10 years ago anti-government protests in Tunisia sparked a wave of spontaneous uprisings against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. The Arab Spring was met with repression by governments in the region, but ultimately led to the ousting of rulers such as Ben Ali in Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. But the hope that these changes would usher a new era of democracy in the region has been belied. Michael Wahid Hanna (International Crisis Group) helps us understand the turbulent events of 2011 in Egypt, what changes they led to and why prospects for democracy in the country still appear bleak.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company: Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Follow Michael Wahid Hanna on Twitter: @mwhanna1

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Citizenship and its Discontents: The Struggle for Rights, Pluralism and Inclusion in the Middle East. (2019). Co-edited with Thanassis Cambanis.

• Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East. (2010). Co-authored with Thanassis Cambanis.

• Arab Politics beyond the Uprisings: Experiments in an Era of Resurgent Authoritarianism. (2017). Co-authored with Thanassis Cambanis.

GLOSSARY

Who are Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Muammar al-Gaddafi?

(00:01:15 or p. 2 in the transcript)

Ben Ali was a Tunisian politician who was the second President of Tunisia from 1987 until his fall in 2011 after the revolution of Tunisia. This revolution inspired uprisings in neighboring countries that came to be viewed as the Arab Spring. Ben Ali assumed the Presidency in 1987 in a bloodless coup d'état that ousted President Habib Bourguiba. Before his coup against Bourguiba, Ben Ali promised to move Tunisia towards democracy, but instead fixed elections that he won by majorities exceeding 90%, earning the nickname “Mr 99%”. He died 2019 in exile. Learn more.

Muammar al-Gaddafi was a highly divisive Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Amid the 2011 Arab Spring, protests against widespread corruption and unemployment broke out in Eastern Libya. The situation descended into civil war, in which NATO intervened militarily on the side of the anti-Gaddafist National Transitional Council. The government was overthrown and Gaddafi retreated to Sirte, only to be captured and killed by NTC militants. Learn more.

What is the Tahrir Square?

(00:01:15 or p. 2 in the transcript)

Tahrir Square in Cairo has been the location and focus for political demonstrations, most notably those that led to the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

What is the Muslim Brotherhood and who is Mohamed Morsi?

(00:04:30 or p. 5 in the transcript)

The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings spread far beyond Egypt, influencing today various Islamist movements from charitable organizations to political parties—not all using the same name.
In 2011 the Arab Spring revolution ousted Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president since 1981. Elections in June the following year brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power. The Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi became new president. Although in 2012 Mohamed Morsi became Egypt’s first democratically elected president, a year later he was overthrown by the military and held in prison on a series of convictions. In 2016 he was moved to the notorious Tora prison, near Cairo. He has died at the age of 67 after collapsing in court during a retrial of charges of espionage for the Palestinian Hamas organization. Learn more.

Who are Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar el-Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak?

(00:10:00 or p. 7 in the transcript)

Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was an Egyptian politician who served as the second President of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Learn more.

Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat was a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as Vice President twice and whom he succeeded as president in 1970. He serves as President of Egypt until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers in 1981. Learn more.

Hosni Mubarak took power in 1981 after the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat. He was the second Arab leader to be toppled by the 2011 Arab Spring protests. He died in 2020. Click here and here to learn more.

As mentioned above, Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood became president next. In 2013 former general, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, seized power in a military coup that ousted the country’s only democratically elected government. Abdel Fatah as-Sisi has been President of Egypt since.

What happened in 1967?

(00:11:00 or p. 7 in the transcript)

The Six-Day War, also called June War or Third Arab-Israeli War or Naksah, is a brief war that took place June 5–10, 1967, and was the third of the Arab-Israeli wars. Click here and here to learn more.

Who is Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi?

(00:18:00 or p. 11 in the transcript)

In 2013 former general, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, seized power in a military coup that ousted the country’s only democratically elected government. Abdel Fatah as-Sisi has been President of Egypt since. Learn more.

Who was Habib Bourguiba?

