RevDem Podcast

In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, political theorist Shuk Ying Chan (UCL) discusses her new book Postcolonial Global Justice (Princeton University Press, 2026), which develops an account of postcolonial global justice as social equality by thinking with anticolonial leaders Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah and JawaharlalNehru. Chan explains her method of “historically inflected normative theorising”, which treats specific historical actors as interlocutors in developing normative principles for the present. The discussion also explores how the nation-state was often an instrument used by these thinkers to pursue abroader ideal of relational equality, and Chan's conceptualisation of postcolonial global justice as a matter of social equality, focusing on the ability of individuals and groups to “stand as equals”. Finally, the conversation turns to contemporary problems of undemocratic global governanceand Chan's proposal to rethink global democracy in terms of horizontal inequalities of power between groups, rather than only a vertical gap between individuals and global institutions.

Artificial intelligence or the pandemics were two recentcrises framed as almost magical non-human actors. They both reshaped the boundaries of human agency. By now,the language explaining them is often one of rupture and unprecedented transformation. AI or COVID-19 were described as opaque, autonomous and difficult to control. Both were imagined as operating beyond ordinaryaccountability, while still exerting real effects on collective life. In that sense, the anxiety does not result only from the fear of machines or unknown germs. It concerns the displacement of agency and the fragility of human beings tasked with governing forces they did not design and do not fully understand. Humans are unsettled when power seems to migrate beyond the human subject.Yet the fear of the non-human as a destabilising force isnot new. What we would like to pinpoint in our series it that societies, when confronted with such moments of rupture, authorize forms of exclusion and violence based on (ir)rationalism. Our focus throughout this series will fallon the vampire and witchcraft epidemics. European societies once confronted witches, revenants and vampires as threats to moral and political order. These figures emerged at moments of epidemic disease, religious fracture andinstitutional weakness. They offered an explanation for crisis. This new dossier revisits those episodes of collectiveanxiety. Whilst the differences between AI, pandemics and zombies, witches and undead are substantial, these moments reveal the fragile boundary between the rational state and collective hysteria. The imagery resulted can be a finebarometer of the how states respond when agency seems to escape human control or what mechanisms of blame, purification and boundary-drawing are activated.In our first podcast of this series, we discuss with Prof. John Blair, around his latest book Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, published by Princeton University Press. John Blair reconstructs a world in which the dead were not metaphor but menace. His bookfollows the concept of restless bodies which stirred various social anxieties and created symbolic meanings.Drawing on both archeological sources and written sources,Prof. John Blair traces how reports of revenants and vampires spread across medieval England and later in Saxony, Bohemia and Transylvania. A particular revealing case is masticatione mortuorum (mastication of the dead), which meant the corpses that eat themselves. The book does not treat theseepisodes as a form of superstition. Instead, John Blair sees them as anthropological facts which are embedded in localconflicts and in turn reveal fragile systems of authority.Whilst one of the core tenets of Enlightenment was tofight superstition and Maria Theresa issued a ban on corpse-killing, John Blair underlines that the shifts were much more gradual. Reason did not replace fear.Blair shows that accusations of the undead surfaced where institutions were weak and explanations scarce. The exhumed body became a site of negotiation between fear and governance, even during the Enlightenment. What appearsirrational from a distance emerges, under scrutiny, as a structured response to crisis.

What counts as “real” participation in a revolution? To what extent does gender in a revolution nowadays? What are the outcomes of mass mobilization? How do Ukrainian women participate in a revolution? In our podcast, we attemptto find an answer to these questions with Olena Nikolayenko around her latest book, Invisible Revolutionaries: Women'sParticipation in Ukraine's Euromaidan.  Published in April 2025 by Cambridge University Press, her research focuses on the women's participation in the Ukrainian Euromaidan. In the podcast, Olena Nikolayenko places women's protest within a broader framework, which includes the Arab Spring and Belarus.Her claim is that age, class, region and political experience shape women's forms of engagement. Based on these observation, Invisible Revolutionaries distinguishesbetween three models of participation: patriarchal, emancipatory, and hybrid.The methodology received a particular focus in our conversation. The Ukrainian Euromaidan was accuratelydocumented through multiple projects, such as the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance's Maidan: Oral History  and Maidan.Testimonies. As art is equally a key component duringrevolutions, Olena Nikolayenko presents the main artistic projects of the Revolution of Dignity. Olena Nikolayenko claims that Euromaidan is not a singular moment in history. Instead, it belongs within the Ukrainian's longer history of women's activism, which starts from the 1917-1921 Ukrainian revolution to Orange Revolution. However, this legacy remained largely invisible in the English-language historiography. In this context, the conversation ends by emphasizing possible avenues. Researchers dealing with this topic should investigate the relationship between gender andnonviolence, and how nonviolent resistance participation influences subsequent engagement in armed conflict. The question of how women's activism evolves fromcultural and civic resistance to armed defense of national identity remains particularly relevant given Ukraine's ongoing struggle.

Ecuador has experienced one of the most dramatic surges in criminal violence in Latin America, alongside growing pressure on democratic institutions. In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast—produced in cooperation with the Journalof Democracy—Gabriel Pereira speaks with Galo Mayorga and Kai M. Thaler about how state weakness, militarized security policies, and public fear are reshaping Ecuador's democracy. The conversation explores the roots ofEcuador's crisis, President Daniel Noboa's hardline response to crime, the risks of democratic erosion, and what Ecuador's experience reveals about the broader regional struggle to confront organized crime without sacrificing democratic guardrails.

Honduras has just gone through one of the most chaotic and contested electoral processes in recent memory. In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, GabrielPereira speaks with Rachel A. Schwartz about her recent Journal of Democracy article, “Why Honduras Is Facing Election Chaos.” They examine how logistical failures, elite conflict, and long-term democratic erosion combinedto produce uncertainty over the outcome, how US backing shaped post-election politics, and what the new government may mean for Honduras's democratic future.

As Review of Democracy turns its attention from 2025 to the uncertainties of 2026, our editors Adrian Matus (Democracy and Culture) and Anubha Anushree (Cross-Regional Dialogue) discuss the intellectual questions that might shape the year ahead. Building on RevDem's End of the Year Podcast 2025- Part I, the discussion focuses on the democratic developments, underestimated risks for democracy, includingAI literacy, an increasingly transactional political landscape, the emergence of contentious politics, and also the politization of education. The conversation also highlights questions that are yet to be solved in 2026: how should we understand the notion of authorship nowadays? How is the 'grammar' of democracy changing? Check our explorative conversation of the realm of possibilities of 2026.

