Podcasts about mounk

Political scientist Yascha Mounk joins The Winston Marshall Show for a sharp, wide-ranging discussion on the evolution of populism, the crisis of democracy, and the future of America's political coalitions.Mounk draws a clear line between populism and fascism, warning that even democratically elected movements can veer into dangerous territory—citing Venezuela and Turkey as cautionary tales. He critiques the failures of modern media, the persistence of woke ideology post-Trump, and the inefficiencies of U.S. foreign aid programs like USAID.The conversation turns to 2024: Kamala Harris's faltering coalition, the Republican Party's pivot toward a multi-racial working-class base, and the growing tension between big donors and Main Street voters.All this—populism's promise and peril, woke culture's staying power, the death of old political norms, and the battle for America's soul... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Yasha Mounk. The founder of Persuasion, a contributor to The Atlantic and a professor at Johns Hopkins, Mounk now has his own Substack, where he hosts his weekly column and podcast. He is the author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It and The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time.  Razib and Mounk first discuss Mounk's immediate reaction to the 2024 election, and how the Democrats might pick up the pieces going forward. Mounk believes that the argument in his book The Identity Trap, neatly captures many of the problems for the party. Democrats leaned in on the inevitably of racial polarization in an age of progressive depolarization. Razib also asks Mounk for his retrospective on the COVID-19 epidemic, in which he was a commentator who argued in The Atlantic for more stringent habits and then later, for an opening up. They also discuss how the Public Health establishment COVID interventions threw the whole field into disrepute, and what it tells us about the nature of expertise. Then Razib asks Mounk about European nations and their future. In particular, whether their low productivity and fertility rates combined with mass migration doom them to a future of irrelevance and national dissolution. Mounk highlights the unfortunate case of the UK in particular, though he notes that his home nation of Germany is finding itself in a precarious situation with China competing with its manufacturers and Russia cutting off its gas supply. Finally, Razib closes by asking Mounk whether he is still as worried about American democracy in the wake of the 2024 Trump win as he was in 2016.

Diversity has often been seen as the United States' defining strength – but today, some Americans see it as a threat. And this isn't new. Throughout history, differences of religion, ethnicity, and origin have driven states around the world to war, violence, and extreme division. However, German-American political scientist Yascha Mounk says this isn't the only path.  On this week's episode, we revisit our 2022 conversation with Mounk about his book, “The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart And How They Can Endure." Two years after our original recording, we wonder whether it's still possible for diverse diverse democracies to succeed in an increasingly polarized political landscape. Guest: Yascha Mounk, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, contributing editor at The Atlantic and author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure Host: Ray Suarez If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to Commonwealth Club World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

durée : 00:43:21 - Signes des temps - par : Marc Weitzmann - Le monde vient de changer radicalement mais nous ne savons pas encore comment. Nous ne le découvrirons pas avant le début de l'année prochaine et l'investiture du 47ème président des Etats-Unis. Mais une chose, une seule est sûre : l'époque a désormais le visage de Donald Trump. - réalisation : Luc-Jean Reynaud - invités : Yascha Mounk Politologue.

Host Marcia Franklin talks with political scientist Yascha Mounk about identity, political divides and his outlook on America. Mounk is the author of several books, including “The People vs. Democracy,” “The Great Experiment,” and “Stranger in My Own Country.” Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/18/2022 The interview is part of Dialogue's series “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference” and was taped at the 2022 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

In Yascha Mounk's new book, he “traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America — and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals.” This hour, Mounk joins us to talk about the future of democracy and The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. GUEST: Yascha Mounk: Professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University; founder of Persuasion; host of The Good Fight; and the author, most recently, of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired October 4, 2023. Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Der Autor analysiert die Gründe und Mechanismen hinter diesem alarmierenden Zustand und identifiziert zwei Muster: Die Wahl von Demagogen, die die Rechte von Minderheiten missachten, oder Regierungen, die sich hinter technokratischen Entscheidungen verstecken und die Nähe zum Volk verlieren. Mounk benennt Maßnahmen, um bedrohte soziale und politische Werte zu retten, darunter den Aufbau einer Koalition gegen Populisten, die Verteidigung der Justiz- und Presseunabhängigkeit sowie die Stärkung der politischen Teilhabe der Bevölkerung.

Is “identity synthesis” the remedy for racial injustice? This political scientist says no. Yascha Mounk, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and host of “The Good Fight” podcast, explains how identity synthesis - an ideology based on treating people differently depending on their race, gender, or sexual orientation - can be quite harmful to society. He uses the example of racially segregated classrooms, claiming that it is human tendency to inherently side with someone in your “group” before you side with someone from another. Mounk argues that identity synthesis will only further divide us, as it goes directly against the ideologies of Black American thinkers like Fredrick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr, who fought avidly for equality in the United States. By following this identity-first ideology, we may be reversing the work done by these social rights activists. Instead, we should lean further into their legacy of advocating for universal principles, where individuals are judged not by the categories they belong to but by their character and actions. -------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think:- ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more ►Get Big Think+ for Business Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Yascha Mounk: Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the crisis of democracy and the defense of philosophically liberal values. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Yascha received his BA in History from Trinity College Cambridge and his PhD in Government from Harvard University. He is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute. Yascha is also a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Moynihan Public Fellow at City College. He is the Founder of Persuasion, the host of The Good Fight podcast, and serves as a publisher (Herausgeber) at Die Zeit. Yascha has written five books: Stranger in My Own Country - A Jewish Family in Modern Germany, a memoir about Germany's fraught attempts to deal with its past; The Age of Responsibility – Luck, Choice and the Welfare State, which argues that a growing obsession with the concept of individual responsibility has transformed western welfare states; The People versus Democracy – Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It, which explains the causes of the populist rise and investigates how to renew liberal democracy; and The Great Experiment - Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, which argues that anybody who seeks to help ethnically and religiously diverse democracies thrive has reason to embrace a more ambitious vision for their future than is now fashionable; and his latest, The Identity Trap - A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, which tells the story of how a new set of ideas about race, gender and sexual orientation came to be extremely influential in mainstream institutions, and why it would be a mistake to give up on a more universalist humanism. Next to his work for The Atlantic, Yascha also occasionally writes for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. He is also a regular contributor to major international publications including Die Zeit, La Repubblica, El País, l'Express and Folha de São Paolo, among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘Meus senhores: Como todos sabem, existem três tipos de estados: os estados sociais, os estados corporativos e o estado a que isto chegou. E, nesta noite solene, nós vamos acabar com o estado a que isto chegou.'Assim falou Salgueiro Maia, o capitão que comandou as tropas que cercaram o Terreiro do Paço, a 25 de abril de 1974.Um golpe de estado marcou o início da revolução que, nas palavras de João Pereira Coutinho, trouxe a Portugal aquilo que uma revolução deve trazer: a rutura, o fim da ditadura, e  o entusiasmo com o que pode vir a seguir. Mas, como se conquistou, historicamente, um Estado como este a que chegámos nestes 50 anos de democracia? O que é ser democrata? Há quem o seja inteiramente?Nesta viagem de 48 minutos, o politólogo e o humorista Manuel Cardoso vão desbravar o caminho árduo que a democracia fez até se proclamar enquanto regime. Nesse caminho, vão falar das diferenças entre democracia direta, democracia liberal e democracia representativa, das virtudes e falhas do sistema democrático, e da tensão que existe entre as as palavras 'democracia' e 'liberalismo' a trabalharem em conjunto.A dupla vai debater  também a importância das instituições, o conflito sempre latente entre as elites e os cidadãos, e fazer referência a todos aqueles que inspiraram a nossa e tantas outras democracias. E até vão explicar como a falta de participação democrática não é necessariamente uma falta de vitalidade do regime democrático.REFERÊNCIAS ÚTEISEATWELL, Roger, e Matthew Goodwin, «Populismo – A Revolta contra a Democracia Liberal» (Desassossego, 2019) LÉONARD, Yves, «Breve História do 25 de Abril» (Ed. 70, 2024) MOUNK, Yascha, «Povo vs. Democracia» (Lua de Papel, 2019) ROBERTS, Andrew, «Churchill – Caminhando com o Destino» (Dom Quixote, 2019)STASAVAGE, David, «The Decline and Rise of Democracy – A Global History from Antiquity to Today» (Princeton, 2020)TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de, «Da Democracia na América» (Principia, 2023)  TUCÍDIDES, «História da Guerra do Peloponeso» (Gulbenkian, 2010) CAPRA, FrankFORD, John, «Peço a Palavra» (1939) WHITMAN, Walt, «Canto de Mim Mesmo» (Cultura, 2021) BIOSMANUEL CARDOSOÉ humorista e um dos autores do programa de sátira política «Isto É Gozar com Quem Trabalha», da SIC. Faz parte do podcast «Falsos Lentos», um formato semanal de humor sobre futebol. É o autor da rubrica radiofónica «Pão Para Malucos», que esteve no ar diariamente na Antena 3 de 2018 a 2021JOÃO PEREIRA COUTINHOProfessor do Instituto de Estudos Políticos da Universidade Católica, onde se doutorou em Ciência Política e Relações Internacionais. É autor dos livros «Conservadorismo» (2014) e «Edmund Burke – A Virtude da Consistência» (2017), publicados em Portugal e no Brasil. 

On today's episode I'm speaking with Yascha Mounk, who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an international affairs professor at Johns Hopkins University. He also hosts his own podcast called The Good Fight (check out his Substack at ) , where I first found out about him. He's written a bunch of books, and his latest – The identity trap: a story of ideas and power in our time (Penguin press) – just came out. It's about diversity, equity and inclusion abbreviated as DEI, the woke ideology and identity politics. All of these terms are often used interchangeably. But instead of using these politically contested concepts Mounk opts to use the term “the identity synthesis” instead. He traces the ideas back to the works of scholars like Derrick Bell, Michel Foucault, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, highlighting how their ideas have been simplified, misinterpreted, twisted and/or radicalized in popular discourse and institutional policies. Mounk argues that while these theories have provided valuable insights into the complexities of identity and oppression, their current application often undermines social cohesion, free speech, and the pursuit of equality by promoting division, silencing dissent, and prioritizing identity over shared humanity. He also argues that the left's long march through institutions, that's often referred to, actually was much shorter than believed. The takeover was swift, he claims, and therefore we should perhaps not focus so much on the counterculture of the 1960s. He's also concerned with the backlash from the right, and recently had an interesting debate with Chris Rufo on Bari Weiss' podcast Honestly. While they agree on a lot of the issues, they differ a lot on the strategy of how to counter “the identity synthesis”. Rufo, Mounk says, if fighting fire with fire, and that will, well, backfire. Laws and regulations won't increase freedom, Mounk argues, and it won't stop ideas from spreading. So how should one do it? Listen and find out.Rak höger expanderarI takt med att fler blir betalande prenumeranter har Rak höger kunnat expandera med fler skribenter och mer innehåll. Vi får inget presstöd, vi tar inte emot pengar från någon intresseorganisation eller lobbygrupp. Det är endast tack vare er prenumeranter vi kan fortsätta vara självständiga röster i en konform samtid. Så stort tack för att ni är med, utan er hade det inget av detta varit möjligt.Den som vill stötta oss på andra sätt än genom en prenumeration får gärna göra det med Swish, Plusgiro, Bankgiro, Paypal eller Donorbox.Swishnummer: 123-027 60 89Plusgiro: 198 08 62-5Bankgiro: 5808-1837Utgivaren ansvarar inte för kommentarsfältet. (Myndigheten för press, radio och tv (MPRT) vill att jag skriver ovanstående för att visa att det inte är jag, utan den som kommenterar, som ansvarar för innehållet i det som skrivs i kommentarsfältet.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enrakhoger.se/subscribe

Gesellschaftliche Debatten drehen sich zunehmend um Identität. Es geht um Hautfarbe, Geschlecht, Herkunft und sexuelle Orientierung. Was ist von dieser Identitätspolitik zu halten? Und woher kommen ihre Grundideen? Darüber spricht Yves Bossart mit dem Politikwissenschaftler Yascha Mounk. Rechtspopulismus und Identitätspolitik hängen eng zusammen. Das meint der in den USA lehrende Politikwissenschaftler Yascha Mounk. In seinem neuen Buch «Im Zeitalter der Identität. Der Aufstieg einer gefährlichen Idee» analysiert er die Ursprünge und Auswirkungen dessen, was gerne als «woke» bezeichnet wird. Strömungen wie die Postmoderne, der Postkolonialismus und die «Critical Race Theory» hätten massgeblich dazu beigetragen, dass Kategorien wie Identität und Gruppenzugehörigkeit politisch wichtiger geworden sind, Wahrheit und Universalismus dagegen an Glaubwürdigkeit verloren haben. Mounk zufolge bedroht diese Entwicklung die liberale Demokratie, befeuert die gesellschaftliche Spaltung und schränkt die Redefreiheit ein. Aber stimmt das? Yves Bossart spricht mit dem in Deutschland aufgewachsenen Politikwissenschaftler über die Ursprünge und Folgen der Identitätspolitik.

Gesellschaftliche Debatten drehen sich zunehmend um Identität. Es geht um Hautfarbe, Geschlecht, Herkunft und sexuelle Orientierung. Was ist von dieser Identitätspolitik zu halten? Und woher kommen ihre Grundideen? Darüber spricht Yves Bossart mit dem Politikwissenschaftler Yascha Mounk. Rechtspopulismus und Identitätspolitik hängen eng zusammen. Das meint der in den USA lehrende Politikwissenschaftler Yascha Mounk. In seinem neuen Buch «Im Zeitalter der Identität. Der Aufstieg einer gefährlichen Idee» analysiert er die Ursprünge und Auswirkungen dessen, was gerne als «woke» bezeichnet wird. Strömungen wie die Postmoderne, der Postkolonialismus und die «Critical Race Theory» hätten massgeblich dazu beigetragen, dass Kategorien wie Identität und Gruppenzugehörigkeit politisch wichtiger geworden sind, Wahrheit und Universalismus dagegen an Glaubwürdigkeit verloren haben. Mounk zufolge bedroht diese Entwicklung die liberale Demokratie, befeuert die gesellschaftliche Spaltung und schränkt die Redefreiheit ein. Aber stimmt das? Yves Bossart spricht mit dem in Deutschland aufgewachsenen Politikwissenschaftler über die Ursprünge und Folgen der Identitätspolitik.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comOn Jan 2, a writer named Celeste Marcus published an essay entitled, “After Rape: A Guide for the Tormented” in the free-speech literary journal Liberties, where Celeste is managing editor. She wrote about an incident in 2021 with a close male friend as they slept beside each other in bed. She called it rape; he did not. The man remained unnamed until February 4, when Celeste posted an email exchange to Twitter with Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. In one email, Marcus had written, “The rapist was Yascha Mounk. You have a rapist on the staff of your illustrious publication.”Mounk is an Atlantic contributor who specializes in free-speech issues. He's the founder of the journal Persuasion and host of The Good Fight podcast. On Sunday, the Atlantic announced they'd cut ties with Mounk, who has mostly stayed silent.We brought on criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield to discuss this thorny situation. Greenfield is a straight-shooter who wrote about the case in a recent blog post called “The Atlantic Caves to #MeToo.” To question a victim's story has become taboo, but to interrogate every story has been a necessary tradition of justice, journalism, and rational discourse. Greenfield is not a fan of what he calls “the sex police.”Can we ever be sure what happens in other people's bedrooms? And why has it become so popular, even noble, to try? Gird your loins for a conversation about #MeToo and its aftermath that is frank, illuminating, and challenging — possibly to listeners, definitely to the narrative. Notable talking points:* “Am I allowed to say, ‘I call bullshit' on this pod?”* When did people go from being the heroes of their own stories to the victims of their own stories?* Why drinking matters in sexual assault cases* “A lot of the campus policies under Title IX are unlawful.”* The clear bright line of “no means no”* Plot twist! Leon Wieseltier, #MeToo casualty, is the editor of Liberties journal* How feminist activists bypassed the dead-lock of “he said/she said”* “You can't call a woman crazy. But what if they are crazy?”* Felicia Sonmez, remembered* How do Atlantic writers feel about Goldberg kicking a contributor to the curb?* What should Yascha Mounk do now?* Let's built tolerance for ambiguity!* The bravery of journalist Emily Yoffe* The sadness of “compare and despair”* Can we ever walk this back?* Advice to parents!* “Hot box???”

