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

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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 economist in the World Bank’s Research Department for almost 20 years. His most recent book is Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:31
• Why Economic Inequality - 2:53
• Ideas Before 1820 - 13:26
• Marx and Socialism - 19:52
• Piketty and Modern Thought - 40:17

Key Links

Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War by Branko Milanovic

globalinequality blog by Branko Milanovic

Follow Branko Milanovic on X @BrankoMilan

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Thomas Piketty on Equality

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

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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

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Yascha Mounk is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. He’s a writer for The Atlantic, founder of the online magazine Persuassion, and host of the podcast The Good Fight. He is the author of The People vs Democracy, The Great Experiment, and The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:51
• Values and Beliefs - 3:15
• Higher Education - 13:56
• Identity - 22:34
• Differences from Marxism - 37:21

Key Links

The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time by Yascha Mounk

The Great Experiment: How to Make Diverse Democracies Work by Yascha Mounk

The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It by Yascha Mounk

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Yascha Mounk on the Great Experiment of Diverse Democracies

Francis Fukuyama Responds to Liberalism’s Discontents

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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

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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 Awakening: Notes on the State of America.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:46
• Patriotism and Conservatism - 3:15
• The Liberal Consensus - 14:42
• Awakening Democracy - 39:07
• Trump - 51:41

Key Links

Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson

Follow Heather Cox Richardson on Twitter @HC_Richardson

Democracy Paradox Podcast

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

Joseph Fishkin on the Constitution, American History, and Economic Inequality

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I think one of the greatest barriers to reform is thinking that reform is impossible.

Daniel Ziblatt

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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 Tyranny of the Minority and the author of Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:38
• American Democracy - 3:25
• A Multi-Racial Democracy - 16:36
• Conservatism and Democracy - 22:34
• The Republican Party and Authoritarianism - 35:37

Key Links

Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy by Daniel Ziblatt

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman on Democratic Backsliding

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way on the Durable Authoritarianism of Revolutionary Regimes

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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

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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 for Asian Affairs at the White House National Security Council. Ramon Pacheco Pardo is a professor of international relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at Free University of Brussels. They are the authors of Korea: A New History of South and North.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:45
• Korea as a People and a Place - 2:25
• Korean War and its Aftermath - 11:44
• Democracy - 23:23
• Is Reconciliation Possible? - 40:55

Key Links

Korea: A New History of South and North by Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Victor Cha at the Center for Strategic & International Studies

Ramon Pacheco Pardo at King's College London

Democracy Paradox Podcast

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

Hal Brands Thinks China is a Declining Power… Here’s Why that’s a Problem

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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

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Joseph Torigian is a Research Fellow at the Harvard History Lab. Previously he was an assistant professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center. He is the author of Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:48
• Deng Xiaoping and Hua Guofeng - 2:33
• Khrushchev Consolidates Power - 16:16
• Will History Repeat? - 30:11
• Connections to Contemporary China - 38:31

Key Links

Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao by Joseph Torigian

Harvard History Lab

Learn more about Joseph Torigian

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Hal Brands Thinks China is a Declining Power… Here’s Why that’s a Problem

Anne Applebaum on Autocracy, Inc

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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

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Robert reported on foreign policy for The Atlantic for three decades and is currently the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His most recent book is The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:43
• What is the Greater Middle East? - 3:13
• Developing Political Institutions - 14:55
• Turkey and Iran - 26:40
• Iraq - 38:15

Key Links

The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China by Robert Kaplan

Foreign Policy Research Institute

The Writings of Robert Kaplan at The Atlantic

Democracy Paradox Podcast

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

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

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India should be understood as a test case of democracy outside the Western world.

Rahul Verma

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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 of Democracy.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:44
• India's Democracy Paradox - 2:24
• Reconciling Illiberalism - 15:54
• Sources of Indian Democratic Deficits - 20:02
• Overstating and Understating Indian Democracy - 30:50

Key Links

"The Exaggerated Death of Indian Democracy" in Journal of Democracy by Rahul Verma

Centre for Policy Research

Follow Rahul Verma on Twitter @rahul_tverma

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Ashutosh Varshney on India. Democracy in Hard Places

Christophe Jaffrelot on Narendra Modi and Hindu Nationalism

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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

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Cass Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. During Obama’s first term he was the Administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is the author of dozens of books including Nudge(with Richard Thaler) and The World According to Star Wars. His most recent book is How to Interpret the Constitution.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:38
• Thinking about the Constitution - 3:06
• Different Interpretations - 10:44
• Textualism - 24:07
• Amendment or Interpretation - 37:23

Key Links

How to Interpret the Constitution  by Cass Sunstein

The World According to Star Wars  by Cass Sunstein

Follow Cass Sunstein on Twitter @CassSunstein

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Joseph Fishkin on the Constitution, American History, and Economic Inequality

Donald Horowitz on the Formation of Democratic Constitutions

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I think we have a more complex notion of what democracy is. 

- Marc Plattner

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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 1989 he was NED’s director of program.  He is the author of Democracy Without Borders? Global Challenges to Liberal Democracy (2008) and of Rousseau’s State of Nature(1979). His essays and reviews on a wide range of international and public policy issues have appeared in numerous books and journals, and he has coedited with Larry Diamond more than two dozen books on contemporary issues relating to democracy in the Journal of Democracy book series.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:48
• Democratic Consensus - 2:32
• Liberalism and Democracy - 10:26
• Democratic Threats - 20:58
• Governance - 28:51

Key Links

"Why Ukraine Is Critical to Rebuilding Our Democratic Consensus" in the Journal of Democracy by Marc Plattner

"Democracy Embattled" in the Journal of Democracy by Marc Plattner

"Liberalism and Democracy: Can’t Have One Without the Other" in Foreign Affairs by Marc Plattner

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Anne Applebaum on Autocracy, Inc

Larry Diamond on Supporting Democracy in the World and at Home

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