Democracy Paradox

So, at some level, a belief in democracy was necessary in Benin as in elsewhere. Support for it - Absolutely. But what's interesting in the Benin case is that you were lacking that level of political elite leadership that were committed democratic ideologues. Rachel Beatty Riedl Support  Democracy Paradox  on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information.  A full transcript...

Nehru is asked several times in those early years, ‘Aren’t you doing something which has never been done before? You are 17% literate. Half of your country is below the poverty line. Under such conditions no democracy has ever stabilize itself and perhaps has not emerged.’ And his argument repeatedly is that we shouldn't be constrained by the history of the West. Ashutosh Varshney Support  De...

When you hear people talk in such disparaging tones, that everything is broken, that nothing is possible, you need to ask yourself, is that right? When you look around, the answer is no. There are these examples where things do go right, where people work together and create a neighborhood or a community for themselves in which they can be prosperous and build better lives. And that's really...

This might sound like a cliche, but in Indonesia it's really, really true. My hope rests in the Indonesian people and the voters. I mean, the voters, they show up. The voters have been the ones to defend democracy. They've been the ones to reject the most anti-pluralistic candidates, not all Indonesian voters, but a slim majority. They've been managing to do it. Dan Slater Support D...

Boeing is pulling out, DuPont, Erickson, Analog Devices, Bombardier. Eventually all of these things are going to cause supply and production chain issues and unemployment in Russia. So, Mr. Putin doesn't have an infinite amount of time before havoc is wrought. Kathryn Stoner Support  Democracy Paradox  on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information.  A full transcript is...

There's something natural and organic about perceiving that the people in power are out to advance their own interests. It's in part because it’s often true. Governments actually do keep secrets from the public. Politicians engage in scandals. There often is corruption at high levels. So, we don't want citizens in a democracy to be too trusting of their politicians. It's health...

This bonus episode is part of a series of interviews available for monthly supporters of Democracy Paradox at Patreon. Other interviews feature guests like Julia Azari, Mila Atmos, and Bob Shrum. But more importantly you'll help the podcast cover important expenses and continue to grow. Please consider becoming a monthly supporter by clicking on the link here. If you want to help the podcast...

So, if your aim is to get inside someone's device without their permission and gather up information, you could do that using a very sophisticated commercial spyware technology like Pegasus. The latest iteration of it employs zero click technology meaning that it can target and insert itself on any device without the owner of that device even knowing or being tricked into clicking on a link....

Pure economic factors or technological factors or the level of economic development or level of technological development cannot explain the diversity of levels of inequality and structure of inequality that we observe throughout history. Thomas Piketty A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com . Thomas Piketty is Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHES...

I heard a verified story of a person who made his way with his family from an occupied town listening to our broadcast, because we were telling them where it was dangerous for them to go and where it was more or less safe to go. So, radio actually saves lives. I probably cannot save lives otherwise. But I can with the help of radio. Andriy Kulykov Recorded on April 19th, 2022. A full transcript is...

So, there's actually something about the basic mechanism of democracy that does make it harder to sustain diversity. In other ways, the principles of liberal democracy are the right solution. And so, obviously my vision for the future is that of a diverse democracy. But we shouldn't be at ease about the ways in which democracy can sometimes inflame ethnic and religious tensions as well....

I think the revolutionary process has become somewhat less consequential in some ways. The ability to bring about substantive change in the wake of revolution has deteriorated for one thing. We've gained certain things as well. I mean, revolutions are no longer as violent as they once were. They're more frequent than they once were, almost more normal in terms of being part of the politi...

It's still shocking to me to read a lot of these documents and interviews in, The Afghanistan Papers , things that most people would think are obvious. What's the plan to end the war? What benchmarks do we have to achieve so that we know we can leave? You know, none of those things were thought out or articulated. Craig Whitlock A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com...

I have worked on voting issues for 35 years, for same-day registration and for opening up the process to younger people and preregistration, and, you know, nevertheless 35 years later we're still at 60 and 65%. 2020 was the highest turnout election ever and it was at 66%. So, I started to think what is it that could really, really move the needle and change the game. Miles Rapoport A full tra...

Russia... will lose ground here in the region over the next decade and China will fill it, because the Europeans are not doing it. The United States is not doing it. Iran is not doing it and Turkey cannot do it either. Anja Mihr A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West Studies on Transformation and Developme...

But what we have now is something that has not been sufficiently discussed, sufficiently understood, which is a criminalized state of which Russia is an example, in the Balkans we have some examples, in Latin America Venezuela stands out as an example. And that is essentially that the state becomes an organized criminal organization. An organization that essentially uses the structure, strategies,...

It wasn't because Afghan social norms don’t support democracy. They do. And Afghans understood darn well what they were supposed to have. But they never even got the minimum of what they were promised in the constitution. Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Or...

You can't protect basic human rights if you don't have democracy. If you're going to protect basic human rights, you need to have things like credible institutions that hold abusers to account. You need to have opportunities for the least advantaged in a society. The people whose rights are most at risk to be able to choose their leaders and choose leaders who will represent them an...

If you're actually a real person and you're living your life and you're going into stores and you're riding on a bus or your kids are going to school, what matters is that you be treated with respect. That you have a dignity. And that, I think, at every point that matters most to us is what the book has wound up being about. It’s an essay on respect as a condition of a liberal...

You treat votes as equal. My vote is equal to your vote. But the state treats our bodies as unequal. That logically makes no sense and it is farcical to call it a democracy in the first place. Forget what implications this will have for democracy in the long-term, but to be called a democracy and to have your bodies treated differently is a farce in itself. Debasish Roy Chowdhury A full transcript...

The tension in what we want from democratic representation is that we want control over our representatives and we want creativity from them. If we control them, they are delegates. They're not representatives. They do what we want. They act in our place instead of us. They act as we would in our place. If they give us creativity, they will bring things out of us and do things for us that we...

For many Americans, for the first many generations really up through the mid 20th century, the constitutional order seemed to rest on and depend on an economic order in which people had enough economic clout to be independent citizens and voters. Not serfs dependent on some kind of master. Joseph Fishkin A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of The Anti-Oliga...

We have core ideas that form a part of our worldview, but those core ideas are not fixed in the way in which we talk about rationality and interest in that they can evolve. And we have to, when we think about human behavior, political behavior, we have to give serious attention to those ideas and go beyond just fixed material interests. Bilal Baloch A full transcript is available at www.democracyp...

If I could say one thing to every citizen, it's to put country before party. Which is, you know, at this time it almost feels like a hollowed phrase, because we we've kind of heard it so often. But it's like actually true. Sara Wallace Goodman A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Citizenship in Hard Times: How Ordinary People Respond to Dem...

This is money that flows between individuals and families and largely circumvents governments and that's a hugely important point, because the real take home of the book is that when these financial flows are controlled by citizens, it tips the balance of power in favor of citizens. When the international financial flow goes to governments, it tips the balance of power in terms of governments...