A collaboration between Professors Michael Holm, R. S. Deese, and the Politica.
HOW DEMOCRACY SURVIVES
Boston University Social Science professors Michael Holm and Richard Samuel Deese are researching the question of how democracy survives. With the support of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and the Global Impact Research Fund at Boston University, they organized an international symposium on this topic in October 2020 that is available for viewing here. Their book, How Democracy Survives: Global Challenges in the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2023), is now accessible to all readers via open access. Since January of 2021, professors Deese and Holm have joined forces with The Politica to conduct this series of podcast interviews on the challenges that face democracy around the world in the 21st century.
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Special thanks to the podcast team, former Head of Podcast Kalliope Glavas, and to research assistants J. J. Hellerman, Kira Nash, Daniel Torrez-Ortiz, Sarah Knotts, Alan Chau, and Jeffrey Ho.
Episode 1: Deese and Holm interview the French activist Colombe Cahen-Salvador and the Italian activist Andrea Venzon, on why they founded the global pro-democracy group NOW!
Episode 2: Deese and Holm interview the longtime activist John Vlasto of Democracy Without Borders on his work to promote the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.
Episode 3: Deese and Holm interview Columbia University political science scholar Camila Vergara on how to address the dangers posed to democracy around the world by systemic corruption and the recurring formation of oligarchic elites.
Episode 4: Deese and Holm interview Brandeis University professor and editor of The American Prospect Robert Kuttner on the prospects for preserving democracy and addressing entrenched economic inequality in post-Trump America.
Episode 5: Boston University humanities professor Joshua T. Pederson joins professor Deese to interview the international aid worker and noted science fiction author Malka Older on how democracy might transcend the nation state before the end of the 21st century.
Episode 6: Boston University social sciences professor Christopher Rhodes interviews Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter .
Episode 7: Boston University professors Deese and Renstrom interview Michael Bess, a specialist in 20th- and 21st-century European history.
Episode 8: Alissa Valles of Boston University's Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies interviews Orwell Scholar and Russia expert Masha Karp.
Episode 9: Professor R. S. Deese interviews Luis Cabrera, the author of The Humble Cosmopolitain: Rights, Diversity, and Trans-state Democracy
Episode 10: Professor Andrew David interviews Waqar H.Zaidi, the author of Technological Internationalism and World Order.