Links to all of our episodes are listed below. Click through to play the episode and read show notes.
Season 1
- Is Colin Kaepernick a good democrat?
- Guest: Abe Khan, Penn State
- Topic: Athlete protests
- Checking the President’s power
- Guest: Doug Kriner, Cornell
- Topic: congressional investigations
- Fake news clickbait, and the future of local journalism
- Guest: Halle Stocketon, PublicSource
- Topic: The free press and local journalism
- What can Pennsylvania voters do about gerrymandering?
- Guest: Chris Satullo, Fair Districts PA
- Topic: Redistricting reform in Pennsylvania
- The “grinding work” of democracy
- Guest: Daniel Ziblatt, author of How Democracies Die
- Topic: Democratic erosion
- Generation Z and the future of democracy
- Guests: State College Area High School students Hannah Strouse and Cian Nelson
- Topic: March for Our Lives protests
- Tommie Smith: From sharecropper to Olympic protestor
- Guest: Tommie Smith, 1968 Olympic gold medalist
- Topic: Black Power salute at the 1968 olympics
- Satire is good for more than just a few laughs
- Guest: Sophia McClennen, Penn State
- Topic: Satire and political humor
- It’s good to be counted
- Guest: Jennifer Van Hook, Penn State
- Topic: The U.S. Census
- Ten thousand democracies
- Guest: Robert Asen, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Topic: School boards
- A conversation about conversation
- Guest: Laurie Mulvey, Penn State
- Topic: Facilitated diagluges
- Can young people revive civic engagement?
- Guest: Peter Levine, Tufts University
- Topic: Youth voting and civic engagement
- Michael Mann’s journey through the climate wars
- Guest: Michael Mann, Penn State
- Topic: Climate change and fighting misinformation
- When the “business of business” bleeds into politics
- Guest: Forrest Briscoe, Penn State
- Topic: Corporate activism and corporate social responsibility
- What should voting look like in the 21st century?
- Guest: Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania Department of State
- Topic: Voting technology and security
- Unpacking political polarization
- Guest: Boris Shor, University of Houston
- Topic: Polarization
- The democrats in public sector unions
- Guest: Paul Clark, Penn State
- Topic: Unions and the labor movement
- The constitutional crisis episode
- Guest: Jud Mathews, Penn State
- Topic: Constitutional crisis
- A democracy reading list
- Topic: An overview of new books on democracy
Season 2
- How will we remember Charlottesville?
- Guest: Brad Vivian, Penn State
- Topic: Confederate monuments and public memory
- Facebook is not a democracy
- Guest: Matt Jordan, Penn State
- Topic: Social media
- Populism and the Trump voter
- Guest: Salena Zito, author of The Great Revolt
- Topic: Understanding Trump voters
- Grassroots organizing and rebooting democracy
- Guest: Lara Putnam, University of Pittsburgh
- Topic: Grassroots organizing in suburbs
- Behind the scenes of the “year of the woman”
- Guest: Rebecca Kreitzer: University of North Carolina
- Topic: Women in politics
- Citizenship, patriotism, and democracy in the classroom
- Guest: Mark Kissling, Penn State
- Topic: Civics education
- Breaking the silence in Syria
- Guest: Abdalaziz Alhamza, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently
- Topic: Journalism and activism in Syria
- A story about democracy, told through 20 million traffic stops
- Guest: Frank Baumgartner, University of North Carolina
- Topic: Policing
- How “if it bleeds, it leads” impacts democracy
- Guest: Peter Enns, Cornell
- Topic: Prisons and mass incarceration
- When states sue the federal government
- Guest: Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania Attorney General
- Topic: Federalism and states’ rights
- David Frum on developing the habits of democracy
- Guest: David Frum, The Atlantic
- Topic: The state of democracy in the Trump administration
- Will Millennials disrupt democracy?
- Guest: Stella Rouse, University of Maryland
- Topic: Millennials’ attitudes toward politics and democracy
- Protecting democracy from foreign interferance
- Guest: Laura Rosenberger, Alliance for Securing Democracy
- Topic: Foreign interference in democracy
- From soldier-statesman to the warrior ethos
- Guest: Gen. Wesley Clark
- Topi: The military and democracy
- Winning the “democracy lottery”
- Guests: Robin Teater, Healthy Democracy; John Gastil, Penn State
- Topic: Citizens Initiative Review and deliberative democracy
- Norman Eisen’s love letter to democracy
- Guest: Norman Eisen, former White House ethics official
- Topic: Ambassadors and diplomacy
- Are land-grant universities still “democracy’s colleges?”