What does it mean to feel “at home” in aplace, and why does that matter for democracy? In this episode, historianJeremy DeWaal talks about Heimat, a German word that is famously hard to translate. It is often rendered as “home” or “homeland”, but it also points to a deeper sense of belonging, memory and emotional attachment to specificplaces. Drawing on his book Geographiesof Renewal: Heimat and Democracy in West Germany, 1945–1990 (Cambridge University Press), DeWaal explores different meanings of Heimat and explains how Heimat shaped post-war debates about democracy, federalism and Europe. Theconversation also looks at the role of expellee politics and the Anti-Heimat movement of the 1960s, and connects these histories to current debates about identity, migration, and nationalism. The discussion concludes with a reflectionon what the history of Heimat can reveal about the politics of place today.

In the Soviet Union, youth fashion meant more than just a way of expression. In our latest episode, we discusswith Alla Myzelev about the stiliagi, a flamboyant youth subculture that emerged in the late Stalinist and early post-Stalinist Soviet Union.Myzelev situates the stiliagi not simply as fashion-conscious rebels, but as a distinctly embodied and aesthetic form of dissent that challengeddominant socialist norms of respectability, discipline, and masculinity.Through their brightly coloured clothing, enthusiasm for jazz, and stylised modes of self-presentation, stiliagi exposed the fragility of Soviet ideals of the “proper” socialist male citizen. Rather than overt political opposition, their subversion operated through taste, leisure, and the body,revealing how cultural practices could quietly unsettle authoritarian norms even in highly regulated societies.Part II of the podcast emphasizes the differenttypes of primary sources used to investigate such a rich phenomenon. As well, it discusses the latest developments in the field of creative dissent, particularly Julianne Fürst's book Flowers Through Concrete. Lastly, Alla Myzelev explores what questions within the field remain unresolved.

Over the last two years, the world has witnessed atrocities beyond imagination. The killing of approximately 1,200 people by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, was followed by a genocidal war in which the Israeli Defense Forces have, according to recent reports, killed over 67,000 Palestinians — nearly a third of them children. Israel's military hasdamaged or destroyed more than 90% of homes in Gaza and left countless people with life-altering physical and psychological injuries. Shocking as this is, Israel'sactions in Gaza have been met with overwhelming silence or even support from Western liberal democracies, which often portray themselves as champions of peace and a rules-based international order. Having warned of this potentialearly on, in this conversation Prof. Omer Bartov argues that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and criticizes Western leaders for their complicity.

In this episode of the Review of Democracy Podcast,historians Tara Zahra and Pieter Judson discuss their book TheGreat War and the Transformation of Habsburg Central Europe (Oxford University Press, 2025), which presents an intriguing reinterpretation of the First World War and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. Rather than treatingthe war as a mere endpoint or the Empire's dissolution as inevitable, the conversation explores how wartime social and political transformations reshaped everyday life and reconfigured relations between state and society. The episode examines fears of democratisation and elite decision-making, the management of refugees and mass displacement, and the emergence of new welfare practices and administrative experiments, showing how these processes laid the foundations for the post-1918 order. By foregrounding shared experiences of scarcity,mobilisation, and repression across the Monarchy, the discussion examines what the Empire's often improvised wartime policies reveal about processes ofdisintegration as well as unexpected capacities for adaptation.

In the Soviet Union, youth fashion meant more than just a way of expression. In our latest episode, we discusswith Alla Myzelev about the stiliagi, a flamboyant youth subculture that emerged in the late Stalinist and early post-Stalinist Soviet Union.Myzelev situates the stiliagi not simply as fashion-conscious rebels, but as a distinctly embodied and aesthetic form of dissent that challenged dominant socialist norms of respectability, discipline, and masculinity.Through their brightly coloured clothing, enthusiasm for jazz, and stylised modes of self-presentation, stiliagi exposed the fragility of Soviet ideals of the “proper” socialist male citizen. Rather than overt political opposition, their subversion operated through taste, leisure, and the body,revealing how cultural practices could quietly unsettle authoritarian norms even in highly regulated societies.Part I of the podcast emphasizes how gender andsexuality complicate standard readings of youth subcultures as purely liberatory. Myzelev stresses that stiliagimasculinities were both transgressive and ambivalent: while rejecting militarised postwar Soviet masculinity, they often reproduced hierarchies through consumerism, serial relationships, and the objectification of women.

In our latest episode of the special series producedin partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we discuss the recent article co-authored by Benjamin Gedan and Elias French, entitled “The Threat to Latin American Term Limits” (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, No.4, October 2025)The desire of leaders to remain in office indefinitelyhas haunted democracy since its inception. Politicians have found various ways to circumvent democratic accountability and sideline the people's will for a change in leadership, from military coups to rigged elections or the installation of puppet leaders. One of the most widely used tools to constrainsuch practices is the establishment of presidential term limits. Many of today's constitutions impose a limit on the number of times a person can run for office. However, as the Mexican experience with the practice of el dedazo shows, term limits and regular changes in the presidency are no guarantee of democratic turnover. Creative lawyers have often found legalpathways to circumvent such prohibitions. Benjamin Gedan and Elias French explain how, today, the judiciary is increasingly being used to challenge provisions that limit the amount of time individuals can serve as heads of theexecutive. Analyzing cases from Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia, and El Salvador, they show how constitutional courts have undermined this key safeguard of democratic survival, often by weaponizing international law and citizens' political rights.

As 2025 draws to a close, RevDem editors Alexandra Kardos(History of Ideas), Gabriel Pereira (Cross-Regional Dialogue), and Kristóf Szombati (Political Economy and Inequalities) take stock of a turbulent democratic year through three keywords: imagination, frustration, and realignment. From Latin America's shifting right and disillusionment with democratic “delivery” to renewed geopolitical pressuresand the growing visibility of China, they reflect on what is changing, why it matters, and what gets lost when Europe remains intellectually inward-looking.The conversation also highlights where democratic energy still surfaces—in civic mobilisation, investigative journalism, and grassroots organising. These reflections set the stage for Part II, which turns from diagnosis to the priorities and risks shaping democracy in 2026.

In this latest conversation with Golnar Nikpour, we discuss her book, The Incarcerated Modern: Prisons and Public Life in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2024). We discuss how modern Iranian prisons illuminate broader questions about political modernity, state formation, and democratic aspiration. The conversation examines the contemporary stakes of the book'spublication and its intervention in debates on authoritarianism, penal reform, and democracy, while probing the author's concept of the “public life” of prisons as active producers of political subjectivity and belonging. Thedialogue questions the analytical distinction between political and ordinary prisoners, using this to reflect on how societies define the “political” and confront the ethics of incarceration. It also foregrounds the foundational roleof institutions like Qasr prison in shaping Iran's modern state and explores the transnational circulation of penal ideas that informed Iran's carceral system. Further, it delves into the tension between secular and religious framings of incarceration, the paradoxes of technocratic reformism andharm-reduction strategies under authoritarian regimes, and the criteria by which the modern Iranian carceral project might be understood as a “failure.”The conversation positions prisons as key sites where democratic hopes, disciplinary projects, and visions of social order converge and collide.