(00:18:00 or p. 13 in the transcript)

Habib Bourguiba was a Tunisian lawyer, nationalist leader and statesman who led the country from 1956 to 1987 as Prime minister of the Kingdom of Tunisia and then as the first President of Tunisia (1957–87). Prior to his presidency, he led the nation to independence from France. He was ousted by his abovementioned prime minister, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was himself overthrown decades later during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011. Learn more.

Most western academics were skeptical about the future of India, the world’s largest democracy, throughout the 1950s to the 1970s. It succeeded beyond all expectations in mobilizing large-scale electoral participation especially among poor and illiterate voters. And yet today its very existence seems to hang in the balance as the country faces a deep crisis of liberal, secular democratic norms, values and institutional practices. Freedom House even downgraded India from a free democracy to a "partially free democracy" last year. So what ails Indian democracy so suddenly? Yogendra Yadav (a leading political theorist and leader of the Swaraj India party established in 2016) helps us make sense of the past, present and future of democracy in India.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company: Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Follow Yogendra Yadav on Twitter: @_YogendraYadav

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Making Sense of Indian Democracy. (2020).

• Crafting State-Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies. (2011). Co-authored with Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan.

• Electoral Politics in Indian States: Lok Sabha Elections in 2004 and Beyond. (2009). Co-edited with Sandeep Shastri and K.C. Suri.

• Learn more about Swaraj India.

GLOSSARY

What is universal Adult Franchise?

(00:05:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)

Universal Adult Franchise means that all adult citizens of the country should have the right to vote without any discrimination of class, caste, religion, or gender. Ornit Shani, Associate Professor of Modern Indian History writes: “From November 1947 India embarked on the preparation of the first draft electoral roll on the basis of universal adult franchise. […] Turning all adult Indians into voters over the next two years against many odds, and before they became citizens with the commencement of the constitution, required an immense power of imagination. Doing so was India’s stark act of decolonisation. This was no legacy of colonial rule: Indians imagined the universal franchise for themselves, acted on this imaginary, and made it their political reality. By late 1949 India pushed through the frontiers of the world’s democratic imagination, and gave birth to its largest democracy.” Read more.

What does Balkanization mean?

(00:10:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)

Balkanization is a pejorative term used to describe the division of a multinational state into smaller ethnically homogeneous entities. The term also is used to refer to ethnic conflict within multiethnic states. It was coined at the end of World War I to describe the ethnic and political fragmentation that followed the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the Balkans. Learn more.

What does Hindu nationalism refer to?

(00:10:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)

For more context information we recommend this and this New York Times article.

What is the European nation-state approach and how does it differ from a state-nation approach?

(00:11:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)

Nation-state approaches aspire to a congruence between state borders and the boundaries of the national community, so that the national group is contained in the territory of its state and the state contains only that nation. In his 2011 book “Crafting State-Nations” Yadav argues that this European approach has led to enormous bloodshed in the 20th century and instead proposes a “state-nation approach”, where deep cultural differences should be accommodated within political boundaries of a state. In his book Yadav argued that India was one of the prime examples of a successful state-nation. Learn more.

What is the BJP?

(00:14:50 or p. 8 in the transcript)

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a Hindu nationalist party, which has ruled India uninterruptedly since 2014. BJP is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Learn more.

What happened to Babri mosque and what did the Indian Supreme Court say?

(00:33:00 or p. 17 in the transcript)

The dispute over the 16th-century Babri mosque, in Ayodhya, goes back decades. In December 1992, Hindu militants razed the mosque, which is on a disputed religious site in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, triggering clashes with Muslims that left 2,000 people dead and plunged the country into political crisis. In September 2020 the Supreme Court has acquitted all senior figures in India’s ruling party of their role in the demolition of the Babri mosque by Hindu rioters. All 32 men, including the former deputy prime minister LK Advani, three leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and a sitting BJP politician, were cleared of inciting the violence in 1992 that led to the mosque being torn down by an armed Hindu nationalist mob. Click here to learn more.

What are the farmers’ protests in India about?

