The Democracy Group

CPF Director Bob Shrum joins U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski to discuss her decades-long efforts to bridge partisan divides and promote sustainability efforts, and her thoughts on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Featuring: Bob Shrum - Director, Center for the Political Future; Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, USC Dornsife Lisa Murkowski - U.S. Senator (R-AK) Additional Information Th...

Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who strongly support Donald Trump. We hear her warm personal story of how Mónica set out to understand what divides America and discovered ways to overcome divisions that hurt our relationships and society. In this episode of "Let's Find Common Ground", we discuss ways to use our own sense of curiosity to have rewarding cross-parti...

Elections across the country are run by dedicated full-time elected officials and by a huge and diverse group of citizens who serve as poll workers — people who might very well be your neighbors, your teacher, or your child’s baseball coach. These folks are the backbone of our elections system, and are the reason that the 2020 election went so smoothly and was called the “most secure election in A...

Daniel Beers, Colleen Moore, John Hulsey and Bernie Kaussler join us to provide historical and political context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian and geopolitical consequences. See the show notes with links mentioned in this episode at https://j.mu/news/civic/2022/01-news.shtml Additional Information Democracy Matters Podcast More shows from The Democracy Group Hosted by Sim...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows how the incentives and views of dangerous leaders drive world events. The efficacy of the international community’s response depends on how regimes like Russia’s work.  Erica  Frantz  finds  that personalist regimes like Russia are more likely to initiate conflicts and suffer from misperceptions in a close inner circle. Putin’s actions follow authoritarian patter...

Was the war in Ukraine inevitable? What is Vladimir Putin trying to achieve? What does the conflict say about Ukraine as a democracy? Those are just a few of the questions Michael Berkman explores this week with Donna Bahry, professor emerita of political science at Penn State and an expert in  Soviet and post-Soviet politics and democratization.  Donna has studied Russia and the Soviet Union for...

This week on Our Body Politic, Farai looks back on the 2016-2017 Dakota Access Pipeline protests with investigative journalist Jenni Monet to discuss activism among indegeonous peoples in America and across the globe. Farai also talks with MacArthur Grant Award winner, Harvard professor and author Tiya Miles about one family heirloom from the enslavement period that remarkably stood the test of ti...

This week we bring you an episode from   Democracy Paradox's Patreon . You can subscribe for more content like this at https://www.patreon.com/demparadox Featured guest: Liz Joyner, CEO of the Village Square Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As the political landscape has devolved into a Mad Max hellscape of blame and retribution (and sometimes even worse), can we find a way to wrestle up a little empathy for our fellow human, even the ones who we don’t agree with — liberal or conservative; Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist; black, white or brown and everyone in between? Is it possible to find humanity amidst the age of political rui...

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule   here . Sarah Repucci is the Vice President of Research and Analysis at Freedom House. She coauthored (along with Amy Slipowitz) Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule . Key Highlights Global freedom has declined for 1...

This week we bring you an episode from   The Purple Principle podcast. The Purple Principle kicks off its extended Season Three series on state level polarization with a mini-series on the great state of Texas. And who better to discuss Texas politics than the co-hosts of the artfully named podcast, Y’all-itics: Jason Wheeler (Senior News Reporter) and Jason Whitely (News Anchor) of the ABC Dallas...

Robert Kagan is a foreign policy expert who turned his focus to the United States last fall in a Washington Post column titled "Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here" that became one of the Post's most-read pieces of 2021. We're lucky to have Kagan with us this week to discuss the ongoing crises of democracy at home and abroad as Russia's war on Ukraine continues to unfold. Kagan has argued th...

The war in Ukraine and the global response to Russia's invasion are dominating the news. But missing in much of the coverage is a sense of the country and its people. In this historic moment, we hear a riveting account of the country's recent political awakening and why Ukrainians are prepared to resist and fight. In the past century, Ukraine suffered massively during two world wars,  Nazi occupat...