In this exclusive end-of-year conversation with ourCo-Managing Editor Ece Özbey, Nobel Prize–winning political economist Daron Acemoğlu reflects on what 2025 revealed, and failed to resolve, about the state of democracy. From Trump's global impact to the limits of personalizedpolitics, from institutional decay to AI-driven distortions of political judgment, he explores why liberal democracy is struggling across regions and where renewal might still begin. He offers a concise yet wide-ranging assessment of democracy's present, defined by the widening gap between ambitious promises and lived outcomes—and the uncertainty ahead.

The threat of the far-right dominates politics in Germany today. The ascendance of the AfD marks the first time since the end of World War II that such a force has attracted a considerable share of the German electorate. This regularly leads politicians from centrist parties to emphasizethe importance of preventing German history from repeating itself. However, these same actors have simultaneously brought far-right policies into the mainstream and adopted practices that resemble the playbook of autocrats. Suchpractices have been particularly visible in the repression of pro-Palestinian voices over the last two years. In recent articles, Prof. Robin Celikates has argued that these developments indicate an authoritarian turn in contemporaryGermany.In part 1 of this podcast, Prof. Celikates discussed the German government's repression of pro-Palestinian protests and voices, Germany's broader protest culture, and the notion of Staatsräson.The second part focuses on the role that the weaponization of antisemitism—or, as some have called it, “anti-antisemitism”—plays in fueling racism, real antisemitism, and underminingfreedom of expression. The discussion concludes with an analysis of whether contemporary Germany might be trending toward authoritarianism.

"We care witnessing in the digital news reports a major shift since the COVID-19 crisis. (…). During the COVID crisis, the main information source became social media. With social media, you have many, many difficulties in finding the rightinformation or the correct information”, stated Raluca Radu, a Professor of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Bucharest, speaker for the Budapest Forum and contributor to the Reuters Institute Digital Report.  In a conversation for the Review of Democracy, she explains how social platforms like TikTok, WhatsApp groups, and AI-driven chatbots reconfigure the trust towards information. As Raluca Radu clearly emphasizes, COVID-19 marked a shiftin media consumption. During the pandemic, the main source of information became the short-form video content on platforms such as TikTok. Some newsrooms recognized that their audiences migrated elsewhere and rushed to follow. They tried to adapt to this changing landscape by establishing social media presence. By now, social media is not only an additional channel of dissemination but, in some cases, the only way to reach citizens who do not read traditional websites or watch TV. Thus, social media and algorithmsredefine the public sphere worldwide. This poses new problems. Whilst seemingly the AI data appears to be neutral, it might often be biased. Thus, this shift might need new conceptual approaches. Throughout her research, Raluca Radu puts a strong emphasis on the topic of trust. As she explains, this concept can be extremely valuable. For instance,  trust in media tends to decrease duringpolitical crises, particularly when politicians attack media companies. Economic divides complicate this already fragile situation. The misinformation and radicalization is also created by the lack of access to good quality information. Whilst the Nordic countries show high subscription rates and mediatrust, the Romanian model follows a different model. Here, the audiences expect free and high-quality information. In this context, investigative journalism relies more often on crowdfunding than on paywalls. Consequences are visible. Romania's 2024 elections showed that the rise of fringe political figures such as Călin Georgescu was driven less by overt campaigning (grassroots) than coordinated comment networks and WhatsApp chains (known as astroturfing). The comments on the posts were often AI-generated. Such tactics were much more difficult to spot by researchers and electoral regulators. Raluca Radu is not merely diagnosing the problem. Instead, as a researcher in PROMPT, she is contributing to developingan AI-assisted tool that tracks harmful narratives across languages and platforms. Throughout the podcast, Raluca Radu's emphasis is that the public sphere seems to be fragmented, but not beyond repair. Understanding the newframeworks of information consumption is the first step towards building strong, trustworthy content.

In this episode, Pedro Abramovay offers a wide-ranging analysis of the rise of illiberal forces in Latin America and the democratic vulnerabilities they exploit. Drawing on theBrazilian experience, he discusses what is genuinely new about today's illiberal actors, why they resonate with voters, and why resisting them requires more than electoral victories. Abramovay argues for reimagining democracy itself—recovering its promise, renewing its agenda, and building stronger alliances across civil society.

We are thrilled to bring you the next episode of our monthly special in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy. Inthe framework of this new partnership, our editors discuss outstanding articles from the newest print issue of the journal with their authors. In this discussion with Nate Schenkkan, an independentauthority on human rights and global authoritarianism and former senior director of research at Freedom House,we examine the growing issue of transnationalrepression—a practice wherein states pursue individuals and groups beyond their own borders whom they regard as threats to those in power. Although much of the international public's awareness stems from prominent incidents such asthe assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, our discussion underscores the significance of more routine methods, including digital intimidation and attempts to suppress dissent among diaspora communities. We examine the factors that contribute to the rise of transnational repression and outline strategies to protecttargets, such as digital security, diaspora organizing, and theimportance of local-level initiatives in building community defenses against state harassment.

The threat of the far-right dominates politics in Germany today. The ascendance of the AfD marks the first time since the end of World War II that such a force has attracted a considerable share of the German electorate. This regularly leads politicians from centrist parties to emphasizethe importance of preventing German history from repeating itself. However, these same actors have simultaneously brought far-right policies into the mainstream and adopted practices that resemble the playbook of autocrats. Suchpractices have been particularly visible in the repression of pro-Palestinian voices over the last two years. In recent articles, Prof. Robin Celikates has argued that these developments indicate an authoritarian turn in contemporaryGermany.In Part 1 of this podcast, Prof. Celikates examines the German government's repression of pro-Palestinian protests and voices, discusses Germany's broader protest culture, and reflects on the notion of Staatsräson.

On 1 June 2025, Karol Nawrocki, an independent candidate backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party, was elected President of Poland. His victory came as a surprise to many in the country. Some pinned it on widespread disenchantment with what was perceived as an overly lengthy implementation of reforms aimed at restoring the rule of law – a key issue the ruling coalition had campaigned on.In response to these critiques, on 24 July, Prime Minister Donald Tusk carried out a government reshuffle, which saw Adam Bodnar replaced as Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General by the former judge Waldemar Żurek.In this podcast, Jakub Jaraczewski examines the progress the Bodnar ministry made in undoing the consequences of eight years of Law and Justice rule. He also discusses thechallenges that lie ahead for Minister Żurek, with Nawrocki being widely seen as more confrontational than his predecessor in the Presidential Palace, Andrzej Duda.