(00:37:15 or p. 19 in the transcript)

Indian farmers object to new laws that constitute the most sweeping reform to agriculture for decades. The government of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, says the laws will bring necessary modernization and private competition to an ailing sector that has left millions of farmers destitute. Farmers say the laws were passed without consultation and will allow private corporations to control the prices of crops, crush their livelihoods and take away their land. Learn more.

Which incident of police firing in the state of Madhya Pradesh is Yadav referring to?

(00:28:15 or p. 20 in the transcript)

In 2017 six farmers were killed in police firing during protests in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh. The farmers, who had been protesting for several days, were seeking loan waivers and appropriate pricing for their produce.

The decline and even death of liberalism has been predicted often. Today it faces challenges not only from populism in Europe and the US but also from China offering an illiberal alternative that may prove attractive to leaders in the global South. In this episode, Professor Timothy Garton Ash (University of Oxford) joins us to analyze the future of liberalism. We discuss what liberalism can learn from its mistakes to emerge stronger.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

Soft Authoritarianism and the Ambivalences of Europeanisation: What Role Could the EU Play?, Jens Adam reflects on the latest episode of the podcast series.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The Magic Lantern. (2019).

• Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World. (2017).

• Read more from Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian.

• Read more from Timothy Garton Ash in The New York Review of Books.

GLOSSARY

What is soft authoritarianism?

(00:01:00 or p. 1 in the transcript)

The term soft authoritarianism is used to describe countries which have multiple parties and elections, but where the regime keeps the media and influential institutions on a short leash, exercising its power behind the ostensive freedom of choice. Source.

What does Velvet Revolution mean?

(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)

The Velvet Revolution was a transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 29 December 1989. The protests started eight days after the fall of the Berlin Wall with student protesters. The students were joined in the coming days by Czechoslovak citizens of all ages and the Communists were forced out. By the end of 1989, Czechoslovakia was on its way to having an elected President for the first time since 1948. The revolution is often described as “non-violent”, hence its descriptive title “Velvet Revolution.” Learn more. 

Covid-19 vaccines have been developed in record time and are being distributed around the world. But issues like vaccine hesitancy, slow production and unequal access between as well as within countries are inhibiting the global vaccination progress needed to combat the pandemic. In this first episode of season 2, we’re joined by Dr. Suerie Moon (Graduate Institute) to explore how vaccine nationalism and patents pose obstacles to increasing vaccine production.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Who funded the research behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine?(2021).

• The Vaccine Race: Will Public Health Prevail Over Geopolitics. (2020).

GLOSSARY

What is the “Texas Project” Chicken Egg Vaccine?

(00:13:00)

This new vaccine, currently undergoing clinical trials in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam, called NDV-HXP-S, is widely expected to create more potent antibodies than the current generation of vaccines and to be far easier to produce. Production would be done, like influenza vaccines, through injecting the virus into chicken eggs to multiply it and extract a “dead” variant to combine in the vaccine concoction. It would make the production much cheaper and simpler, allowing low- and middle-income countries, who struggle to obtain current vaccines from wealthy countries to produce their own supply. The vaccine itself was developed by scientists at the University of Texas and licensed through the Public Health non-profit PATH. Source. Non-Profit PATH.

What is the Gamaleya Research Institute and the Sputnik Vaccine Timeline?

(00:15:00)

The Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology is a Russian biomedical research institute in Moscow under the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, named after Ukrainian, Russian and Soviet scientist Nikolai Fyodorovich Gamaleya. The Gamaleya Institute announced a COVID-19 vaccine candidate for the first time in May 2020, with clinical trials starting the month after. Before Phase 3 trials of the vaccine started, which are the largest trials on thousands of people and final step before openly registering and allowing a vaccine on the market, President Putin officially announced the registration of the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V. Official Phase 3 trials began in September 2020 and rollout in December 2020. The first official study of Sputnik V in a peer-reviewed medical journal was published only in February 2021 in “The Lancet”. The vaccine has been viewed critically by the international community due to the Russian Federations attempts to use it as a tool for diplomacy and to exert geopolitical influence. Learn more about Sputnik V. “The Lancet” study.

What is the TRIPS Agreement?