We anticipate our upcoming series on Aristotle's Metaphysics by talking through some preliminary issues about the text including what translations we're reading. Is this book really "timeless," or is it like old, outdated science? Also, what kind of person becomes an ancient philosophy student? Plus (in the full discussion), we talk more about Mounk, Presidential disqualification, and more. If you're not hearing the full version of this discussion, sign up via one of the options described at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.

Political scientist and author Yascha Mounk joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World Podcast to discuss his latest book, “The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time.” Mounk delves into the complicated dynamics of identity politics and challenges the conventional wisdom from the progressive left that focusing on identity and what makes us different from each other leads to a more equitable society. By highlighting our differences rather than shared values, Mounk argues, well-meaning liberals are exacerbating societal division and hindering progress toward greater equality. While acknowledging that our society is deeply imperfect and genuine injustices remain, Mounk unpacks the implications of identity politics and questions whether the current focus on identity truly serves the cause of inclusivity or social harmony.

Political scientist and author Yascha Mounk joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World Podcast to discuss his latest book, “The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time.” Mounk delves into the complicated dynamics of identity politics and challenges the conventional wisdom from the progressive left that focusing on identity and what makes us different from each other leads to a more equitable society. By highlighting our differences rather than shared values, Mounk argues, well-meaning liberals are exacerbating societal division and hindering progress toward greater equality. While acknowledging that our society is deeply imperfect and genuine injustices remain, Mounk unpacks the implications of identity politics and questions whether the current focus on identity truly serves the cause of inclusivity or social harmony. Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.

We continue our discussion with Yascha Mounk, one of the leading public intellectuals of our time. The subject is a hugely influential ideology that attempts to put racial, sexual and gender identity at the center of our social, cultural and political life. The "identity synthesis", Mounk argues, denies that members of different groups can truly understand one another and this stifles public discourse.In this podcast episode, we learn why an obsession with identity undermines social justice, fuels culture wars, and boosts hateful hardliners on the right and left— from Donald Trump to protesters who support Hamas and its murderous attacks on Israeli civilians. We also hear how to politely but firmly push back against those who have become ensnared in "The Identity Trap," the name of Yascha Mounk's new book."Categories like race and gender and sexual orientation help to explain what's going on in the world, but they're not the only categories that help to explain it," Mounk tells us. "There's also social class, religion and patriotism as well as individual actions, attributes and aspirations.""The Identity Trap" has been called "the most ambitious and comprehensive account to date of the origins, consequences and limitations" of "wokeness". In our last episode, Yascha Mounk explained how postmodernism, postcolonialism and critical race theory gained currency on many college campuses by 2020. Today, a simplified version of these ideas exerts a strong influence in business, government and media. In this episode, Mounk urges listeners to claim the moral high ground. "Don't apologize about arguing against a worldview that emphasizes identity to the exclusion of other factors". Recognize we have genuine disagreements but argue for convictions that you believe will result in a better world. People are open to persuasion, he says.Mounk mentions two of the most effective critics of the identity ideology were once very drawn to it: Maurice Mitchell of the Working Families Party and interfaith organizer, Eboo Patel.Recommendation: Richard has just read "The Speech", by Gary Younge, who writes for the Guardian and The Nation. His book is the story behind Martin Luther King Jr.'s powerful "I have a Dream" speech delivered to a vast audience in 1963. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

durée : 02:59:22 - Le 7/10 - Les invités de la Matinale de France Inter ce lundi 18 décembre 2023 sont : Annie Genevard / Yascha Mounk / B. Teinturier x J. Sainte-Marie / Judith Godrèche / Martin Bourboulon

Having skewered right-wing populism and its demagogues in his two previous best-selling books, politics professor, writer, and podcaster Yasha Mounk turns now to the threat posed to liberalism from those progressives who champion "woke" identity politics. We discuss his latest, "The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power In Our Time."This episode— the first of two with Yasha Mounk — looks at the complex roots of a highly influential ideology based on personal identity— specifically race, gender and sexual orientation. These are said to determine a person's power, role in society, and how they see themselves. Mounk explains how the identity synthesis, which has become widely accepted in many universities, nonprofits and large corporations, had its origins in several intellectual traditions, including post-colonialism, postmodernism and critical race theory.Our interview mentions ideas and concepts raised by Michel Foucault, Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Krenshaw, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and others. We learn how these thinkers sharply criticized modern liberalism and the civil rights movement of the Sixties and beyond.Yascha Mounk is a German-born American who teaches international affairs at Johns Hopkins University. His writing appears in The Atlantic and other publications. He is also founder and editor-in-chief of the Substack publication "Persuasion", and hosts the podcast, "The Good Fight".Mounk's new book has won widespread critical praise. The Washington Post said that "Mounk has told the story of the Great Awokening better than any other writer who has attempted to make sense of it."Recommendation: Jim is reading "UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here— and Out There: by Garrett Graff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, political scientist Yascha Mounk has written the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of how a new form of progressive thinking has taken over the politics of the left. Mounk chronicles the rise of a set of ideas which are “centrally concerned with the role that identity categories like race, gender, and sexual orientation play in the world.” This fixation on identity, rejecting “universal values and neutral rules like free speech and equal opportunity as mere distractions,” draws its strength, Mounk argues, from the way it took over cultural institutions, although it has not convinced more than a small number of people. These ideas are not just frequently wrong but inimical to a functioning society, he tells Hugh Linhan in today's Inside Politics podcast.Produced by Declan Conlon. JJ Vernon on sound. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

durée : 00:44:57 - Signes des temps - par : Marc Weitzmann - Qu'est-ce que l'essentialisme stratégique ? Le politologue Yascha Mounk, qui publie "Le piège de l'identité" aux éditions de l'Observatoire revient sur la genèse du mouvement woke et ses conséquences à l'université et plus largement dans la société américaine. - invités : Yascha Mounk Politologue

For this episode, Yascha Mounk, the writer and political scientist discusses his recent book The Identity Trap, which explores what Mounk refers to as the modern world's counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms. Joining Mounk in conversation is writer Tomiwa Owolade, author of the book This is Not America.  Want the hear the full extended conversation right now? Become a supporter of Intelligence Squared to get access to all of our longer form interviews and members-only content. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  For £4.99 per month you'll receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series, wherever you get your podcasts - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events - Our member-only newsletter The Monthly Read, sent straight to your inbox Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series ... Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more The Full Length Video is here: https://www.intelligencesquaredplus.com/videos/yascha-mounk-on-the-identity-trap-with-tomiwa-owolade ... Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ ... Get in touch with any feedback and guest or debate ideas by emailing us at podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get tickets for our event: https://skeptic.com/event For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice. But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minority groups has transformed into a counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology aiming to place each person's matrix of identities at the center of social, cultural, and political life has quickly become highly influential. It stifles discourse, vilifies mutual influence as cultural appropriation, denies that members of different groups can truly understand one another, and insists that the way governments treat their citizens should depend on the color of their skin. This, Yascha Mounk argues, is the identity trap. Though those who battle for these ideas are full of good intentions, they will ultimately make it harder to achieve progress toward the genuine equality we desperately need. Shermer and Mounk discuss: the identity synthesis/trap • Israel, Hamas, Palestine • why students & student groups are pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel • the rise of anti-Semitism in recent years • proximate/ultimate causes of anti-Semitism • the rejection of the civil rights movement and the rise of critical race theory • overt racism vs. systemic racism • the problem of woke ideology • Trump and the 2024 election • the possibility of another Civil War • What should we do personally and politically about the Identity Trap? Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Mounk received his BA in history from Trinity College Cambridge, and his PhD in government from Harvard University. He is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of numerous books, incl. The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (featured on President Barack Obama's summer reading list).

Mark, Wes, Dylan, and now Seth too discuss further Mounk's project in The Identity Trap and what philosophically we can glean from it. If you're not hearing the full version of this part of the discussion, sign up via one of the options described at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.

Joe Selvaggi hosts a conversation with Johns Hopkins University Professor Yasha Mounk regarding "The Identity Trap," Mounk's latest book that delves into the origins of woke identity politics, its potential impact on classical liberal values, and strategies for its informed opponents to effectively counter its influence.

The phrases "woke" and "anti-woke" have entered the general lexicon in recent years, providing combative fodder to both sides of the debate, and fueling division in American discourse. But what are the origins and consequences of so-called "wokeness?"rnrnIn Yascha Mounk's previous visit to the City Club, he discussed shifts in the global thoughts about democracy, how we got here, and how it can be saved. Mounk has built his acclaimed scholarly career on being one of the first to warn of the risks right-wing populists pose to American democracy. Now, Mounk joins us once again to discuss his latest book that tackles the appeal and limitations of identity-based politics--which has rapidly transformed America and college campuses across the country. He calls it the "identity trap," and argues those on the left and center who are stuck in the identity trap will ultimately make it harder to achieve progress toward genuine equality.rnrnYascha Mounk, Ph.D. is a political scientist known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The Identity Trap is his fifth book.

Political scientist Yascha Mounk joins Margaret Hoover to discuss his latest book, “The Identity Trap,” and rising threats to democracy on the right and left. Mounk–a professor at Johns Hopkins University and contributing writer for The Atlantic–explains how the identity-focused politics of the left have become a “trap” that he fears is likely to produce more prejudice and division, and he traces the evolution of these ideas as they increasingly take hold in mainstream institutions. He offers examples of the harm this “identity synthesis” has caused in education and health care, details strategies for fighting back against it, and makes the case for a more universalist political philosophy. Mounk, who has previously written about the dangers of populism, also takes on the identity politics of the right and warns that progressives' embrace of unpopular ideas about race and gender could send Donald Trump back to the White House.  Support for “Firing Line for Margaret Hoover” is provided by Robert Granieri, Stephens Inc., Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, The Asness Family Foundation, Kathleen and Andrew McKenna through The McKenna Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, and Damon Button.

Former LA Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer was essentially run out of baseball after an accusation of sexual assault was lodged against him. Bauer always maintained his innocence, and this week, with the settlement of a legal suit, he posted information on social media that, while incomplete, seems at least somewhat, if not wholly, exculpatory. Mike examines the media's paralysis in covering this matter and ideological media's willingness to lead the way. Plus, Yascha Mounk is out with a new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. It's an excellent intellectual and practical examination of what some call identity politics and what Mounk rebrands as "identity synthesis." The Washington Post says, "Mounk has told the story of the Great Awokening better than any other writer who has attempted to make sense of it." Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sixty years ago, outlawing racial segregation was a dominant civil rights priority of liberals. Today, in the name of racial equality, many progressive thinkers and activists champion policies and actions that promote segregation. The story of how that moral transformation took place is one of the central preoccupations of the professor Yascha Mounk, the author of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. In that book, released last month, Mounk plots the relevant intellectual history, from the postmodern philosophy of Michel Foucault to the post-colonial writing of Edward Said to early expressions of critical race theory in the work of Derrick Bell and to the articulation of the governing idea of intersectionality in the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw. Mounk explores how the architects of what he calls “the identity synthesis”—his term for what alternatively goes by identity politics or wokeness, terms that he avoids because he believes they are overly polemical—are not accidentally but conscientiously opposed to the race-blind aspirations of their liberal predecessors. All this he discusses this week with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver. The two also turn to the question of what this revolutionary moral transformation has to do with the Jews. Does the very notion that Americans should be categorized and evaluated in political, civic, and educational settings on the basis of race—and that, moreover, Jews are often fit into the racially white, oppressor category—mean that logic of the identity synthesis tends toward anti-Semitism? Does the legitimating of racial categorization give ammunition to white supremacists to reject the whiteness of Jews, and indulge their own Jew-hatred? And what does all this mean for the central goal of Jewish education—to teach children to assume responsibility for and pride in the Jewish tradition? Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

“Part of the beauty of America is that we all have roots in all kinds of parts of the world, and we bring that cultural richness—and the aspect of cultural diversity—with us to this country.”  So says Yascha Mounk on this episode of The Russell Moore Show. And yet, of course, differences can also bring about conflict that has a significant negative impact on individuals and society alike. Mounk, an expert on issues in liberal democracy, and Moore discuss these parallel truths through the lens of Mounk's new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. Mounk and Moore talk about the “spiral of radicalization” the United States finds itself in today. They consider the role of political parties, institutions, and perspectives on race in shaping our cultural moment. Their conversation dives into sexual orientation, gender identity, and marriage as well as pedagogy, theology, and social psychology.  Tune in for a thoughtful dialogue that spans issues of discrimination, justice, and the power of influence in our daily lives.  Resources mentioned in this episode include: Yascha Mounk at The Atlantic Council on Foreign Relations Persuasion Journal The Good Fight podcast The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time by Yascha Mounk Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story by Ruby Bridges Chloé Valdary Do you have a question for Russell Moore? Send it to questions@russellmoore.com. Click here for a trial membership at Christianity Today. “The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today Executive Producers: Erik Petrik, Russell Moore, and Mike Cosper Host: Russell Moore Producer: Ashley Hales Associate Producers: Abby Perry and Azurae Phelps Director of Operations for CT Media: Matt Stevens Audio engineering by Dan Phelps Video producer: Abby Egan Theme Song: “Dusty Delta Day” by Lennon Hutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Yascha Mounk's new book, he “traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America — and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals.” This hour, Mounk joins us to talk about the future of democracy and The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. GUEST:  Yascha Mounk: Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, and host of the podcast The Good Fight. His new book is The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.  Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The main purpose of this micro-episode is to give you the details on the much ballyhooed Philadelphia area meet-up of fans of the podcast.  The date is this Friday, October 6, 2023.  The place will be Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company, 909 Ray Avenue, Croydon, Pennsylvania.  The official start-time is 5:00 pm, but if you can't get there so early rest assured that I'll be around until at least 7:30, and certainly as late as the conversation remains fun and interesting. I'll aim to get there at 4:30 or so to check out the room I reserved, which I believe they call “the nook.”  I trust many of you will recognize me from my photo on the website or on Twitter or Facebook, but in case not I'll be wearing a red “History Nerd” cap.  I also read a short excerpt from Yascha Mounk's new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, which I highly recommend. Mounk explores the philosophical roots of critical theory and the full range of ideas clumsily lumped together as "wokeism," or "the successor ideology." The book is extremely useful for understanding how we arrived at our current identity politics, and is relevant to understanding the "history wars" that have played out over the last four or five years. You can buy it through the link above.