In this conversation with Professor Maya Tudor—part of our special series produced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy—we discuss her recent article published in the journal's October 2025 issue (Vol. 36, No. 4). Tudor explores the factors behind the recent, alleged erosion of democratic ideals worldwide. Drawing on her experiences as an educator, Tudor argues that today's decline in trust in democracy stems from misconceptions about its achievements—such as expanding education, extending life expectancy, promoting relative peace, and fostering economic progress. Challenging the belief that autocracies deliver more effectively on these outcomes, she contends that such regimes are often short-lived and unstable. Tudor ultimately urges us to view democracy not as a purely normative ideal, but as a pragmatic system best suited to advancing human well-being.Maya Tudor is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Fellow of St. Hilda's College, University of Oxford. She is the author of The Promise of Power: The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Varieties of Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2023), as well as numerous articles in academic journals and popular media outlets.The interview was conducted Anubha Anushree. Lilith Hakobyan edited the audio file.

To what extent does Zohran Mamdani's recent election represent a turn in American politics? In an interview for the Review of Democracy, Fabian Holt (Associate Professor at Roskilde University) discusses the political platform that made Zohran Mamdani's victory possible. Throughout our conversation, Holt maps the evolution of the Democratic Socialists of America, as presented in his latest book “Organize or Burn: How New York Socialists Fight for Climate Survival”, published last month by NYU Press.  Throughout the podcast, you can hear the reasons why Holt became interested in studying DSA, as his initial focus was on music festivals and their relationship to the neoliberal framework. As he notes, Organize or Burn is the firstethnographic work on DSA. The discussion then focuses on the strengths and limitations of conducting ethnographic fieldwork on such an evolving phenomenon.  Holt argues that first-hand experience is essential in understanding grassroots movements. Another point tackled in the podcast is climate apathy and how the DSA sought to raise awareness about climate change in a sustained way. As Fabian Holt argues, thisis the meaning behind his book's title, Organize or Burn, which captures a key component of DSA's campaign to support Mamdani.For those interested in better understanding how the DSA shaped its discourse and expanded its base, this podcast can provide a good insight. As well, it answers the question to what extent this movement is bound to large cities or canaddress a broader electorate.

In this new episode of the “When the Far Right and the Far Left Converge” series, which shares fresh research from aworkshop organised by the CEU DI Democracy in History Work Group, we discuss with Dr Ashton Kingdon and Dr BalšaLubarda how both the far right and the far left mobilise ecological ideas, often drawing from the same language of resistance. Based on their paper “Co-optationwithout Ownership: The Idea of Resistance in Multimodal Radical Right and Left Ecological Argumentation,” the conversation explores how environmentalismbecomes a battleground of competing ideologies, revealing surprising overlaps in how radical movements frame their struggle against perceived systems of oppression. The episode also examines how the use of similar imagery bydifferent groups can become dangerous in democracies, leading to confusion or disorientation among citizens and making it harder to interpret images and slogans outside their original context.

In this episode of our special series produced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we explore “AI's Real Dangers for Democracy,” the new article penned by Dean Jackson and Samuel Woolley (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, No. 4, October 2025)Jackson and Woolley discuss the ways in which AI could strain, or even crack, the foundations of democracies; reflect on how the debate surrounding AI is structured and how it has evolved; and recommend practical steps through whichthose potential harms could be limited.The podcast was recorded on October 9, the same day when Jackson and Wooley published an analysis in TheGuardian on how AI threatens elections.

In the opening episode of Review ofDemocracy's new podcast series on EU-funded research, Alexandra Kardos speaks with Professor Zsolt Boda, Director of the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, about the MORES Moral Emotions in Politics  project, a Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action exploring how emotions shapedemocratic life. The conversation delves into the project's central ideas of moral emotions and moralised political identities, the dangers of both emotional detachment and over-emotionalization in politics, and how thesedynamics influence trust, polarisation, and civic engagement. Professor Boda also discusses MORES' innovative tools – including MORES Pulse AI – designed to help policymakers, journalists, and citizens navigate the emotional undercurrents of contemporary democracy by assessing the moral-emotional tone of their own or others' communication.

In our podcast, Rachel Myrick, the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University, discusses with us how extreme partisan polarization threatens not only domestic governance but also global stability. Drawing on her new book, Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability (Princeton University Press, 2025), Myrick argues that polarization in democracies affects foreign policymaking.The conversation begins with a striking example:each year, the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group publishes a list of the world's top geopolitical risks. The 2024 report placed as the highest risk not the Russian aggression, Middle Eastern conflict, but ‘the United States versus itself'. This diagnosis, Myrick suggests, encapsulates the central claim of her book: extreme party polarization erodes the institutional foundations that once made democracies stable and credible actors abroad. Throughout the podcast, the author unfolds how polarization affects the three pillars that democracies used to have in international relations: the ability to keep foreign policystable over time, to credibly signal information to adversaries and the reliability with partners in international politics. Then, the discussion moves to the ways in which polarization affects foreign policies. In a healthy democracy, leaders are incentivized to provide public goods and act in the national interest.Instead, in extremely polarized environments, politicians do not „target messaging at the median voter and instead work to mobilize their political base”. Voters increasingly view politics as a contest between moral enemies rather than legitimate rivals, caring more about their side's victorythan about performance or accountability. While the United States provides her primary example, Myrick points to similar patterns across Europe. In younger democracies such as Hungary or Poland, polarisation fuels “executive aggrandizement,” as ruling parties rewrite rules to secure permanent advantage.In established democracies, it simply makes governments less predictable partners internationally. Rachel Myrick ends the conversation with a warning: the greatest threat to international order may no longer come from authoritarian powers, but from democracies unable to govern themselves and to be effective partners.

The end of the last century brought about what scholars have called a “unipolar moment.” With the fall of the Soviet Union, liberalism lost its enemy on the global stage, which led the United States to try to establish an international liberal order by promoting liberalism transnationally. This latter approach has not only been harshly criticized for often being executed hypocritically and sometimes causing disastrous wars, but also ultimately seems to have failed. While Cold War restorationism might be dangerous and mistaken, today's world again features different authoritarian global powers, with the U.S. seemingly on the path to becoming one itself. Moreover, while democracy promotion by Westernliberal states is deteriorating, scholars have argued that authoritarian powers are increasing their collaboration on theglobal stage to extend authoritarian rule across space and time. In this conversation, Professors Alexander Dukalskisand Alexander Cooley argue that the project to spread liberalism around the world has caused a snapback, in which authoritarian regimes aim to capture and repurpose the actors, tools, and norms once created by liberal democracies for their own ends. Their book, Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics, was published byOxford University Press in September 2025.