(00:20:30)

The TRIPS Agreement is the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property overseen by the WTO. It came into effect on 1 January 1995. It covers and protects copyright, trademarks, industrial designs, patents and undisclosed information such as trade secrets. In March 2021 more than 80 developing countries have pushed for a waiver of the TRIPS Agreement to boost production of vaccines in their countries. The push was ultimately blocked in the WTO by wealthy nations, such as EU countries, Britain, Switzerland and the United States, supported by large domestic pharmaceutical industries, keeping vaccine access away from poorer countries. Find it here.

What is COVAX?

(00:21:30)

COVAX is a platform of the WHO’s COVID-19 (ACT) Accelerator Initiative, focused on pooling together the investments into vaccine research, development and production by wealthy countries and ensuring fair distribution globally. Its aim is to control vaccine allocation, provide access, negotiate pricing and prevent scarcity and inequality due to financial and intellectual competition. The driving actors are the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI) and the WHO. Learn more.

Citizens have a crucial role to play in political life and can have tremendous power, as they come together in associations and social movements. To close this first season, Professor  Mary Kaldor (London School of Economics) lends us her experience as both an academic and an activist in the peace and human rights movements to discuss what role civil society plays in keeping democracy alive and healthy, and what real utopias we can build on.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era, 3rd Edition. (2012).

• Global Security Cultures. (2018).

GLOSSARY

What is the European Nuclear Disarmament Movement?

(00:00:30 or p. 1 in the transcript)

European Nuclear Disarmament (END) was a movement that started in 1980 as a reaction to NATO plans that would expand and modernize nuclear missiles in Europe as a reaction to Soviet missile upgrades. END campaigned for a “nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal”. It became known through annual conventions and conferences and ended after arms control treaties were signed between waning cold-war powers towards the end of 1987. Source.

Who is Adam Michnik?

(00:03:00 or p. 2 in the transcript)

Adam Michnik is Editor-in-Chief of the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, public intellectual and former dissident. During the anti-communist struggle in Poland, he was a central figure in the Solidarity movement and participated in the 1988 round-table talks that ended communism in Poland. Today he is a vocal opponent of the right-wing national-conservative Law and Justice government. Learn more.

What is the Helsinki Agreement?

(00:06:30 or p. 4 in the transcript)

The Helsinki Agreement, also known as the Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Final Act of 1975, were the result of the first Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which would later turn into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). They were a milestone agreement between Eastern and Western countries that bound them to adhere to, among other, peaceful settlements of disputes and human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of thought or religion. Find it here.

What are the Occupy and Indignados Movements?

(00:21:00 or p. 12 in the transcript)

The Occupy Movement started in 2011 as “Occupy Wall Street”, as a protest against social and economic inequality. The protest movement was a world-wide phenomenon, most prominent from 2011 - 2016. Similarly, the Indignados movement in Spain was a protest movement from 2011 - 2015 against austerity measures in Spain, with overlapping demands for more participative democracy. Both are classified as protest movements in reaction to rising global inequality, the financial crisis of 2008 and the Euro-crisis. Although protests appeared together across the world, demands have generally focused on local issues of income and social inequality. Occupy and Indignados.

Prior to the Covid 19 pandemic, the issue on everyone’s minds was climate change. Scientists have been raising the alarm for the good part of three decades, but politicians the world over have been slow to react, even as more citizens have been calling for radical action. In this episode, we're joined by Michael Ignatieff (Central European University) to find out whether liberal democracy is up for the fight against climate change, and whether that fight could affect the political system itself.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Liberalism in the Anthropocene. (2020).

• The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World. (2018).

GLOSSARY

What is the Anthropocene?

(00:01:30 or p. 2 in the transcript)

The Anthropocene describes the most recent epoch in Earth’s history, in which human action has the most significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Source.

What is Earth Day?

(00:05:30 or p. 4 in the transcript)

Earth Day is celebrated annually around the world on April 22nd and is coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network. The first Earth Day in 1970, very much still focused on the United States, was coordinated as a nationwide environmental teach-in. In 1990 Earth Day moved to be an international endeavor. The Paris Climate Agreement was signed on Earth Day 22nd April 2016. Learn more.

