RevDem Podcast

By Review of DemocracyNews Politics

RevDem Podcast episodes

December 02, 2024 The Return of Dictatorship - Grzegorz Ekiert and Noah Dasanaike on Dictatorial Drift, Autocracy Promotion and Strategies to Oppose Them
We are thrilled to publish the second episode of our monthly special in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy. In the framework of this new partnership, authors shall discuss outstanding articles from the newest print issue of the Journal of Democracy.
In this conversation, Grzegorz Ekiert and Noah Dasanaike explain their concept of dictatorial drift and how various countries have moved toward full autocracy in
recent years; discuss new features of dictatorships in the early 21st century and how such regimes relate to each other; consider whether it makes sense to compare the growing trend of autocracy promotion with democracy
promotion; and reflect on how full autocracies might be opposed more effectively in the future.
The conversation is
based on Grzegorz Ekiert and Noah Dasanaike’s article, “The Return of Dictatorship,” published in the
October 2024 (35/4) issue of the Journal of Democracy.
33 min
November 27, 2024 Revising European Integration History in an Age of Uncertainty - Karin van Leeuwen, Aleksandra Komornicka, and Koen van Zon on Their Interdisciplinary Handbook with a Historical Focus
In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Karin van Leeuwen, Aleksandra Komornicka, and Koen van Zon – contributors to The Unfinished History of European Integration that has now appeared in a revised edition – elucidate the main questions that organize their
overview of European integration history; reflect on the applicability and usefulness of various influential theories when trying to narrate the history of European integration today; show what special contributions historians can
make to the interdisciplinary study of the European Union; and discuss recent advances in the historiography of European integration, specifying questions that would deserve more attention in the future.
42 min
November 25, 2024 On Muslim Democracy: Essays and Dialogues
Join Review of Democracy Ideas editor Alexandra Medzibrodszky as she hosts Professor Andrew March, a leading scholar of political philosophy and Islamic
thought, to discuss On Muslim Democracy: Essays and Dialogues. The book focuses on Rached
Ghannouchi’s political thought and offers a unique perspective on the intersection of Islamic principles and modern democratic governance.
The podcast delves into pivotal questions: What distinguishes “Islamic Democracy” from “Muslim Democracy” in Ghannouchi’s work? How does Ghannouchi balance the realities of practical politics with the ideals of Islamic thought? Professor March also reflects on the challenges of
translating Arabic political philosophy into English, shedding light on the complexities of capturing essential terms and ideas across languages.
A unique aspect of the book is the Philosophical-Theological
Dialogues, based on in-person conversations between March and Ghannouchi.
These dialogues provide a rare and engaging format, bringing Ghannouchi’s ideas into conversation with Western political theory and reveal how cross-cultural intellectual engagement can deepen our understanding of democracy’s diverse expressions.
35 min
November 19, 2024 Coalitional history of democracy during Emergency (1975-77) in India
In this conversation with Kristin M. Plys, we delve
deeply into the nature and quality of Indian democracy by examining the legacy and impact of its resistance movements. Plys’ recent book, Brewing Resistance (Cambridge University Press, 2020), studies the Indian Coffee House movement—a unique, worker-driven cooperative that flourished in the 1970s. This movement not only symbolized a
shared space for political discourse but also became a hub for anti-authoritarian sentiment, especially during the turbulent years of the Emergency (1975-77), when democratic freedoms were severely curtailed by Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi's government.
Plys discusses how the imposition of the Emergency, a period marked by mass censorship, arrests, and suspension
of civil liberties, offers an opportunity to study the layered political landscape of India. The Indian Coffee House played a critical role in this setting, functioning as both a sanctuary for dissenters and a platform for organizing resistance against state repression. The Coffee House movement’s ties to anti-colonial labor struggles also shaped its legacy, as workers'
collectives organized within the Coffee House drew on earlier traditions of anti-imperialist and labor rights activism. These connections underscored a distinctive postcolonial narrative in which anti-colonial aspirations became
entwined with the fight for labor rights, impacting political outcomes not only within India but also across the Global South, where similar struggles for autonomy and equity were underway.
