Brexit and the UK’s identity crisis
Sona Golder We’re just a few weeks away from the deadline for the UK to reach an agreement on its plan to leave the European Union. Nearly three years after the infamous Brexit vote, things appear to ...
11 Mar 201928min
Brazil’s tenuous relationship with democracy
Gianpaolo Baiocchi To say Brazil has had a complicated history with democracy is a understatement. The country has bounced in and out authoritarian regimes for hundreds of years, with democracy never ...
4 Mar 201939min
Yellow vests and the “grand debate” in France
Cole Stangler This episode is the second in our series looking at democracy around the world. France is the focus this week. Our guest is Cole Stangler, an independent journalist based in Paris who co...
25 Feb 201937min
Viktor Orbán’s “velvet repression” in Hungary
This episode begins a four-part series examining the state of democracy around the world. First up is Hungary, a country that’s often referred to in a group of countries in central and Eastern Europe ...
18 Feb 201941min
A brief history of “people power”
In his book Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea from Ancient Athens to Our World, James Miller encapsulates 2500 years of democracy history into about 250 pages — making the case tha...
11 Feb 201940min
The power of local government
No matter where you live, chances are that your local government is filled with things like feasibility studies, property tax assessments, and endless meetings governed by Robert’s Rules of Order. It’...
4 Feb 201942min
Using the tools of democracy to address economic inequality
Democracy and inequality have been at odds for as long as democracy as has existed. As the gap between rich and poor widens, so too does trust in political institutions and faith in democracy itself.C...
28 Jan 201936min
What is democracy? A conversation with Astra Taylor
We begin our third season with a fundamental question: What is democracy?Astra Taylor grapples with this question in a documentary of the same name and a forthcoming book. We talk with her this week a...
21 Jan 201938min
