If you have this model of AI, which is geniuses design machines and those machines or algorithms are going to scoop up all the data and they're going to make better decisions for you. That's fundamentally anti-democratic.

Daron Acemoglu

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Daron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. He is coauthor (with James A. Robinson) of The Narrow Corridor, Why Nations Fail, and The Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. His latest book (with Simon Johnson) is Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:33
• Technology and Progress - 2:06
• Productivity - 14:01
• Artificial Intelligence - 24:42
• Shared Prosperity - 34:31

Key Links

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Learn more about Daron Acemoglu

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The fact that Ukraine can be a democracy.... presents a threat to the authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Minsk of the sort that NATO would never actually present.

Serhii Plokhy

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Serhii Plokhy is a Professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University and the Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. He’s written many books including The Gates of Europe, Nuclear Folly, and Atoms to Ashes. His most recent book is The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:37
• Ukrainian Political Identity - 2:39
• Background on the War - 18:31
• Causes of the War - 26:22
• Nuclear Power in a War - 36:06

Key Links

The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy

Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters by Serhii Plokhy

Learn more about the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute

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Ronald Inglehart is well-known for his work linking cultural values to political development and democratization. He was instrumental to the creation of the World Values Survey. In addition, he also wrote many influential books including The Silent Revolution, Cultural Evolution, and Cultural Backlash (cowritten with Pippa Norris).

Christian Welzel was among Inglehart's closest collaborators. He cowrote multiple books and articles with him. This conversation explores Inglehart's ideas about cultural values as well as the development of the World Values Survey. It also offers a personal window into the origins of the collaboration between Inglehart and Welzel. 

This is a bonus episode available only for premium subscribers or supports at Patreon. It is the fourth part of a series on the great thinkers of democratic thought through conversations with contemporary scholars.

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Guillermo O'Donnell marked a change in democratic thought. His focus on Latin America gave him a different perspective. He combined Western political traditions with the experiences of those in Latin America. The result was a degree of creativity few possessed in the social sciences. He shaped ideas about political modernization, democratization, and democratic quality.

Gerardo Munck worked with Guillermo O'Donnell on a few projects, but has also closely studied his ideas. Munck is a highly influential political scientist in his own right who is a professor in the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California. He is also the coauthor of Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Political Science where he interviewed an earlier generation of political scientists including O'Donnell.

This is a bonus episode available only for premium subscribers or supports at Patreon. It is part of a series on the great thinkers of democratic thought through conversations with contemporary scholars.

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Robert Dahl is among the most influential political theorists of democratic thought. He wrote many seminal books including Polyarchy, Who Governs, and On Democracy. This conversation discusses many of Dahl as a theorist and as a person. Many of his ideas are put into the context of his time and explain why they remain relevant for today.

Jeffrey Isaac was the last PhD student Robert Dahl supervised. He knew him personally and has studied his work closely. He is the James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. Many know him for the time he served as Editor in Chief of Perspectives on Politics from 2009-2017.

This conversation will leave out much about Robert Dahl. It's not meant to explore every nuance or idea. Instead, it brings those ideas to life through someone who knew him well.

This is the first part in a series of bonus episodes that introduce important democratic theorists through people who have studied them closely and when possible knew them well. It's available for supporters of the podcast on Patreon or premium subscribers.

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Juan Linz is a giant among democratic theorists. His ideas continue to shape how we think about political regimes and institutions. Some of the most well-known subjects in his work include democratic breakdowns, democratic consolidation, and the perils of presidentialism. This episode explores his ideas and what they mean for how we think about politics and democracy today.

Scott Mainwaring is a past guest on the podcast. He is the Eugene and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at Notre Dame and a fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.

This is a bonus episode available only for premium subscribers or supports at Patreon. It is part of a series on the great thinkers of democratic thought through conversations with contemporary scholars.

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We are at a moment of very, very high risk and I'm not sure that people really know that or understand it, or if they do, if they care.

Anne Applebaum

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Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. Some of her books include Gulag: A History, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, and most recently Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. She recently gave the Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture titled "Autocracy, Inc."

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:42
• What is Autocracy, Inc - 3:47
• Democratic Response - 13:40
• Appeal of Authoritarianism - 26:51
• Thoughts on Poland - 32:26

Key Links

Watch Anne Applebaum's Lecture "Autocracy, Inc"

"The Autocrats are Winning" in The Atlantic by Anne Applebaum

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum

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The thing that really astonishes me is that there's never any agency given to Iraqis, both during the war and the occupation, but also 20 years later. It always goes back to what the Americans did. There's a defeatism about Iraq's ability to do anything on its own and I think that's at the heart of why people can't see anything democratic in the country.

Marsin Alshamary

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Marsin Alshamary is a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative and nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. She is the author of the paper "Iraq’s Struggle for Democracy" in the Journal of Democracy.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:41
• Is Iraq a Democracy - 3:37
• Iraqi Social Cleavages - 9:20
• Iraqi Consociationalism - 26:33
• Challenges to Democracy in Iraq - 36:55

Key Links

"Iraq’s Struggle for Democracy" in the Journal Democracy by Marsin Alshamary

Follow Marsin Alshamary on Twitter @MarsinRA

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

Larry Diamond on Supporting Democracy in the World and at Home

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The problem in both cases is not Zuckerberg or Musk, but the idea of a Zuckerberg or Musk. The idea that, simply by virtue of owning and controlling a particular technology, someone wields arbitrary or unaccountable power which can touch every aspect of our liberty and our democracy.

Jamie Susskind

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Jamie Susskind is an author and barrister. He has held fellowships at Cambridge and Harvard Universities. His work is at the crossroads of technology, politics, and law. His most recent book is The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:44
• Challenges of Digital Technology - 3:18
• Artificial Intelligence - 20:09
• A Digital Republic - 40:27
• Possible Solutions - 43:42

Key Links

The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century by Jamie Susskind

Follow Jamie Susskind on Twitter @jamiesusskind

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Samuel Woolley on Bots, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Propaganda

Ronald Deibert from Citizen Lab on Cyber Surveillance, Digital Subversion, and Transnational Repression

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Who would be a better ally than Ukrainians? These are people who are fighting so bravely and have shown so much resilience. That's what we should want in an ally.

James Goldgeier

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James Goldgeier is a a Professor of International Relations at American University. He is also a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center on International Security and Cooperation and a Visiting Fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Recently, he is the coeditor with Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson of a new book called Evaluating NATO Enlargement: From Cold War Victory to the Russia-Ukraine War.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:35
• Purpose of NATO - 2:37
• NATO Expansion - 16:00
• NATO and Democratization - 22:41
• Future of NATO - 32:42

Key Links

Evaluating NATO Enlargement: From Cold War Victory to the Russia-Ukraine War edited by James Goldgeier and Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson

Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia After the Cold War by James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul

Learn more about James Goldgeier

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Robert Kagan Looks to American History to Explain Foreign Policy Today

Michael McFaul and Robert Person on Putin, Russia, and the War in Ukraine

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