Pod­cast

This episode explores what makes repub­li­can val­ues and prac­tices impor­tant to the sur­vival of any democ­ra­cy, as well as the role of social­i­ty in cul­ti­vat­ing of a com­mon sense of pur­pose, mutu­al inter­de­pen­dence, and col­lec­tive engage­ment. What makes the agrar­i­an ethos of Indi­an vil­lage com­mu­ni­ties res­onate with the spir­it of…

This episode explores the cur­rent state of democ­ra­cy across Africa. What are the main achieve­ments since the 1990s and what are the biggest inter­nal threats to con­sol­i­da­tion of democ­ra­cy? Why have demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ments failed to deliv­er? Lis­ten to how unful­filled promis­es and aspi­ra­tions for a bet­ter life have shaped the…

This episode explores the role uni­ver­si­ties play in uphold­ing and deep­en­ing democ­ra­cy. How does uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion fos­ter civic engage­ment and a demo­c­ra­t­ic spir­it? How do uni­ver­si­ties cul­ti­vate inter­ac­tive diver­si­ty? And what pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions can insti­tu­tions of high­er edu­ca­tion make in order to strength­en democ­ra­cy today? Lis­ten to the illu­mi­nat­ing discussion…

This episode explores the polit­i­cal mis­takes which pre­vent­ed human rights and the rule of law from tak­ing root in Afghan soci­ety. What under­stand­ings of democ­ra­cy pre­vailed fol­low­ing the U.S. inva­sion and what were the foun­da­tions on which the lead­ers of Afghanistan tried to build a mod­ern repub­lic? Lis­ten to what made…

What are the caus­es and con­se­quences of demo­c­ra­t­ic decline world­wide over the course of the last two decades? Has democ­ra­cy in the Unit­ed States recent­ly drift­ed more towards demo­c­ra­t­ic back­slid­ing or did the results of the 2022 midterm elec­tions inspire hope in the reversibil­i­ty of demo­c­ra­t­ic degen­er­a­tion in the US?…

The ongo­ing protests in the past months have rocked Iran to its core. What began as a wave of street demon­stra­tions and protests has by now turned into a ver­i­ta­ble rev­o­lu­tion led by coura­geous and defi­ant women. What is the broad­er his­tor­i­cal con­text regard­ing these cur­rent events? How has the…

How has the suc­cess of an extreme author­i­tar­i­an fig­ure like Bol­sonaro been enabled by the polit­i­cal field in Brazil? What is the tra­jec­to­ry of the Brazil­ian left, rep­re­sent­ed by PT, ‘The Work­ers’ Par­ty’, led now to vic­to­ry by Pres­i­­dent-elect Lula? Lula’s return to pow­er marks a fresh start for democracy…

Why is democ­ra­cy prone to degen­er­a­tion, and how does this affect our con­ven­tion­al notions of democ­ra­cy itself? Do we usu­al­ly depend too much on a thin for­mal insti­tu­tion­al con­cep­tion of democ­ra­cy focused on elec­toral rou­tines, and thus, neglect broad­er ques­tions of class, cul­ture, equal­i­ty, and sol­i­dar­i­ty? How can we reimagine…

U.S. Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy is exhibit­ing symp­toms of decline or even of degen­er­a­tion giv­en the con­tin­u­ing denial of the results of the last pres­i­den­tial elec­tion by many in the Repub­li­can Par­ty and par­ti­san efforts to cur­tail vot­ing rights in the Unit­ed States. How alarmed should one be about leg­isla­tive cap­ture and…

In this episode Shali­ni and her guest dis­cuss the chang­ing valances of civ­il soci­ety over the last few decades. How can we assess today the geo­graph­i­cal­ly and his­tor­i­cal­ly spe­cif­ic under­stand­ing of civ­il soci­ety as a sphere out­side of, and opposed to the realm of pol­i­tics and state insti­tu­tions and the…

Since pop­ulism became wide­spread in parts of Latin Amer­i­ca, was it mis­tak­en­ly seen as for­eign to Euro-Amer­i­­can lib­er­al democ­ra­cy, and has it in recent decades become more wide­spread than par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy or lib­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al­ism? Is the poten­tial for pop­ulism inher­ent in democ­ra­cy itself, espe­cial­ly when con­ceived in terms of a…

How and why did the idea of call­ing for the estab­lish­ment of a spe­cial tri­bunal to inves­ti­gate the crimes of aggres­sion against Ukraine come up in the first place? Why was it nec­es­sary to call for the estab­lish­ment of a new Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court when there is one already in…

The caus­es of the cur­rent soci­etal, eco­nom­ic, and polit­i­cal cri­sis in Sri Lan­ka are com­plex. The imme­di­ate roots of the cri­sis are the local and glob­al eco­nom­ic fac­tors, fuelled by the pop­u­lar protests against the cor­rup­tion of the gov­ern­ing polit­i­cal elites. What does the ongo­ing cri­sis have to do with…

The U.S. is in the midst of an ongo­ing coup, there is a real threat of fas­cist ten­den­cies in the U.S. and else­where; these influ­ence the pos­si­ble out­comes of the upcom­ing 2022 mid-term elec­tions as well as the 2024 U.S pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. What are the poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of legal…

A new world order is in place where accord­ing to Kaldor, per­pet­u­al vio­lence has become the norm. How come these so-called new wars, or “for­ev­er wars” as Kaldor refers to them, are not tied to con­test over nation­al ter­ri­to­ry? Fur­ther­more, does NATO still adhere to Cold War pat­terns of thinking…