What does dirigiste mean?

(00:06:30 or p. 5 in the transcript)

It denotes a governing system in which the state exerts large control over the country’s economy. Source.

What is the Paris Agreement?

(00:14:00 or p. 9 in the transcript)

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change with the goal to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century. It is the first time an international treaty with binding commitments was signed and adopted by consensus by 190 member countries of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). It was signed on Earth Day April 22nd, 2016. Under the Trump presidency the United States, a major advocate of the initial signing, withdrew from the agreement in late 2020, only for the Biden Administration to rejoin after its Inauguration in January 2021. Click here to learn more.

What does Après moi, le déluge mean?

(00:23:30 or p. 15 in the transcript)

The expression Après moi, le déluge, meaning ‘After me, the deluge’, is attributed to Louis XV of France (1710-74), whose rule contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution and describes a certain nihilistic and selfish stance, where what happens in the future does not matter, as oneself is gone by that time anyways. Learn more.

Capitalism has come under attack in recent years, notably because of growing economic inequalities not only between the global North and South, but also within Western countries. Some critics even cast doubt on its legitimacy and ability to create and preserve a just and equitable society. In this episode, the economist Branko Milanovic helps us understand how economic inequalities systematically corrode democratic processes.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World. (2019).

• Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. (2018).

GLOSSARY

What happened under Ronald Reagan when air traffic controllers went on strike?

(00:05:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)

In 1981, the air traffic controllers trade union declared a strike, seeking better working conditions, better pay and a 32-hour workweek. Only two days later, following the workers' refusal to return to work, then US president Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers and banned them from federal service for life. Reagan's firing of the government employees encouraged large private employers to hire striker replacements instead of negotiating in labor conflicts. Source.

What happened to coal miners under Margaret Thatcher?

(00:05:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)

The miners' strike of 1984-85 was a major industrial action to shut down the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who aimed to reduce the power of the trade unions.Margaret Thatcher’s opposition strategy consisted of building up ample coal stocks, keeping as many miners at work as possible, and using police to break up attacks by pickets on working miners. Learn more.

What is meritocracy?

(00:09:30 or p. 7 in the transcript)

Meritocracy represents an ideal vision in which power and privilege would be allocated by individual merit, not by social origins. Click here to learn more about the controversies surrounding this ideal.

What is ideological hegemony?

(00:14:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)

In the view of political theorist and politician Antonio Gramsci's (1891–1937), the ruling class develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. Cultural hegemony is therefore used to maintain consent to the capitalist order, rather than the use of force to maintain order. Source. Click here to learn more.

Who is Michael Bloomberg?

(00:22:00 or p. 15 in the transcript)

Michael Bloomberg is a former three-term mayor of New York City (2002-2013), a billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He founded Bloomberg L.P., a financial news and data company. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has assets totaling $9 billion, has supported 196 different cities with grants, technical assistance and education programs worth a combined $350 million. Learn more.

Who is Jack Ma and what does IPO mean?

(00:22:00 or p. 15 in the transcript)

Jack Ma is chief executive of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. In December 2020the Ant Group, which was previously called Alipay, was forced to halt its stock market listing, which would have been the world's biggest launch. Regulators made the decision to block theinitial public offering (short IPO) just days before the launch, after raising concerns about its micro-lending services. Many believe, however, that the real reason was a talk Jack Ma gave in late October 2020 that was critical of China's regulators and banking system. Since then, tough new antitrust rules have also been introduced across the tech sector and have triggered a decline of about 17%, in the market value of Jack Ma's Alibaba. Click here and here to learn more.

Who is Bernie Sanders?

(00:24:30 or p. 17 in the transcript)

Bernard Sanders is an American politician who has been the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007 and as U.S. Representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007. He is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history, although he has a close relationship with the Democratic Party. Sanders unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and 2020, finishing in second place in both campaigns. Learn more.