Jane Lytvynenko hasn’t slept much in two weeks. From her home in Toronto, she is watching Russian troops invade and bombard her native Ukraine, threatening loved ones and friends. And it’s rattling her nerves. But through all that, Lytvynenko, a freelance journalist, remains hopeful. Siva speaks with her about the failures of world leaders to stand up to Vladimir Putin. Plus, we revisit a couple o...

This week on Our Body Politic, Farai talks with the parent of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. It’s been ten years since the tragedy, and the healing continues for families of the victims. Then, lighter wallets. Everyone's wallets are a little less full these days as inflation hits record highs - so what do we do? Farai talks about money strategies with personal finance gu...

Neil Roberts is Professor of Africana Studies and Faculty Affiliate in Political Science and Religion at Williams College. He’s working on a new book titled How To Live Free in an Age of Pessimism. We discuss the legacy of Charles Mills’ scholarship on the racial contract, freedom, and transforming society from the bottom up.   Racial Contract   White supremacy has shaped modern society in ways th...

"If we start creating compassionate ways of understanding and connecting with one another, then we will have the permanent motivation to live up to our espoused and aspirational ideals as a democracy," says Dr. Gail Christopher, author of the new book RX Racial Healing. Dr. Christopher joins us to discuss how we can approach addressing the effects of racism and reimagine more just and equitable ec...

Oregon became the first state to decriminalize drug possession. The goal is to reverse some of the negative impacts of the War on Drugs by approaching drug use from a health-centered basis. We visit an addiction and recovery center in Portland that’s gearing up for what they hope will be an influx of people seeking treatment. Reported by Cecilia Brown. Find a resource guide and annotated transcrip...

Best-selling author  Daniel Pink  admits he's pedaling against the wind. His new book, " The Power of Regret " takes on the longstanding and deeply ingrained doctrine that paying attention to our regrets is foolish. In this episode, we ask him why this notion is wrong. "No regrets" is the name or theme of countless books and popular songs. Bob Dylan, Angelina Jolie, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg all adv...

Many years each voter typically has 2 or more opportunities to have their voice heard and hold their elected officials accountable. But in non-presidential elections participation in some municipalities can be as low as 10%. "Decisions are made by those who show up." We'll talk about the power of each citizen to effect change and have their voice heard in their democracy! The Democracy Group and A...

We’re revisiting our conversation with Mark Rank, a poverty expert, professor, and author of Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty. We discuss the true causes and systemic nature of poverty, and poverty reduction as being both moral and smart public policy. Musical Chairs American poverty is a bit like a game of musical chairs. The US only has good opportunities for 8 out of 10...

On this week's show, Host Farai Chideya talks with Politico’s Sabrina Rodriguez and pollster Fernand Amandi about how the Latino vote in Florida could shape this year’s elections. Award-winning journalist and author Celeste Headlee explores structural change around race in public media, and how everyone can have conversations about race that matter. Executive Coach Caroline Kim Oh talks about coac...

This program is part of the  Created Equal and Breathing Free  podcast series presented in partnership with  Florida Humanities . Find this event online at The Village Square . A year-long project by  More in Common  came up with a description of most of America that a lot of us relate to: “the exhausted majority.” Everything has become political, high conflict, and seemingly inescapable as the el...

Center Co-Directors Bob Shrum and Mike Murphy join the Spring 2022 CPF Fellows to unpack the latest SCOTUS headlines and trends. They discuss everything from the Supreme Court’s denial of President Trump's executive privilege over the January 6 insurrection to their upholding Texas' abortion law to their blocking Biden’s federal vaccine mandate. They also explore what the growing division among th...

“A lot of those who’ve left the church tend to be younger people, who nonetheless still consider themselves spiritual. They’ve been turned off by churches, but they haven’t necessarily gone full atheist, materialist…” Religion is declining around the world. Even in America, the great outlier of the post-Christian West, half the population doesn’t believe in organised religion any more. But the los...