RevDem Podcast

In the Soviet Union, youth fashion meant more than just a way of expression. In our latest episode, we discusswith Alla Myzelev about the stiliagi, a flamboyant youth subculture that emerged in the late Stalinist and early post-Stalinist Soviet Union.Myzelev situates the stiliagi not simply as fashion-conscious rebels, but as a distinctly embodied and aesthetic form of dissent that challenged dominant socialist norms of respectability, discipline, and masculinity.Through their brightly coloured clothing, enthusiasm for jazz, and stylised modes of self-presentation, stiliagi exposed the fragility of Soviet ideals of the “proper” socialist male citizen. Rather than overt political opposition, their subversion operated through taste, leisure, and the body,revealing how cultural practices could quietly unsettle authoritarian norms even in highly regulated societies.Part I of the podcast emphasizes how gender andsexuality complicate standard readings of youth subcultures as purely liberatory. Myzelev stresses that stiliagimasculinities were both transgressive and ambivalent: while rejecting militarised postwar Soviet masculinity, they often reproduced hierarchies through consumerism, serial relationships, and the objectification of women.

In our latest episode of the special series producedin partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we discuss the recent article co-authored by Benjamin Gedan and Elias French, entitled “The Threat to Latin American Term Limits” (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, No.4, October 2025)The desire of leaders to remain in office indefinitelyhas haunted democracy since its inception. Politicians have found various ways to circumvent democratic accountability and sideline the people’s will for a change in leadership, from military coups to rigged elections or the installation of puppet leaders. One of the most widely used tools to constrainsuch practices is the establishment of presidential term limits. Many of today’s constitutions impose a limit on the number of times a person can run for office. However, as the Mexican experience with the practice of el dedazo shows, term limits and regular changes in the presidency are no guarantee of democratic turnover. Creative lawyers have often found legalpathways to circumvent such prohibitions. Benjamin Gedan and Elias French explain how, today, the judiciary is increasingly being used to challenge provisions that limit the amount of time individuals can serve as heads of theexecutive. Analyzing cases from Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia, and El Salvador, they show how constitutional courts have undermined this key safeguard of democratic survival, often by weaponizing international law and citizens’ political rights.

As 2025 draws to a close, RevDem editors Alexandra Kardos(History of Ideas), Gabriel Pereira (Cross-Regional Dialogue), and Kristóf Szombati (Political Economy and Inequalities) take stock of a turbulent democratic year through three keywords: imagination, frustration, and realignment. From Latin America’s shifting right and disillusionment with democratic “delivery” to renewed geopolitical pressuresand the growing visibility of China, they reflect on what is changing, why it matters, and what gets lost when Europe remains intellectually inward-looking.The conversation also highlights where democratic energy still surfaces—in civic mobilisation, investigative journalism, and grassroots organising. These reflections set the stage for Part II, which turns from diagnosis to the priorities and risks shaping democracy in 2026.

In this latest conversation with Golnar Nikpour, we discuss her book, The Incarcerated Modern: Prisons and Public Life in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2024). We discuss how modern Iranian prisons illuminate broader questions about political modernity, state formation, and democratic aspiration. The conversation examines the contemporary stakes of the book’spublication and its intervention in debates on authoritarianism, penal reform, and democracy, while probing the author’s concept of the “public life” of prisons as active producers of political subjectivity and belonging. Thedialogue questions the analytical distinction between political and ordinary prisoners, using this to reflect on how societies define the “political” and confront the ethics of incarceration. It also foregrounds the foundational roleof institutions like Qasr prison in shaping Iran’s modern state and explores the transnational circulation of penal ideas that informed Iran’s carceral system. Further, it delves into the tension between secular and religious framings of incarceration, the paradoxes of technocratic reformism andharm-reduction strategies under authoritarian regimes, and the criteria by which the modern Iranian carceral project might be understood as a “failure.”The conversation positions prisons as key sites where democratic hopes, disciplinary projects, and visions of social order converge and collide.

In this exclusive end-of-year conversation with ourCo-Managing Editor Ece Özbey, Nobel Prize–winning political economist Daron Acemoğlu reflects on what 2025 revealed, and failed to resolve, about the state of democracy. From Trump’s global impact to the limits of personalizedpolitics, from institutional decay to AI-driven distortions of political judgment, he explores why liberal democracy is struggling across regions and where renewal might still begin. He offers a concise yet wide-ranging assessment of democracy’s present, defined by the widening gap between ambitious promises and lived outcomes—and the uncertainty ahead.