I've interviewed Yascha Mounk about his book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time, which was released this week."Mounk has told the story of the Great Awokening better than any other writer who has attempted to make sense of it," The Washington Post wrote in a review.Yascha's book says that we can reach across our differences and understand one another, and that we need to make the effort to do so, through conversation, debate, and relationship. I was not aware of the degree to which some progressive writers and intellectuals have argued that such mutual understanding is not even possible, and so they have discouraged the pursuit.It's hard for me to imagine a world in which we do not at least try to understand and appreciate one another, even those with whom we have profound differences. That effort is at the heart of a free and prosperous society, in my mind.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Writer and academic Yascha Mounk argues that a new set of ideas about race, gender, and sexual orientation have overtaken society, giving rise to a rigid focus on identity in our national debate. In his new book, “The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time,” Yascha seeks to take these ideas seriously, understand their origin, dissect their merits and failings, and offer a path forward to avoid what he calls “the identity trap.” On today's show, Mounk previews his book and explains how the identity trap harms freedom of speech. Mounk is known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University and the author of five books. He is also the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:35 - Origins of “the identity trap” 8:48 - What is “identity synthesis?” 12:26 - Is “cultural Marxism” a thing? / The intellectual history of identity synthesis 27:47 - Critical race theory 32:30 - Free speech culture 40:22 - Speech and violence 47:58 - The Law of Group Polarization  52:27 - How to escape the identity trap Discussed intellectuals:  Derrick Bell  Kimberlé Crenshaw  Jacques Derrida  Michel Foucault Christopher Rufo (Rufo's book, “America's Cultural Revolution,” and Nico's review, “Christopher Rufo Became the Thing He Claims to Hate”) Edward Said Jean-Paul Sartre Gayatri Spivak  Cass Sunstein (article: “The Law of Group Polarization”) www.sotospeakpodcast.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@freespeechtalk Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/freespeechtalk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freespeechtalk/ Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org

Jim talks with Yascha Mounk about the ideas in his new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power. They discuss tribalism among progressives, universalism, the story of Kila Posey, how over-emphasizing ethnic identity fosters zero-sum racial conflicts, how identitarianism led to excess Covid deaths, Foucault's rejection of grand narratives, Edward Said's post-colonialism, Gayatri Spivak's strategic essentialism, being blind to race vs being blind to racism, critical race theory, Derrick Bell's idea of the permanence of racism, how the rejection of universalism escaped college campuses, why progressive organizations are tearing themselves apart, the logic of collective action, how progressive activists have passed off their ideas as those of all non-white people, statistics on police violence, Frederick Douglass's 4th of July speech, cultural appropriation, retaining trust in persuasion, fighting for liberalism, personal & political aspects of the identity trap, and much more. Episode Transcript The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power, by Yascha Mounk "Why the Latest Campus Cancellation Is Different," by Yascha Mounk JRS EP197 - Susan Neiman on Why Left Is Not Woke "A Political Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force," by Roland Fryer, Jr. Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Mounk received his BA in history from Trinity College Cambridge, and his PhD in government from Harvard University. He is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, host of the podcast “The Good Fight,” a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of The Great Experiment and The Identity Trap.

Questa puntata di Globo parte dalla morte di Silvio Berlusconi: non per inoltrarci nella politica italiana, ma perché molti analisti e studiosi negli ultimi giorni hanno ricordato Berlusconi come il padre di un certo populismo che poi è diventato prevalente in tutto l'Occidente. Partendo da Berlusconi raccontiamo l'ascesa del populismo in Europa, e i pericoli che pone per la democrazia. Lo facciamo con uno dei massimi esperti al mondo: Yascha Mounk, autore di studi tradotti un po' in tutto il mondo, professore all'Università Johns Hopkins e membro del centro studi Council on Foreign Relations. – L'ultimo libro di Yascha Mounk, “Il grande esperimento” – Il podcast di Mounk, “The Good Fight” I CONSIGLI DI YASCHA MOUNK – “Sulla libertà” di John Stuart Mill – “Il Gattopardo” di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa – La libertà degli antichi, paragonata a quella dei moderni” di Benjamin Constant CONTINUA SUL POST – Cos'è il populismo – Il populismo ha fatto anche cose buone? – Lo stile poco ortodosso di Berlusconi in politica estera Globo è un podcast del Post condotto da Eugenio Cau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Marcia Franklin talks with political scientist Yascha Mounk about identity, political divides and his outlook on America. Mounk is the author of several books, including “The People vs. Democracy,” “The Great Experiment,” and “Stranger in My Own Country.”  The conversation was recorded at the 2022 Sun Valley Writers' Conference.

In recent years the fragility of our democracy has been exposed. Founded to offer both freedom and rights, this form of governance is precious. But it's permanence cannot be taken for granted. How do we preserve our democracy in the face of the many threats and challenges before us? Join us in a conversation with one of the world's leading experts on the crisis of liberal democracy, Yascha Mounk. With his brilliant insights, many that run counter to conventional wisdom, Mounk offers an optimistic set of ideas and proposals for how our democracies can endure and thrive in spite of our differences. To RSVP for upcoming events, visit our events page at: thecommongoodus.org

Diversity has often been seen as the United States' defining strength, but today some Americans see it as a threat. And this isn't new. Throughout history, differences of religion, ethnicity, and origin have driven states around the world to war, violence, and extreme division. However, German-American political scientist Yascha Mounk says this isn't the only path.  On this week's episode, Mounk joins Ray to discuss his new book, “The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart And How They Can Endure,” which challenges the assumptions of a modern pluralist society and imagines how diverse democracies might succeed in an increasingly polarized political landscape.   Guest:   Yascha Mounk, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, contributing editor at The Atlantic and author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure   Host:   Ray Suarez

With the attack on Ukraine well underway, political thinker Yascha Mounk recently admitted in The Atlantic that, “We stand at the beginning of a new era of naked power politics.” The Russian invasion is not simply an assault on a neighboring country motivated by strained ethnic relations or security concerns, but it is an assault on the democratic values and political system espoused by Ukraine. It is the latest setback in a “democratic recession” now entering its 16th consecutive year, according to Freedom House. “In 2021, the number of countries moving away from democracy once again exceeded the number of countries moving toward it by a big margin.” Why is this happening and what can be done to reverse this global trend? Yascha Mounk argues that democracy has long struggled to embody both equality and diversity, and despite the challenges past and present facing democratic institutions, he believes that with ambition and vision, there is still reason to be hopeful. Yascha Mounk is a German-American political scientist, author, and associate professor of practice at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. His works have appeared in The New York Times, Politico and the Journal of Democracy. His works have included assessments of American democracy, the dangers of nationalism and ethnic relations in democratic settings. In The Great Experiment, Mounk argues that the struggle of free countries to be both diverse and equal in their political systems is the greatest experiment of our time and essential to the continuation of democracy. While this feat is unprecedented, he contends, understanding the past and underlying conditions that have led to division and social injustices is critical to avoiding them in the future, and he writes that we should have genuine hope in humanity's ability to accomplish it. Join us as Mounk explores the long and complicated history between democracy, equality and diversity, and explains that with a bold vision as our guiding light, we can harmoniously celebrate our differences without letting them divide us. SPEAKERS Yascha Mounk Founder, Persuasion; Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic; Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Author, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure; Twitter @Yascha_Mounk In Conversation with Steven Saum Editor, WorldView Magazine In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on May 3rd, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As expat moms, we are in a unique position to live all over the world in the midst of other cultures.  This comes with some amazing benefits of exposure and significant relationships with people of many cultures and colors—this is one of the research-supported ways to promote anti-racism.  If we have close personal relationships with people who are different from us we can lose our inaccurate bias'.  However, being an expat and living in another culture also introduces new bias'.  Expat children have difficult experiences abroad that can cause bias' in a very real and personal way.   Without deliberate mothering, these experiences can cause our children to associate an entire culture with a bad experience they had.  We need mothers who are actively training the minds of their children to be anti-racist so we can build a more fair society and we can all enjoy and learn from the diversity of each other.  I hope this podcast will give you some helpful tools to raise Anti-racist kids as I discuss this topic with Rosemay Webster. Things You'll Learn on the Podcast:Why avoiding talking about skin color promotes racismHow to talk about race with your childWhat creates implicit biasHow to minimize implicit bias in our childrenUnique ways expat kids develop bias' they might not in their home countryHow to help kids avoid turning negative experiences with your host culture into broader biasResources Mentioned in the ShowPodcast:  Real Talk/Almost Docshttps://www.instagram.com/realtalkalmostdocs/Implicit Bias Testhttps://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.htmlDiAngelo, R. (2011). White Fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3(3), 54-70.Mounk, Yascha.  (2022) “Yascha Mounk on the Future of Diverse Democracies”. The Lawfare Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/yascha-mounk-on-the-future-of-diverse-democracies/id498897343?i=1000558014962 Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist. New York, NY: One World, 2019Munger, K. Tweetment Effects on the Tweeted: Experimentally Reducing Racist Harassment. Polit Behav 39, 629–649 (2017). The First Name Basis Podcast with Jasmine Bradshawhttps://firstnamebasis.libsyn.com/anti-racism-where-do-i-start Free Coaching SessionSign-up for a free coaching session.ScheduleOne-Minute WisdomEach week I carefully craft a short perspective shift or tool that you can read in about a  minute.  You can sign up here.Follow me on Instagram: @theexpatmomcoach or on Facebook:  @theexpatmomcoach

Is good old American flag waving patriotism dead, only to be replaced with chauvinistic nationalism, or worse, anti-Americanism? Perhaps thinking of national pride as something rooted in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the U.S.' proud history is too 20thcentury; maybe it is no longer working? Indeed, in a country in which history and civics get short shrift in education, it should come as no surprise that many under 50 feel no pride, no patriotic sense as Americans. But there may be another way – a new cultural patriotism, in which people have pride in the country they know rather than in the traditions that have spawned national holidays and parades. Will that work? Yascha Mounk joined Dany and Marc to discuss the findings of his new book The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (Penguin Press). He discusses the concept of cultural patriotism, the problem of multiculturalism and assimilation. They also debate the metaphor of America's melting pot, American exceptionalism, and the ideals that make America the best country on earth.  Mounk is one of the world's leading experts on the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of populism. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the founder of Persuasion. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/WTH-Mounk-Transcript.pdf (Download the transcript here.)

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Yascha Mounk, author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure. Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Mounk received his BA in history from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and his PhD in government from Harvard University. He is now a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of Persuasion. Mounk is also a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A democracy has never succeeded in being both diverse and equal. Yet, treating members of many different ethnic or religious groups fairly is central to the democratic project in countries around the world. It is, Yascha Mounk argues, the greatest experiment of our time. In The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, Mounk examines how diverse societies have long suffered from the ills of domination, fragmentation, or structured anarchy and shows that the past can offer crucial insights for how to do better in the future. The CFR Fellows' Book Launch series highlights new books by CFR fellows. This meeting is part of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy.

So, there's actually something about the basic mechanism of democracy that does make it harder to sustain diversity. In other ways, the principles of liberal democracy are the right solution. And so, obviously my vision for the future is that of a diverse democracy. But we shouldn't be at ease about the ways in which democracy can sometimes inflame ethnic and religious tensions as well.Yascha MounkA full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.Yascha Mounk is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of Persuasion. Mounk is also a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure.Support Democracy Paradox on Patreon for bonus episodes and exclusive updates and information. Key HighlightsIs a diverse democracy more democraticChallenges for diverse democraciesYascha's vision for diverse societiesThe most dangerous idea in American PoliticsIs it more difficult for diverse ideas to flourish?Key LinksThe Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure by Yascha  MounkRead more from Yascha Mounk at PersuassionFollow Yascha Mounk @Yascha_MounkDemocracy Paradox PodcastElisabeth Ivarsflaten and Paul Sniderman on Inclusion and Respect of Muslim MinoritiesSara Wallace Goodman on Citizen Responses to Democratic ThreatsMore Episodes from the PodcastMore InformationDemocracy GroupApes of the State created all MusicEmail the show at jkempf@democracyparadox.comFollow on Twitter @DemParadox100 Books on DemocracySupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/demparadox)

Ravi sits down with Yascha Mounk to talk about his new book, "The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure," a tailor-made read for Lost Debate listeners. Ravi and Yascha go through the fraying aspects of American democracy while putting a hopeful lens on what it's getting right. Mounk puts the state of global democracy in its vast historical context, arguing today represents unprecedented success for democratic ideals despite growing threats to its preeminence as a desirable system of governance. Melding history, comparative politics and social science, Yascha makes the case that democracy -- including America's -- can still overcome the challenges facing it today while acknowledging their seriousness, including in-group/out-group instincts, how we teach our own history, and media polarization.  Subscribe to The Lost Debate's YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/3Gs5YTF Sticher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-lost-debate iheart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-lost-debate-88330217/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/752ca262-2801-466d-9654-2024de72bd1f/the-lost-debate LOST DEBATE ON SOCIAL: Follow Lost Debate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lostdebate/ Follow Lost Debate on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lostdebate Follow Lost Debate on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelostdebate

Every major democracy in the world right now is experiencing some kind of teething problems. From rising inflation to some very deep soul searching in a post-pandemic world, issues that are interconnected that look increasingly intractable. But all of these challenges are what make democracy such an exciting project to live in – it's ours alone to craft. Within this tug of war, new ideas and concepts arise. Enter renowned American-German political scientist Yascha Mounk, a passionate defender of the liberal order, his work documents the bitter challenges we face as citizens of our democracies but also the enormous opportunities we inherit if we pull together. In his latest work, The Great Experiment, he has put together a rallying thesis outlining a bold vision, one that requires a macro overview, he is 'pessimistic about our political discourse, and anxious about a civil war of the elites, but insists that progress in the heart of society are reasonably good.' An Associate Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C., a contributing editor at The Atlantic, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the founder of Persuasion. Mounk is Someone who can distil even the most complex of problems we face in a straightforward way. As Yascha and I get into the weeds of these problems, Russia makes a renewed advance into Ukraine, aiming to disrupt the calm which we have all fought so hard to preserve. Let me know your thoughts on the discussion, email me or comment at me on our social media and please subscribe to my newsletter to get notified of my next podcast.

Confidence in democracy is declining in the West at the same time authoritarian leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping have become more transparent about their demands and lack of respect for democracy, says Johns Hopkins University professor Yascha Mounk, author of a new book, "The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure."   On the GZERO World podcast, Mounk tells Ian Bremmer we're in a new era of naked power politics, illustrated by the way Putin is transforming Russia into a repressive regime. Putin believes the West is decadent while he views himself as a strong leader with traditional values. Meanwhile, the biggest challenges ahead for democracies like the US are racial disparities in wealth, tribalism, and extreme partisanship. 

Confidence in democracy is declining in the West at the same time authoritarian leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping have become more transparent about their demands and lack of respect for democracy, says Johns Hopkins University professor Yascha Mounk, author of a new book, "The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure."   On the GZERO World podcast, Mounk tells Ian Bremmer we're in a new era of naked power politics, illustrated by the way Putin is transforming Russia into a repressive regime. Putin believes the West is decadent while he views himself as a strong leader with traditional values. Meanwhile, the biggest challenges ahead for democracies like the US are racial disparities in wealth, tribalism, and extreme partisanship.  Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.

