RevDem Podcast

This interview with historian Professor Xu Guoqi explores the major themes of his latest book The Idea of China ata moment marked by the weakening of the international order and the global resurgence of nationalism. We begin by tracing the changing meanings of “China” and “Chineseness.” The conversation then moves to thinking about Chineseuniversalism, its alignments and tensions with Western liberalism, conflicts between evolving historical identities and the projection of a stable national order, and the role of “cooked past” in constructing modern Chinese identity.We also discuss the importance of diasporas, foreign influences, sport, religion, and bodily discipline in shaping modern China beyond purely political or economic frameworks. Finally, the interview reflects on the relationshipbetween science, democracy, and governance in contemporary China, and what alternative histories of “Chineseness” might still remain possible.

Are interethnic marriages bridges or fault lines in post-conflict societies? What happens when the politics of national identity enter the intimacy of home? Who were the main agents to oppose or promote mixed marriages in East-CentralEurope? Was it the Church? Was it the legal framework? Were it depending on local culture? Was it determined by class?

In our podcast in two parts, we discuss this topic with Karolina Lendák-Kabók and Lucija Balikić, around their research project called entitled “Mixed Families: Searching forIdentity and Belonging in Post-Conflict Societies”. Their research group emerges from the The Momentum (Lendület) 2025 project hosted at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of MinorityStudies and it is financed by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – Flagship Program of the Academy.

By following marriages that crossed lines of language,confession, and social status, the research project “MixedFamilies: Searching for Identity and Belonging in Post-Conflict Societies” trace how states, churches, and communities sought to regulate intimacy long before theyregulated borders.

Our first part begins by discussing the intellectualcuriosities that led to this project and the main research questions. Then, the discussion moves to a careful unpacking of the project’s main term, mixedness, and why it offers a productive lens for studying interethnic marriages.

The episode then turns to the choice of cases: Hungaryand the post‑Yugoslav space. Listeners will learn what makes these regions comparable, how their shared imperial and socialist legacies matter.

In our latest episode of the special series producedin partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we discuss therecent article by Susan Stokes, entitled “Why Elected Leaders Subvert Democracy” (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 37, No.2,April 2026). Democracy today faces many paradoxes. According to recent reports, democracy has regressed to the level of 1978, and the successes of the third wave of democratization have been eroded. More than two-thirds ofthe world’s population now lives in autocracies. At the same time, however, democracy seems almost hegemonic as a political idea. Today, even the most brutal dictators claim that they are, in fact, staunch democrats. Perhaps evenmore paradoxically, politicians who undermine democracy often come to power through free and fair elections. This seems to have replaced the military coup, which was the predominant form of change toward authoritarianism in the 20th century. In a recent article in the Journal of Democracy, Susan Stokes examines several questions that arise from this phenomenon: Why is there an increase in democratic erosion at this point in history? What factors leave some countriesmore at risk than others? And, perhaps most importantly, what can be done to counter these developments?

How can a democracy emerge from authoritarian rule when those who hold power fear what comes next?

In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, Gabriel Pereira speaks with José Ramón Morales-Arilla about the challenges of democratic transition in Venezuela.Drawing on economic theory and comparative experiences, Morales-Arilla argues that the key obstacle is not simply political disagreement, but a deeper problem of credibility: regime insiders may resist change if they expect sweeping retribution.

The conversation explores how concepts such as adverse selection and signaling help explain this dynamic, and what it would take for democratic leaders to build trust with keyactors. It also introduces a novel framework for transitional justice—one that differentiates between actors based on both responsibility and strategic importance.

At stake is a difficult but unavoidable question: can “imperfect justice” provide a realistic path toward democracy, or does it risk undermining its very foundations?

Of the many political ideologies that exist, perhaps oneof the most paradoxical ones is nationalism. It has been associated with various political currents. At the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth century, people who wanted to overcome monarchy were often staunchnationalists. In the first half of the twentieth century, nationalism is said to have been a root cause for the two world wars and the horrors of fascism. However, especially in the second half of the same century, nationalism was important inthe fight against imperialism and the struggle for decolonization of many countries in the Global South. Today, in almost the whole world, processes of democratic backsliding, autocratization, and a rise of the far-right can beobserved. Again, nationalism is said to play an important role in this. In this conversation, Filip Milačićconsiders the influence of nationalism on current processes of democratic backsliding and proposes counterstrategies.

In the new episode of our series produced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, Ferenc Laczó speaks with L. Jason Anastasopoulos and Jie (Jason) Lian about their article, “The Limits of Authoritarian AI.”

