For people like me or just your ordinary Joes who speak of democracy, I thought it meant freedom. I thought it meant a free press. I thought it meant that people would not die on the streets.

Patricia Evangelista

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A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Patricia Evangelista is a trauma journalist and former investigative reporter for the Philippine news company Rappler. She has received the Kate Webb Prize for exceptional journalism in dangerous conditions. Recently, she authored the book Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:46
• The Philippines and Duterte - 2:37
• The Drug War - 11:04
• Vigilantes and Police - 25:26
• Democracy in the Philippines - 34:11

Key Links

Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista

Read the original "Some People Need Killing" published in Rappler.com

Follow Patricia Evangelista on X at @patevangelista

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Moisés Naím on the New Dynamics of Political Power

Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley on the Political Logic of Criminal Wars in Mexico

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You could take that populism and turn it negative, which often happens... But populism could also be a wonderful thing where you're actually appealing to what the voters want instead of what the powerful want.

Cenk Uygur

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Cenk Uygur is a host of the show The Young Turks and the founder, president, and CEO of its parent company TYT. He is a Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States and the author of Justice Is Coming: How Progressives Are Going to Take Over the Country and America Is Going to Love It.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:42
• Cenk's Presidential Campaign - 2:49
• Progressive Issues - 26:56
• Populism - 40:28
• Polarization - 49:17

Key Links

Justice Is Coming: How Progressives Are Going to Take Over the Country and America Is Going to Love It   by Cenk Uygur

Support Cenk Uygur's campaign at cenkforamerica.com

Check out The Young Turks and other TYT programs at tyt.com

Democracy Paradox Podcast

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

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

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Autocracy as we understand it today is a modern creation. I think there we see very few successful examples of modern autocracies that are able to sustain themselves.

Shadi Hamid

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Shadi Hamid is a columnist and member of the Editorial Board at The Washington Post. He is also a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary and the co-host of the podcast Wisdom of Crowds. His most recent book is The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:32
• The Problem of Democracy - 2:25
• Islamism - 5:51
• Turkey - 22:47
• Autocratic Rulers - 32:20

Key Links

The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea by Shadi Hamid

Follow Shadi Hamid on Twitter @shadihamid

Wisdom of Crowds

Democracy Paradox Podcast

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

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

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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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Apes of the State created all Music

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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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Democracy Group

Apes of the State created all Music

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