Mounk, Yaschawww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, InterviewDirekter Link zur Audiodatei

Critical race theory has transformed from a once-obscure academic concept to an issue at the forefront of America's political discourse. In the wake of Glenn Youngkin's victory in Virginia, many have viewed his opposition to critical race theory and his concerns surrounding the teaching of race in schools as a significant factor in his success in this month's election. With the 2022 midterms fast approaching, critical race theory is set to be a hot-button issue as the Republicans attempt to take back control of congress. Yascha Mounk joined Marc and Dany to discuss critical race theory, the current rhetoric on race in the United States, how the Democrat's lost the education narrative, and the stifling of free speech. Mounk is one of the world's leading experts on the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of populism. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the founder of Persuasion. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Final-Transcript-WTH-Ep-127-Mounk.pdf (Download the transcript here. )

Nicht nur einige Klimaaktivisten, sondern breitere Teile der Bevölkerung hätten Zweifel, ob die Demokratie die richtige Staatsform für den Kampf gegen den Klimawandel sei, sagte der Politikwissenschaftler Yascha Mounk im Dlf. Das liege auch an einem falschen Narrativ zum Klimwandel. Yascha Mounk im Gespräch mit Anja Reinhardt www.deutschlandfunk.de, Interview Hören bis: 19.01.2038 04:14 Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

A friend sent me this podcast Elizabeth Bruenig on Religion, Liberalism, and Wokeness from Yascka Mounk's podcast. https://www.yaschamounk.com/ Elizabeth Bruenig is a Catholic Socialist and she has a very interesting conversation with Mounk. In this first video we'll look at her comments on the college boy gap highlighted in the WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233 There is a vigorous debate about marrying young vs marrying old. What the new high status mating seems something other. See  @Chris Williamson  's talk about polyamory. https://youtu.be/SRm9gBWXd8o  Discord link. Good for just a few days. Check with more recent videos for a fresh link. https://discord.gg/xUrkWH2v Paul Vander Klay clips channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0jIcadtoxELSwehCh5QTg My Substack https://paulvanderklay.substack.com/ Estuary Hub Link https://sites.google.com/view/estuaryhubcontent/home  If you want to schedule a one-on-one conversation check here. https://paulvanderklay.me/2019/08/06/converzations-with-pvk/ There is a video version of this podcast on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/paulvanderklay To listen to this on ITunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-vanderklays-podcast/id1394314333  If you need the RSS feed for your podcast player https://paulvanderklay.podbean.com/feed/  All Amazon links here are part of the Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy through one of the product links here. This is is one (free to you) way to support my videos.  https://paypal.me/paulvanderklay To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin (BTC): 37TSN79RXewX8Js7CDMDRzvgMrFftutbPo  To support this channel/podcast with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) qr3amdmj3n2u83eqefsdft9vatnj9na0dqlzhnx80h  To support this channel/podcast with Ethereum (ETH): 0xd3F649C3403a4789466c246F32430036DADf6c62 Blockchain backup on Lbry https://odysee.com/@paulvanderklay https://www.patreon.com/paulvanderklay Paul's Church Content at Living Stones Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7bdktIALZ9Nq41oVCvW-A To support Paul's work by supporting his church give here. https://tithe.ly/give?c=2160640

