The Democracy Works podcast seeks to answer that question by examining a different aspect of democratic life each week — from voting to criminal justice to the free press and everything in between. We interview experts who study democracy, as well as people who are out there doing the hard work of democracy day in and day out. The show’s name comes from Pennsylvania’s long tradition of iron and steel works — people coming together to build things greater than the sum of their parts. We believe…
Subscribe:.rss.atom.json.md.m3u.pls
Live Last read · last published · next check
Saves to your Listen queue, to pick up on another day or another device.
Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change and democracy reform are structural. They are larger than any one person can solve on their own, yet we're bombarded with information about individual actions like attending a public meeting or lowering your carbon footprint. Do these individual actions even matter? Should we focus instead of…
Democracy Works host Candis Watts Smith joins Cara Santa Maria on the Talk Nerdy podcast to discuss her new book, Black Evidence: A History and a Warning . From Reconstruction to Redemption, from the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation to the execution of the Southern strategy, from 2020’s multiracial protests to the swift elimination of policies etching out a more inclusive society,…
From the COVID-19 pandemic to debates over vaccines and the Make America Healthy Again movement, politics and medicine are intertwined in ways not seen in previous generations. When politics enters the doctor's office, what does it mean for the health of our democracy? Julianna Pacheco is working to answer that questions and joins Democracy Works host Chris Beem for a conversation about medicine…
Danielle Allen's work straddles the line between past and present. On one hand, she's on the road this year talking about America's 250th anniversary in the context of her book on the Declaration of Independence. On the other hand, she's hard at work on Substack writing and talking about democracy reform (or renovation she calls it). She's also leading a coalition working to bring nonpartisan…
What is the role of higher education in a democracy? To what extent should American universities respond to the demands of those in power? Are we meeting this moment? As a former governor, cabinet secretary, and university president, Secretary Janet Napolitano is uniquely positioned to address these questions. She spoke with Michael Berkman, director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and…
Ayesha Rascoe, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday and Weekend Up First, joins us to discuss what it's like being a political reporter in a polarized country and what the "public" in public media looks like amid the loss federal funding. Rascoe joined NPR in 2018 and served as White House correspondent during the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. We talk about covering the…
Democracy is often framed as a battle between political candidates or parties that have opposing viewpoints and are trying to win over voters to join their side. However, there’s another way to think about democracy as a system of self governance that everyone shares and has a stake in preserving and protecting. Jeremy David Engels articulates the latter point of view in the book, On Mindful…
AI is changing many aspects of our lives, so it's reasonable to expect that it will impact democracy, too. The question is how? Two experts in technology and politics join us to discuss how we can harness AI's power to strengthen democracy. Yes, there will be deepfakes and automated misinformation, but there can also be greater opportunities for the government to serve people and for all of us to…
In the aftermath of the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, we explore how rising political divides are leading to bigger swings in America's foreign policy — and what that means for our future in the liberal international order. In her book Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Security, Rachel Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of…
While Democracy Works is on winter break, we're bringing you an episode from our colleagues at The Context , a podcast from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation and a fellow member of The Democracy Group podcast network. Host Alex Lovit looks back at the advice from the show's guests this year about how everyday people can get involved in fighting authoritarianism and encouraging citizen…
