Democracy Paradox

Russia... will lose ground here in the region over the next decade and China will fill it, because the Europeans are not doing it. The United States is not doing it. Iran is not doing it and Turkey cannot do it either.

Anja Mihr

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West Studies on Transformation and Development in the OSCE Region  here.

Anja Mihr is an associate professor of Political Science at the OSCE Academy at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and the founder and program director of the Center on Governance through Human Rights at the HUMBOLDT-VIADRINA Governance Platform (gGmbH) in Berlin. Recently, she edited the volume Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West Studies on Transformation and Development in the OSCE Region.

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Key Highlights

• How do Central Asian countries feel about Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
• Differences and similarities between Central Asian nations
• Why has China become so influential in the region?
• Sadyr Japarov and his rise to power
• What is Glocalism?

Key Links

Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West: Studies on Transformation and Development in the OSCE Region  edited by Anja Mihr

Learn more about Anja Mihr

Follow Anja Mihr on Twitter @AnjaMihr

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Ilia Murtazashvili on Afghanistan, Local Institutions, and Self-Governance

Timothy Frye Says Putin is a Weak Strongman

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But what we have now is something that has not been sufficiently discussed, sufficiently understood, which is a criminalized state of which Russia is an example, in the Balkans we have some examples, in Latin America Venezuela stands out as an example. And that is essentially that the state becomes an organized criminal organization. An organization that essentially uses the structure, strategies, tactics, modalities of organized crime.

Moisés Naím

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century  here.

Moisés Naím is a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an internationally syndicated columnist. He served as editor in chief of Foreign Policy, as Venezuela's trade minister, and as executive director of the World Bank. He is the author of The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be and most recently, The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century.

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information. 

Key Highlights

• How 3P Autocrats Use Polarization, Populism, and Post-Truth to Consolidate Power
• Why Do People Elect Autocrats
• Naím's Personal Evolution in his Ideas on Power
• The Rise of the Criminal State
• Naím discusses Putin, Russia, and the War in Ukraine

Key Links

The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century by Moisés Naím

Learn more about Moisés Naím

Follow Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili on Twitter @MoisesNaim

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Sarah Repucci from Freedom House with an Update on Freedom in the World

Caitlin Andrews-Lee on Charismatic Movements and Personalistic Leaders

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Apes of the State created all Music

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It wasn't because Afghan social norms don’t support democracy. They do. And Afghans understood darn well what they were supposed to have. But they never even got the minimum of what they were promised in the constitution.

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan  here.

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Ilia Murtazashvili are associate professors at the University of Pittsburgh and the authors of the recent book Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan. Jen is also the founding director and Ilia is an associate director of the Center for Governance and Markets.

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information.

Key Highlights

• Description of the role of shuras, maliks, and mullahs in local governance
• How property rights help explain local governance
• Why has the state always been ineffective in Afghanistan
• A little history on Afghanistan
• Are local, self-governing institutions in Afghanistan democratic?

Key Links

Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Ilia Murtazashvili

Learn more about the Center for Governance and Markets

Follow Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili on Twitter @jmurtazashvili

Follow Ilia Murtazashvili on Twitter @IMurtazashvili

Democracy Paradox Podcast

David Stasavage on Early Democracy and its Decline

Donald F. Kettl on Federalism

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You can't protect basic human rights if you don't have democracy. If you're going to protect basic human rights, you need to have things like credible institutions that hold abusers to account. You need to have opportunities for the least advantaged in a society. The people whose rights are most at risk to be able to choose their leaders and choose leaders who will represent them and serve their interests. You need leaders that serve for the common good, not for their own personal gain.

Sarah Repucci

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule  here.

Sarah Repucci is the Vice President of Research and Analysis at Freedom House. She coauthored (along with Amy Slipowitz) Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule.

Key Highlights

• Global freedom has declined for 16 consecutive years
• How Russia's invasion of Ukraine is part of a broader expansion of authoritarianism
• Myanmar and other countries with major declines in freedom
• Bright spots like Ecuador and Peru
• How we can support democracy in the world

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information. 


Key Links

Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule by Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz

Learn more about Freedom House

Follow Freedom House on Twitter @freedomhouse

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Freedom House: Sarah Repucci Assesses Freedom in the World

Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman on Democratic Backsliding

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Democracy Group

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If you're actually a real person and you're living your life and you're going into stores and you're riding on a bus or your kids are going to school, what matters is that you be treated with respect. That you have a dignity. And that, I think, at every point that matters most to us is what the book has wound up being about. It’s an essay on respect as a condition of a liberal democracy.

Paul Sniderman

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos  here.

Elisabeth Ivarsflaten is a professor of political science and scientific director of the Digital Social Science Core Facility at the University of Bergen, Norway. Paul Sniderman is the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr., Professor of Public Policy at Stanford University. They are the authors of The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos.

Key Highlights

• Western societies show greater openness towards Muslim immigrants than previously recognized
• Where are there opportunities for real inclusion for Muslim immigrants
• How innovative research designs led to unexpected results
• The difference between recognition respect and appraisal respect
• The limits to inclusion for liberal societies that remain today

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information.

Key Links

The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos by Elisabeth Ivarsflaten and Paul Sniderman

Learn more about the Digital Social Science Core Facility including The Norwegian Citizen Panel

Learn more about Paul Sniderman

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Sara Wallace Goodman on Citizen Responses to Democratic Threats

Mike Hoffman on How Religious Identities Influence Support for or Opposition to Democracy

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You treat votes as equal. My vote is equal to your vote. But the state treats our bodies as unequal. That logically makes no sense and it is farcical to call it a democracy in the first place. Forget what implications this will have for democracy in the long-term, but to be called a democracy and to have your bodies treated differently is a farce in itself.