Anna Dobrowolska's new book Polish Sexual Revolutions. Negotiating Sexuality and Modernity behind the Iron Curtain, published at the Oxford University Press this year, reveals fresh perspectives in the scholarship about the socialist states. In our podcast, she explains how Poland and Eastern Europe developed their own distinct approaches to sexual modernity under state socialism.While Western observers assumed sexual liberation was incompatible with communist rule, Poland was quietly developing its own sophisticated approach to sexual modernity. In her book, Anna Dobrowolska aimed to map these differences and nuances. Throughout the conversation, we learn that the conventional narrative of state oppression versus societal resistance proves to be inadequate when examining Poland's sexual revolution. Dobrowolska's archival research reveals a complex ecosystem of actors: sexologists, journalists, cultural institutions, who negotiated sexual discourse largely independent of central party directives. These middle-level negotiations created unexpected spaces for sexual expression within the socialist framework, as the book shows. Perhaps most surprisingly, censorship archives reveal that sexual content often received official approval precisely because it served broader state modernisation goals. Conservative citizens frequently petitioned authorities for stricter moral oversight, only to find officials defending more liberal positions.

Borders are rarely born in conference halls. As thenewly edited book The Disputed Austro-Hungarian Border: Agendas, Actors, and Practices in Western Hungary/Burgenland after World War I, published this yearby Bergahn Books shows that the borders are created by wars and conflicts and then changed by clerks, soldiers, smugglers and villagers trying to make sense of a new world order. By focusing on one of the seemingly post-1918 quieter frontiers, the line separating Austria from Hungary, the bookchallenges the narrative that the Treaty of Trianon neatly decided everything with a stroke of the pen. As two of the editors, Hannes Grandits and Katharina Tyran underline throughout our podcast, the creation of Burgenlandwas a complicated process stretching over several years, entangling ideology, class and everyday survival. The volume's nine chapters, written by Ibolya Murber, Michael Burri, Ferenc Jankó, Sabine Schmitner-Laszakovits, Gábor Egry, Melinda Harlov-Csortán, Katharina Tyran, Hannes Grandits and Ursula K. Mindler-Steiner, explore this border-making through a tangle of sources from international commission reports, localtestimonies to administrative records. Hannes Grandits notes that although the decision to transfer parts of western Hungary to Austria was made in 1919, it remained unimplemented for nearly two years. In the meantime, loyalties shifted, black markets thrived, and even a brief Bolshevik experiment in Hungary complicated the decision-making process.Throughout this period, identities shifted. Katharina Tyran provides the example of Ivan Dobrović, a Croatian culturalactivist who changed the spelling of his name depending on context. As she emphasizes, this small act captures the fluid identities the new nation-states tried to erase. Other contributors trace the social consequences. The Esterházyfamily saw their estates shrink; local bureaucrats slipped down the social ladder; peasants and artisans, newly politicised, wavered between social democracy and nationalism. Minority communities, Croats, Jews, Roma, foundthemselves suddenly reclassified by powers that barely understood them. This book reads the border negotiation as an anatomy of transition. The conclusion of our conversation is that borders are not only documents, but lived experiences, shaped by people who rarely appear in diplomatic archives. The lesson ofBurgenland is that borders are performed, contested and reimagined every day.

In this episode, we sit down with Professor Mohammad Ali Kadivar to explore the urgent and timely question of popular protests amid global democratic backsliding. Drawing from his acclaimed monograph, Popular Politics and thePath to Durable Democracy, Kadivar poses the following questions: What role does dissent play in sustaining democracies? Do protests reinforce or underminedemocratic institutions? The book offers a compelling and often counterintuitive analysis of how mass mobilizations shape democratic trajectories. Through a rich comparative lens—examining cases from Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Poland—Kadivar argues that prolonged prodemocratic mobilizations can in fact fortify democracies. Rather than destabilizing political systems, these extended collective protest movements build the organizational infrastructure and civic capacity necessary for democratic consolidation.Kadivar emphasizes that sustained mobilization fosters stable leadership, cultivates diverse civic participation, and compels states to engage meaningfully with popular demands. By revisiting pivotal uprisings, such as the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, this conversation reveals underexploreddynamics at the heart of democratic transitions—and challenges conventional assumptions about the disruptive role of protest.

In our latest episode of the special series producedin partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we discuss the recent article co-authored by Jennifer Cyr, Nic Cheeseman and Matías Bianchi, entitled “The Myth of Democratic Resilience” (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, No.3, July 2025)In recent years, populist political actors with authoritarian ambitions have been on the rise worldwide, challenging democratic systems from within. This has fueled debate about how resilient such systems are when anti-democratic actors hold power. The question of whether a secondTrump presidency would mark the end of U.S. democracy as we know it remains contested, while it is still uncertain whether Polish democracy can fully recover from the eight years of authoritarian rule under the PiS party. In thisconversation, Jennifer Cyr and Nic Cheeseman reflect on why projects of re-democratization after periods of authoritarian rule often fail in the long term. Drawing on data from the past thirty years, they argue that although democratic coalitions may return to power following autocratization, the vastmajority of these “democratic recoveries” have ultimately failed.

This episode, part of the series When the Far Right and the FarLeft Converge, features Francesco Trupia and Marina Simakova discussing the ideological co-optation of Antonio Gramsci's ideas by the contemporary (far-)right. They examine when and how right-wing actors adopted his political language, and how political conjunctures in and beyond Europe have shaped this process. The conversation also considers differing interpretations of Gramsciamong the traditional left and liberal authors, both within global academia and beyond. Finally, Trupia and Simakova reflect on the roles of Gramsci's concepts of “hegemony” and “subaltern” in debates around some of today's most urgentconflicts, including Russia's war against Ukraine.

In the second part of our special two-part episode ofthe Review of Democracy podcast, we continue our conversation with André Borges, Ryan Lloyd, and Gabriel Vommaro, editors of The Recasting of the Latin American Right, published by Cambridge University Press.Building on our first discussion of parties, movements, and leaders, this episode turns to the demand side of the region's political transformation. We explore how voters' attitudes, cultural conflicts, and deepening polarization are reshaping right-wing politics across Latin America.We also examine the societal forces driving the rise of conservative and radical right actors — from debates over gender and security to the dynamics ofpolarization. Finally, we connect these regional trends to developments in other parts of the world, reflecting on Latin America's place within the broader global surge of right-wing politics.