The threat of the far-right dominates politics in Germany today. The ascendance of the AfD marks the first time since the end of World War II that such a force has attracted a considerable share of the German electorate. This regularly leads politicians from centrist parties to emphasizethe importance of preventing German history from repeating itself. However, these same actors have simultaneously brought far-right policies into the mainstream and adopted practices that resemble the playbook of autocrats. Suchpractices have been particularly visible in the repression of pro-Palestinian voices over the last two years. In recent articles, Prof. Robin Celikates has argued that these developments indicate an authoritarian turn in contemporaryGermany.In part 1 of this podcast, Prof. Celikates discussed the German government’s repression of pro-Palestinian protests and voices, Germany’s broader protest culture, and the notion of Staatsräson.The second part focuses on the role that the weaponization of antisemitism—or, as some have called it, “anti-antisemitism”—plays in fueling racism, real antisemitism, and underminingfreedom of expression. The discussion concludes with an analysis of whether contemporary Germany might be trending toward authoritarianism.

"We care witnessing in the digital news reports a major shift since the COVID-19 crisis. (…). During the COVID crisis, the main information source became social media. With social media, you have many, many difficulties in finding the rightinformation or the correct information”, stated Raluca Radu, a Professor of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Bucharest, speaker for the Budapest Forum and contributor to the Reuters Institute Digital Report.  In a conversation for the Review of Democracy, she explains how social platforms like TikTok, WhatsApp groups, and AI-driven chatbots reconfigure the trust towards information. As Raluca Radu clearly emphasizes, COVID-19 marked a shiftin media consumption. During the pandemic, the main source of information became the short-form video content on platforms such as TikTok. Some newsrooms recognized that their audiences migrated elsewhere and rushed to follow. They tried to adapt to this changing landscape by establishing social media presence. By now, social media is not only an additional channel of dissemination but, in some cases, the only way to reach citizens who do not read traditional websites or watch TV. Thus, social media and algorithmsredefine the public sphere worldwide. This poses new problems. Whilst seemingly the AI data appears to be neutral, it might often be biased. Thus, this shift might need new conceptual approaches. Throughout her research, Raluca Radu puts a strong emphasis on the topic of trust. As she explains, this concept can be extremely valuable. For instance,  trust in media tends to decrease duringpolitical crises, particularly when politicians attack media companies. Economic divides complicate this already fragile situation. The misinformation and radicalization is also created by the lack of access to good quality information. Whilst the Nordic countries show high subscription rates and mediatrust, the Romanian model follows a different model. Here, the audiences expect free and high-quality information. In this context, investigative journalism relies more often on crowdfunding than on paywalls. Consequences are visible. Romania’s 2024 elections showed that the rise of fringe political figures such as Călin Georgescu was driven less by overt campaigning (grassroots) than coordinated comment networks and WhatsApp chains (known as astroturfing). The comments on the posts were often AI-generated. Such tactics were much more difficult to spot by researchers and electoral regulators. Raluca Radu is not merely diagnosing the problem. Instead, as a researcher in PROMPT, she is contributing to developingan AI-assisted tool that tracks harmful narratives across languages and platforms. Throughout the podcast, Raluca Radu’s emphasis is that the public sphere seems to be fragmented, but not beyond repair. Understanding the newframeworks of information consumption is the first step towards building strong, trustworthy content.

In this episode, Pedro Abramovay offers a wide-ranging analysis of the rise of illiberal forces in Latin America and the democratic vulnerabilities they exploit. Drawing on theBrazilian experience, he discusses what is genuinely new about today’s illiberal actors, why they resonate with voters, and why resisting them requires more than electoral victories. Abramovay argues for reimagining democracy itself—recovering its promise, renewing its agenda, and building stronger alliances across civil society.

We are thrilled to bring you the next episode of our monthly special in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy. Inthe framework of this new partnership, our editors discuss outstanding articles from the newest print issue of the journal with their authors. In this discussion with Nate Schenkkan, an independentauthority on human rights and global authoritarianism and former senior director of research at Freedom House,we examine the growing issue of transnationalrepression—a practice wherein states pursue individuals and groups beyond their own borders whom they regard as threats to those in power. Although much of the international public’s awareness stems from prominent incidents such asthe assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, our discussion underscores the significance of more routine methods, including digital intimidation and attempts to suppress dissent among diaspora communities. We examine the factors that contribute to the rise of transnational repression and outline strategies to protecttargets, such as digital security, diaspora organizing, and theimportance of local-level initiatives in building community defenses against state harassment.

The threat of the far-right dominates politics in Germany today. The ascendance of the AfD marks the first time since the end of World War II that such a force has attracted a considerable share of the German electorate. This regularly leads politicians from centrist parties to emphasizethe importance of preventing German history from repeating itself. However, these same actors have simultaneously brought far-right policies into the mainstream and adopted practices that resemble the playbook of autocrats. Suchpractices have been particularly visible in the repression of pro-Palestinian voices over the last two years. In recent articles, Prof. Robin Celikates has argued that these developments indicate an authoritarian turn in contemporaryGermany.In Part 1 of this podcast, Prof. Celikates examines the German government’s repression of pro-Palestinian protests and voices, discusses Germany’s broader protest culture, and reflects on the notion of Staatsräson.