RevDem Podcast

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Mike Smeltzer – Senior Research Analyst at Freedom House who has just co-led the research on the Nations in Transit 2024 report – clarifies how the research they conduct into the broad and diverse post-communist region conceives of democracy; explains how the newest developments in these twenty-nine countries can be related to long-term trends and...

Since the 2015 refugee crisis there has been an increasing ‘securitization’ of EU refugee law that has only been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In this latest RevDem Rule of Law podcast Oliver Garner discusses this phenomenon with Aleksandra Ancite- Jepifánova . She is a Research Affiliate with the Refugee Law Initiative at the University of London and Visiting Fellow at the Centre of...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Martin Conway and Camilo Erlichman – editors of the new volume Social Justice in Twentieth-Century Europe – discuss how to approach the question of social justice historically; show how this aspiration may be placed at the confluence of key developments in the twentieth century; explain how focusing on these questions allows us to study the interac...

In this interview with Tarunabh Khaitan, we discuss the ongoing crisis of democracy and constitutionalism in India. At the time of conducting the interview, elections are underway in India, with approximately a month left for results to be declared. In this context, we discuss the differences between the first and the second term of the Modi government, India’s place in the ongoing wave of global...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Judith Butler – author of the new book Who’s Afraid of Gender – discuss their interpretation of the anti-gender ideology movement and what makes it ‘inadvertently confessional’; explain why we should think about the material and the social as intertwined also when we reflect on issues of gender; show what a broader, more global discussion of such i...

In the latest RevDem Rule of Law podcast Oliver Garner discusses the substantive and constitutional tensions caused by the Court of Justice of the EU’s internal market case-law with Dr Vilija Velyvyte . She is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading and was previously a Lecturer in EU Law and Constitutional Law at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Judicial Authority in EU Inter...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Philipp Lenhard – author of the new book Café Marx . Das Institut für Sozialforschung von den Anfängen bis zur Frankfurter Schule (Café Marx. The Institute for Social Research from the Beginnings to the Frankfurt School) – discusses the history of the Institute For Social Research and the Frankfurt School and his approach to this subject; shows wha...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Joseph Stiglitz discusses key features of progressive, social democratic capitalism; explains what motivated him to want to reclaim the language of freedom from the Right; and reflects on what the toolkit of the economist can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between freedom and democracy. Joseph Stiglitz is among the best-known e...

Oliver Garner: You have recently published a working paper for the CEU Democracy Institute on the subversion of judicial legitimacy in Mexico by presidential rhetoric. Could you summarize this phenomenon for our listeners who may not be familiar with the political context in Mexico?   Azul Aguilar : I wanted to explore how the dynamics of attacks from the President on the judiciary are evolving an...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Angéla Kóczé introduces civil rights icon Ágnes Daróczi, and sketches her paths and the development of her consciousness as a Roma woman; covers the main facets of the movement of Roma emancipation in Hungary and the roles Daróczi has played in them; discusses why the nationality question has been so crucial in Daróczi’s understanding and how her a...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Stefanos Geroulanos – author of The Invention of Prehistory. Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins – sketches the major ways the story of humanity’s emergence has been conceived over the past two and a half centuries; shows how such conceptions can shed light on the history of the modern world; discusses what has made this generati...

Are constitutional judges well equipped to deal with fundamental constitutional questions about the EU? Should national constitutional courts aim to address the EU democratic deficit? Several scholars see national constitutional courts as a constructive force in the EU legal order. Nik de Boer argues differently and reasons why is it better to leave certain issues to parliaments rather than consti...

In this conversation with our guest editor Eszter Horvath, Phillip Ayoub discusses recent developments in the LGBT movement, introduces the concept of locally rooted messaging, and his own trajectory from activism to academia.   Phillip Ayoub is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy at University College London. He also serves as Editor of the  European Jou...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Erica Benner – author of the new book Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power – shows what a more self-critical and down-to-earth understanding of democracy would entail; discusses what it means that there is a constant battle within democracies between principles of universal liberty, equality, and power-sharing, on the one ha...

Who is a dark politician? How do dark politicians perform in the elections and in handling crises? What does being “dark” mean for female politicians? Why do some people like it dark? In this conversation with Kasia Krzyżanowska, Alessandro Nai discusses his newest book “ Dark Politics. The Personality of Politicians and the Future of Democracy, ” co-authored with Jürgen Maier. Alessandro Nai –  ...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins – editor of the new collection Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America – discusses the intellectual stakes and political relevance of the fascism debate; reflects on how the fascism debate relates to discourses around democratic decline and the ongoing history wars; shows what a more global perspective on US...

In this conversation with Kasia Krzyżanowska, Hanna Eklund discusses her recent article, “Peoples, Inhabitants and Workers: Colonialism in the Treaty of Rome”, published in the European Journal of International Law . She talks about the “coded language” of colonialism in the Treaty of Rome, explains the approach of the Treaty drafters to the African independence movements, and reflects on the colo...

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy , Leah Hunt-Hendrix – co-author, with Astra Taylor, of the new book Solidarity. The Past, Present, and Future of a World Changing Idea – shows what makes solidarity so essential in social movements that advance and expand democratic ambitions; explains why philanthropy should be adapted to grassroots movements rather than vice versa ; discusses how s...

In this conversation with RevDem editor and a re:constitution fellow Kasia Krzyżanowska, Krzysztof Izdebski (Batory Foundation) and Bartosz Pilitowski (Court Watch Poland) discuss all the current challenges the Polish government is facing with the legal legacy left by the Law and Justice party. How to restore trust in the judicial institutions? How to deal with the irregularly established Constitu...

Introduction (Alexandra Medzibrodszky): Welcome all to this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast. I’m Alexandra Medzibrodszky, and it is a great pleasure to have with us today Una Bergmane to discuss her book "Politics of Uncertainty: the United States, the Baltic Question, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union". So, first of all, thank you, Una, for accepting our invitation and bei...

The question of how to reverse illiberal backsliding after regime change is becoming live within Europe and beyond. This Rule of Law section podcast between Oliver Garner and András Sajó (Professor at the Central European University and Senior Research Fellow at the CEU Democracy Institute) considers this dilemma through the recently published lens of the CEU DI working paper ‘ Militant Rule of La...

For most of its existence the Spanish party system has been dominated by the Socialist Party, PSOE, and the People’s Party, PP. Accordingly, and somewhat unusually in Europe, the governments tended to be based on a single party. However, parties have been repeatedly forced to cooperate in parliament and since 2020 they must share office in government. This change is obviously related to the fact t...

In this interview with RevDem editor Kasia Krzyżanowska, Rochelle Terman discusses her most recent book The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works—and When It Backfires published with Princeton University Press (2023). Rochelle Terman -- an assistant professor of the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Her first book , The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Hu...

In conversation with RevDem editor Lucie Hunter, Joachim Häberlen discusses his latest book, Beauty is in the Street: Protest and Counterculture in Post-War Europe (Allen Lane, 2023). Joachim Häberlen, Ph. D., is a historian of modern Europe and a writer focused on protest movements in post-war Europe and the experiences of Afghan and Syrian refugees in Germany. He received his academic training a...

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Van Jackson – author of the new book Grand Strategies of the Left. The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking – explains what distinguishes progressives from liberal internationalists; clarifies why he thinks that the tradition of grand strategy might be worth rescuing by and for progressives; discusses the three main progressive grand strat...