In this special two-part episode of the Review of Democracypodcast, we speak with André Borges, Ryan Lloyd, and Gabriel Vommaro, editors of the book The Recasting of the Latin American Right, recently published by Cambridge University Press.The conversation explores how Latin America's right has been reshaped since the early 2000s — from the rise of new political parties and movements to the growing role of voters and cultural conflicts.In part 1, we focus on the supply side: parties, movements, and leaders redefining right-wing politics in the region. In part two, we turn to the demand side, examining voters, polarization, and the societal forces driving this transformation.Join us as we map out the new generations of conservative and radical right-wing actors that are changing the political landscape across Latin America — and consider what this means for the future of democracy.

Migration is one of the most salient issues in European politics today. While its importance for voting decisions is widely acknowledged, many of its key characteristics remain the subject of vivid debate. Opinions about migration often diverge sharply: Does migration pose a threat to European societies, or is it essential for economic survival? Arepublic attitudes becoming more hostile, or more welcoming? Should European countries restrict migration, or embrace it? Competing narratives seem to strongly shape migration policy and the laws through which it is implemented.In this conversation, Prof. Andrew Geddes analyzes different narratives on migration and the role they play in policymaking, as well as the rise of right-wing populist actors across Europe. The discussion starts with the question of what narratives are and how they emerge. Prof. Geddes explains that narratives help people make sense of complexities through storytelling, in which plausibility might often matter more than accuracy.However, narratives are also a deeper expression of people's worldviews and values, through which facts, evidence, and information are filtered. Since worldviews and values are very important to people and often formed early in life, Prof.Geddes points out that narratives tend to be resistant. The frequently made demand that narratives should simply be changed or replaced therefore seems more difficult to realize than is often suggested. The conversation then focuses on the 1990s, a period in which the overall discourse on migration grew more hostile and the narrative of migration as a security threat emerged. At that time, the Austrianpolitician Jörg Haider—often seen as a precursor to today's right-wing populists—was heavily criticized in European politics. Today, however, his successors exert strong influence on European policymaking, and positions that would have been deemed unacceptable not long ago have entered the mainstream political debate. This shift indicates what many observers describe as the mainstreaming of the far right. However, contrary to what one might discern from public discourse, research by Prof. Geddes and his colleague Prof. James Dennison suggests that European attitudes towardmigration have likely grown more positive over the last thirty years. Their explanation for the rise of anti-immigrant parties in Europe is the sharp increase in the salience of immigration among some voters. While attitudes toward migration may have been more negative decades ago, they were lesselectorally decisive at the time. The constant increase in the salience of migration has thus allowed anti-immigrant parties to win by activating pre-existing opposition to immigration amongst a shrinking segment of the populations of western European states. Prof. Geddes warns that simply tellingpeople who have concerns about immigration—whether legitimate or not—that they are mistaken can harden these positions. Nevertheless, there remains room to shape narratives on migration differently by highlighting the many positive aspects.

When the first treaties that laid the groundwork for today's European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights were signed after the Second World War, many of today's member states were still significant colonialpowers—empires. It was only in the years that followed that these European empires eroded, and many countries in the Global South gained independence.However, while colonialism formally ended, many have argued that coloniality has persisted. Although this applies to different areas, one of the most important is migration governance. Here, European countries have been accusedof replacing explicitly racialized mechanisms with a facially race-neutral apparatus that nonetheless constitutes a system of neocolonial racial borders that benefits some and disadvantages others.In this conversation, Prof. Janine Silga analyzes thecolonial roots of the European migration system, highlights the continuities between the system before and after the formal end of colonialism, and discusses possible ways to overcome coloniality in EU law. The conversation begins with a focus on the nineteenth century, when large-scale migration took place across, for example, the British Empire. Prof. Silga explains that migration from colonized countries to Europe occurred primarily because colonial powers required cheap labor. At the same time, large numbers of Europeans began establishing settlements in the colonized world. These migrants could today be described as economic migrants, since they primarily left Europe to improve their economic circumstances—a reason for migration that Europeanstates now heavily contest when it occurs in the opposite direction. The conversation then shifts to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Western states adopted increasingly hostile stances toward migration and laid the foundations for a system of ostensibly race-neutral borders that nevertheless enabled racialized control over access to the benefits of colonial exploitation. The second part of the discussion examines colonial continuities in Europe's contemporary migration system. Among other issues, Prof. Silga addresses the problem of “racial aphasia”—a term coined by Prof. Tendayi Achiume to describe the lack of debate about the role of race in migration law.The final part of the discussion explores potential ways to overcome both the colonial past and its ongoing legacies. Prof. Silga describes decoloniality as a broad and non-monolithic concept and movement that recognizes race as the central organizing principle of coloniality—a principle that hierarchizes human beings and sustains not only asymmetrical global power relations but also a singular Eurocentric epistemology. Decoloniality, therefore, is fundamentally concerned with the decolonization of knowledge and ways of knowing.

In our latest episode of the special series produced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we discuss the recent article co-authored by Steven Levitsky, Semuhi Sinanoglu, and Lucan Way, entitled “Can Capitalism SaveDemocracy?” (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, No. 3, July 2025). We engage this provocative piece against the backdrop of recent shifts in industrialized countries, where the private sector has assumed an increasinglyprominent political role. Way and Sinanoglu contend that the private sector can empower democracies by fostering creative competition. They argue that capitalism generates an autonomous business class, broadens economicopportunities, and mobilizes resources that in turn strengthen democratic institutions and expand civic participation. Drawing on both historical precedent and contemporary politics, the authors reflect on capitalism'senduring imperfections while presenting it as a plausible—if contested—force for democratic change worldwide.

In this episode of Democracy and Culture, we speak with Dan Edelstein, William H. Bonsall Professor of French at StanfordUniversity, about his new book The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Stasis to Lenin (Princeton University Press, 2025). His academic investigations range across literary studies, historiography, political thought and digital humanities. Throughout our conversation, we focuson providing a new understanding of the concept of revolution. In his latest book, by tracing the conceptual distinction between stasis and metabolē through Roman, medieval, and Renaissance thought, he recovers the overlooked role of Polybius in shaping the constitutional imagination of early modern Europe. In our podcast, Edelstein explains how the perception of revolution shifted from a destabilizing event to a future-oriented project tied to Enlightenment ideas of historical progress. As well, another point of discussion is howpolitical actors re-interpreted revolutions through inherited “scripts”. The podcast also focuses on the recurring modern pattern in which revolutions consolidate around a single leader. By situating revolutions in a longue durée conceptual history, Edelstein challenges us to see them not as sudden breaks, but as episodes in an evolving, centuries-long dialogue between inherited political imaginaries and the real events.Edelstein's recovery of ancient and early modern frameworks enriches our understanding of modern revolutions. Particularly the “script” metaphor is a compelling tool for explaining why upheavals often replay familiar patterns.Yet this focus on elite textual traditions risks overlooking the revolutionary imaginaries of actors outside the Greco-Roman canon, from peasants to colonized peoples, whose visions of change may refer to different temporalities and symbolic repertoires. At the same time, the podcast is a fresh proposal for scholars and historians to rethink longue durée (dis)continuities of revolutions.

