RevDem Podcast

In this conversation, Lucija Balikić, a researcher affiliated with the CEU Democracy Institute and a PhD candidate at the History department of the same university, discusses Forging Germans: Youth, Nation and the National Socialist Mobilization of Ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia (1918-1944) (Oxford University Press, 2020) with the author, Caroline Mezger. The conversation touches upon issues related...

In this conversation with our editor, Kasia Krzyżanowska, Dr. Signe Larsen (a Fellow by Examination in Law at Magdalen College, University of Oxford) talks about her recently published book The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union (OUP 2021) . In this interview, Dr. Larsen elaborates on the (largely unacknowledged) nature of the EU as a federation, varieties of constituti...

Zsolt Enyedi in conversation with Krystof Dolezal, political scientist and strategist about party cooperation in Czechia during the 2021 parliamentary elections. They discussed the rationale behind two opposition blocks, reasons of its success, and the lessons that could be drawn from this instance of party cooperation.

On Monday 21 February, the Review of Democracy and the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law co-hosted an event on the Court of Justice of the EU’s judgment on the budget conditionality regulation . An article co-authored by two of the panelists,’ Linking Money to Values - the New Rule of Law Regulation and its Constitutional Challenges ’, was cited by the Advocate General in the Opinion for the case...

This is an interview with Maarten Prak, Professor of Social and Economic History at the Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University, Netherlands , hosted by Karen Culver. They discuss Maarten’s book  Citizens without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World c. 1000-1789  Maarten discusses how urban citizenship functioned in medieval and early modern Europe. &...

In this extended conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó regarding her new monograph Race, Rights and Reform , Sarah Dunstan maps the landscape of Black activist thought across the French Empire and the United States from World War One to the Cold War; shows how gender operated in tandem with the dynamics of race and class; underlines how the end of empire connected rights to national be...

In this podcast, RevDem assistant editor Teodora Miljojkovic interview Dr Ana Bobić ( Référendaire to Advocate General Tamara Capeta at the Court of Justice of the European Union, and previously post-doctoral researcher at the Hertie School of Governance) on whether primacy and the Rule of Law crisis can be separated. They also discuss the benefits of a theory of constitutional pluralism that adhe...

In this conversation with our editor, Katarzyna Krzyżanowska, Dr Molly Krasnodębska discusses her newest book “ Politics of Stigmatization. Poland as a Latecomer in the European Union ”. The interview touches on the political equality of Member States within the EU, the stigma of a latecomer applied to Poland (and other Eastern European countries), and the discursive hierarchy inside the EU. Conve...

Andrea Pető in conversation with Marlene Laruelle (Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies,The George Washington University) about illiberalism studies, whether Russia is fascist, the nature of Russia’s illiberalism, as well as its conservative softpower. The conversation was recorded before the Russian invasion on Ukraine on the 24th of February

In this lecture, Martin Kryguer discusses three conventional ways of approaching the rule of law, each of which seems to me misconceived and misleading. The first starts in the wrong place. The second goes on in the wrong way. The third misconstrues the point and destination of the quest. 

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó regarding contemporary Turkey, Dimitar Bechev discusses how the Justice and Development Party has evolved into a personality cult; how Erdogan pro-active, remilitarized foreign policy has probably reached its limits; how leverage now goes both ways in EU-Turkey relations while Europeanization may also mean a turn to xenophobia; as well as the pr...

Ferenc Laczo discusses with Kiran Klaus Patel his latest book "Europäische Integration. Geschichte und Gegenwart" (European Integration: History and the Present Day).

January 2022 marked two years since the novel coronavirus ‘COVID-19’ emerged in Wuhan, China. In this latest podcast for the RevDem Rule of Law section, Oliver Garner interviews  Dr Joelle Grogan  (Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University, London and co-investigator in the  Horizon 2020 RECONNECT project ) about the legacy of the pandemic for the Rule of Law, democra...

In 2021, six opposition parties decided to select a prime ministerial candidate through a joint primary, to nominate a single candidate in every electoral district, and to run a common electoral list for the proportional part of the electoral system. One of the most influential Hungarian political scientists, Zsolt Enyedi, discusses with Daniel Rona, political scientist, director of the 21 researc...

In this striking, in-depth conversation, Suzanne Schneider (Brooklyn Institute for Social Research) discusses the modernity of new forms of jihad; shows how the Islamic State’s organizational structure, understanding of the law, and spectacular violence reflect broader contemporary trends; explains why nihilism and apocalypticism can be viewed as responses to liberal triumphalism; and argues that...

In this conversation, RevDem editor Michał Matlak speaks with Michael Ignatieff about his recent book On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times  (Macmillan, 2021), a series of portraits of writers, artists, and musicians searching for consolation. Ignatieff shows how, throughout history, people in very difficult life situations have looked to arts, philosophy, and religion to regain hope....

Our editor Oliver Garner (Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law) interviews  Tom Theuns , Assistant Professor of Political Theory and European Politics at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Leiden and principal investigator in the Dutch Research Council project “ Protecting Democracy in Europe ”. They talk about the possibility and justification of a mass-exodus of democrati...

In this conversation, hosted by RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Roosevelt Montás* discusses his recent book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation ; why liberal education for citizens is vital in today’s world; how he moved on from his youthful crush on deconstruction and postmodernism and discovered the enduring importance of self-reflections b...

Dirk Moses in conversation with Ferenc Laczo on the Diplomacy of Genocide and the Deeply Sinister Ambition of Permanent Security.

Our editors Laszlo Bruszt, Oliver Garner, Kasia Krzyżanowska, Ferenc Laczo, and Michal Matlak discuss their favorite RevDem content, as well as the year's highlights and the most significant developments of the year.

Dirk Moses in conversation with Ferenc Laczo on the language of transgression and the Genocide Convention in context.

In this episode, Michal Matlak interviews Alberto Alemanno in the aftermath of the publication of the first batch of recommendations coming from the Conference on the Future of Europe Citizens’ Panel. This initiative provides an opportunity for a highly diverse group of randomly selected ‘ordinary’ European citizens to voice their wishes with EU-level decisionmakers on how to change the European U...

Marius Turda in conversation with Ferenc Laczo about "A Cultural History of Race", a series of six books tracing  history on the long term, from antiquity all the way till contemporary times.

Richard Youngs in conversation with Michał Matlak about citizens’ attitudes towards democracy, transformative power of protests movements, citizens’ assemblies as well as democratic innovations on the European level.

Laszlo Bruszt, our editor-in-chief, in conversation with Michał Matlak about the ideas behind the Review of Democracy, the foundation of the Democracy Institute in Budapest and his academic interests: the relations between core and periphery in the governance of the European Union.