The Emergency is particularly significant in the conversation, as it catalyzed a diverse range of voices and forced new actors onto the political stage. By examining these
anti-establishment leftist movements, Plys offers a nuanced lens to understand both the ruptures and continuities in India's democratic history. Ultimately, the dialogue not only reconsiders India’s democratic journey through the lens
of resistance but also provides insights into the potential future paths of democracy in India and other postcolonial contexts, exploring how historical struggles inform contemporary democratic challenges and the broader political landscape of the region.
32 min
November 18, 2024 International Law and the ‘Second World’: In Conversation with Patryk I. Labuda
The Second World Approaches to International Law (SWAIL) project, which will be launched at Central European University in Vienna in February 2025, aims to establish a more accurate way of conceptualising East Central Europe’s position in, and relationship with, international law. Three themes arise continuously throughout the podcast:
liminality, domination, and the emancipatory potential of international law.
Liminality is the cornerstone of the SWAIL project. It is discussed throughout the podcast, whether in reference to
geography, epistemology, or time. Patryk identifies an issue whereby East Central Europe is too readily thought of as part of the West, when for him, and he proposes for others from this region, it should be thought of as both in and
out, speaking to its liminal place in the global order. The result of this false conceptualisation is East Central Europe’s dual exclusion from theoretical understandings
of international law; East Central Europe will not feature as the protagonist in a top-down study, nor is it the subject of post-colonial research. Patryk’s proposition is it ought not be sandwiched into either of these camps, rather East Central Europe’s place in international law ought to be understood in its own, fundamentally in-between, position.
Communicating his driving thesis, he points out the contradistinction between Ukraine’s experience of the Russian invasion and Poland’s roles in the invasion
of Iraq. East Central Europe is a geographic space sharing parallels with the West and the Global South but sharing space with neither.
The most significant parallel Patryk makes between East Central Europe and the Global South is their joint experience of domination by external states. Between Russian and Soviet expansion from the East and a history of Western imperialism, East Central European states have a
long history of fighting for their sovereignty. By applying a modified post-colonial framework to the region, Patryk contends we can remove a blind sport from Western and Third World approaches to international law, which both
fail to give appropriate focus to non-European colonialist entities.
Considering East Central Europe’s vulnerable
position, it would be wrong not to consider what the recent US election means for the area’s geopolitics. Fortunately, we interviewed Patryk the day after the election. Patryk identified an understandable trepidation in East Central
Europe leading up to the election. In the wake of the result, he deems a reconceptualization of the region’s security methods to be necessary. The issue
gets to the heart of the SWAIL project, international law itself has been somewhat thrown into the liminal flux, exhibiting a bulwark of rules designed to protect states, but lacking a leader on which vulnerable states can rely to enforce those rules.
These rules link to the final theme, which
made for a surprisingly optimistic podcast given the current regional context: Patryk identifies emancipatory potential in international law.
This optimism flowed into the podcast aboard two vessels, NATO and the Special
Tribunal for the Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine by Russia, although it is
clear Patryk’s optimism extended beyond these, applying to international law
more generally. Regarding the former, Patryk identifies a worrying acceptance
among many Global South actors of Russia’s justifications for its aggression
when, for Patryk, NATO membership is a sensible defensive measure for East
Central Europe to take given the region’s aforementioned geographical
vulnerability and related history of imperial domination. Concerning the latter
focus, Patryk rejects a commonly advocated position that all special tribunals
entrench double standards in international law and communicate a message of
selective criminal justice. Patryk identifies binary state-to-state, or
region-to-region, comparisons as a misleading way to interpret international
law. For Patryk, special tribunals like the one for Ukraine or similar
experiments in the Central African Republic and Colombia can also be interpreted
as a form of respect for the demands of weaker states in the global order; by shifting the framework away from binaries like Global
North versus the Global South or West versus the Rest many more factors can be