- Guest: Nick Jones, Penn State
- Topic: Higher education and democracy
- The complicated relationship between campaign finance and democracy
- Guest: Caroline Hunter, Federal Election Commission
- Topic: Campaign finance
- 2018: The year in democracy
- Topic: Year in review
Season 3
- What is democracy? A conversation with Astra Taylor
- Guest: Astra Taylor, writer and filmmaker
- Topic: Modern conceptions of democracy
- Using the tools of democracy to address inequality
- Guest: Chris Witko, Penn State
- Topic: Economic inequality
- The power of local government
- Guest: Peter Buckland, Penn State
- Topic: Democracy in local government
- A brief history of “people power”
- Guest: James Miller, New School
- Topic: The history of democracy
- Viktor Orban’s “velvet repression” in Hungary
- Guest: John Shattuck, Tufts University
- Topic: Democratic erosion in Hungary
- Yellow vests and the “grand debate” in France
- Guest: Cole Stangler, Paris-based journalist
- Topic: France’s yellow vest movement
- Brazil’s tenuous relationship with democracy
- Guest: Gianpaolo Baiocchi, NYU
- Topic: Jair Bolsonaro and democratic erosion in Brazil
- Brexit and the UK’s identity crisis
- Guest: Sona Golder, Penn State
- Topic: Brexit and populism in the UK
- Jonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracy
- Guest: Jonathan Haidt, NYU
- Topic: Psychological foundations of democracy
- A playbook for organizing in turbulent times
- Guest: Srdja Popovic, founder of Serbia’s Otpor! movement
- Topic: Nonviolent organizing
- Immigration, refugees, and the politics of displacement
- Guest: Jan Egeland, Norwegian Refugee Council
- Topic: Immigration
- The ongoing struggle for civil rights
- Guest; Joyce Ladner, civil rights activist
- Topic: Civil rights movement
- E.J. Dionne on empathy and democracy
- Guest: E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post
- Topic: Pro-democracy policy programs, the value of disagreement in politics
- Is it time to revive civility?
- Guest: Timothy Shaffer, Kansas State University
- Topic: Civility in politics
- What Serial taught Sarah Koenig about criminal justice
- Guest: Sarah Koenig, Serial podcast host/executive producer
- Topic: Criminal justice reform and Serial season 3
- School segregation then and now
- Guests: Erica Frankenberg, Penn State Center for Education and Civil Rights; Crystal Sanders, Penn State Africana Research Center
- Topic: School segregation and the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
- What does the Mueller report mean for democracy?
- Guest: Laura Rosenberger, Alliance for Securing Democracy
- Topic: Mueller report and Russian interference in U.S. democracy
- Demagogues are more common than you think
- Guest: Patricia Roberts-Miller, University of Texas at Austin
- Topic: Demagoguery and democracy
- What neoliberalism left behind
- Guest: Wendy Brown, University of California Berkeley
- Topic: Neoliberalism and democracy
- Democracy in America, 2019 edition
- Guest: Lindsay Lloyd, George W. Bush Presidential Center
- Topic: The Democracy Project report on perceptions of democracy among Americans
- Will AI destroy democracy?
- Guest: Jay Yonamine, political scientist and data scientist at Google
- Topic: Automation and misinformation
- Congressional oversight and making America pragmatic again
- Guest: Charlie Dent, former U.S. Representative
- Topic: Separation of powers, the future of the Republican Party
- Answering your questions about democracy
- Topic: Michael, Chris, and Jenna answer questions submitted by Democracy Works listeners
Season 4
- Defending the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate
- Guest: David McCraw, Deputy General Counsel of the New York Times
- Topic: The free press in a democracy
- How conspiracies are damaging democracy
- Guests: Russell Muirhead, Dartmouth: Nancy Rosenblum, Harvard
- Topic: Conspiracy theories and epistemic polarization
- Doing the hard work of democracy in Baltimore
- Guest: Aaron Maybin, author of Art-Activism
- Topic: The relationship between art, education, and activism