55 Voices for Democracy – The Podcast

Pianist Igor Levit talks with our hosts about the persistence of the arts in the face of political threats and why Europeans should work against their feelings of cultural superiority. While Igor Levit's music focuses on the works of Bach, Beethoven and Liszt, he is also known for being a politically engaged artist: he has publicly spoken out several times against issues such antisemitism and raci...

In this episode, Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe reflects on the question of why democracy has to be turbulent and how to foster a democratic ethos of equality and social justice. In her conversation with Tom Zoellner and Aida Baghernejad, she discovers surprising potentials, especially in artistic practices. Chantal Mouffe is best known for her books  For a Left Populism  (2018),  Agoni...

The German-Austrian novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann talks with host Tom Zoellner and co-host Aida Baghernejad about the reasons for the rise of populist politicians and "literature as the ultimate school of empathy." What perspective do contemporary German literary authors have on the rise of populism around the world? His book  Measuring the World  (2006) is one of the world's best-sellin...

The former German Ambassador to the U.S. and Chairman of the Munich Security Conference speaks about Europe's position in international politics. In the interview with host Tom Zoellner and co-host Aida Baghernejad, the author of  World in Danger: Germany and Europe in an Uncertain Time  explains how shared values such as "truth, trust and transparency" can be strengthened again and what it means...

The guests in this episode are the Belarusian opposition politicians Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Franak Viačorka. Tsikhanouskaya, who ran for president in the 2020 elections, is currently in exile in Lithuania. She is considered to be one the most important voices of the democratic opposition in Belarus. Viačorka is journalist, blogger and an activist in the Belarusian struggle for democracy and...

How should democracies deal with the increasing power of tech companies? This episode features Dipayan Ghosh, a former technology and economic policy advisor in the Obama White House. Ghosh conducts research on digital piracy, artificial intelligence and civil rights at the Harvard Kennedy School. His recently published and critically acclaimed report "Utilities for Democracy – Why and How the Alg...

Conny McCormack has served as an international observer of fair elections in Albania, Ecuador, Finland, Panama, Zambia and other countries. She had been the Registrar-Recorder and County Clerk for Los Angeles County from 1995 to 2008 and was in similar positions in San Diego and Dallas counties. In this episode, McCormack talks to host Tom Zoellner about what she calls "the frontline of democracy:...

David Shimer is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and an Associate Fellow at Yale University. His reporting and analysis have appeared in the  New York Times , the  New Yorker  and the  Washington Post .  He is pursuing a doctorate in international relations at the University of Oxford. In this episode, Shimer discusses his book Rigged: America, Russia, and 10...

Polymath author of twenty books, writer, historian, essayist, urban geographer and activist Rebecca Solnit is our inaugural guest on  55 Voices for  Democracy . The author of, among other books,  Men Explain Things to Me ,  Savage Dreams ,  Infinite City, A Paradise Built in Hell ,  A Field Guide to Getting Lost ,  Hope in the Dark ,  Recollections of My   Nonexistence , and her recent  The Mother...