identified that unites second- and third-world countries than divides them.
It is on the point of unity beyond binaries
that Patryk already identifies potential scope for expansion of the SWAIL
project. Latin America is a region in which he foresees particularly fruitful
parallels and avenues for interesting scholarship. For the time being, the
project exhibits significant potential, hopefully enabling a better
understanding of East Central Europe’s position in international law, which may
guide thought on a region that is already and will continue to be pivotal to
world order moving forward.
31 min
November 12, 2024 Authoritarian Regimes Learn from Each Other – In Conversation with Mikal Hem
In our new podcast, Mikal Hem discusses what modern
dictators and autocrats seem to have learned from their predecessors, reflects on what might drive voters toward leaders with autocratic tendencies, considers
what democratic societies can learn from the survival strategies of dictators, and contemplates how the resilience of free media could be strengthened
in autocracies.
The conversation was recorded on September 19, at
the Budapest Forum for Building Sustainable Democracies.
Mikal Hem has worked as a journalist and political
commentator for the Norwegian newspapers Dagbladet and Verdens Gang, as well as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and the weekly news magazine Ny Tid. He has traveled extensively around the world and spent a good deal of time in Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. For a period of his childhood, he lived with his family in Zimbabwe, under the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. His first book, Perhaps I Can Be Dictator, is a satirical career guide for aspiring autocrats. He is also the author of How to Be a Dictator: An Irreverent Guide.
18 min
November 11, 2024 The Great Gender Divergence - In Conversation with Alice Evans
In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Alice Evans discusses the great gender divergence and how we might explain that some countries are much more gender equal than others; considers whether the history of gender is essentially about female emancipation in modern times but also whether even the most gender equal countries in the world today remain rather patriarchal; and reflects on the special challenges of writing an interdisciplinary book that analyzes the
history of gender on a truly global scale – and how such a project relates to the idea of a gender binary.
Alice Evans is a Senior Lecturer in the Social Science
of Development at King’s College London. She has published on gender, urbanization,
the drivers of social change, inequality, and global production networks.
Alice Evans is currently preparing a book
under the title The Great Gender Divergence, which is under contract with Princeton University Press.
This conversation was conducted at the Budapest Forum 2024 “Building Sustainable Democracies.”
28 min
November 05, 2024 Screening Human Rights Documentaries in Hungary for More than 20 Years- Enikő Gyureskó on Verzió Festival's Mission in Human Rights and Education
In this conversation at the
Review of Democracy, Enikő Gyureskó- the Festival Director of VerzióInternational Human Rights Documentary Film Festival – discusses
the program of the Verzió Film
Festival, which will take place between 6-13 November; the rationale
of choosing specific foci in this year's program; the importance
of documentaries in raising awareness about contemporary human rights issues; the
collaborations between Verzió with other European festivals to promote human
rights; the relevance of educational initiatives and university partnerships to
foster critical engagement in Hungary.
Enikő Gyureskó has
been a key figure at the Verzió Film Festival since 2016. Starting as Festival
Coordinator, she became Managing Director in 2021 and was appointed Festival
Director in 2024. Enikő is responsible for the festival's development strategy,
team management, fundraising, partnerships, and grants. Since 2022, she has
also been a board member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association. Enikő
holds a BA in Liberal Arts, with a major in Art History and a minor in
Philosophy, from Pázmány Péter Catholic University (2013), and an MA in Design and
Art Management from Budapest Metropolitan University (2017).
Verzió created
a much-needed platform in Hungary for international documentary films focused
on human rights. Over 20 years, the festival has attracted more than 250,000
attendees. In 2020, it launched its online streaming platform, Verziotheque,
offering films nationwide between festival editions. Verzió is a crucial
gathering point for the documentary film community, hosting screenings,
discussions, and events in Budapest and across Hungary. The festival partners
with cinemas and cultural spaces in cities like Pécs, Szeged, and Debrecen.
This year, the festival will run between 6th and 13th of November.