Debasish Roy Chowdhury

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of To Kill a Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism  here.

Deb Chowdhry is a journalist who has published in Time, South China Morning Post, and Washington Times. John Keane is a Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney. They are the authors of the recent book To Kill a Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism.

Key Highlights

• Who is Mamata Banerjee?
• How does political violence undermine democracy?
• How does the failure to tackle social problems affect democracy?
• Why is Indian democracy in decline?
• What does India's experience teach other democracies?

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for early access to new episodes and exclusive updates and information.


Key Links

To Kill A Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism by Debasish Roy Chowdhury and John Keane

Learn more about Debasish Roy Chowdhury

Learn more about John Keane

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Bilal Baloch on Indira Gandhi, India’s Emergency, and the Importance of Ideas in Politics

Christophe Jaffrelot on Narendra Modi and Hindu Nationalism

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Democracy Group

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The tension in what we want from democratic representation is that we want control over our representatives and we want creativity from them. If we control them, they are delegates. They're not representatives. They do what we want. They act in our place instead of us. They act as we would in our place. If they give us creativity, they will bring things out of us and do things for us that we may not have imagined.

Lisa Disch

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy  here.

Lisa Disch is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan and an elected member of the Ann Arbor City Council. She is the author of the book Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy.

Key Highlights

• Should elected officials serve as delegates or opinion shapers?
• What is the line between leadership and manipulation?
• What is the constituency paradox?
• Does representation facilitate citizen mobilization?
• Can realists be idealists?

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for early access to new episodes and exclusive updates and information. 


Key Links

Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy by Lisa Jane Disch

Learn about Lisa Disch at the University of Michigan

Lisa Disch for City Council

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Sara Wallace Goodman on Citizen Responses to Democratic Threats

Caitlin Andrews-Lee on Charismatic Movements and Personalistic Leaders

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Democracy Group

Apes of the State created all Music

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For many Americans, for the first many generations really up through the mid 20th century, the constitutional order seemed to rest on and depend on an economic order in which people had enough economic clout to be independent citizens and voters. Not serfs dependent on some kind of master.

Joseph Fishkin

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy  here.

Joseph Fishkin is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. He is the coauthor (along with William E. Forbath) of The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy.

Key Highlights

• How did Montana reform its laws to limit the influence of Amalgamated Copper?
• When do questions of inequality become constitutional questions?
• How did the courts undermine labor laws in the early 20th century?
• What are the affirmative obligations and duties in the constitution?
• What is the proper role of the courts in American politics?

Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for early access to new episodes and exclusive updates and information.

Key Links

The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath

Follow Joseph Fishkin on Twitter @joeyfishkin

Learn more about Joseph Fishkin at UCLA Law

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Donald Horowitz on the Formation of Democratic Constitutions

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson on the Plutocratic Populism of the Republican Party

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Democracy Group

Apes of the State created all Music

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We have core ideas that form a part of our worldview, but those core ideas are not fixed in the way in which we talk about rationality and interest in that they can evolve. And we have to, when we think about human behavior, political behavior, we have to give serious attention to those ideas and go beyond just fixed material interests.

Bilal Baloch

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of When Ideas Matter: Democracy and Corruption in India  here.

Bilal Baloch is the Co-Founder and COO of Enquire, formerly GlobalWonks. He is also a non-resident visiting scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of When Ideas Matter: Democracy and Corruption in India.

Key Highlights

• What was the Jayaprakash Narayanan Movement?
• Why did the State of Emergency happen in India?
• How do ideas influence governance?
• The differences between technocratic and political leadership
• Is it more important to foster a diversity of ideas or support the best ideas?

 
Key Links

When Ideas Matter: Democracy and Corruption in India by Bilal Baloch

Follow Bilal Baloch on Twitter @bilalabaloch

Learn more about his company Enquire

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Christophe Jaffrelot on Narendra Modi and Hindu Nationalism

Kajri Jain Believes Democracy Unfolds through the Aesthetic

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Democracy Group

Apes of the State created all Music

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If I could say one thing to every citizen, it's to put country before party. Which is, you know, at this time it almost feels like a hollowed phrase, because we we've kind of heard it so often. But it's like actually true.

Sara Wallace Goodman

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Citizenship in Hard Times: How Ordinary People Respond to Democratic Threat  here.

Sara Wallace Goodman is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine and the author of Citizenship in Hard Times: How Ordinary People Respond to Democratic Threat.

Key Highlights

• How much agency do citizens have in democracy?
• The important differences between citizenship and partisanship and their implications
• The role of both rights and duties for citizenship
• Differences between citizenship in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany
• What can citizens do to protect democracy?

Key Links

Citizenship in Hard Times: How Ordinary People Respond to Democratic Threat by Sara Wallace Goodman

Learn about Sara Wallace Goodman from Wikipedia

Follow Sara Wallace Goodman on Twitter @ThatSaraGoodman

 
Democracy Paradox Podcast

Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman on Democratic Backsliding

Jan-Werner Müller on Democracy Rules

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Democracy Group

Apes of the State created all Music

Email the show at [email protected]

Follow on Twitter @DemParadox

100 Books on Democracy

Support the show