Since the introduction of neoliberal policies under Thatcher and Reagan many countries worldwide have implemented austerity politics that dismantled social security programs by cutting public funding. Our guest today, the renowned British economist, Lord Skidelsky has argued that liberal democracy rests on a welfare state, so that austerity politics and the rise of populism in the West are interlinked. So this time we ask: can liberal democracy co-exist with a politics austerity?

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Money and Government: A challenge to mainstream economics. (2018).

• Austerity vs Stimulus: The Political Future of Economic Recovery. (2017).

• How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life. (2012). Co-authored with Edward Skidelsky

• Click here to find more of Robert Skidelsky’s books and publications.

GLOSSARY

What is austerity politics?

(00:01:00 or p. 1 in the transcript)

Austerity describes a set of economic policies, usually consisting of tax increases, spending cuts, or a combination of the two, used by governments to reduce budget deficits. The use of austerity measures during times of economic hardship has caused much controversy about their purpose and usefulness. Learn more.

What is neoliberalism?

(00:03:30 or p. 3 in the transcript)

The term neoliberalism describes an ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of free market competition. Although there is considerable debate as to the defining features of neoliberal thought and practice, it is most commonly associated with laissez-faire economics. In particular, neoliberalism is often characterized in terms of its belief in sustained economic growth as the means to achieve human progress, its emphasis on minimal state intervention in economic and social affairs, and its commitment to the freedom of trade and capital. Source.

What is Thatcherism?

(00:03:30 or p. 3 in the transcript)

The term refers to Great Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's policies during the 1980s. Thatcherism represents a belief in free markets and a small state, and includes the idea that industries and services should be owned by private companies, not by the state. Learn more.

What is hyperglobalization?

(00:03:30 or p. 3 in the transcript)

The term hyperglobalization refers to the drastic increase in globalization since the 1990s.

What are Keynesian economics?

(00:08:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)

Keynesianism refers to the economic theories and programs ascribed to John M. Keynes and his followers, especially the advocacy of monetary and fiscal programs by government to increase employment and spending. Source.

What happened in the US in the 1930s?

(00:21:30 or p. 13 in the transcript)

Between 1933 and 1939 (so, after the Great Depression which was a major economic crisis in 1929) then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the New Deal, a set of programs, reforms, and regulations with the aim of bringing immediate economic relief. Opposed to the traditional American political philosophy of laissez-faire, the New Deal generally embraced the concept of a government-regulated economy aimed at achieving a balance between conflicting economic interests. Source.

What happened under Deng Xiaoping?

(00:21:30 or p. 13 in the transcript)

Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese communist leader who was the most powerful figure in the People’s Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. He abandoned many communist doctrines and attempted to incorporate elements of the free-enterprise system into the Chinese economy.Under his leadership, China acquired a rapidly growing economy, rising standards of living, considerably expanded personal and cultural freedoms, and growing ties to the world economy. Deng also left in place a mildly authoritarian government that remained committed to the one-party rule even while it relied on free-market mechanisms to transform China economically. Source. Learn more.

Joe Biden was declared the next president of the United States over a month ago now, but Donald Trump has not yet conceded his defeat. Claiming voter fraud, he has launched legal battles to try to undo the results of the election, to no avail. What mechanisms, institutions and narratives has he used? And to what long term effects? In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Timothy Snyder (Yale University) and Ivan Krastev (Centre for Liberal Strategies and IWM) to understand what will remain of Trumpism going forward and how it will impact democratic legitimacy in America.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Production Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Ivan Krastev & Stephen Holmes. (2019). The Light that Failed: A Reckoning, London: Penguin.

• Ivan Krastev. (2017). After Europe, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.

• Ivan Krastev. (2014). Democracy Disrupted: The Politics of Global Protest, Philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press, 2014.

• Timothy Snyder. (2018). The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, New York: Tim Duggan Books.

• Timothy Snyder. (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, New York: Tim Duggan Books.

• Timothy Snyder. (2015). Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, New York: Tim Duggan Books.

GLOSSARY

What is gerrymandering?

Gerrymandering is a way that governing parties try to cement themselves in power by tilting the political map steeply in their favor. The goal is to draw boundaries of legislative districts so that as many seats as possible are likely to be won by the party’s candidates. Learn more.