Adrian Matus: Verzió
has become a key platform for raising awareness on pressing human rights issues
through documentary filmmaking. Could you
introduce us to the agenda of the Verzió Film Festival? How do you view its
significance within the global landscape of human rights film festivals? What
does it share with other such festivals and what might make it rather special?

Enikő Gyureskó: Verzió has been one of the steadiest
festivals running in Hungary. This will be the 21st edition, and it
takes place every year in November, not just in Budapest but currently in six
other towns and online as well. It has a large regular audience that comes back
to our editions yearly. At the same time, we also try to reach out to new
audiences with each edition. Currently, about 20000 people participate yearly
if we consider both offline venues and online audiences.
Regarding its
international embedment, we are part of the Human Rights Film Network, which
consists of over 40 human rights festivals globally. This network raises
awareness of human rights and filmmakers in danger, or festival partners who
operate in dangerous circumstances, such as Belarus or Central Asia, where
democratic institutions do not exist, or people who work with human rights and
social issues are under constant surveillance or harassment. Within this
network, we try to provide support and raise international awareness whenever
one of our members gets into trouble. It also serves as an exchange of
experiences and a learning platform for all of us to improve our festivals. We
are also trying to build strong relationships with several European festivals that
are regionally closer to us. For example, the One World festival in
Czechia has been one of our oldest partners. They were founded just a few years
before Verzió and even inspired us when our festival was created. There are many
similarities in how we think and do our programs. They (One World) also have many
discussions, panel talks, and roundtables. Besides the screenings, just like Verzió,
they try to cooperate with civil organizations and involve them in public
debates. Watch Docs from
Poland is an excellent example in this regard, being operated by Helsinki Foundation.
We regularly
apply together to European funds. One of the major sponsors of film festivals
is the Creative Europe program by the European Union. In the past couple of
years, this program initiated a funding scheme that provides grants to festival
networks. Thus, now we are in the Doc Around Europe
network for the second year, which includes partners from Spain, Germany,
Italy, and North Macedonia. We are focusing together on mentoring emerging
talents and better circulating their works on a European level. These are similarities that we share.
One of our
programs. funded through grant schemes such as Creative Europe Media and European Documentary Film Festival
Network. is
called Verzió DocLab. It focuses on
developing documentaries which have a social aspect or human rights focus and takes
place at the CEU's Budapest campus. As well, the Young Critics
Workshop, funded through this grant scheme,
will take place for the third time at CEU during Verzió. This workshop wants to
improve the skills of emerging writers and critics interested in the
documentary genre. These international programs are free; we provide everything
from travel to accommodation.

AM: Which are the
main foci and highlights of this year's festival? What documentaries stand out
as particularly powerful to you from this year's program?

EG: Our
curatorial team is really excited about this year's program! All the films
stand out and we encourage everybody to try to watch as many films as their
time allows. We try to screen every film twice during the festival's eight days.
Of course, we have some highlights that have already won outstanding awards
internationally. If I have to name one, I will mention I'm Not Everything
I Want To Be - a Czech film about a photographer discovered
recently in the international art scene. Her photographs were unknown before; she
was photographing everyday life and the people around her. She lived in a
socialist country and worked in a factory because she had to and not because
she wanted to. In this context, she took pictures of workers. At the same time,
she identified herself as queer and went to illegal queer bars where she took
photographs. Of course, these bars were illegal then, and she tried to hide
these pictures. She also travelled to Berlin and witnessed the wall falling in
1989. She lived through exciting times and was present at important historic
events.

This film
consists solely of her photographs and has no single moving image. There are
only photographs- about 3,000 of them - yet the team managed to edit it so that
it does not become boring or monotonic. Even though the pictures are black and
white, it is still such a powerful, visual, and empowering storytelling. I can
only praise the editors who had to work hard to make it happen. We will have a
Q& A session with the director, Klára Tasovská, who is coming to Verzió on
the 9th of November so that you can catch her at Toldi Cinema.
This film also
inspired our visuals this year. Every year, Verzió changes its visuals- our posters, our
website, and our social media communications use still images from one
particular movie. This year will be I'm Not Everything I Want to Be- our
visuals play with a plastic foil, a plastic wrap that comes off and underneath
these pictures emerge. In a way, it also references what happened in Hungary. I
think last year, a new law came into action where people under 18 were not
allowed anymore to open, in bookstores, books which talked about the lives of
LGBT people or that depicted anything related to homosexuality. We disagree
with this situation and are referencing this issue in our visuals this year.

AM: More generally, how do you select the
movies? What kind of balance do you aim at between artistic merit and the
urgency of the issues addressed?

EG: I think a
good film always keeps its value through time. Perhaps from the technical
standpoint, the approaches are evolving. The picture quality and the cameras
used are often of much better quality. At the same time, some films are made
with cell phones, not only with the best equipment. Not every filmmaker has
access to such equipment.
However, it is
not about that any more. The films have become more and more personal, focusing
a lot on individual stories and embedding them in broader societal movements. This
is the best way to make an emotional effect and draw the viewer closer to a
story. In this way, the individuals are protagonists in these films and share
intimate parts of their lives. These directors gain close access to many of the
characters. Filmmakers also film about their own lives, and they are the
protagonists in their films. The heaviness of these topics has always been a
focal point since the festival's first year. The particularity of the program
remains the same, and every year, we try to bring films that deal with urgent
topics.

