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PODCAST

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast

The ANDREA MITCHELL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY aims not just to promote, but to understand, democracy. Global in its outlook, multifaceted in its purposes, the Mitchell Center seeks to contribute to the ongoing quest for democratic values, ideas, and institutions throughout the world. In THE ANDREA MITCHELL CENTER PODCAST, we interview scholars, journalists, and public thinkers grappling with the challenges facing our democracy. Many of the episodes are linked to our other programming, such

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All Episodes

55:48

Episode 3.14: Dark Mirror: How the West Imagines...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/05/20

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. At a moment when its actions truly demand international scrutiny, Russia’s place at the center of Western attention seems only natural. That said, historian and SRB Podcast (https://srbpodcast.org/) host SEAN GUILLORY is engaged in multiple projects examining why Russia has loomed so large for so long in the imaginations of America and Western Europe. He argues that Russia provides a unique foil – European enough to potentially be “like us,” yet perpetually failing

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45:47

Episode 3.13: Naming the Problem: Capitalism is the...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/05/06

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As our economy, political system, and society in general weather a number of immediate crises, from pandemics to inflation, economist RICHARD WOLFF argues that the real cause of our inability to grapple with them is being ignored. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Wolff contends that the power of capitalism as a governing ideology, and capitalists as a class, make it difficult to mobilize resources for anything other than profit

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57:06

Episode 3.12: The Jim Crow South: Myths and Realities...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/03/18

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Especially since the national reckoning with race following the death of George Floyd, there has been a focus, in both academic and popular discourse, on the continuity of anti-Black racism in U.S. history. Distinguished political scientist ADOLPH REED contests the idea, however, that racism as an immutable force exerting a uniform influence from the era of slavery to the present day, or even that American inequality is chiefly defined by race. His new book, The South:

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01:04:19

Episode 3.11: Beyond the Ruins of Neoliberalism –...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/03/04

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Over the course of decades, Neoliberalism has shifted from being an overt ideological position, explicitly arguing for the primacy of the market as a way to organize society, into a set of embedded assumptions and practices that govern much of our economy and politics. Political theorist WENDY BROWN has charted this process and the destruction left in its wake, as commitment to the social has given way to individualistic strategies for coping with market forces. In

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58:48

Episode 3.10: The Eroding Foundations of Putin’s...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/02/17

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As he sparks an international crisis over a possible invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has seemingly consolidated his control in an increasingly autocratic regime. Scholar of international relations and Russian political economy ILYA MATVEEV argues, however, that Putin’s turn to greater repression is a sign that his base of power is narrowing. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Matveev points to the broadening class composition of

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54:27

Episode 3.9: The Capitalist Roots of the Arab Spring...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/01/28

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Many accounts of the Arab Spring of 2010-11 view it primarily through a political lens: whatever the underlying grievances, its goals centered around removing autocrats from power and replacing them with more responsive governments. Historian JOEL BEININ argues that in fact the Arab Spring protests, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, were rooted in a worker’s movement that had, over decades, launched numerous protests against harsh economic conditions imposed by the

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51:56

Episode 3.8: The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine –...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2022/01/07

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The story of Palestine, as much as its territory, has been subsumed by Israel, its recent history typically told as a chronicle of the Jewish state’s establishment, development, and defense. In his new book, The Hundred Years’ War: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, acclaimed historian RASHID KHALIDI refocuses the narrative on the Palestinian experience. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Khalidi describes how this book

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52:09

Episode 3.7: Reports of Neoliberalism’s Death Are...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/12/17

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Ever since Marx himself, Marxists have anticipated the day of capitalism’s comeuppance, when its crisis-inducing shortcomings would be laid squarely at its door and people would reject it for a system with more humane tradeoffs. Political economist and social theorist MARTIJN KONINGS cautions that that day has not yet arrived. Even “neoliberalism” – a general rubrick for the ideas and practices that have expanded the scope of the market while loosening the

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48:05

Episode 3.6: Universal Suffrage: From Revolutionary...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/12/03

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. For many on the Left, elections have come to represent a minimal baseline for political engagement – and not a route in themselves for personal or social transformation. In his work, democratic theorist KEVIN DUONG looks back to a time when this was not the case, when the movement for universal suffrage envisioned itself as giving voice to “the people” in a way that would leave to part of society unchanged. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael

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49:11

Episode 3.5: The Fingerprints of Intelligence: Allen...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/11/19