The full conversation with Ricardo Hausmann - now with Transcript. This is a subscriber-only post.TranscriptOpening musicYou are listening to ideas Untrapped with Tobi Lawson. Tobi Lawson (intro) Welcome to another episode of ideas Untrapped and my guest today is Ricardo Hausmann, who is a professor of economic development at Harvard University, he is a former director of centre for International Development, and is currently the Director of the center's growth lab. Ricardo pioneered an approach of looking at economic development called economic complexity. My brief synopsis of the central idea is that an economy only grows and develop by learning to do many things by expanding its productive capabilities. I start by asking Ricardo, what we can learn, particularly from the East Asian experience, and what has happened in economic development over the last few decades. Thank you for always listening to the show and I hope you enjoy this one. Tobi Lawson You've been one of the most important thinkers in economic development throughout my adult life. So, it's a pleasure to speak to you. Ricardo Hausmann Pleasure to be with you. Tobi LawsonFrom Around 1990, when the results of the economic trajectory of East Asia became apparent, so many policy propositions have been developed by scholars. But, in your opinion, what do you think has been the most important lesson from that East Asian growth episode? Ricardo Hausmann I think the general experience of development is really, that development is about the growth of productive capabilities In a society, it's what our society is capable of doing and, what a society is capable of doing depends a little bit on, what are the tools and machines it has available to do things nd what are the recipes and formulas and routines and protocols it's aware of, but it's mostly about what is the know-how that it's people have and this idea of know-how is not just, you know, low and high. It's mostly How different is what each member of society knows. Because if everybody knows a lot of the same thing, the whole doesn't know much more than each individual. But if each individual knows different than the whole can know a lot, even if each individual doesn't know that much. So this division of know how in society allows for individuals to specialise and society to diversify, that a society is able to do more, because it's individuals are all different. I am originally from Venezuela, and we're Nigeria. And we all think that we are rich because we have¹ oil. And then something bad happened to explain why, given that we're rich, we're not so rich, but we're rich, because we have our, our society is rich, not because of what it has. But because of what it knows how to do. And the growth and development of a society is the growth and development of what it knows how to do well. That's the core of things. And so if you ask about East Asia, well, they started in agriculture, they move to garments, then they move to textiles, then they move to electronics, then they move to cars, and move to chemicals and shapes, and so on. So, if you look at what they have been good at, that is something that has been very rapidly changing. They become good at more things. And they can become sufficiently good at those things that they can sell them outside of the country. And if you look at their export baskets, they have been evolving dramatically. In the directions I just mentioned, if you look at the export basket of Nigeria, or the export basket or Venezuela, the only thing you'll find there is oil. But when you look at the amount of oil we're talking about, it's really peanuts. It's really, so it's not that we have a lot of oil, it's that it's the only game in town. You know, Nigeria is a society of about 200 million people, cruises about 2 million barrels of oil a day. That's like a 100th of a barrel of oil per capita. That's 100th of a $60. That's 60 cents. That's not much money that's coming out of here, right? So it's not that you have a lot of oil, it's that it's the only game in town. And that's a reflection of how little The company has got more things with the possible exception of Nollywood. Tobi Lawson You've finished Nigeria, I wouldn't just say Nollywood, sectors like telecommunications have been booming in the last 20 years. But looking broadly.... Ricardo Hausmann Wait, one second, one second, one second, that has allowed Nigerians to call each other. But that opens an enormous opportunity now, because one of the things that COVID has taught us is that many things that we used to do in the office, we can do from home. But anything that can be done from home, can be done from abroad. So there are many, many tasks that are currently done in rich countries. But that could be done by zoom in poor countries, in less developed countries. And that opens up new avenues for diversification, it will open up, you know, the possibility to participate in value chains that were unthinkable before, because people thought that, you know, the people doing those tasks had to live there. Now, we know that they don't have to live there. So you know, one message for all the youth in Nigeria, is that there's plenty of work in platforms like Upwork, and other such platforms where you can find jobs to do on the web. And that's thanks to the fact that you have you know, ICT information communication technology that has diffuse, but so far, that  diffusion has not changed what Nigeria is able to sell abroad. And that's, I think, where we have to aim, I mean, forms of livelihood, for Nigerians in Nigeria, by selling to people in the rest of the world Tobi Lawson Looking at your economic complexity approach to development, from your writings, and the writings of other scholars in that school, a society that knows how to do many things will grow rich, but how do we square that with the works of people like Robert Wade, who stressed the importance of manufacturing and industrialization in achieving growth and development? How should policymakers think about the knowledge we are getting from the sub discipline of economic developmentRicardo Hausmann Manufacturing was a very, very important stepping stone, for many of the societies that became rich, it was a very important stepping stone, because manufacturing require relatively low skilled labour. So it was easy to take people out of agriculture, with little education, put them in manufacturing, and manufacturing was, you know, generating much higher levels of productivity in agriculture at the time, and the levels of productivity manufacturing worldwide. So, for East Asia, this movement of people from agriculture to manufacturing was a very important stepping stone in the process of development. Some people think that manufacturing has become less unskilled labour intensive, it has become more skill intensive and more capital intensive. So it doesn't necessarily generate as many jobs as before and there aren't that many sort of like entry level jobs as as before. But I think they're still there. They're still there. So I think that, you know, a prosperous Nigeria would have much more manufacturing than it has today and creating the ecosystem for that manufacturing to happen is very important. And for that, I think that creating the ecosystem means what? It means that needs spaces where people can locate their factories, say, so that workers can go in and out efficiently and not spend two hours going there and two hours back home, that the materials can get in and out that you're relatively close to an efficient port, where you can bring materials from the rest of the world or send materials to the rest of the world, that you can participate in global value chain so that you give up on this idea that everything that you want to manufacture has to be manufactured with locally available raw materials, which is one of the most destructive ideas that is very popular in Africa that you want to, as you say, what's the term that you use there "beneficiate" your raw materials locally, and that that's like the angle of development. We can elaborate but that's a very, very dangerous and counterproductive idea. So you will need you know, a place that has electricity, water, security. So creating those spaces where manufacturing can thrive definitely is a path going forward and I would I would put the less attention to some of the things that goes by the older industrial policy name, and more attention to just making sure that you create spaces where a Nigerian manufacturer can be very, very productive. Tobi Lawson Let's talk a bit about the political economy of this. What exactly is the role of the state because what mostly obtains in countries like Nigeria, and the rest is heavy state involvement in trying to industrialise and doing industrial policy, allocate resources and credit and, there isn't more emphasis on the role of the private sector and even in the market. So how important is the state in this process, and what exactly is the role of the state in nurturing a growing economy? Ricardo Hausmann So, I think that the role of the state is huge. But it has to be smart, it has to be complimentary, it has to enhance the possibilities of the rest of society and not substitute the possibilities of the rest of society. So let me give you an example. Every technology you can imagine, is a combination of some things that you can buy in the market, and some things that cannot be purchased in the market that either they are provided by the state, or they're not provided. So you know, there is a market for cars, and you can go out and buy a car and different kinds of cars. There's no market for roads, or for traffic lights, or for driving rules, or for traffic police. So a car is a private good, it exists in a universe full of public goods. If the state does not provide the roads, the cars are not very useful, right? That's what I mean by the state complementing the rest of society. So society can organise some things and not others. So it's very important that the state be very good at providing the things that cannot be provided by markets. And those are quite a few. So for example, electricity penetration in Nigeria is still very low and remains a very, very significant obstacle to progress in spite of massive investments in that area. So electricity, you know, an efficient port system and efficient road system, and efficient urban transportation system, public education, you know no public health, there are so many so many tasks. Now in learning, things that can be done by markets, there's also a lot that can be done, let me tell you a little bit of a secret of the US success. If you look at Silicon Valley, for example, well, let's look first at the US as a whole, the US as a whole 14% of the population of the US is foreign born. But, if you look at the entrepreneurs in the US, 29% are foreign born. So the foreign born represent you know double the share of the entrepreneurs, than they represent the share of the population. If you look in Silicon Valley, and everybody's trying to imitate Silicon Valley, 54% of the science, technology, engineering and math workers of Silicon Valley, the stem workers 54% are foreign born, and the other 46% were not born in California, even though California is a state that has 40 million people. So the secret of Silicon Valley, is not that they have fantastic school systems and fantastic universities, and so on and so forth. It is really that they're able to attract global talent and one of the things that Africa has done in general, is that it has closed itself to the attraction of foreign talent. In many countries, it's very hard to get a visa to become a permanent resident or work permit. There is no path to citizenship. There are restrictions in how many foreigners a firm can hire, etc, etc. So, you know, in Africa, many countries cannot stop their citizens from going and working abroad. But the countries are very effective in preventing foreigners to come in, except at the very low end. So, one of the things that you want to think about in order to industrialise and to get into other things is to be able to attract talent, global talent that is capable of enhancing the capabilities you have. There's no shame in doing that. That's how it's being done in the in the rich countries. You know, everybody wants to become Singapore. But they don't know that Singapore is 45% foreign born. Singapore is what it is because it's able to attract global talent. So, you know, a lot of the improvements in the South African financial system is because they were able to attract all the Zimbabweans that were leaving Mugabe and get jobs, you know, all the educated Zimbabweans moved to South Africa. And that was very good for South Africa. So there's a lot in terms of attracting new know-how that can be done by trying to attract foreign talent. Another thing that you can do is to leverage your diaspora. Most African countries have a very significant diaspora. Much of that diaspora is in richer countries more developed countries and that diaspora is being exposed to new ways of doing business, to new industries, to new ideas, they can become a very, very important source of diversification of progress that has been documented by analysts at cellion, for the case of Taiwan, for the case of India, for the case of Israel, for many instances in which diasporas were very important in transforming the opportunities of the country. So, you want to leverage all of these things that can allow society to become more productive, more capable, more able to do more things. And no, the role of the government is in some sense not to prevent that from happening, to complement that with all the things that cannot be organised through markets, through private firms, and then, you know, maybe here and there, there's an additional space for, you know, focusing things, you know, just if there were good industrial zones, well connected by infrastructure ports, were supplied by electricity and water, well connected to places where workers live through an urban transport system, and so on. I'm sure that a lot of people would look into doing manufacturing in Nigeria. Tobi LawsonI want to get more from your answer by extending that question to state capacity. So many scholars have argued that state capacity is even the secret sauce, so to speak, of the success of East Asia, including China, and you get the impression that a state has to have fully formed capacity to deliver on so many things before it can then nurture growth and development. But you have argued in one of your lectures that I just saw that there is a coevolution, that happens between the state and the economy in terms of capabilities. So how does this co evolution work in practice, as opposed to the standard view of a fully formed capable state? Ricardo Hausmann Some people would like to say, Well, you know, first you have to have a capable state, and then you can have development. But until you get a capable state, you cannot get development. So focus on getting a capable state. But then you ask yourself the question, and how is that capable state going to rise? What's going to find that capable state if it's not a society that is able to pay the taxes and so on to feed that capable state. So So in fact, what you ended up having is a society that needs to develop in order to feed a more capable state, and a more capable state that is able to help society continuous development process. So at every point in time, you have states of very different capacities. And as a consequence, societies have a certain level of capacity consistent with that capacity of the state. So what you end up having is, the more society develops, the more resources can be put available to the state for it to do its thing. And the more the state does its thing, the more the society can develop. So these things are growing at the same time, or they're growing together. But a very important important question that you have to ask yourself, when you're thinking about the state, you're thinking about the Nigerian state. Now, what does it mean to be Nigerian? Who is Nigerian? Who is included in being Nigerian? When the state acts on behalf of Nigerians? It acts on behalf of whom? Is that on behalf of the Hausa? Does it act on behalf of the Yoruba? Does it act on behalf of the ibo? What does it mean to be Ibo and Nigerian or Hausa and Nigeria? How many things do you want to be decided in Abuja? And how many things we want to have decided at the different states, state government? So you have a relatively federal structure in Nigeria? Is that because you think that people have stronger regional identities than they have for a national identity? When you talk about Japan, or you talk about Korea, you're talking about societies that are internally very homogeneous. A Japanese person is somebody who speaks Japanese. A Korean person is somebody who speaks Korean. How many languages are spoken in Nigeria? Tobi Lawson (interjects) About 500… Ricardo Hausmann So obviously, it's not having a state is somebody's state, whose state is it? So I think one of the things that is a challenge is the construction of a Nigerian identity that can support the state. Right? Because the state is underpinned by a certain sense of us. The state is our state, it is done for us. It is how we do things collectively and it's Very important to clarify what do we mean by that we, who is inside the way, who's not inside the we, who is us, who's not us and those things are what makes often no state development difficult. Because, you know, if some people think that the state is going to be favouring some other group, then you would rather have a weak state than a state controlled by somebody who's not you and those things makes statecraft harder. Tobi LawsonI mean, devolution of powers from the centre is one of the conversations that Nigeria is having right now, especially in the light of the recent insecurity, issues and poverty, we would see how that works. But let me quickly pick up on another theme. Politicians usually valourize the role of small businesses in our economy, but in one of your essays that has made a very big impression on me. You took a different approach by looking at the role of big businesses in nurturing development and enrichment. Can you expatiate a bit on the role of big businesses in an economy. Ricardo HausmannSo I think when you have a very developed society, you tend to have, you know, markets for every possible input you want. You want electricity, somebody sells electricity, you want to photocopy or you want to print this stuff, there is a store that prints stuff for you, you want to design a campaign ad or television ad or cover it, you know, there's some people that design that. So you can start a business and buy everything else from the stuff that people produce around you. Right, so all of your possible inputs are things that other firms can do for you. So you can start small, and buy everything you need from everybody else. When you start in a less developed society. Many of those things that you wish you could buy from everybody else are just not there. And maybe you have to self provide your own electricity, maybe you'll have to print your own stuff, maybe you'll have to design your own covers, maybe we'll have to have all of these things done inside the company, because there are no reliable suppliers outside the company. So as a consequence, you know, modern firms tend to start bigger in less developed countries than in more developed countries, in more developed countries, you can just rely on other people doing stuff for you. As a consequence, no existing Corporation, or in some sense, organisations that have developed the capacity to provide internally things that markets cannot do for them. So once they exist, they have typically financial capital, they have a managerial capital, they have a reputational capital, that allows them to make it much easier for them to start a new line of business. You know, the Silicon Valley way to start a new line of business is that you create a startup, a startup is very easy to create in Silicon Valley, or in a very advanced place, because everything that the startup needs they can buy out there. But in the place where you cannot buy everything out there. You cannot start that small. But a corporation, a conglomerate, if it were to decide to diversify into more line of business, it could just reallocate some of its managers, it could reallocate some of its cash flows. It could because of its reputation, it could do joint ventures with other companies, maybe some foreign company or something that can bring in some technology and they can do things as a group that a startup cannot do. So that's why I wrote this piece saying, you know, a conglomerates can be and war in the case of Japan and Korea, a fundamental story of the growth process. Japan and Korea diversified because Toyota, Mitsubishi, di Woo, Samsung diversified internally as conglomerates. Right? It's not that just more companies appeared, it's that those companies diversified. So, I think that it's an important avenue for growth that a country should consider, but,  conglomerates can come You know, can be a force for good or they can be a force for bad either. conglomerates can just become you know, monopolist in one industry move to the next industry and become a monopolist there move to next industry and become a monopolist there and then suddenly become a huge barrier to entry for other people. It's very important that the conglomerates do well and this was the case of Japan and Korea, They are exporters, you tolerate conglomerates because they are exporters', a conglomerate that only sells domestically. It's like one of the local football teams. A conglomerate that exports is like the the national team. It's like the one that's playing at the World Cup. It's facing massive competition from other companies in other countries. So it deserves all the support of society. But a conglomerate that only sells domestically, you know, it has the danger of just becoming the local monopolist and stifling everybody else from competing against them. So, conglomerates can be a stepping stone, can be an avenue for growth, but they have to be good conglomerates. Tobi Lawson Let's talk about trade and I will set the scenario this way, a little over a year ago, about a year and a half. Nigeria closed its borders to all forms of trade. The justification was that the country is far too much of a dumping ground, especially for agricultural products, which we can actually produce locally. They were extreme measures to prevent imports of some of these products and the result, some would argue, as they argued against the move at the time, has been disastrous. Food inflation is through the roof, people became poorer. People are having to spend more on food than anything else, mostly vulnerable households. But you still hear people, either policymakers or even intellectuals, say that these are necessary sacrifices that developing countries have to make in order to industrialise. You have people like Ha Joon Chang, who provide intellectual guidance for this view, and that the West in its own process of industrialization went through much of the same thing, as a scholar who has also done a lot of work on trade for a poor developing country. What is the right way to think about trade policy? Ricardo HausmannOkay, first of all, let's separate trade from just macro-economic mismanagement. Because a lot of the problem of Nigeria comes not from trade mismanagement, but from the trade consequences of macro-economic mismanagement, you have exchange controls, dual exchange rate regimes, etc. That's not because you want to have an industrial policy. That's because you have messed up your macro policies. That is you have a government that has a deficit that is insufficiently finance. So it has to print money to finance it. As it prints the money, the dollar goes through the roof, the naira tanks, right. And then the government doesn't like that, And it wants to say that, you know, it's running out of foreign exchange. So it puts exchange controls, it tries to limit people's access to dollars, and so on. And in that context, it creates an environment where it's very hard for companies to get tools and machines from abroad, it's very hard for them to get raw materials, intermediate inputs, spare parts from abroad and it just makes them extremely unproductive and as a consequence, they have uncompetitive products that they cannot sell anywhere else, but in Nigeria, through enormous protection. Now, trying to do things without importing the tools, the raw materials, the intermediate inputs, the spare parts, is just trying to do things in a very, very difficult way. It's trying to, you know, as my father likes to say, "Why make things difficult if you can make them impossible," the way the world works, is that you don't have to make everything yourself. You just have to do some steps that add value to the things that they that you're going to put together. I remember having a conversation with Governor Fashola in Legos. And he's saying, you know, we want to have a furniture industry. So we want to prohibit the imports of foreign wood for furniture, we want it done with Nigerian wood, and said, You know, you're the governor of Lagos, not all furniture has to be made out of wood, could be made out of metals, it could be made out of plastics, it could be made out of other materials, right and all of the materials you want for furniture industry, or as far as the Lagos sport. So if you want a furniture industry, by all means have a furniture industry, but don't dump on the furniture industry the responsibility of only making furniture by buying inputs in Nigeria, because that's a recipe for disaster. If for some reason your inputs you couldn't buy in Nigeria for x or y or you could buy some inputs and not the others. Like you can buy two legs of the chair but not the other two legs. Well, then that's not a chair. So focus on making sure that your units of production have what it takes for them to succeed and that often implies access to the raw materials that intermediate inputs, the tools, spare parts that no Nigeria doesn't currently make. But that's fine. That's how East Asia did it. If you look at, you know, they started exporting garments, they weren't making the textiles, and they weren't making the fibres, and they weren't making the cotton. They started cutting and sewing and then they move from cutting and sewing to designing the shirts and so on, then they move to making the textiles then they move to maybe making the artificial threads that went into new forms of textiles and they did that gradually. But they did not start by closing themselves off from all the inputs that the world produces, and that you could use to make stuff in Nigeria. So I would say the problem in Nigeria, is that you have a fiscal problem that is being solved by printing too much money that generates an exchange rate mess, that exchange rate mess, creates an environment that makes it very difficult for companies to operate. And in that process, it generates an overvalued exchange rate, which makes manufacturing artificially uncompetitive, and you get less of it, not more of it, less of it because you want, you know, you're constraining the exchange rate at which they could be exporting. And you're constraining their access to raw materials and intermediate inputs. So if anything, you're hurting the chances for growth, not helping them. Tobi Lawson Part of the reasons asscribed to countries like Nigeria, finding it impossible to industrialise, or even diversify their sources of income is the "resource curse" hypothesis. First of all,  is this a real thing, are countries like Venezuela and Nigeria poor because of the so called Dutch disease? And secondly, how do countries that are also resource rich like Norway and Australia, who are rich and highly developed? How did they manage to break out of the "resource curse." Ricardo Hausmann So there are different interpretations of the resource curse when the Dutch disease was coined. It was coined because there was a boom in the Netherlands of a natural gas exports. And those natural gas exports meant that they were exporting a lot, generating a lot of foreign exchange, and their local currency strengthened and that strengthening of the local currency made the rest of the economy uncompetitive. So, if that were the problem, then that would have been a problem in 2007 In Nigeria when the price of oil reached $140 a barrel. But then it goes away as a problem now after 2014 when the price of oil went under $40. Right. So that's no longer the problem, right? I mean, Nigeria's exports of oil are coming down, oil production is stagnant, domestic oil consumption is up. So oil exports are going nowhere, and the price of oil is now lower than it was 10 years ago. Okay. So excess of foreign exchange that used to be called the Dutch disease is no longer a problem. I wrote a paper with my colleague Roberto Rigobon, saying that the problem may not be just how much foreign exchange your oil makes, but just the fact that it's a very volatile amount. Now that it goes up in some years down another year. So the exchange rate as a consequence is very unstable and unpredictable and it makes business in the country, very risky, because you don't know what is the exchange rate or you're going to face and that's not so much because you have a lot of oil, it's just because oil income is very volatile. So that's a separate problem. And that one typically has to be addressed by having some mechanism that stabilises government finances. So you have to run a government that has unstable income and wants to have stable spending programmes. So you want kids to be able to go to school every year. You want roads cleaned and repaired every year. You want to have the hospitals open every year. You want to police services every year but your income is going up and down. How do you do that? That's a problem of stabilising the government accounts and that's a different kind of problem of living with oil. A third problem of living with oil is something that they call rent-seeking. That is, all the money is in the government, then people who are very entrepreneurial, instead of setting up businesses may dedicate themselves to trying to grab the money that the government has. And so it distorts the incentives of society from, you know, doing things that are productive to doing things that are unproductive but profitable in just trying to seek the rents that the state has. I honestly, don't think that that's that big of a problem in Nigeria, given how small our oil revenues, vis a vis, the size of the society. So I think the big puzzle in Nigeria is why the country has not diversified more, given how little oil it has, you know, in a country like Kuwait or in a country like the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, you know, you can ask yourself a question, Well, why would they diversify, they have so much foreign exchange that they don't know what to do with it? The question in Nigeria is why have you not diversified in spite of the fact that oil is generating so little revenue these days? Tobi LawsonI'll just ask you a few off the cuff question, what is your opinion on on the so called Washington Consensus, has it failed In Africa or Latin America? Is it misunderstood? Do developing countries need to think beyond macroeconomic stability and all the other recipes proposed by the IMF? What was the way to think about this? Ricardo Hausmann Okay, so the Washington Consensus is a term that was coined by John Williamson who just passed away a week or two ago in a seminar in 1989 or 1990. I think it was 1990, a seminar that was called 'Latin American adjustment, how much has happened?' So it was really a Latin American question. Latin America was in a debt crisis, the debt crisis was associated with the fact that during the oil boom of the 1970s, it had borrowed too much money, then it was unable to pay that money and it was mired in, in a debt crisis and the question is, how do you get out of there and john Williamson said, there are these 10 things that sort of like Washington institutions agree, would be good to sort of like get out of the Latin American debt crisis. But then these 10 things became like the 10 commandments. You can take them to Eastern Europe, you can take them to sub Saharan Africa, you can take them to North Africa and the Middle