A new kind of elected leader has emerged across the globe: one who rules with a large parliamentary majority and with a claim to democratic legitimacy, but who uses power to hollow out democracy from the inside. So is such ‘soft authoritarianism’ a new face of electoral democracy? Professor John Keane (University of Sydney) helps us dissect this pervasive pattern of new despotisms and their strategies of rule. 

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

•  The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

•  The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

•  The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

•  The Podcast Production Company Earshot Strategies

Follow us on social media!

Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The New Despotism. (2020).

• Power and Humility: The Future of Monitory Democracy. (2018).

• When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: Rethinking Democracy in China. (2017).

• Click here to find more of John Keane’s books.

GLOSSARY

What is the new despotism?

(00:01:00 or p. 1 in the transcript) 

With this term John Keane describes governments across the globe that have mastered a combination of political tools threatening the established ideals and practices of power-sharing democracy. Casting doubt on terms like dictatorship, autocracy, fascism, and authoritarianism, Keane makes a case for retrieving the old term “despotism” to make sense of how these regimes function and endure. They mobilize the rhetoric of democracy and win public support for workable forms of government based on patronage, dark money, steady economic growth, sophisticated media controls, strangled judiciaries, dragnet surveillance, and selective violence against their opponents. They cooperate regionally and globally and draw strength from each other’s resources while breeding global anxieties and threatening the values and institutions of democracy.  Source.

What is soft authoritarianism?

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The term soft authoritarianism is used to describe countries which have multiple parties and elections, but where the regime keeps the media and influential institutions on a short leash, exercising its power behind the ostensive freedom of choice.  Source.

What is an autocracy?

(00:02:30 or p. 3 in the transcript)

Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person, the autocrat, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.

Who are Alexei Navalny and Jamal Khashoggi?

(00:06:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)

Alexei Navalny is a Russian opposition politician and critic of Vladimir Putin who suddenly fell ill in August 2020 during a flight in Russia. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Navalny was exposed to the Novichok nerve agent. Western security agencies believe the Kremlin intended to kill Navalny; meanwhile the Kremlin is denying all accusations and accusing Germany of a “mass disinformation campaign”. Click here and here to learn more.

Jamal Khashoggi was a US-based journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's government, who in 2018 was murdered in the country’s consulate in Istanbul by agents of the Saudi government. Learn more.

Which incident regarding the Iranian elections 2009 is John Keane referring to?

(00:08:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)

In 2009 John Keane, Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty were accused by Iranian officials to be acting as CIA and MI-6 agents who were planning to overturn the present regime by means of a ‘velvet counter-revolution’. The accusations happened just a few days after the Iranian elections, which were believed by many to have been rigged and therefore caused huge protests across the country. Click here to learn more on John Keane’s blog.

What is a plutocracy?

(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)

A plutocracy is a country which is ruled by its wealthiest people, or a class of wealthy people who rule a country. Source.

What is crony capitalism?

(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)

An economic system in which family members and friends of government officials and business leaders are given unfair advantages in the form of jobs, loans, etc. Source.

What is a poligarch?

(00:16:30 or p. 10 in the transcript)

The Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar has a name for it: a mafia state.  By Magyar’s definition, the mafia state is run by a clan—a political family—that consists of poligarchs, oligarchs, and stooges. The word “poligarch” combines “political” and “oligarchy”; the poligarchs are first endowed with political power, which they use to procure material wealth. Source.

What is a speculative bubble?

(00:16:30 or p. 10 in the transcript)

A speculative bubble is a spike in asset values that is fueled by speculation as opposed to fundamentals of that asset class. Such a bubble is usually caused by exaggerated expectations of future growth. This speculation drive trading volumes higher, and as more investors rally around the heightened expectation, buyers outnumber sellers, pushing prices beyond what an objective analysis of intrinsic value would suggest. Eventually prices fall back down to normalized levels when the bubble pops: a period of steep decline in prices, during which most investors panic and sell out of their investments. Source.