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. It has long been argued, in support of the case that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, that the Kennedy administration was not threatening enough to powered interests to trigger such a drastic act. In his books, Brothers and The Devil’s Chessboard, longtime journalist and Salon founder DAVID TALBOT argues, to the contrary, that Kennedy represented a deep threat to institutions empowered by, and ideologically committed to, the

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38:53

Episode 3.4: Politics in the Time of Climate Change –...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/10/25

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In 2021, Wharton professor ERIC ORTS took a leave of absence to run as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He was driven in part by his desire to reform the Senate itself, as he discussed in episode 2.3 of our podcast. The more urgent motivation, however, was his assessment of climate change as a global emergency requiring national mobilization on a massive scale, a view he developed as Director of the Wharton Initiative for Global Environmental

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56:20

Episode 3.3: No Easy Answers: A Conversation with...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/10/01

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. For two years, LORETTA LYNCH held one of the most powerful and most complicated jobs in the United State government. As Attorney General under Barack Obama, she managed an agency that comprises a network of U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and much else. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, she highlights both the clear

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31:45

Episode 3.2: Do Presidents Have the Right to Lie (or...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/09/17

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In her new book, A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the First Amendment, constitutional scholar CATHERINE J. ROSS examines the tension between the First Amendment’s protections for free speech and the need to combat the spread of lies that endanger democracy. Verifiable factual falsehoods are rife throughout the public square today, but former President Donald J. Trump’s unparalleled mendacity and its consequences for the nation – measured in threats to

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33:08

Episode 3.1: Enemies by Choice: U.S.-Iranian...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/09/03

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. There are some countries which, by dint of geography or incompatible national interests, seem destined for perpetual conflict and antagonism. This is not true, however, in the case of Iran and the United States, insists Iranian-American journalist and historian JOHN GHAZVINIAN. His book, America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present, outlines the series of bad choices – often made for short-term goals without clear regard for long-term consequences – that have formed

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01:09:36

Episode 2.16: No Nation Is an Island: Rethinking How...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/05/18

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As citizens and politicians in many countries argue passionately about how – or whether – national borders should be secured, they often share a similar set of assumptions: that borders are sharp boundaries enclosing distinct political communities, and that the choice of whether they are open or closed is largely binary. PAULINA OCHOA ESPEJO, author of the recent book On Borders, argues that these views are rooted in what she calls the “desert island” ideal of

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43:36

Episode 2.15: The Double Life of Violence: Social...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/05/04

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Recent movements to reform society and address interpersonal behavior have placed eliminating violence at their center. As political theorist MATT SHAFER points out, however, the concept of “violence” has never had a stable meaning. In his discussion with Rafael Khachaturian, he describes how it has increasingly been torn between the competing poles of the social and the personal. He traces how these conceptions of violence arose beginning in the 1960s – superseding

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36:04

Episode 2.14: Climate Apartheid, Racial Capitalism,...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/04/05

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As envisioned by philosopher OLÚFẸ́MI O. TÁÍWÒ, a coming age of climate apartheid will create a new kind of social division within countries and communities between those who can pay to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and those who cannot. On the global scale, climate colonialism will likewise exclude local populations from control over resources as those resources are secured for the world’s elites. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman,

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36:46

Episode 2.13: The Scandalous Secret History of the...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/03/15

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The approach to free speech embodied by the First Amendment of the American Constitution is often considered, by Americans at least, to be a model for the rest of the world. Historian FARA DABHOIWALA argues that it is actually an outlier best ignored by other countries. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Dabhoiwala locates what he calls the “peculiar shape” of the First Amendment in an era much like our own, the early eighteenth century, when

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44:13

Episode 2.12: Academic Freedom and the Work of the...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/03/01

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN.In an era when “free speech on campus” has become a slogan weaponized by conservative groups, historian JOAN WALLACH SCOTT insists on treating academic freedom not as an individual right of untrammeled speech, but as a collective right to carry out the work of universities: teaching, researching, and learning. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Scott argues that institutional changes are at the root of current crises in academic freedom,

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27:25

Episode 2.11: On Social Media, the Personal Is...

The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast ·

2021/02/16

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. It is widely known that social media increases political polarization among its users, creating an environment in which mis- and disinformation can spread easily. JAIME SETTLE, author of Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America, argues that what is not so well understood is exactly how social media drives polarization. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, she points to a surprising answer: it is not overt political speech that has the biggest

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