They discuss the new challenges and opportunities for repression that AI poses; the dilemmas autocrats face when employing such tools; what a maximalist agenda forpro-democracy activists could look like and how it could begin to be realized; and how authoritarian and democratic regimes may use AI in the future.

In our new podcast, Diána Vonnák discussesthe recent past and present state of relations between Hungary and Ukraine. Focusing on questions of scholarship, culture and media, the conversation explores howprevalent Hungarian perspectives on Ukraine may be characterized and contextualized; how ties between Hungarians and Ukrainians have been transformed since 2022; and how this highly sensitive – and controversial –relationship could be improved in the near future.

In this special podcast episode with Pepper Culpepper, we discuss the latest article entitled, When Populism Can be Good, jointly written by Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee. This discussion reframes populism as a differentiated and politically consequential phenomenon rather than a uniformlyanti-democratic force. It distinguishes between populism rooted in political failure, which often turns exclusionary and anti-institutional, and populism grounded in economic unfairness, which can mobilize more inclusive, redistributive demands. Pepper’s argument suggests that whilepopulism can act as a corrective, it also reveals the system’s failure to address structural inequalities and sustain its emancipatory promise. The conversation also touches on the inability of mainstream parties to channeleconomic grievances, underscoring limits in political imagination and institutional incentives. The central challenge, as Pepper elaborates, is whether these populist energies can be rechanneled into durable democratic reforms, rather than hardening into destabilizing, anti-system anger.

According to the Rule of Law Index, prepared yearly by the World Justice Project, in 2025, 68% of countries worldwide experienced a decline in the rule of law, a bleak contrastto 57% the previous year. In what feels like a permanent rule of law crisis, revisiting the origins of the concept offers much-needed distance and room for reflection.This discussion with Fernanda Pirie focuses on the historical roots of the rule of law and what these roots tell us about our present time.

Today, the afterlife of communism is equally about monuments and half-ironic memes, retro aesthetics, movie series and board games. Far from being confined to archivesor secondary sources, references to socialist period survive throughout everyday cultural forms and reveal a way of processing histories that were never fully resolved.

In our conversation with Anna Váradi and Lucy Jeffery, built around their edited volume Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, thistension comes into focus. Published this year by the Central European University Press/ Amsterdam University Press, the book presents how cultural productions do not simply represent the socialist period but also give newmeanings and emotional textures.

Throughout our conversation, we explore the theoretical underpinnings of the concepts of nostalgia and trauma. Their central claim challenges the familiar binary between nostalgia and opposition. As Anna Váradi and Lucy Jeffery stated intheir introduction, they follow van Liere and Sremac’sunderstanding of trauma, which is: theremembrance of a painful irrevocable past scatters in different modalities of culture, politics, and religion and contributes to new forms of longing and belonging. In this process, nostalgia is a powerful vehicle to (re)present painful pasts in the present while mobilizing hybrid forms of identity and counter-identity.

Instead of opposing nostalgia with trauma, Anna Váradi argues that these concepts should be analyzed together. As she stated in the podcast, “for us, trauma and nostalgia are best understood as coexisting forces that shapecontemporary engagement with the past”. More specifically, nostalgia often carries unresolved trauma, while trauma itself can be reactivated through selective, even comforting narratives about the past. At the same time, traumadoes not disappear. It returns, refracted through stories, images and collective narratives that give new political uses.

Their chapter on the film series Deutschland 89 makes this analysis more tangible. Moments that feel nostalgic, music, shared habits, familiar images, are never neutral. Theyare tied to experiences of control, division, and adaptation. Even the fall of the Berlin Wall does not appear as a clean break, but as a moment that leaves lasting confusion and imbalance, still visible in political divides today. Asthe chapter concludes, The Deutschland seriesdepicts differences between life in the DDR as opposed to the BRD and the rootlessness experienced during die Wende through plotlines that trace the inescapability ofpast traumas for East Germans.

Across the volume, similar patterns emerge. Museums, online humor or board games do not simply preserve the past. Instead, they reorganize it and turn memory intoa field of negotiations where identities are redefined. Among others, Carmen Levick examines how the Romanian Revolution is curated at the History Museum ofBraşov, while Kateryna Yeremieieva shows how Soviet-era anecdotes are recycled in contemporary Russian online media. Lucia Szemetová, in turn, explores GáborZsigmond Papp’s Retro Series and the cultural afterlife of Hungarian state propaganda films. Across these cases, the past is not simply preserved but actively negotiated, revealing how memory, culture and politics remain tightly intertwined.