On 1 June 2025, the second round of Poland's presidential election resulted in a surprise win for Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party, over Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of the ruling Civic Coalition. The knife-edge campaign highlighted deep social divisions in the Polish society. In Part 1 of this podcast, Professor Maciej Kisilowski examined the reasons for this electoral development as well as its implications for Poland's political dynamics overthe next few years. In this part, Professor Kisilowski lays out his proposals for a new constitutional settlement for Poland, aimed at addressing the roots and consequences of the severe polarization of the Polish society. He builds upon the arguments expounded in a volume edited by him and Professor Anna Wojciuk, Umówmy się na Polskę (ZNAK 2023), in which thinkers from all across the political spectrum shared their ideas for changing Poland's political status quo. Thebook is due to be published in English on 9 September 2025 by Oxford University Press under the title Let'sAgree on Poland.

In this new episode of our special series produced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, Stanley Bill and Ben Stanley draw on their new article “Democracy After Illiberalism: A Warning from Poland” (July 2025, Vol. 26, No. 3) to discuss the challenges, dilemmas, and paradoxes ofliberalism after illiberalism in Poland. They reflect on the concepts of liberalism and illiberalism to dissect the approach Donald Tusk's current government has taken and its major consequences. They also consider the wider lessons that may be drawn from recent and ongoing Polish experiences.Stanley Bill is professor of Polish Studies at the University of Cambridge. Ben Stanley is associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, SWPS University, Warsaw. They co-authored Good Change: The Rise and Fall of Poland'sIlliberal Revolution (2025).

In Part 2 of our latest episode in the special seriesproduced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, Berk Esen turns to the other side of the equation: how Turkey's opposition is pushing back against an increasingly hegemonic regime. This episode builds on Part1, where we explored the regime's authoritarian escalation through thecourts, media, and economic coercion. Drawing on his co-authored piece with Şebnem Gümüşçü, “How to Fight Turkey's Authoritarian Turn” (Journal of Democracy, July 2025, Vol. 36, No. 3), Esen analyzes President RecepTayyip Erdoğan's recent attempts to court Kurdish voters through cross-party alliances and a renewed peace process. He discusses the main opposition party's efforts to sustain mass mobilization after its presidential candidate Ekremİmamoğlu's arrest, while navigating internal and strategic risks amid a judicial effort to reshape its leadership. Esen also reflects on what distinguishes Turkey from other authoritarian cases such as Venezuela, the resourcesand constraints shaping democratic resistance, and the key factors likely to determine the country's prospects for democratic renewal.

How is war transforming Ukraine's economy—and itsoligarchs? In this Review of Democracy podcast, political economist Inna Melnykovska (Central European University) discusses how the full-scale Russian invasion has led to surprising shifts in business-state relations, including a turn toward civic responsibility among Ukraine's biggest companies. In conversation with editor Kristóf Szombati, Melnykovska explains why classic concepts like state capture and patronal politics no longer fully capture Ukraine's evolving reality. She explores how wartime pressures have triggered new forms of corporate citizenship, how power has become more centralized politically but more diverse economically, and why EU conditionality and civil society oversight are key to shaping a fair postwar recovery. This timely conversation sheds light on Ukraine's transformation in the face of existential crisis—andwhat's at stake as the country looks toward reconstruction and EU integration.

In Part 1 of our latest edition in the special series in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, Berk Esen unpacks how Turkey's competitive authoritarian regime is veering toward full autocracy.Drawing on his co-authored piece with Şebnem Gümüşçü, “How to Fight Turkey's Authoritarian Turn” (July 2025, Vol. 36, No. 3), Esen charts Erdoğan's intensifying use of courts, media, and economic coercion to silence dissent andsideline his chief rival in the next presidential elections, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. He discusses Turkey's drift from electoral competitiveness toward hegemonic rule, the role of autocratic legalism, and the prospects for resistance in a rapidly shrinking democratic space.

In current public discourse, human rights violationsat the EU's borders are inextricably linked to one specific actor: the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – or, in short, Frontex. Since its establishment in 2004, human rights activists have become increasingly aware of variousrights violations committed by the agency, particularly in the Mediterranean. To name just one example, Frontex has been accused of providing the locations of migrants intercepted at sea to the Libyan coast guard, which then transportedthem to camps where they have been systematicallyraped, tortured, and enslaved. Remarkably, despite accusations of the most severe human rights violations, Frontex has largely managed to avoid legal consequences. Currently, Frontex stands before the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the EU for the first time in its history.In this conversation, Dr. Joyce De Coninck explainswhy Frontex has so far evaded accountability for severe human rights violations and discusses legal pathways for change. The conversation begins with an analysis of Frontex's history, during which its representatives have consistently promoted a specific narrative that remains central tounderstanding why the agency has been able to avoid accountability for so long: that Frontex acts only in a “coordinating and supporting” role. According to De Coninck, this is problematic because, although Frontex has grown substantially in both budget and competencies overthe past 20 years, the narrative of it playing only a minor role has remained unchanged. The conversation then turns to how this narrative is reflected in concrete cases, as De Coninck explains how Frontex's joint operations with EUmember states shield the agency from legal consequences—and offers legal solutions to address this issue. The discussion then shifts to the broader challenges faced by human rights litigants in the EU. The final part of the interview focuses on the risk of frustration and fatalism among human rightsactivists confronting an EU that appears increasingly willing to contribute to the erosion of those rights. De Coninck cautions against adopting a defeatist stance and references Professor Gráinne De Búrca's concept of HumanRights Experimentalism. Despite its challenges regarding effectiveness and potential negative consequences, this approach views the human rights project as an iterative and deliberative process—one in which attempts by publicauthorities to circumvent rights are far from abnormal. Human rights remain an ongoing struggle, and such actions must be met with counterarguments, not defeatism.

