The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk on Making Diverse Democracies Work

Apr 23, 2022

Ravi Gupta interviews Yascha Mounk, a professor at Johns Hopkins and founder of Persuasion, about his new book, The Great Experiment. They discuss the challenges of building diverse democracies and how group identity can foster both division and unity. Mounk emphasizes navigating political polarization and the need for empathy through shared experiences. The conversation highlights the role of social capital in reducing conflict and the importance of recognizing diversity as an opportunity rather than a threat.

01:01:06

Episode guests

Ravi Gupta

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

4min

The Experiment of Diverse Democracies

4min

The Paradox of Diversity in Democracy

8min

Navigating Group Identity in an Evolving World

7min

Demographics and Divisions in Democracy

10min

Social Capital and the Dynamics of Ethnic Violence in India

4min

Bridging Divides: Polarization and Progress

21min

Exploring the Impact of Diverse Democracies and Engaging Audiences

2min

Yascha Mounk is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, and the founder of Persuasion. His new book, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, was published this week.

In this week’s conversation, Ravi Gupta and Yascha Mounk discuss why it is so hard to build diverse democracies, how we can overcome the deeply human instinct to discriminate against those unlike ourselves, and why he remains optimistic about the prospects of the “great experiment.”

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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Podcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan Ruberry

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