Podcast appearances and mentions of Juan J Linz

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveFriend of Wisdom of Crowds and frequent podcast guest Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale University, and author of several books, including Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War (2021, Macmillan) and Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times (2023). He is also the author of a recent article saying that no, sorry, the courts cannot save American democracy.If you've been following our podcast lately, you'll know that Shadi and Damir think differently. Both are preoccupied with the question of whether we're in a constitutional crisis. And both have argued that it's the Judiciary branch which can stop Trump from becoming a tyrant. We are in a state of “brinksmanship with the Courts,” as Damir puts it. Moyn, however, warns that “Judicial processes can launder radical political change,” like the ones Trump is trying to make. The Supreme Court might cede a lot of ground to the Executive before we get a big decisive case that checks Trump. In fact, we might never even get such a case. The real test for democracy, Moyn argues, will come at the ballot box: “Do we have elections that stay competitive where the loser accepts his loss?” A lot will depend on whether Democrats can figure out how to make a popular platform. A lot, too, will depend on Republicans, and whether at least some of them will part ways with Trump. Shadi asks Moyn for some historical perspective. Is this the biggest crisis in US history? Probably not, but what can we learn from historical perspective? What is the baseline against which we should judge ourselves today? Moyn argues that “The only use of the past is to make a better future. … Let's try to understand why things broke before.”In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Moyn and our hosts discuss recent White House legal challenges against birthright citizenship; anti-Trump lawfare; why Moyn believes that “what the law is is decided in the present political struggle”; why a parliamentary system is usually more democratic than a presidential one; whether the US is culturally attached to a strong executive branch; and much more.Required Reading and Listening:* Samuel Moyn and Ryan D. Doerfler, “Don't count on the courts to save democracy” (Washington Post).* Samuel Moyn and Ryan D. Doerfler, “We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court” (Dissent). * Our last podcast episode with Samuel Moyn: “Did the Supreme Court Just Subvert Our System of Government?” (WoC). * Live taping: “Samuel Moyn and Osita Nwanevu on Voters vs Judges” (WoC). * Podcast episode, “Is Democracy Ending?” (WoC).* Juan J. Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism” (Journal of Democracy).* CrowdSource about the Mahmoud Khalil case (WoC).* Santiago Ramos, “From the Harper's Letter to the Khalil Case” (WoC).* “Judge warns of consequences if Trump administration violated deportation order” (Reuters).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:

Most western academics were skeptical about the future of India, the world’s largest democracy, throughout the 1950s to the 1970s. It succeeded beyond all expectations in mobilizing large-scale electoral participation especially among poor and illiterate voters. And yet today its very existence seems to hang in the balance as the country faces a deep crisis of liberal, secular democratic norms, values and institutional practices. Freedom House even downgraded India from a free democracy to a "partially free democracy" last year. So what ails Indian democracy so suddenly? Yogendra Yadav (a leading political theorist and leader of the Swaraj India party established in 2016) helps us make sense of the past, present and future of democracy in India.Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC• The Podcast Company: Earshot StrategiesFollow us on social media!• Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentreFollow Yogendra Yadav on Twitter: @_YogendraYadavSubscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks! BIBLIOGRAPHY• Making Sense of Indian Democracy. (2020).• Crafting State-Nations: India and Other Multinational Democracies. (2011). Co-authored with Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan.• Electoral Politics in Indian States: Lok Sabha Elections in 2004 and Beyond. (2009). Co-edited with Sandeep Shastri and K.C. Suri.• Learn more about Swaraj India. GLOSSARYWhat is universal Adult Franchise?(00:05:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)Universal Adult Franchise means that all adult citizens of the country should have the right to vote without any discrimination of class, caste, religion, or gender. Ornit Shani, Associate Professor of Modern Indian History writes: “From November 1947 India embarked on the preparation of the first draft electoral roll on the basis of universal adult franchise. […] Turning all adult Indians into voters over the next two years against many odds, and before they became citizens with the commencement of the constitution, required an immense power of imagination. Doing so was India’s stark act of decolonisation. This was no legacy of colonial rule: Indians imagined the universal franchise for themselves, acted on this imaginary, and made it their political reality. By late 1949 India pushed through the frontiers of the world’s democratic imagination, and gave birth to its largest democracy.” Read more.What does Balkanization mean?(00:10:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)Balkanization is a pejorative term used to describe the division of a multinational state into smaller ethnically homogeneous entities. The term also is used to refer to ethnic conflict within multiethnic states. It was coined at the end of World War I to describe the ethnic and political fragmentation that followed the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the Balkans. Learn more.What does Hindu nationalism refer to?(00:10:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)For more context information we recommend this and this New York Times article.What is the European nation-state approach and how does it differ from a state-nation approach?(00:11:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)Nation-state approaches aspire to a congruence between state borders and the boundaries of the national community, so that the national group is contained in the territory of its state and the state contains only that nation. In his 2011 book “Crafting State-Nations” Yadav argues that this European approach has led to enormous bloodshed in the 20th century and instead proposes a “state-nation approach”, where deep cultural differences should be accommodated within political boundaries of a state. In his book Yadav argued that India was one of the prime examples of a successful state-nation. Learn more.What is the BJP?(00:14:50 or p. 8 in the transcript)Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a Hindu nationalist party, which has ruled India uninterruptedly since 2014. BJP is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Learn more.What happened to Babri mosque and what did the Indian Supreme Court say?(00:33:00 or p. 17 in the transcript)The dispute over the 16th-century Babri mosque, in Ayodhya, goes back decades. In December 1992, Hindu militants razed the mosque, which is on a disputed religious site in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, triggering clashes with Muslims that left 2,000 people dead and plunged the country into political crisis. In September 2020 the Supreme Court has acquitted all senior figures in India’s ruling party of their role in the demolition of the Babri mosque by Hindu rioters. All 32 men, including the former deputy prime minister LK Advani, three leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and a sitting BJP politician, were cleared of inciting the violence in 1992 that led to the mosque being torn down by an armed Hindu nationalist mob. Click here to learn more.What are the farmers’ protests in India about?(00:37:15 or p. 19 in the transcript)Indian farmers object to new laws that constitute the most sweeping reform to agriculture for decades. The government of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, says the laws will bring necessary modernization and private competition to an ailing sector that has left millions of farmers destitute. Farmers say the laws were passed without consultation and will allow private corporations to control the prices of crops, crush their livelihoods and take away their land. Learn more.Which incident of police firing in the state of Madhya Pradesh is Yadav referring to?(00:28:15 or p. 20 in the transcript)In 2017 six farmers were killed in police firing during protests in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh. The farmers, who had been protesting for several days, were seeking loan waivers and appropriate pricing for their produce.

In the 19th century Europe had thought that they had moved towards liberalism, enlightenment, rationality, progress, that stuff like mass warfare was over and it wouldn't come back. And then you have four years of senseless, mass slaughter, they just totally destroyed or challenged those ideas of humankind getting better off, progress of humankind getting more civilized. In retrospect, it's hard to imagine the coincidence of deep challenges and crises that wrecked the interwar years.Kurt WeylandA full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.Key Highlights IncludeKurt clarifies the concept of totalitarian fascism from conservative authoritarianismA description of the political environment of the interwar periodWhy did authoritarians disliked communism and fascism?Why did fascism emerge during this period?Is there a parallel between the interwar period to today?Kurt Weyland is a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the new book Assault on Democracy: Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism During the Interwar Years. Key LinksAssault on Democracy: Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism During the Interwar Years by Kurt Weyland"The Real Lessons of the Interwar Years" by Agnes Cornell, Jørgen Møller, Svend-Erik Skaaning in Journal of Democracy, July 2017Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation by Juan J. Linz and Alfred StepanRelated ContentAgnes Cornell and Svend-Erik Skaaning on the Interwar PeriodPaul Robinson on Russian ConservatismMore from the PodcastMore InformationDemocracy GroupApes of the State created all MusicAnother Way PodcastEmail the show at democracyparadoxblog@gmail.comFollow me on Twitter @DemParadox100 Books on Democracy

Houchang Esfandiar Chehabi is a Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. He has also taught at Harvard University, UCLA, and the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Iranian Politics and Religions Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (1990); principal author of Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (2006); co-editor, with Juan J. Linz, of Sultanistic Regimes (1998); co-editor, with Vanessa Martin, of Iran's Constitutional Revolution (2010); and co-editor, with Farhad Khosrokhavar and Clément Therme, of Iran and the Challenges of the 21st Century (2013) focuses on cultural history.