War in Ukraine
has been in our focus for several years now. This year, we have amazing,
excellent films that stand out, not just because of their heavy topic but their
genuinely outstanding qualities. For example, Intercepted or Songs of a Slow
Burning Earth are films that I recommend. The director of Flowers of Ukraine will
also come to present the movie. This film was not initially about the war but
about gentrification. As she proceeded to film, the war broke out, and it was
always in the background. In other words, you cannot make a film without
excluding the bigger reality. These films also show personal stories of how war
affects people's everyday lives. In Intercepted, for example, we can listen to the
phone calls of Russian soldiers, which were - as the title suggests - intercepted
by the secret services in Ukraine. It is chilly to listen while you watch
pictures of destroyed cities and the actual effects of their actions.

The Armenian focus this
year was not initially planned, but we decided to have it because we found
these powerful films coming out of Armenia. 1489 is
the title of one of the films that also won the Best Film award at the
International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam last November. One
particularity of this movie is that the director was filming with her phone. As
mentioned, there are still films that were initially not intended to be a movie
but just started to document an event. Later on, they decided to make it a
movie. In this context, this director chose to film her own family. The story
focuses on her brother, who disappeared in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Together
with her father, they are trying to find him. This is a profound and personal
story. The director, Shoghakat Vardanyan, is also coming to the festival.

The British focus might
come as a surprise. The reason for this focus is Brexit, which has caused less
attention to British documentaries at European festivals in the last few years.
We also wanted to cooperate with the British Council in Budapest and the
British Embassy because we felt that there is less money now in the soft power
of Britain to promote their culture in this part of the world. British cultural
products are not as present as they used to be. We wanted to show a selection
of recent British documentaries and found four feature lengths.

We also have a VR
section called Vektor VR. The
exhibition is at Adaptér, a lovely
communal space run by the local municipality, where you can sit down and watch
VR documentaries. This year, the representation of the body is the focus,
particularly how we experience our body in virtual reality and how it helps us
understand how others might feel in their body.
AM: You have a broad variety of movies, and my curiosity is: how do you select the movies? What kind of balance do you aim at between
artistic merit and the urgency of the issues addressed?
EG: We are trying
to find the films that excel in this balance. Both these points are essential
aspects of the selection. We work as a team; we watch all the films together
27 min
November 04, 2024 Majoritarianism without Majorities
We are thrilled to publish the first episode of our monthly special in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy. In the framework of this new partnership, authors shall discuss outstanding articles from the newest print issue of the Journal of Democracy each month.
This conversation with Professor Kanchan Chandra
offers an incisive exploration of the strengths and limitations of modern democracies, focusing on the United States, the United Kingdom, and India—three
of the world's most prominent democratic systems. Chandra revisits one of the central dilemmas facing democracies in the 21st century: how to respond to the
challenge of majoritarian nationalisms. She makes the compelling case that this challenge can be tackled through two bold and innovative approaches: by focusing
on what she terms "minorities within majorities" and by strengthening protections for immigrants in order to strengthen protections for citizens.

Chandra argues that democracies are built on fluid and
evolving majorities, which are often constructed through mechanisms like censuses. These majorities, she contends, should be understood not as monolithic blocs but as coalitions of various minority groups. By reframing
majority rule in this way, Chandra’s work suggests a paradigm shift that holds profound implications for addressing the rise of majoritarianism in all three
democracies she examines. Her insights pave the way for reimagining democratic governance in a more inclusive and equitable direction, one that recognizes and protects the diversity within societies' majorities themselves.

Check out the article at The Journal of Democracy (October 2024) at this link provided: The Future of Multiracial Democracy: Majoritarianism Without Majorities

40 min
November 04, 2024 The U.S. Elections with Levente Littvay
Join hosts Erin K. Jenne and Letitia Roman as they sit down with political scientist Levente Littvay to discuss the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Together, they explore why Donald Trump remains a prominent GOP
candidate despite numerous legal challenges, how polarization and populism intertwine, and the role of conspiracy theories in today’s political climate.
They also examine parallels between U.S. and European populism and the future of both major parties. Tune in for a deep dive into the complex dynamics shaping this year's election.
45 min

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