Democracy in Question?

Guests featured in this Episode Gábor Tóka, Senior Research Fellow in the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives in Budapest.  A sociologist by training, he has published more than 60 articles on electoral behaviour, public opinion, political parties and democratic consolidation in edited volumes, political science and sociology journals. He is also the author of Post-Communist Party System...

Guests featured in this episode: Marzuki Darusman,  an internationally recognized human rights lawyer and former Attorney General of Indonesia.  Marzuki has participated in the work of UN committees on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, war crimes in Sri Lanka, human rights in North Korea, and most recently, he was the chair an independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar under the UN...

Guests featured in this episode: Slawomir Sierakowski, a Polish sociologist and political analyst, with extensive knowledge of not only Ukraine and Russia, but also the potential third party in the current war, Belarus. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique) magazine. His more than 400 articles and op-eds include not only publications in Polish, b...

Guests featured in this episode   Georgi Derluguian, Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus. Born in the Soviet Union, Georgie then experienced its breakup as a young social scientist. Having pursued African studies in Moscow, Georgi spent two years in Mozambique during the civil war in the 1980s, and then  moved to the United States right after th...

Guests featured in this episode:  Renata Uitz, is the co-editor of   Handbook of Illiberalism , who has contributed two chapters to it as well. Renata is also professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the Central European University, Vienna, as well as the co-director of its Democracy Institute in Budapest. Helena Rosenblatt is a professor of history, French, and political theory at the Gradu...

Guests featured in this episode: Irene Khan, the first woman to ever hold the mandate of UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression.  She is also a Distinguished Fellow and Research Associate at the Graduate Institute's Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. Previously, Irene Khan was Secretary-General of Amnesty International (2001-2009) and Director-General of the International D...

Guests featured in this episode: Professor Andras Sajo , former judge at the European Court of Human Rights & founding Dean of Legal Studies Department at the Central European University,   Democracy in Question?   is brought to you by: • Central European University:  CEU • The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva:  AHCD • The Podcast Company:  Novel   Follow us on social media! • Centra...

Democracy in Question?  is brought to you by: • Central European University:  CEU • The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva:  AHCD • The Podcast Company:  Novel   Follow us on social media! • Central European University:  @CEU • Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva:  @AHDCentre Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review a...

Glossary for DiQ ep 7 series 3 – Jan Werner Müller Who was Alexis de Tocqueville? (pg. 1 tocquevillian question of the transcript or 00:1:08) French sociologist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its prisons and returned with a wealth of broader observations that he codified in “Democracy in America” (1835), one of the most influ...

Glossary    Who is Hannah Arendt? (00: 2: 08 or page 1) Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part...

The episode explores the role of locally embedded news and media organizations in facilitating citizen participation in societies seeking to further democracy. In the age of misinformation, can the patient and steady pace of radio journalism prove to be a much-needed democratic corrective? In the discussion, Caroline Vuillemine and Said Nazir examine the role of the radio and the opportunities fac...

This episode explores with Ranabir Samaddar the specific nature of democratic politics during the COVID-19 crisis. Anchored in the specificity of the experience of the pandemic in India, the episode also addresses the global transformation of politics in a time of crisis. How has the pandemic changed our understanding of politics? What does it mean to refocus on life as the primary object of polit...

The episode explores with Avrum Burg the challenges with which the Israeli democracy is confronted. As Israel stands at the crossroads after the defeat of its longest serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with his expansionist politics, which have marked the country's territorial expansion over the last decades, this episode asks: Will the new eight party coalition government mark the beginni...

What is the nature of the linguistic and discursive repertoires of contemporary right-wing mobilizations in Europe? In this episode of Democracy in Question, presenter Shalini Randeria continues the conversation about the rise of radical right-wing political movements in recent years across the world with Ruth Wodak, Emeritus Distinguished Professor at Lancaster University, and visiting professor...

The most pernicious assault on American democracy today are the laws and measures enacted in various state legislatures under Republican control that aim at voter restriction. Among the foremost voices in the struggle for democratic rights in the United States is Stacey Abrams, U.S. politician and activist. Her campaign for protecting voting rights and resisting disenfranchisement of black and oth...

The current rise of right wing populist leaders in democracies around the world, from Donald Trump to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, has led to a debate on the fuzziness of these new regimes that are eroding liberalism by incorporating totalitarian features. Some argue that the term ‘fascist’ would be useful in understanding the nature of politics in these countries, while others warn against an inflat...

There is considerable political mobilization and legal contention around Reproductive rights in many democracies around the world. In the US, a rollback of these rights has been underway over the past decades. The Supreme Court is likely to (re)consider its landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. In contrast, activists have made progress on reproductive rights elsewhere...

Power is a crucial, if essentially contested, concept. Its nature and exercise in democratic politics are not always easily grasped. Understanding who holds power, how it is used, and the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, is critical in any political system. Professor  Steven Lukes (formerly NYU) helps us figure out how to map power in politics and explains when and...

Digital technologies have changed and are changing our world. But the euphoria about these technologies not only improving connectivity, but creating a global public sphere have given way to caution about their impact. With the increasing monopolization of digital infrastructure and accumulation of power by a few giant Big Tech companies, there is increasing concern over its impact on our freedoms...

The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong is facing its most severe crisis today. The Chinese government has been tightening its grip over the island to stifle political protest, impose restrictions on freedom of press, and hamper free and fair elections. Activists have been fighting for civil liberties and democratic rights, from the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 to the huge anti-extradition law demo...

Over the series, our focus has often been on the serious challenges that democracies face all over the world today. We have also highlighted how they can and are degenerating and morphing into authoritarianism. But this episode flips the perspective to understand how we can foster and nurture democratic spaces and practices in our societies. Professor  Till Van Rahden  (Université de Montréal) dis...

10 years ago anti-government protests in Tunisia sparked a wave of spontaneous uprisings against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. The Arab Spring was met with repression by governments in the region, but ultimately led to the ousting of rulers such as Ben Ali in Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. But the hope that these changes would usher a new...

Most western academics were skeptical about the future of India, the world’s largest democracy, throughout the 1950s to the 1970s. It succeeded beyond all expectations in mobilizing large-scale electoral participation especially among poor and illiterate voters. And yet today its very existence seems to hang in the balance as the country faces a deep crisis of liberal, secular democratic norms, va...

The decline and even death of liberalism has been predicted often. Today it faces challenges not only from populism in Europe and the US but also from China offering an illiberal alternative that may prove attractive to leaders in the global South. In this episode, Professor  Timothy Garton Ash  (University of Oxford) joins us to analyze the future of liberalism. We discuss what liberalism can lea...

Covid-19 vaccines have been developed in record time and are being distributed around the world. But issues like vaccine hesitancy, slow production and unequal access between as well as within countries are inhibiting the global vaccination progress needed to combat the pandemic. In this first episode of season 2, we’re joined by  Dr. Suerie Moon (Graduate Institute) to explore how vaccine nationa...