East. You take them out of context, and they're supposed to work marvels no matter what. It's, it's it, in my mind, policies have to be solutions to problems. Tell me the problem, let's design a solution. It's not here are 10 solutions. You haven't told me what the problem is. So I think that policies have to be problem driven, and not solution driven and Washington Consensus is a set of solutions without a problem. So in my mind, it ended up creating an environment in which people stopped thinking about what are the policies that they need to adopt, and just as to whether they have or haven't adopted the 10 policies in the list, even if those 10 policies in the list wouldn't solve the problem that we're trying to solve? Because, you know, you haven't even asked the question, what is the problem you're trying to solve? So that's why, with my colleagues, Andres Velasco and Dani Rodrik, we develop this idea of growth diagnostics, that the first thing you have to do is to try to understand what the problem is and once you have a clear idea of what the nature of the problem is, then let's explore the solution space and most likely, you're not going to end in the Washington Consensus, because you know, it will be a coincidence that you do. So from a certain point of view, the worst thing that was delivered by the Washington Consensus, is that it encouraged people to stop thinking of what the right policies are and just assuming that they have an implemented as list of policies that may not be the right ones. Tobi LawsonYou've also been in government in Venezuela. So I'll ask you, what you think holds up the use of knowledge by policymakers? Or should I say what prevents the right diagnosis of the problems that some poor countries have? Because, what you find is that and Nigeria is also a good example of this. What you find is that a lot of these countries, even though different administrations different political actors, they come into power and repeat the same policies that have been tried in the past and failed. So, what prevents the diffusion of knowledge at a governmental level? Ricardo HausmannWell, I mean, I think that people do not act on the basis of how they see the world on the ideas that they have in their heads, and on the interpretations they make of the world. So ideas can change the world, if they change how people think about the world, how people interpret the world, how, how those ideas, help them to think how to act on the world. And I'm an optimist in the sense that I've tried to develop ideas, diffuse ideas, train people, educate people, work with governments, try to help them think through issues that they face. That's why I created the growth lab, the growth lab is a group of about 50 people, and we not only do fundamental research on the issues of economic development and growth. But, we also work with countries around the world, trying to help them think through these issues and we also you know, teach and educate them, and so on. So, I think ideas have a complicated way of diffusing. I think a lot of the problems in the world are related to the diffusion or the popularity of some bad ideas and if I didn't believe that I wouldn't be in the business of trying to produce new ideas, diffuse good ideas, and so on, or what I think are good ideas. So for example, I think that the Washington Consensus has been pretty much superseded by the idea that policies have to be solutions to problems and not solutions in search of a problem and that you don't start by assuming that you know, what the solution is, before you clarify what the nature of the problem is and I think those ideas have permeated even, you know, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and so on, with difficulty, because the alternative paradigm is still popular. I mean, this whole idea of best practices, very dangerous idea, it supposes that people know how to do things, like here's the right the right way to do things, which presumes something like, you know, there is the perfect suit and you know, there's no such thing as a perfect suit, there's only a perfectly tailored suit, and everybody has a different body. So you have to tailor the suit differently and there's a lot of detail in the tailoring. So one thing is how do you defuse better ideas? And the other thing is, is it a problem of politicians not wanting to know, because the ideas they have, are an expression more of their interests than not their knowledge? It's like they like the idea because it advances their interests? Or is it just that they are wrong, or they have the wrong view of the world and you know, there's a big debate on whether its interests or whether it's ideas, the nature of the problem. I'm an optimist in the sense that I think that a lot of the things that happen in the world can be fixed by proving the ideas with which people see the world, analyse the world, interpret the world, think about the world and that's why I'm in the business of, you know, research, and teaching, you know, researching better ideas and teaching about them and by the way, Nigeria is one of the countries that sends more people to our executive education courses at the Harvard Kennedy School. There's, there's a huge community of people who have had some connection with the Harvard Kennedy School in Nigeria and you know, these are the ideas that will teach. So I'm hoping that the, you know, the reason why you have a podcast, the reason why you are trying to promote these discussions is because you also believe that the nature of the ideas with which people think the world is important for progress. That's why you do what you do. Tobi Lawson Thank you. I have a question, the relationship between democracy and development is also one that comes up regularly. I know there is a Acemoglu and Naidu paper that more or less, infer that democracy is good for growth. But lots of people, I will see people with other interests, but that's speculative, would say, Oh, well look at China. China is an authoritarian one party state and look at all the growth they have, what are the nuances on these relationships between democracy and growth or any political system? Ricardo Hausmann So I like very much the ideas about this that have been, you know, growing in a certain political economy literature, where people like Hans Rosling or Mounk or Yascha Mounk, or Dani Rodrik have been proposing, and that's that you really want to distinguish between three different rights. Okay, One is the right of the majority to make decisions about democracy. Right. So, you know, the governments are decided by a majority of people. So that's, you know, making sure that the government represents a significant swath of the population. That's, that's one idea, call that democracy. A second idea, is the idea of some kind of universal rights, that they yes, no, you might be in the minority. But that doesn't mean that the majority can kill, you can expropriate, you can harm you and torture you. Right, that there are some inalienable rights that are protected for everybody, whether you're in the majority or in the minority. And that's different. That's an idea that is often associated with liberalism. So the idea of liberal democracy is this funny balance between the majority rules, but everybody has some guarantees, right and then there is the third problem. So this second problem is called individual rights, it's very important if you're going to have something like a market economy, because if property is going to be poorly distributed as as it is everywhere, then if the majority decides to expropriate the minority, then the minority is not going to play ball and if they are the ones that have dropped the knowledge, their capacity to organise businesses and so on, they don't play ball, then there's no development. So you have to balance this individual rights with these with the idea of majority rule and on top of that, you may have other rights, a social rights that that people might want to have protected, you know, the majority might be a Muslim, and and there's a Christian minority or vice versa, do the social rights of the minority, are they protected? So there's like individual rights, social rights and majority rule and when we say democracy, we don't necessarily make these distinctions. But, what I will tell you is that the protection of individual rights is fundamental. That majority rule is also important, that these two things making them compatible is difficult and what makes it difficult to make it compatible is that somebody has to tell the majority, the elected government, the majority of society, you cannot do these things to the others and who's that thing? Well, it's suppose it's, it's an independent judiciary, something that is not under majority rule and those are the things that these populists like to destroy.  These checks and balances, that are in the system to defend the rights of the individual or the rights of minorities. So I will tell you that democracy if it's majority rule, that does not protect the rights of the individual is not going to be good for development and a lot of the development of the 19th century in Europe, happen in liberal governments, that is governments that protected individual rights, that were not democratic. So I would, instead of asking the question, you know, democracy, good or bad, I would ask the question, majority rule, individual rights, minority social rights, are they being protected? And obviously, it's great if you have all three. But let's not assume that just because you have majority rule you have all three. Tobi LawsonWhat about the issue of globalisation? I know your colleague, Dani Rodrik has written about this, he has this famous trilemma. How much should developing countries worry about things like the globalisation of capital, the level of interconnectedness of the economies with the developed countries and other parts of the world and some of the risk that may come with that, like the global financial crisis of 2008. So how should developing countries think about this, we also have the Asian Financial currency crisis of 1997 as a backdrop. Ricardo  Hausmann So as a backdrop, so the way I think about it is that, you know, Nigeria is a country of 200 million people give or take, that give or take is about 3% of the world population. If ideas were one per capita, then 97% of the ideas are outside of Nigeria and you want to use all of the ideas available to create progress in Nigeria. So you want Nigeria to connect to this global social brain. So inserting Nigeria in the flow of these ideas, these know-hows, these technologies, these ways of doing things is very important for Nigeria's development and this quote unquote, 'globalisation' this interconnection. Now people emphasize a lot, on capital flows and, or maybe goods and services. But I want to emphasise insertion of Nigeria into other flows into the flows of people Nigerians abroad and how they connect back home that they asked for, or foreigners in Nigeria? How can they bring in stuff? ideas? Know how there was not there before? How do you connect your universities abroad? How you connect your research centres with the rest of the world, etc. So how interconnected are your possibilities with, you know, all the advances of the world. So from that point of view, I will say that globalisation is a force for good. I think that, as I mentioned before, one of the key developments going forward is going to be the fact that a lot of the tasks in the world can be done from anywhere and that creates an opportunity for Nigerians to be able to perform tasks, sell their their ideas, do stuff for the rest of the world, through zoom, or, you know, Microsoft Teams, or whatever. So, you know, right now, we are producing a podcast, you're in Nigeria, I'm in the US, we didn't ask permission for anybody to do this, we're producing something jointly and you wouldn't want a world where this becomes illegal or becomes regulated or restricted. So I think that these opportunities are probably more valuable for developing countries and therefore developed countries, it's a very important stepping stone forward. So I hope the world remains sufficiently open, so that the countries in the global south are able to tap into the flows of progress that are happening elsewhere in the world. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to renounce national sovereignty too much. But it's very important to understand that there are two competing goals. One goal is to have sovereign policy. So every polity, every political community can decide more or less what it is that they want to do and that's a good thing. The other good thing is to have common policies that, you know, if we can agree on, you know, whether computers are going to run 120 volts, or 240 volts, doesn't really matter. They can work equally well, at 120, or 240. But if we have a standard, it's easier for everybody, so my stuff can work in your country and your stuff can work in my country. So having common policies is also good, and to the extent that a lot of the human interactions are happening between people who belong to different political jurisdictions, you know, people who are in different countries, then the value of common rules becomes that much more important. I like to say that sovereign state can be half a bridge over say, the river that separates it from the neighbouring country, but the other half of the bridge has to be built by the other country and on half a bridge, you don't get half the traffic, you get zero. So there is some value of having common rules. I think part of the tension that is at the core of this is that there is a good thing of having sovereign national rules that the local political community can agree on, and have in common rules, rules that are respected both by us and by people in the rest of the world that are interacting with us and that that tension is a little bit what the world is trying to figure out. But, the forces that are favouring deeper globalisation, I think are technological in nature and they're very powerful they are not, it used to be the decline in the cost of transportation. Now, it's incredible expansion of the ability to move information around and you know, you just see by the magnitude of just the number of things that are available online for you to watch whether it's Netflix or Amazon Prime, 500 different television channels, and the news of the world, etc. You would want every society to have access to COVID-19 vaccines, you wouldn't want every society to have to produce its own vaccine. So there's enormous benefits from a world where international interactions are deeper, we just need to figure out what's the political arrangements that makes that as compatible as possible with local preferences. Tobi Lawson What about inequality, which is also a very topical issue now, whether it's on TV or Davos, talking, everybody's worried about inequality issue. Is the optimal point for poor countries or developing countries to start seeing these as a problem. So what I'm saying is, do countries need to concentrate on growth first, is there a trade off, because most of the remedies to inequality at least the policy proposals involve redistribution and poor economies may not have the fiscal capacity, some attempt it, but they may not have the capacity to do the kind of redistribution that some politicians are proposing to deal with the problem. So how do you think about this? Ricardo Hausmann So I think it's very important to finish the sentence, inequality of what, because if we don't specify the what we don't know what we're talking about, and I think that a lot of the discussion presumes a what we are concerned about what inequality we're concerned about and a lot of the discussion is what you might want to call the inequality of income and the idea out there is that there's sort of like a national pie, and some people are getting very big slices of the national pie and other people are getting small slices of the national pie. And then as you say, maybe can we redistribute how people are slicing the national pie. But an alternative way of thinking about this is that there is really no national pie. There are different pies that are being baked by different organisations, by companies or firms of a different size, and so on and so in reality, what you have is an enormous inequality in the sizes of the pies that different parts of society are baking. Okay, so it's inequality in the sizes of the pie, not in the way each pie is being sliced. Imagine that each pie is a corporation, it's a company or an organisation of some kind. Well, we know some of them are informal family, micro enterprises, and some are, you know, bigger companies, and so on. So, and inside each one of them, there is a division of, of the pie in slices. But what would strike you is enormous inequality in the sizes of these pies, to call it by another name, there is enormous inequality in productivity. There are some parts of society that are operating at very low levels of productivity, you know, I drove from Abuja to Kaduna and then on to Kano, and I stopped in a bunch of rural villages, and I looked at the farms and how they were farming and how much corn they were getting per hectare, and how many hectares they had to produce, and how they were doing things. Amazingly low productivity farms, where, you know, farmers would be able working very, very hard to tender to one or two hectares, and at very low productivity and very low incomes. So one thing I really worry a lot about is what can we do to reduce the inequality in productivities and I think that the inequalities in productivities, are very large, because there's many people who are excluded from access to the things that will make them more productive to the networks of energy, or transportation, of labour markets, of knowledge, of agricultural extension services, of value chains, of storage facilities, of logistics, and so on, that would allow their work to be much more productive. So to me, a strategy of inclusion, so as to make everybody's work more productive, especially the ones that are operating at the lowest level of productivity gains, that would be good for growth, because growth has to do with how productive are people and you're able to make them more productive, output will be higher. So it's a strategy for growth. But because we're focusing on the least productive and making them more productive, you're also reducing income inequality. So our strategy for inclusion is a win-win strategy. It's a strategy that makes everybody better off and it would reduce inequality to strategy for growth. It's a strategy that would reduce inequality, a strategy of redistribution. It's sort of like compensating people for their exclusion, saying, Well, given that, you know, you have to operate in a place where there's no electricity, there's no irrigation, or no good roads, there's no storage facilities, there's no logistics, you know, so there's nobody to take your crop when it's time and it's starting to run. So you have to sell it at whatever price you can get. So we live in an environment that is very unproductive and because of that, here's a check, or here's some money. Well, that's compensating them for the fact that they cannot operate in a more productive environment, and that that's a very, very secondary improvement. These people would be much happier. If instead of compensating them for their exclusion, you would stop excluding them and focus on including them and that can be as expensive or more expensive from a fiscal space point of view than redistribution. But it implies a completely different way to think about the problem and to allocate resources. So I think that what less developed societies need is a strategy for inclusion because it's Win win and because it's better. Tobi Lawson Africa is currently at about 50% urbanisation and that's projected to reach about 75% by the middle of the century. We are quite worried about our cities, overpopulation, infrastructure, and so many other things. What do you think of new ideas and development that are coming up, like charter cities, these was first proposed by Paul Romer, a little over a decade ago, but it's gaining some traction in some circles. I know there are experiments in Honduras, and some other places, what's your opinion about fancy ideas or  radical ideas like this?Ricardo HausmannSo first of all, I think the fact that Africa is urbanising is potentially a very good thing. You're mentioning that, you know, it's dangerous, because it might require more infrastructure and so on. Well, the truth is, it's cheaper to provide infrastructure and public services in urban areas than in rural areas. So it just makes, you know, the lack of provision of infrastructure more visible maybe. But it's cheaper to provide that infrastructure in urban areas than it is in rural areas. So in principle, urbanisation can be a good thing. Unfortunately, Africa has figured out ways, and Latin America too, to make cities that are poor, and that are disastrous, and that suddenly, you might get the increases in crime and insecurity and other sorts of problems that were not there in rural life. So it's very important to get urbanisation right and I think that a critical determinant of whether a city is successful or is not successful, is one of the things that can be done in the city, and sold outside of the city, or to people who live outside of the city, every place in the country and every place in the world is dependent on being able to buy things that it doesn't make and the way to buy things that you don't make is to trade for them and for that, you have to make things that are bought by people outside of their place. So whether it's a village, whether it's a state, whether it's a city or a country, it's very, very important that you have things that you can sell to people who live outside of your place. So you can trade for the things that your place doesn't do and what we found is many cities just don't develop those things and they end up for example, one of the reasons why capital cities are so big, it's because the way they get money is by taxing the rest of the country and spending the money. But it's not that the city itself is a source of activity and wealth and production and so on. So that's why it's so important that we get cities that are competitive in a line of things that can be sold outside the city. That's the critical thing. I am not particularly enamoured by the idea that charter city is a solution for something. The idea that Paul Romer deservedly won the Nobel Prize for making us understand how difficult it is to explain growth and he has a theory of, you know, what does it take to explain global growth, that is growth at the technological frontier of the world. He doesn't really have a theory of what explains why some countries catch up and other countries don't catch up. What explains the distance that countries have relative to the technological frontier? It's a country like Singapore, with a income per capita, say of 60,000? Why are countries at $1,000 or $2,000 so? What can you do to get to $60,000? Paul Romer's contribution to economics doesn't answer that question. It asks, What determines the rate of growth of countries that are at $60,000? So he, in some sense, borrowed the idea of the problem why countries are not at $60,000 the things that prevent you from being at the technological frontier. He thinks that the reason why countries don't approach the technological frontier is because they have bad institutions. That's his explanation. That they have bad institutions and, and charter cities are a way of like buying good institutions, important, good institutions and that's his interpretation of what happened in Hong Kong. Hong Kong because of, you know, the settlement of the wars with China, it was given to Britain and it was run by Britain and it was British rules that led to the growth of Hong Kong. So he's saying why can't we make other places like Hong Kong, I will put it to you that the reason why countries don't approach the technological frontier is not necessarily institutions that you can import. It's technology itself. Technology has trouble diffusing. So the distance with technological frontiers is of technological distance and the reason why you don't catch up in that technological distance is because of the nature of technology itself. The kinds of institutions that you can import are not the only thing there was because you know, after all, the British Empire had a bunch of charter cities under British rule. That didn't make Ghana or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka rich, right. So I don't necessarily think that that technological gap can be fixed by the kind of importing of institutions by chartering your city to somebody who knows how to run things. It might be in some sense, a way of importing government technology if you want to put it in my language. So I think that the problem is really trying to understand how technology diffuses, I think the future is a lot in the hands of people that it's much easier to move brains than it is to move know how into brains. That's why I emphasise before migration diasporas promoting foreign direct investment, maybe having your conglomerates internationalise and connect your country to the rest of the world, that it is through these channels that technology flows, and it's those channels that we need to focus on. Tobi Lawson One of my final question will be going further on that note, again, last couple of years, we've seen the rise of the use of RCT in economics research, particularly development economics, built on the work of Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, and, I'm Michael Kremer, who are Nobel winners and you can see the idea gained a lot of traction where you have nonprofit organisations like Givewell adopting a lot of the findings from the research from these new school of thought so to speak. What are your impressions of this turn in development economics research, generally, especially the influence on policy? I'll give you an example. Nigeria, for example has been trying we have this national policy of lifting a 100 million people out of poverty. But when you change the proposal, what you will find is this basket of proposals that have been lifted from RCTs, you know, social interventions, cash transfers and they haven't really worked and you will find that international aid organisations and policymakers love them. So, what is your impression of this turn in development economics, have we given up on growth, is that it? Ricardo Hausmann So I think that, you know, randomised controlled trials, RCTs are a tool and, you know, they are very good to answer some questions, they are useless to answer other questions. So for example, if you want to know if it's better, to give money to farmers at the time of harvesting, or give money to farmers at the time of sowing, and in terms of you know, the impact on their well being, and so on, maybe you find that it's better to give farmers money at the time of sowing because then they can use that money to sow and if you give them the money at time of harvesting, then they already have money. So giving them more money at the time when they already have money is not the ideal time to give them money. So so maybe that's something you can answer with a randomised control trial. What kind of structure should a country have? What Social Security structure should a country have? What infrastructure plan should a country have? What exchange rate regime should a country have? What, even educational system should a country have, those things you cannot do RCT on? You know, they're just not the instrument to answer those questions. So if you only do things for which you can do an RCT, you are going to be doing some kinds of things just because, you know, as they say, you look for the keys under the lamppost, not because you lost the keys on the lamppost, it's because it's the only place where you can see something. RCTs I think, have twisted the development agenda away from policies that are probably the most impactful, but for which you cannot do RCTs and into something that my good friend Lance Pritchard likes to call kinky development policies, that they are kinky in the sense that they want to do a small kink. So for example, you can do an RCT and whether putting flip charts in a school improves learning, or whether giving tablets to kids in a school improves learning, or whether taking a picture of teachers when they attend school improves teacher attendance and consequently, student learning. So all of these things you can do an RCT on, you can take a bunch of schools, you do it in some schools or another schools, and you see if it made a difference. But those are answers to super small questions to small kinks, in if you want in the way you do things. They don't go to answer more fundamental questions as to how to organise many, many aspects of society. So in my mind, the idea, by the way, and the answer much less than the promise, for example, they can tell you that if you do it this way, it works better than if you do it that way. If you give micronutrients to children in Guatemala, that it improves their learning. Okay, it doesn't answer two questions. The first question is, how does it do it? Does it do it? Because it improves their nutrition? Does it do it because we connected the family to a set of services that had other benefits for other reasons. For example, you can do an RCT, give half a million people, we force them to smoke and the other half a million people you force them not to smoke and then we look at the difference in cancer rates to see if smoking causes cancer. But, it doesn't tell you what about smoking causes cancer. What is the substance in smoking that triggers the cancer? We learn nothing about the biology of the process, the mechanism of the process and secondly, if you say give macronutrients in Guatemala, and it works, you don't know if it would work in Nigeria or if it would work in Norway, or in Singapore because maybe in other places kids don't have those deficiencies. You can do an RCT to find that, you know, whether if you give tablets to kids in school, you want to know if they can improve learning or not and you find out that it didn't improve learning. What have you learned? Well, you've already learned that that tablet used in that particular way, with that particular teaching materials in the tablet, by teachers trained in that particular way, didn't make much difference. But it doesn't answer the question. If you were to try to improve education in the school, and one of the elements would be the tablet, how should we use the tablet? What teaching materials should the tablet include? How should the teacher use those teaching materials? What should students be expected to do with those teaching materials? and so on? So it doesn't answer any of those questions? It just tells you, you did x, do some didn't have some effect or not have that effect. And as a consequence, I think one of the bad things that the RCT revolution has done is it has tended to put donors and a lot of attention to these small questions that can be answered by RCTs away from the really important questions that may not be answerable to RCTs. Tobi Lawson Do you think that economists should be more involved or influential in the politics in developing economies, for example, it's impossible to know this, but I want to pose the hypothetical anyway. How would Venezuela have fared if you were the president instead of the economic Minister? Ricardo Hausmann So, I think for economics to do its work? Well, it should be a science that answers questions. But that politics should be decided not only on the basis of technical solutions to questions, but also in terms of social preferences of what people want done, what priorities people have, what's more important for them, what do they want? And so I think that science cannot be a substitute of the political process. I think science should participate in the political process. I don't like when people say, you know, government should do what scientists tells them to do. Science doesn't answer the questions that many political systems need to address. For example, science can tell you if there is contagion, or there is a contagion in schools or how much contagion in schools varies. It might help you understand how are people getting infected and how they get

