S10E08: Samuel Bagg on Resist­ing State Capture 

This episode explores the pit­falls of val­oriz­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion as a demo­c­ra­t­ic end in itself. How might a one-sided empha­sis on par­tic­i­pa­to­ry pol­i­tics be instru­men­tal­ized by elite inter­ests? And does sim­ply get­ting more peo­ple involved in deci­sion-mak­ing tru­ly advance demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals? Lis­ten to hear why democ­ra­cies should focus more on resis­tance to state capture.

Guest fea­tured on this episode:

Samuel Ely Bagg is an assis­tant pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na. Sam’s research, in his own words, “seeks to reimag­ine demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals and prac­tices in light of real­is­tic assump­tions about the dynam­ics of social inequal­i­ty and polit­i­cal pow­er.” He’s pub­lished arti­cles in Pol­i­tics and Soci­ety, the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, the Jour­nal of Pol­i­tics, the Jour­nal of Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, Euro­pean Jour­nal of Polit­i­cal The­o­ry, and the Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Review. His writ­ings focus on a range of top­ics from the out­line of his prac­tice-ori­ent­ed approach to relat­ed ques­tions of demo­c­ra­t­ic the­o­ry or his research in polit­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy, behav­ior and polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions. Last year, he pub­lished the high­ly acclaimed book, “The Dis­per­sion of Pow­er: A Crit­i­cal Real­ist The­o­ry of Democ­ra­cy” at the Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press