On 1 June 2025, the second round of Poland's presidential election resulted in a surprise win for Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party, over Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of the ruling Civic Coalition. Trzaskowski had previously lost in 2020 to the incumbent President Andrzej Duda, albeit by anarrow margin of just over two percentage points – an impressive result, considering that Duda's party, Law and Justice, was then in power and controlled the state apparatus and media. Yet, despite seemingly more favorable conditions for Trzaskowski this time around, Nawrocki still managed to prevail by just under 400,000 votes.In Part 1 of this podcast, Professor Maciej Kisilowskiexamines the reasons for this electoral development as well as its implications for Poland's political dynamics over the next few years. In particular, he addresses the issue of whether Polish liberals and progressives are capable ofcorrectly identifying the prevailing sentiments in a deeply divided society. In Part 2, Professor Kisilowski lays out his proposalsfor a new constitutional settlement for Poland, aimed at addressing the roots and consequences of severe polarization of the Polish society.

In this new episode of our monthly special created in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, Richard Javad Heydarian discusses the Philippines' dynastic democracy and political prospects in a truly global framework.Drawing on his recent article, “The Philippines' Dynastic Democracy” (July 2025, Vol. 26, No. 3), Heydarian dissects the main issues and key outcomes of the midterm elections in May; reflects on how the Philippines has been impacted by the sharpening global superpower competition; provides an insider account of former president Rodrigo Duterte's arrest and capture by the International Criminal Court; and considers the chances of as well as obstacles to a liberal-progressive breakthrough.Richard Javad Heydarian is a senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines, Asian Center, and a columnist for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. His books include The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy (2018) and The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Struggle for Global Mastery (2020).The conversation was conducted by Ferenc Laczó. Lilit Hakobyan edited the audio file.

In the latest episode of our special series produced in collaboration with the Journal of Democracy, Paolo Sosa-Villagarcia and Moisés Arce discuss the rise of legislativeauthoritarianism, compare it with more traditional forms of authoritarian rule, and explore its implications both in theory and in practice.Drawing on their co-authored article with José Incio, “The Rise of Legislative Authoritarianism” (April 2025, Vol. 36, No. 2), Sosa-Villagarcia and Arce explain a phenomenon they observe mainly in Peru and Guatemala, where it is not theexecutive but rather the congress that concentrates power and restricts oversight by other branches in order to gain authoritarian control of the state apparatus. The conversation analyzes the roots and intentions behind these developments, considers whether Mexico under the seven-decade rule of the Partido Revolucionario Institucionalin the last century exhibited similarities to this system and finally addresses the question of whether judicial authoritarianism could also emerge.

In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, we speak with historian Balázs Trencsényi about his new book Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond: A Transnational History (OUP, 2025). Trencsényi offers a sweeping re-narration of modern European intellectual history through the lens of “crisis” — not only asan analytical category, but as a powerful tool of political mobilisation. We explore how crisis discourses evolved during the interwar period, why that moment still resonates today, and how populism and neoliberalism emerged aschildren of crisis. A key theme is the idea of a "second Sattelzeit" — or “saddle time,” a pivotal era of conceptual transformation — through which we also reflect on the Koselleckian legacy of researching historical crisis, time, and meaning. From rethinking political modernity to decentring the Western canon, this conversation examines what it means to think historically in times of deep upheaval and how such thinking can help us better respond to the challenges facing democracy today. Balázs Trencsényi is Professor of History at Central European University and Director of its Institute for Advanced Study in Budapest. A historian of East Central European political and cultural thought, he has led major comparative and transnational research projects, including the ERC-funded Negotiating Modernity project.

In this episode of Open Space(s) series, the Reviewof Democracy brings to your attention one of Europe's most ambitious cultural institutions: the House of European History. Founded by the European Parliament in 2017 in Brussels, this unique institution explores Europe's past from a transnational perspective and provides a platform for debating shared memory. The House of European Historycurates exhibitions, fosters debates, and research the shared European histories.Our guest is Simina Bădică, who is a curator at the House of European History in Brussels. Prior to her work at the House of the European History, she was a researcher, curator and the Head of Ethnological Archives at the Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest. She defended her PhD at the Central European University with a dissertation on the practices of curating Communism.Throughout our conversation, we explore the precise meaning of the term ‘house of history' and how this institution seeks to put this notion into practice. Forthe House of European History, the notion of open space has a crucial importance. On one hand, the building located in Brussels, initially designed in the 1920s as a dental hospital, invites visitors to engage more deeply with European narratives. At the same time, its strong digital exhibitionsencourages visitors and practitioners to interact with the content in creative ways. While rooted in the museum's physical space, the digital exhibitions speak to a broader, virtual European public.Exhibiting for such a broad audience inevitably raises complex curatorial questions. Thus, we discuss the challenges of curating information in 24 languages, the role of digital tools, and the multiple ways in which House of European History aims to connect with the local andinternational public. Nowhere is this curatorial balance more visible than in its exhibitions, both permanent and temporary.In our dialogue, we focus on two extremely relevant cases: Facts for Real: A History of Forgery and Falsification, a touringexhibition that presents falsifications throughout European history; and Presence of the Past: A European Album, a visually rich exhibition that rethinks how Europeans interpret their entangled histories through documentary photos.  Can a museum be both local and European? How cancurators respond to an increasingly political and social polarization without reducing complexity? What are the curatorial approaches that encourage the participants to ask nuanced questions about history? This conversation offers areflection of these question, based on the expertise of those working at the intersection of public history and museology. Public historians, museum practitioners, as well as scholars will definitely find this Open Space(s) episode extremely relevant.

In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, Alexandra Medzibrodszky talks to Leigh Jenco and Paulina Ochoa Espejo—two of the three co-authors of the new textbook Political Theory: A Global and Comparative Introduction, published by SAGE. Co-authored with Murad Idris, this groundbreaking volume reimagines how political theory is taught and understood by moving beyond a Eurocentric focus and embracing a truly global and comparative framework. Rather than organizing content around geographical regions or national traditions, the book takes a thematic approach—exploring war, political action, development, ritual, and other enduring political questions through a rich array of sources from across cultures and time periods. In the conversation, we discuss what it means to think politically beyond the Western canon, how to work with texts that are often marginalized or excluded from mainstream syllabi, and what challenges arise when dealing with disciplinary boundaries. We also reflect on the pedagogical value of open-ended inquiry and the democratic potential of teaching political theory as a space for students to ask the questions that matter most to them. As Leigh and Paulina explain, the aim is not to simply add more voices, but to shift the structure of the conversation itself—to replace a single sun with a galaxy of perspectives. Ultimately, the book opens up new ways of thinking about politics and democracy itself—its possibilities, its limits, and the many ways it has been imagined around the world.