the Republican Party. What is going on with the GOP? Is the Speaker's race an example of healthy factional fighting? Or is it a sign of Republican disarray? How does the Republican infighting differ from recent debates within the Democratic Party? And what is Lee’s terrible pun? These are some of the questions Julia and Lee ask in this week’s episode.
What happened in 2022?
December 20, 2022 15:53 - 47 minutes - 44.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia, Lee, and James consider what happened in 2022 and what it means for American politics moving forward. They discuss the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Congress’s January 6 Committee investigation, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and November’s midterm elections. How did these events shape the course of American politics in 2022? Did they change America’s political institutions? And what d...
How do winner-take-all elections harm American democracy?
December 10, 2022 02:31 - 57 minutes - 53.5 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia and Lee join Brendan Nyhan, Lilliana Mason, Aziz Huq, and Jennifer Victor to discuss how America’s system of winner-take-all congressional districts exacerbates the challenges its democracy faces. Nyhan is the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor, Department of Government, Dartmouth College. Mason is an SNF Agora Institute Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Huq is the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg P...
How can business help solve America's democracy crisis?
December 04, 2022 13:07 - 41 minutes - 38.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Daniella Ballou-Aares joins Lee and James to discuss the relationship between business and democracy. Ballou-Aares is the CEO and cofounder of the Leadership Now Project, a membership organization of business and thought leaders taking action to protect and renew American democracy. Ballou-Aares began her career at Bain & Company, working across the firm’s offices in the US, South Africa and the UK. She spent five years in the Obama Administrati...
What do the 2022 midterm results mean?
November 21, 2022 04:29 - 35 minutes - 33 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Julia, Lee, and James discuss what happened in this year’s midterm elections. Is the Red Wave a superhero or college mascot? Why didn’t it appear on Election Day? Was the midterm outcome a surprise? How did political institutions influence it? What does the outcome tell us about American politics more broadly? And when will Julia announce her 2024 presidential bid? These are some of the questions Julia, Lee, and James ask in this week’s episode.
How do the politics of race impact the American presidency?
November 16, 2022 21:07 - 36 minutes - 34.1 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Robert C. Smith joins Julia to discuss race and the American presidency. Smith is a professor emeritus of political science at San Francisco State University. He is a nationally-recognized expert on African American politics. His research has examined comparisons between President Barack Obama and President John F. Kennedy and the relationship between conservatism and racism in the United States. Smith is the author of numerous articles and boo...
Is America on the cusp of a realignment?
November 04, 2022 17:57 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBIn this week’s episode, Timothy Shenk joins Lee and James to discuss electoral politics in the United States. Shenk is a historian of the modern United States in the Department of History at the George Washington University, where he researches and writes about American political and intellectual history. He is the author of Realigns: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022). Is America on the cusp of a realignment ...
What can we learn from political polls?
October 13, 2022 18:33 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Elliott Morris joins Julia and Lee to discuss political polling. Morris is a data journalist and US correspondent at The Economist, where he writes on American politics, elections, and public opinion. Morris previously worked for an elections returns start-up and the Pew Research Center and has contributed articles to the New York Times. He is the author of Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them. How does polling work? Can po...
What does it mean to be a good citizen in the United States?
September 22, 2022 21:19 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Sara Wallace Goodman joins Julia and Lee to discuss citizenship and its impact on politics. Goodman is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Her research examines citizenship and the shaping of political identity through immigrant integration. She is the author of Citizenship in Hard Times: How Ordinary People Respond to Democratic Threat (Cambridge University Press, 2022), ...
What's wrong with the Constitution?
September 15, 2022 19:50 - 49 minutes - 45.7 MBIn this week’s episode, Sanford Levinson joins Lee and James to discuss constitutional reform. Levinson holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School. He is also a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of numerous articles and books, including Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) and Framed: Americ...
How does electoral reform happen?
September 13, 2022 20:11 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Jack Santucci joins Lee to discuss electoral reform. Santucci is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Politics at Drexel University. His research examines American political institutions in comparative and historical perspectives. He is the author of More Parties or No Parties: The Politics of Electoral Reform in America (Oxford University Press, 2022). What makes an electoral reform successful? How is it sustained? What can Am...
Is there a generation gap in American politics?
September 09, 2022 15:39 - 42 minutes - 39.6 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Kevin Munger joins Lee to discuss the generation gap in American politics. Munger is the Jeffrey L. Hyde and Sharon D. Hyde and Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor of Political Science and Assistant Professor of Political Science and Social Data Analytics at Penn State University. His research has appeared in leading journals like the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Communication, and ...
What's wrong with primary elections?
September 06, 2022 18:42 - 37 minutes - 34.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Matt Germer joins Julia and Lee to discuss election reform. Germer is a resident elections fellow for the Governance Program at the R Street Institute. Before joining R Street, he was a policy counsel and strategic planning coordinator at the Washington House of Representatives. Prior to that, Germer served as nonpartisan staff in the Oregon state legislature. What are primary elections and why do they exist? Do primary elections help polarize...
What decisions do political parties make after losing an election?
August 09, 2022 18:07 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Seth Market joins Julia and James to consider how losing an election affects partisans. Market is a professor of political science and the director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver. He is the author of several books and articles on political parties, campaigns and elections, and state legislatures. His most recent book is Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020 (Cambridge 2020). Market contributes regularly at ...
Why are Americans so upset about politics?
July 29, 2022 23:05 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBIn this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James consider why Americans are so upset about politics. Why are Americans so angry when it comes to politics? What is upsetting them? And what can Americans do to change politics when the political system doesn’t work as they want it to work? These are some of the questions Lee and James ask in this week’s episode.