durée : 02:00:22 - Les Matins - par : Guillaume Erner - Investi président des Etats-Unis ce mercredi, Joe Biden pourra-t-il recoller les morceaux de la démocratie américaine ? Pour en parler ce matin, Yasha Mounk, politologue, Laurence Nardon, responsable du programme responsable du programme Amérique du Nord de l'IFRI et l'écrivaine Alice Kaplan. - réalisation : Vivien Demeyère

Jonah the Globetrotter has once again scattered to the four winds, temporarily leaving The Remnant once more in the capable hands of David French. Today, David speaks with his good friend Yascha Mounk, contributor to The Atlantic and founder of Persuasion. Mounk talks us through the current conditions within mainstream media outlets and how those institutions have the opportunity to lower the temperature of American discourse now that Trump is leaving office. David also talks about how a Biden administration might be expected to behave, and Yascha mentions that much of the conventional wisdom about the presidential election results are not only misguided, but that they often “underestimate the intelligence of the American people.”   Show Notes: -David’s newsletter, The French Press -Yascha’s new publication, Persuasion -David Shor’s 2020 postmortem -The earliest mention of “nutpicking” that the Remnant crew could find -Jonathan Haidt’s Heterodox Academy -“Beirut on the Charles” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

durée : 02:00:04 - Le 5/7 - LAURENCE NARDON, responsable du programme Amérique du Nord de l'IFRI ROBERT MALLEY, Directeur de l’International Crisis Group. CHINE LABBÉ, rédactrice en chef de NEWSGUARD, site américain de lutte contre la désinformation YASCHA MOUNK, politologue à l'université de Harvard

Two scholars of political thought with highly contrasting perspectives (and totally different backgrounds) explore what promise the rise of populism may - or may not - hold. Dr. Moench and Prof. Mounk do their best to disagree amicably on the meaning of populism and the political future. (Please note: this interview was recorded on February 28, 2020)

POPULISMO - FILOSOFIA POLÍTICA *Apoia-se: https://apoia.se/canaldosocran REFERÊNCIAS 1) Bobbio, NORBERTO. Dicionário de Filosofia Política. 2) Livro 1 - Levitsky, STEVEN. Ziblatt, DANIEL. Como as Democracias Morrem - aMAZON. 3) Livro 2 - MOUNK, Yascha. O Povo contra a Democracia - Companhia das Letras. 4) Artigo sobre Populismo: https://www.historiadomundo.com.br/idade-contemporanea/populismo.htm 5) Documentário Evita pós morte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp3vStUKt9A 6) Filme Eva Perón: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYOdyClmuis

Populism with Dr. Yascha Mounk In this episode, we tackle the topic of Populism with one of the world’s leading experts on the subject. What is populism, what leads to populism sentiment, what does social media and COVID-19 have to do with populism? To help us answer these questions, we are joined by Dr. Yascha … Continue reading Populism with Dr. Yascha Mounk

POPULISMO - A DANÇA DE CHÁVEZ E O FERMENTO BOLSONARO * Apoia-se: https://apoia.se/canaldosocran * Referências: 1)Escalada de Chávez: https://www.institutoliberal.org.br/blog/solapando-a-democracia-como-hugo-chavez-deu-um-golpe-de-estado-com-fachada-juridica/ 2)Escalada de Chávez: https://gabriel2308.jusbrasil.com.br/artigos/813814799/a-constituicao-e-instrumento-de-legitimacao-dos-atos-governamentais?ref=feed 3) Documentário Venezuela - A sombra de Chávez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c88ucEyiicA 4) Livro 1 - Levitsky, STEVEN. Ziblatt, DANIEL. Como as Democracias Morrem - aMAZON 5) Livro 2 - MOUNK, Yascha. O Povo contra a Democracia - Companhia das Letras 6) Artigo sobre Populismo: https://www.historiadomundo.com.br/idade-contemporanea/populismo.htm

According to Yascha Mounk, our guest on this week’s episode of Navigating our World, polarization poses an existential threat to democracy. In a conversation with Brown Advisory’s Jordan Wruble, Dr. Mounk examines the forces he feels are undermining our political systems, and discusses how the coronavirus pandemic might have the potential to bring us closer together. Yascha Mounk is the author of The People vs. Democracy: Why Democracy Is in Danger & How to Save It, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and a leading expert on global politics.

Seine Karriere hat den in München geborenen Politikwissenschaftler Yascha Mounk in die USA geführt, wo er an zwei renommierten Hochschulen – an der Harvard Universität in Cambridge und der Johns Hopkins Universität in Baltimore – unterrichtet. Er wurde konsequenterweise im Laufe der Zeit amerikanischer Staatsbürger. Aber seit dem Ausbruch der Covid-19-Pandemie hat er öffentlich darüber nachgedacht, ob es nicht angesichts der Verhältnisse in den Vereinigten Staaten klüger sei, zumindest zeitweise wieder nach Deutschland zurückzukehren. Aufgrund solcher und anderer Wortmeldungen, hauptsächlich im Politik- und Kulturmagazin The Atlantic, ist Mounk zu einem gefragten Interviewpartner geworden. Wir hatten das große Glück, dass er und Sebastian sich schon eine Weile kennen und konnten ihn so für unsere 22. Podcast-Folge gewinnen. Das Thema geht vielen unter die Haut: Trumps autoritäre Rhetorik klingt gefährlicher denn je. Denn in der aktuellen Krise zeigt sich nicht nur seine Inkompetenz an der Schaltstelle der Macht. Sondern Gouverneure wie Andrew Cuomo im Staat New York stellen ihn medial und im Managament der staatlichen Maßnahmen zum Schutz der Bürger in den Schatten. Täglich behauptet Trump, dass seine Macht total ist. Und droht damit, sie mit Hilfe seiner kleptokratischen Küchenkabinette auch anzuwenden.

Aquele em que nossos quatro intrépidos e odiados pegam rabeira nos meandros da internê, discutindo questões de cybercultura e cyberespaço. Osvaldão dá o passo inicial para Pierre Levy, definindo cyberespaço como a rede em que se produz a cybercultura – incluindo os nudes!  Moisés dá um carrinho na questão e pergunta para Bruno qual seria a diferença entre o real e o virtual e Bruno chama truco ao citar o filósofo Guy Debord, de “A sociedade do espetáculo”, alegando que “no mundo realmente invertido, o real é um momento do falso”.  Cássio, que observava a discussão com o queixo apoiado sobre o punho esquerdo, chama seis e cita Marshall McLuhan (“Os meios de comunicação como extensão do homem”): o que interessa no cyberespaço é o próprio meio, ou seja, a forma como nós interagimos com a realidade a partir de uma certa maneira disposta por ele. Após algum bate-bola no meio do campo, Moisés se pergunta se não seria o mundo virtual uma espécie de duplo oscarwildeano em que mostramos o que escondemos na realidade, e Bruno e Osvaldo refletem sobre as relações entre perversão, pulsão de morte e redes sociais.  Trocando as ondas fluidas da internê pelas areias movediças da democracia, os quatro odiosos e odientos se interrogam sobre as relações entre democracia e mídias sociais, quando Cássio tira de trás da orelha de Moisés mais um filósofo que só ele leu: Yascha Mounk (“O povo contra a democracia: Por que nossa liberdade corre perigo e como salvá-la”), deixando nosso ouvinte reflexivo ao se perguntar: éramos tão democratas antes da internet? Cássio e Mounk acreditam que não, já que nós amamos mais o dinheiro que a democracia, e o fantasma de Karl Marx aparece no áudio: a Burguesia acordou o demônio do capitalismo, que ela própria não consegue mais controlar.  Moisés, ciente de que magia só se combate com magia, pergunta a todos se a internet não nos teria devolvido a alma que a ciência nos roubou (!). Cássio então toca para Milton Santos (“Três aspectos da globalização”), que passa a bola para Ciro Gomes, lembrando da democratização dos desejos mas não da satisfação, que inverte para Aly Muritiba, diretor do filme “Ferrugem”, ganhador do Festival de Gramado, que de canhota joga para Sartre e Dostoiévski, que prendem demais a bola ao discutir se no mundo sem Deus tudo é permitido, quando a bola é roubada por Slavoj Žižek que revida: no mundo sem Deus “nada” é permitido. Na falta de um bandeirinha, Cássio levanta impedimento dizendo que a gestão pessoal do desejo é uma puta de uma sacanagem com o sujeito. Bruno, provavelmente cansado de raciocinar, volta a questão para a literatura, perguntando a Cássio se o mundo das “neuroses”, dos “traumas” e do “outro” descrito por Clarice Lispector não teria chegado ao fim, dando lugar a uma visão fetichista e objetificada das relações sociais. Sufocados no arrastão de tantas perguntas que eles próprios levantaram, nossos odiados decidem sair de fininho pela porta dos fundos da “deep web”. Mas deixam de lembrança a leitura de três textos, para finalizar: de Guy Debord, Karl Marx e o poema quase inédito “Musas”, de Eduardo Sterzi.

Yascha Mounk, associate professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS and expert on the rise of populism, describes three main challenges to democracy: the stagnation of living standards in developed democracies, cultural and demographic changes that are shifting the status quo, and the social media’s domination. These elements have combined to increase the supply of “noxious ideas” that have led to factions and division in the United States and other countries. One way to reverse this process, Mounk argues, is to resist divisive ideology in favor of what he calls “inclusive nationalism.”

Sam Harris speaks with Michael Weiss and Yascha Mounk about the state of global politics. They discuss the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, the prospect that democracy could fail in the US, Trump’s political instincts, the political liability of “wokeness,” the Left’s failure to re-think its support of Chavez, the dangers of political polarization, the attractions of extreme partisanship, cancel culture, and other topics. Michael Weiss is an internationally respected investigative journalist who has covered the wars in Syria and Ukraine and published widely on Russian espionage and disinformation. His first book, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (co-written with Hassan Hassan), was a New York Times bestseller and named one of the Top Ten Books on Terrorism by the Wall Street Journal as well as one of the Best Books of 2015 by The Times of London. Weiss is a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, the BBC and Real Time with Bill Maher. He writes a column for The Daily Beast. Website: michaelweissjournalist.com Twitter: @michaeldweiss Yascha Mounk is a writer, academic, and public speaker known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a senior advisor at Protect Democracy. A frequent contributor to The Atlantic, the New York Times, and Die Zeit, Mounk is the host of Slate’s The Good Fight Podcast. He has written three books: Stranger in My Own Country, The Age of Responsibility, and The People versus Democracy, which explains the causes of the populist rise and investigates how to renew liberal democracy. Website: yaschamounk.com Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk

In aflevering 23 van betrouwbare Bronnen Ruth Peetoom die na acht jaar afscheid neemt als partijvoorzitter. Ze trad aan na de verkiezingsnederlaag van premier Jan Peter Balkenende, toen het CDA net een coalitie had gevormd met de VVD van premier Mark Rutte. Een kabinet dat gedoogd werd door de PVV van Geert Wilders. ‘Achteraf zegt denk ik iedereen: dat hadden we niet moeten doen’, blikt Peetoom terug. ‘Het heeft echt sporen getrokken. Bij de VVD heeft het niets nagelaten, het is daar afgeschud als de druppels van een eend.’Peetoom kijkt met afschuw naar de opmars van het nationalistisch populisme van partijen als de PVV en het Forum voor Democratie. 'Ik zie de kwetsbaarheid van de democratie. Democratie is een middel en dat middel kan ook echt verkeerd gebruikt worden. In de jaren dertig kwam het nationaalsocialisme op een democratische manier aan de macht. Bij Thierry Baudet zit zoveel wantrouwen. Valse beelden die niet kloppen. In zijn polarisatie maakt hij dingen kapot. Democratie is wat waard, daar moet je in investeren. Niet kapotmaken.’Toch verdedigt ze in Betrouwbare Bronnen de samenwerking in het Europees Parlement met de partij van de Hongaarse premier Viktor Orbán. Fidesz speelde een belangrijke rol bij de overgang van communisme naar een liberale democratie, maar streeft nu – naar eigen zeggen – een ‘illiberale democratie’ na: een niet-liberale staatsvorm. ‘Het makkelijkst is om er dan maar met je rug naartoe te gaan staan’, zegt Peetoom. ‘Juist als je nog in dezelfde Europese familie zit, kun je elkaar scherp de waarheid zeggen. We laten toch niet gebeuren dat in Hongarije de democratie naar de knoppen wordt geholpen?’Volgens de Duits-Amerikaanse politicoloog Yascha Mounk is dat ‘schandelijke kletspraat’: ‘Freedom House zegt dat Hongarije geen vrij land meer is. Volgens de OVSE waren de verkiezingen van vorig jaar niet vrij en eerlijk. Het land heeft een onafhankelijke universiteit weggejaagd, dus het is duidelijk dat er geen vrijheid van meningsuiting meer is. De partij van een dictator tolereren als onderdeel van een relatief gematigde centrumrechtse stroming. Ze zou zich daarvoor moeten schamen. Elk lk lid van de Europese Volkspartij, inclusief Spitzenkandidaat Manfred Weber (een van de kandidaten om Jean-Claude Juncker op te volgen als voorzitter van de Europese Commissie) moet zich daarvoor schamen.’Mounk zegt dat Viktor Orbán meer gemeen heeft met Erdogan en Poetin dan met de christendemocraten: ‘Iemand die in het hart van Europa de democratie vernietigt als een partijpolitieke vriend beschouwen is echt een schande.’Yascha Mounk publiceerde vorig jaar het boek ‘The people vs. democracy. Why our freedom is in danger and how to save it’ (Harvard University Press).Zaterdag neemt het CDA afscheid van Ruth Peetoom na acht jaar partijvoorzitterschap. Op het CDA-congres in Amsterdam spreekt ook Manfred Weber, die de samenwerking met de partij van Orbán eveneens verdedigt.***In de historische rubriek diept PG Kroeger een verrassend element uit het gesprek met 'Merkels brandweerman' en vertrouweling Peter Altmaier (Betrouwbare Bronnen afl. 20) nader uit. Vol vuur vertelde hij over zijn 'Heimat', het kleine deelstaatje Saarland. Dat is de bakermat van vele toppolitici. Onder hen 'AKK' die Merkel onlangs opvolgde als CDU-chef.Wat maakt 'die Saar' zo bijzonder? Het geheim is dat het lang helemaal niet bij Duitsland hoorde. Tot tweemaal toe regeerden de Fransen daar. Pas in 1958 trad het toe tot de nieuwe Bondsrepubliek onder Adenauer. En dat ging allerminst vanzelf.De historie van die overgang van Frans naar Duits werkt nog altijd door. Altmaiers afkeer van referenda als bij Brexit heeft daar zijn oorsprong. Dit was ook het moment dat Adenauer de nationalistische onderbuik van de Duitsers lelijk onderschatte. Een les die nog lang doorwerkte.De Saar-kwestie'leek Europees explosief, maar de sluwheid van 'der Alte' bleek ongekend. Adenauer loste het op. Ook dat was een politieke les voor zijn politieke nazaten Altmaier, Merkel en AKK.***Tijdlijn afl. 2300:00:00 – Intro door Jaap Jansen 00:05:22 – Gesprek met Ruth Peetoom, deel 100:42:24 – Gesprek met Ruth Peetoom, deel 201:07:39 – Historische rubriek met PG Kroeger01:35:35 – Gesprek met Yascha Mounk02:23:45 – Uittro door Jaap Jansen02:24:28 – Einde

