Democracy Paradox

It's very hard to understand what's happening today without looking at the roots of all these divisions and at the interests of the different communities and their long-held resentments against the establishment of the country. Isabel Kershner Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Isabe...

The Jihadis today root themselves theologically and ideologically in a particular movement that is exclusivist, that is militant, that is activist, and that is the movement known as Wahhābism. Cole Bunzel Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Cole Bunzel is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at S...

If you have this model of AI, which is geniuses design machines and those machines or algorithms are going to scoop up all the data and they're going to make better decisions for you. That's fundamentally anti-democratic. Daron Acemoglu Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Daron Acemog...

The fact that Ukraine can be a democracy.... presents a threat to the authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Minsk of the sort that NATO would never actually present. Serhii Plokhy Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Serhii Plokhy is a Professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University and the D...

We are at a moment of very, very high risk and I'm not sure that people really know that or understand it, or if they do, if they care. Anne Applebaum Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. Some of her bo...

The thing that really astonishes me is that there's never any agency given to Iraqis, both during the war and the occupation, but also 20 years later. It always goes back to what the Americans did. There's a defeatism about Iraq's ability to do anything on its own and I think that's at the heart of why people can't see anything democratic in the country. Marsin Alshamary A...

The problem in both cases is not Zuckerberg or Musk, but the idea of a Zuckerberg or Musk. The idea that, simply by virtue of owning and controlling a particular technology, someone wields arbitrary or unaccountable power which can touch every aspect of our liberty and our democracy. Jamie Susskind Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is...

Who would be a better ally than Ukrainians? These are people who are fighting so bravely and have shown so much resilience. That's what we should want in an ally. James Goldgeier Access Bonus Episodes on Patreon Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . James Goldgeier is a a Professor of International Relations at American Uni...

The Iraqis suffered so heavily and not just because of the 2003 war. The first war in 1991 inflicted terrible damage on Iraq and then the next 10 years of sanctions immiserated the populace and inflicted an especially punishing blow on Iraqi women and children. Steven Simon Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com ....

Democracy is a much more complicated thing than we often give it credit for and certainly speaking dichotomously about democracy being in crisis or not is an oversimplification. Larry Bartels Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Larry Bartels is the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science a...

One of the things that we see happening online is sort of a democratization of propaganda. Samuel Woolley Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Samuel Woolley is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and the project director for propaganda research at the Center...

It's hard to believe what was happening in Xinjiang and most Chinese people didn't believe, but now they do. A lot of them do. Josh Chin Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Josh Chin is the Deputy Bureau Chief for China at the Wall Street Journal and the coauthor with Liza Lin of the book Surveillanc...

Democracy dies with the lies. Even that simplest form of democracy, which is that we vote on a politician or we don't and we vote on another politician depends on the truth. Because if you can lie about what you did in office or lie about what you didn't do, that sort of vertical accountability breaks down. It becomes meaningless. Staffan Lindberg Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donatio...

It is one Putin when you see him on a calendar. It's yet another Putin when he needs to arrest a snowman. Srdja Popovic Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Srdja Popovic is the co-founder of CANVAS, and was a founding member of the Otpor! (“Resistance!”) a movement that had a crucial part in bringing down...

I do want to underscore this should not be read as a victory of the left. It's a victory of Lula and a narrow victory. And it's Lula the person. It's not so much Lula from the PT as the party that won. Wendy Hunter Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Wendy Hunter is a Professor of Government at...

I think voters right now, remember the circus of the convention over the substance of what it did. I think there is a bit of an amnesia over the mandate for change that existed in 2019 and 2020 that the Constitution delivered on, that voters had moved away from that mandate to change by the time the Constitution went for approval. Jennifer Piscopo Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democ...

I think democracy and capitalism are individually in crisis in that they're not working very well and that the combination of the two in one political and economic system, which we have come to think of as the Western Way, is in crisis not only because the two component parts are in crisis, but because they're in crisis interactively. Martin Wolf Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation...

While war creates the need for a state, it obliterates the capacity to deliver one. We're seeing that in Ukraine right now. That if you want to develop a state, you need peace, not war. War may create the need for a state, but peace is what allows you to build one. I think that that might be a lesson worth emphasizing, especially these days. Anna Grzymala-Busse Become a Patron! Make a one-tim...

I think that there is a core set of shared values that liberals have to embrace. You know, if they don't believe in a rule of law, they don't believe in the fundamental legitimacy of their constitutional order, that's a big problem. But as I said, probably the strongest argument in favor of liberalism is this pragmatic one. That this is something that allows pluralistic diverse soci...

By my reading of political philosophy every regime in a sense ultimately comes to an end because its contradictions ultimately undermine whatever virtues it might have had. I don't have a crystal ball, but I think it's a very real possibility that we're in a hinge of history where the next thing is in the offing and my hope is that that next thing is going to be a better and more hu...

It doesn't have a fixed character. It's a mindset that has to do with a respect for human rights and civil liberties, toleration of different religions, and an ability to live with ambiguity. So, I like the idea of liberal as a qualifier on other and more specific and coherent commitments. Michael Walzer Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is...

We think that because we’re children of the Enlightenment, the way the world is moving is gradually toward liberalism. I think the natural course of the world is away from liberalism and it has only been American power that has sustained this aberration in world history. Robert Kagan Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcript is available at www.democracypara...

Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is only partly a book on America. It's also a book of comparative thinking and it's a book of theoretical invention. So, Democracy in America is a theory of democracy. Part of it is about America and part of it is Tocqueville’s theoretical genius pushing through. Olivier Zunz Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A full transcr...

The state is able to take advantage of the social capital by deploying social actors and in exercising social capital, through the process of persuasion. They'll be putting on pressure on these families, but the pressures being put on them are social pressures. People would often cave into this social pressure. So, there is compliance, but it doesn't feel like state repression. Lynette O...

I just want to say that I don't think Zelensky has changed Ukraine. He amplified it. He mirrored what was already there in his time as an actor and comedian. He tried to show the realities and positions of ordinary Ukrainians as they saw them themselves and he then amplifies that and emphasizes that as a Ukrainian. Olga Onuch Become a Patron! Make a one-time Donation to Democracy Paradox. A f...