Democracy Works

As a Democracy Works listener, you probably follow politics pretty closely. And we're going to go out on a limb and say that many of the people in your life do, too. But what about everyone else? People who casually keep up with political news or maybe tune iit out entirely.  Scholars Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan argue that America might not be as polarized as we think because the media and...

Chris Beem talks with journalist Tim Alberta about the role that Evangelical Christians play in the Republican Party — and what that means for the future of American democracy. Alberta is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the books The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age  of Extremism and American Carnage: On the Front  Lines of the Republican Civil War an...

The past few years haven't been easy for election officials and their teams. They had to pivot during the pandemic and face ongoing threats that have resulted in unprecedented staff turnover. This turmoil brings more scrutiny of errors that occur when people make honest mistakes.  Despite these challenges, Tammy Patrick, CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials , is confi...

Happy New Year! We're starting off 2024 with a conversation about finding hope in politics. We often hear from listeners that our show brings feelings of hope, and this episode is no exception. Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington state joins us for a discussion on the Building Civic Bridges Act , a bipartisan bill that would provide funding for service projects aimed at bridging divides and reducing p...

For our final episode of 2023, we revisit some of our episodes from throughout the year and reflect on what's in store for democracy in 2024. We talk about: Mental health and media consumption Bureaucracy and the prospect of Project 2025 The Republican party and threats to democracy Plus, we share some recommendations of the books and TV shows we loved in 2023. Recommendations include: TV: For All...

This week, we're bringing you an episode from Making Peace Visible , a podcast that helps us understand the human side of conflicts and peace efforts around the world. The episode explores the how democracy is faring in India after years of democratic erosion by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.  We've covered democracy in India several times on the show, but it's been while and thought th...

Two of our Penn State colleagues join us this week to discuss their recent findings on the connection between state-mandated civics tests and voter turnout. Jilli Jung, a doctoral student in education policy and Maithreyi Gopalan, assistant professor of education and public policy, recently published the paper " The Stubborn Unresponsiveness of Youth Voter Turnout to Civic Education: Quasi-Experim...

Democracy is sometimes described as "a system where political parties lose elections." That's true but doesn't capture the deeper feelings of grief and grievance associated with political loss. We dive into those emotions this week with Juliet Hooker, the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University and author of Black Grief, White Grievance: The Politics...

Cas Mudde, one of the world's leading experts in the study of populism and far-right politics, joins us this week to discuss the tensions between populism and democracy, and why populism has increased around world in recent years. Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia and a Professor II in the Center for Rese...

In the heyday of American labor, the influence of local unions extended far beyond the workplace. Unions were embedded in tight-knit communities, touching nearly every aspect of the lives of members—mostly men—and their families and neighbors. They conveyed fundamental worldviews, making blue-collar unionists into loyal Democrats who saw the party as on the side of the working man.  Today, unions...

Why do we disagree about the causes of and solutions to social inequality? What explains our different viewpoints on Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, income inequality, and immigration? Penn State professors John Iceland and Eric Silver join us this week to discuss how the discrepancy between social order and social justice impedes political compromise and progress. Iceland and Silver, along with Ilana...

This week, we're handing the microphone to Penn State student Joey Picarillo for an interview about the rise and fall of early democracies and what lessons we can learn from them today. Joey is a studying political science at Penn State World Campus and has already read many of the most influential books on democracy by Robert Dahl and others. He brought this book to our attention and did a wonder...

Before we get to the show notes, we invite you to take our listener survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works coffee mug! COVID-19 brought the problems with government technology into sharp focus. The systems responsible for delivering unemployment benefits and healthcare were not prepared to mange the influx of requests they received, and the government employees who run those systems were oft...

Before we get to the show notes, we invite you to take our listener survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works coffee mug! Chris Beem talks with former Republican political operative Tim Miller about the party's loyalty to Donald Trump and where it might go in 2024 and beyond. Miller is a writer-at-large for The Bulwark and the author of the best-selling book  Why We Did It: A Travelogue from th...

Before we get to the show notes, we invite you to take our listener survey for a chance to win a Democracy Works coffee mug! We're back from summer break and diving into the 2024 election season, Donald Trump's indictments, the spread of election deniers, and more. We also welcome Michael Berkman back from sabbatical and discuss the significance of "Democracy '24" as the backdrop for the first Rep...

We're excited to present an episode from our sister podcast, When the People Decide , about how libraries can be sites of civic engagement and building a new social fabric in America's cities and towns. Librarians have spoken for years about “library faith,” the belief that public libraries are central to democracy because they contribute to an informed citizenry. Today, the idea is gaining even m...

Americans want electoral reforms so that they can have more choice in elections. Recent surveys show that 20 to 50 percent of Americans are open to a new electoral system, while demand for a third party has crept upward since Gallup began asking in 2003. More Americans now call themselves "independent" than identify with either of the major parties, but what happens when Americans try to reform th...

This week, we bring you an interview from the Democracy Paradox podcast about the political crisis in Peru and how it fits into the bigger picture of democratic erosion around the world. Democracy Paradox host Justin Kempf thinks Peru is an extreme case of something that I think will become more common. His guest is Rodrigo Barrenechea,  assistant professor of social sciences at the Universidad Ca...

This episode from the Village SquareCast is a conversation between Manu Meel, executive director of Bridge USA and Mónica Guzmán, a senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels and author of I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times . Manu and Mónica discuss how to fight back against political division and find the answers you n...

Political Historian, author and editor Eli Merritt joins #democracyish to provide some historical grounding for the place we find ourselves in America's story. America is at a tipping point, the question is what direction does it fall?!? Danielle and Waj discuss this and more on this episode of democracy-ish. Subscribe to democracy-ish Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com...

Before we take a break for the summer, we wanted to talk about some of the events that have been on our minds lately, and some of what we'll be watching over the summer. Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith talk about what's happening in North Carolina, what we may hear from the Supreme Court in June, the fight over the debt ceiling, and more.  Many of these conversations ultimately boil down to the...

We've talked about generational politics on the show before with episodes on Millennials and Baby Boomers . This week, we turn our focus to Gen Z, those born from the late 1990s to early 2000s. This generation's formative experiences include school shootings, a global pandemic, and reckonings with racial and economic inequality.  In his book Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to...

This week, we bring you an episode from Think Inclusive , a podcast that builds bridges between families, educators, and disability rights advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. The episode explores what Critical Race Theory is and what advocates for inclusive education need to know about the Anti-CRT movement.  You'll hea...

Peniel E. Joseph, author of The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the 21st Century, joins us this week to discuss how the era from Barack Obama's election to George Floyd's murder compare to the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement.  Joseph argues that racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020 marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new strug...

Between democracy and autocracy is an anocracy, defined by political scientists as a country that has elements of both forms of government — usually one that's on the way up to becoming a full democracy or on the way down to full autocracy. This messy middle is the state when civil wars are most likely to start and the one that requires the most diligence from that country's citizens to prevent a...