Today on Midday, a conversation about whether President Trump himself has committed the high crimes and misdemeanors that the Constitution elucidates as a reason for Congress to impeach him. In an essay in the March issue of The Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum makes the case that Congress should impeach Mr. Trump. Appelbaum is a historian and a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Ideas section. His March cover story in The Atlantic is called: “The Case for Impeachment.” He joins us on the line from the offices of The Atlantic in Washington, DC.Yascha Mounk is a scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute. He has published a kind of rebuttal to Dr. Appelbaum’s Atlantic essay, which was posted on Slate.com on Wednesday. It’s called: ----The Case Against Impeachment.---- Dr. Mounk joins us on the line from his office in Washington, DC.

The subtitle of Yascha Mounk's powerful and chilling book is, "Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It". Mounk describes populism and the current disruptions in our politics with a sweeping look at polarization, economics, social media and more. But he also exposes something deeper: the rot in our democratic institutions. Individual rights and the world rules-based order are not the same thing as democracy. Now, they may be in opposition. Joining Ben to discuss the book is Alex Slusar. About the Book “We can no longer assume that liberal democracy is the wave of the future… This splendid book is an invaluable contribution to the debate about what ails democracy, and what can be done about it.”—Michael J. Sandel, author of Justice “Everyone worried about the state of contemporary politics should read this book.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, President of the New America Foundation The world is in turmoil. From Russia, Turkey, and Egypt to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power. As a result, democracy itself may now be at risk. Two core components of liberal democracy—individual rights and the popular will—are increasingly at war with each other. As the role of money in politics soared and important issues were taken out of public contestation, a system of “rights without democracy” took hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people. But in practice they create something just as bad: a system of “democracy without rights.” The consequence, as Yascha Mounk shows in this brilliant and timely book, is that trust in politics is dwindling. Citizens are falling out of love with their political system. Democracy is wilting away. Drawing on vivid stories and original research, Mounk identifies three key drivers of voters’ discontent: stagnating living standards, fear of multiethnic democracy, and the rise of social media. To reverse the trend, politicians need to enact radical reforms that benefit the many, not the few. The People vs. Democracy is the first book to describe both how we got here and what we need to do now. For those unwilling to give up either individual rights or the concept of the popular will, Mounk argues that urgent action is needed, as this may be our last chance to save democracy. Learn more about The People vs. Democracy.

Recording of an event which took place on Thursday 5 July at Birkbeck. Is the rise of populism in the West a threat to liberal democracy, or does it renew democracy by bringing new voices into the conversation? All panellists agree that elites bear some culpability for the rise of populism, but how should the system be reformed? The evening featured a panel debate between four high-profile speakers with contrasting views on this question. Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas and a regular on Radio 4’s Moral Maze joined Yascha Mounk (Harvard/Slate), author of The People vs. Democracy, Sasha Polakow-Suransky (Foreign Policy, author of Go Back Where You Came From) and David Goodhart (Policy Exchange, author of Road to Somewhere) to discuss these issues. Professor Eric Kaufmann of Birkbeck moderated the event. Facebook: www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics Twitter: www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics Centre website: www.csbppl.com Department website: www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

Trust in politics is dwindling, and authoritarian populists are seizing power around the globe. Renowned academic and author Yascha Mounk argues for radical political reforms that will benefit the many, not the few. Mounk identifies three key drivers of voters’ discontent: stagnating living standards, fears of multiethnic democracy, and the rise of social media. To reverse the march against liberal democracy, he argues that politicians must act now to create radical reforms in these three areas that benefit the many, not just the few. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 23rd May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/the-people-vs.-democracy

Yascha Mounk’s new book, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It, is perhaps the year’s scariest read. In it, Mounk argues that “liberal democracy, the unique mix of individual rights and popular rule that has long characterized most governments in North America and Western Europe, is coming apart at its seams. In its stead, we are seeing the rise of illiberal democracy, or democracy without rights, and undemocratic liberalism, or rights without democracy.” It’s an excellent book. But reading it left me wondering: Was America really such a textbook liberal democracy before? I have no qualms with Mounk’s concerns about our present, but as I've dived deeper into the declinist literature on American democracy, I have come to wonder whether it relies on an overly nostalgic view of our past. So I had Mounk — this podcast’s first three-peat guest! — back on the show to argue his case. We discuss whether America was really a democracy in the 20th century, if voters prefer institutions they can control over those they can’t, whether Trump’s illiberalism reflects broader currents in American society, the ways racial progress has long destabilized American politics, and what the currents of today portend for our future. I recognize the positions I take in this episode may come back to haunt me when Trump fires Robert Mueller and Congress names him sun-god and confirms Michael Cohen as attorney general. But I think for all of us wrapped up in this era, it’s important to question our assumptions, and to contextualize this period within America’s real history rather than our imagined past. And Yascha, who is perhaps the most persuasive champion of the case for alarm, was the perfect guest with which to do it. As always, you can email me with feedback, thoughts, and guest ideas at ezrakleinshow@vox.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Authoritarian populists have seized power—from Turkey to Poland, and India to the United States—and things may get worse. Trust in democracy is wilting in many societies, to the point that rising numbers of people in Western democracies prefer military to representative rule. Yascha Mounk, author of The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It, argues that stagnating living standards, corruption, social media, and a backlash against multiethnic governance are driving the public’s disenchantment with democracy. What sort of actions can be taken to restore the public’s commitment to self-government? Mounk, a Harvard lecturer, visited Zócalo Public Square and spoke with Zócalo columinist Joe Mathews about how the people can be convinced to love democracy again.

Med sin podcast og sine artikler er tysk-amerikanske Yascha Mounk blevet en afgørende stemme i debatten om populismens opblomstring og demokratiets krise. Nu er han aktuel med bogen “The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It”. Lyt her til interviewet Mounk som Altingets chefredaktør, Jakob Nielsen, har lavet.

The FBI is investigating an alleged kidnapping scheme involving ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Donald Trump Jr. was in direct contact with Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign. And author and scholar Yascha Mounk breaks down the breakdown in democracy.

From his hesitation in denouncing Nazis in Charlottesville to his attacks on the free press, Donald Trump is governing like an authoritarian. This approach threatens to bring the President into conflict with Congress, the courts, and even the military. Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard University and a columnist at Slate, joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to explore Mounk's hypothesis that Trump is "an authoritarian by instinct” and the myriad ways his governing style may bring about a genuine constitutional crisis. Recommended Reading:  "How Federal Grand Juries Work," by Ken White for Popehat, August 2017 "We Interrupt This Grand Jury Lawsplainer For A Search Warrant Lawsplainer," by Ken White for Popehat, August 2017 Yascha's podcast: The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk is a lecturer at Harvard, a columnist at Slate, and the host of The Good Fight podcast. He’s also an expert on how democracies backslide into illiberalism — which was the topic of our first conversation on this podcast. But when Mounk and I last spoke, fears of Trump’s illiberal instincts seemed to have been overblown. This was an administration too incompetent to be authoritarian. But Mounk made a prediction then that has, I think, been borne out: Trump’s illiberal instincts would be catalyzed by his failures, not his successes. As Trump finds himself frustrated by Congress, and by the FBI investigation, and by Robert Mueller’s inquiry, and by White House leakers, he lashes out at the system he thinks is unfairly, even dangerously, constraining him. Of late, Trump’s illiberalism has made a comeback — he’s giving speeches calling for more police brutality, he fired an FBI director who threatened him, he’s attacking his own attorney general for doing too little to shield him from investigation, he’s demanding vast changes to congressional rules, he’s calling for administration lawyers to begin exploring the reach of his pardon powers, and he's running a White House where the clear guiding principle is loyalty to Trump rather than loyalty to country. But as Mounk and I discuss in this podcast, that’s not the scary part. The scary part isn’t Trump’s illiberalism but the political system’s acceptance of it. If you had read off Trump’s list of offenses as a hypothetical 12 months ago, you would’ve been told that neither Congress nor the public would allow any of this to go unpunished. But Trump remains around 40 percent in the polls and his support among congressional Republicans has barely wavered. This is a lesson that goes far beyond Trump: We’re learning that American politics is much more vulnerable to, and much less offended by, leaders who want to subvert the rule of law than we thought. It may be that Trump is too impulsive and short-tempered to take advantage of that fact. But will that be true of his successors, too? As you’ll hear in this podcast, as Mounk and I were discussing that question, we got news that Trump had fired his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and replaced him with Gen. John Kelly. You’ll get to hear us react to that in real time. Enjoy!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yascha Mounk is a Lecturer on Government at Harvard University, a Fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America, and host of the podcast, The Good Fight. He’s also the author of some of the scariest political science research I’ve seen in a long time.What Mounk found is that the consensus we thought existed on behalf of democracy and democratic norms is weakening. The percentage of Americans who think it’s important to live in a democracy has been plummeting in recent decades. The percentage of Americans who say they would support a military coup is worrying high. This is the context in which Donald Trump — a politician with clearly illiberal instincts — won the presidency. And this may help explain why he won the presidency: the political consensus elites thought he violated may not actually be a consensus anymore. The good news, which Mounk and I talk about in this podcast, is that Trump may have authoritarian instincts, but he doesn’t appear to have plans, and he definitely doesn’t appear to have the discipline to stick to his plans. We also discuss Trump’s bizarre first few months in office, as well as the challenges democracies face across the western world, and whether diverse societies make pluralist liberal democracies harder to sustain. Mounk is scary smart, he’s got an international perspective most commentators on American politics lack, and his story about becoming an American citizen after growing up Jewish in Germany is worth the price of admission on its own (that would be true even if this podcast wasn’t free). Enjoy!Books:“The Subjection of Women," by John Stuart Mill"A House for Mr. Biswas," by V. S. Naipaul“The Leopard," by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Slate columnist and Harvard University lecturer Yascha Mounk is worried about liberal democracy. He says Marine Le Pen’s second-place finish in France isn’t a cause for relief—it’s a sign she’s closer to power than ever. “It’s easy to be right about the problems, it’s difficult to be right about the solutions, and there the populists have nothing to offer,” says Mounk. He writes the Good Fight column.  Plus, Mike translates the Pope’s speech and annotates the Trump administration’s income tax reform plan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Slate columnist and Harvard University lecturer Yascha Mounk is worried about liberal democracy. He says Marine Le Pen’s second-place finish in France isn’t a cause for relief—it’s a sign she’s closer to power than ever. “It’s easy to be right about the problems, it’s difficult to be right about the solutions, and there the populists have nothing to offer,” says Mounk. He writes the Good Fight column.  Plus, Mike translates the Pope’s speech and annotates the Trump administration’s income tax reform plan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Wilson fills in for Mike Pesca with today's three things: 1) The 11 victims of the OSU attack are expected to survive, 2) What the Mounk-Foa formula shows about the U.S., and 3) Do we have another "largest object" category for Guinness? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Olya Yordanyan talks to Yascha Mounk about the emerging future in Europe and the deep crisis of liberal democracy playing out around the world from India to the United States. Mounk attributes the rise of populist forces to the erosion of the preconditions for liberal democracy. What we are seeing, as a result, are “illiberal democracies" on the one hand, and "undemocratic liberalism" on the other. The question Mounk raises is whether civil society is strong enough to resist or whether these pendulum swings are the new normal. He stresses the need to protect and further the rights of minorities without succumbing to the sort of "identity politics" that can alienate the majority. Yascha Mounk is a Lecturer on Political Theory at Harvard University's Government Department, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund, and a Nonresident Fellow at New America's Political Reform Program. [Date of interview: October 31, 2016]

Conventional wisdom and media narratives suggest that visible populist movements like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street emerged in response to the financial crisis of 2008. New America Fellow Yascha Mounk disagrees. In a recent article for Foreign Affairs (“Pitchfork Politics”), he argues that this surge in populism is part of a more complex trend, dating back to the 1990s and a steadily growing disenchantment with government. On this episode, Mounk and Slaughter discuss the impact of reading this rise in populism as part of a longer-term story and explore ways—in Mounk's words—to “channel populist passions for good.”

Yascha Mounk grew up in Germany in the 1980s and ’90s. As a distinct minority, he gradually came to understand that his presence brought out a mixture of anti-Semitism, philo-Semitism, and profound discomfort in his fellow Germans. All Mounk wanted was a conversation without the fact of his Jewish background casting any special shadow. That such a conversation seemed impossible, he argues, has to do with Germany’s failure to reckon thoroughly with its own history—and it led Mounk to settle, for now, in the United States. In Stranger in My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern Germany, the 31-year-old Mounk looks at how Germans have dealt with the... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

-- On the Show:-- Yascha Mounk, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, Host of the Good Fight podcast, and author of the new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time," joins David to discuss what Mounk claims is the left's turn towards identitarianism. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3PUQApT-- President Joe Biden will become the first president to join a strike and walk the picket line, which highly triggers failed former President Donald Trump-- Indicted Democratic Senator Bob Menendez's press conference, attempting to defend himself, does not go well-- Failed former President Donald Trump's brain fails during a speech in South Carolina, claiming that Jeb Bush, rather than George W. Bush, started the Iraq War, and glitching badly a number of times-- Donald Trump tours a gun store in South Carolina, and it's a house of horrors-- Right Side Broadcasting Network interviews attendees at Donald Trump's rally in South Carolina, and it's scary-- Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appears on Fox News and completely debunks host Brian Kilmeade's attempts to "prove" a Joe Biden conspiracy theory-- Voicemail caller explains that his friend is scared to subscribe to The David Pakman Show YouTube channel for fear of blowback from his family and girlfriend-- On the Bonus Show: Writers Guild and studios reach a tentative deal to end the months-long strike, Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom will debate on Fox News, the David Brooks $78 burger and fries controversy, much more...