RevDem Podcast

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Joseph Wong – co-author with Dan Slater of the new monograph From Development to Democracy. The Transformations of Modern Asia – discusses when and why regimes have chosen to democratize in modern Asia; how come types rather than levels of development have shaped country’s democratic prospects; why Singapore and China remain significantly less democratic than one might expect; and how studying the patterns of modern Asia can help us rethink democracy promotion today.

In conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Sally Hayden – author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route – discusses the various detention centers across Libya and sketches the profiles of the people detained in them; reflects on her ambition of centering the voices of the victims and her dilemmas concerning what to release and what not to release about their cruel treatment; addresses the role and responsibility of the European Union in the emergence and maintenance of these lawless environments, and how media and politicians have related to the results of her detailed investigations; and raises the question of accountability and how the dire situation of the victims could be improved.

In this conversation with RevDem guest contributor Norman Aselmeyer, Andreas Eckert – author of German-language overviews of the history of colonialism and of slavery – presents his approach to the history of colonialism and how the study of this subject has evolved in the early 21st century; reflects on the special challenges of composing a global history of slavery; shares his views on the ongoing German debates regarding colonial crimes; and discusses the current state and special pitfalls of global history writing. Andreas Eckert, historian of modern Africa at Humboldt University in Berlin, is one of Germany’s leading scholars of African history. Since 2009, he has been the director of the international research centre Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History. Throughout his career, he has held fellowships and guest professorships all over the world. He taught and researched at institutions such as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, the Swedisch Collegium in Uppsala, SOAS, and others. Andreas Eckert has published numerous books and articles on the history of labour, colonialism, global history, and the historiography of African history. Today, we will speak about two of his latest books on the history of colonialism and slavery: Kolonialismus (S. Fischer, 2006) and Geschichte der Sklaverei: Von der Antike bis ins 21. Jahrhundert [History of Slavery. From Ancient Times to the 21st Century](C.H. Beck, 2021). Norman Aselmeyer, PhD, is a lecturer of modern history at the University of Bremen. His research interests lie at the intersection of African and global history.

In this extended conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Franziska Exeler – author of the new monograph Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and Its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus – discusses the extremely violent history of Belarus during the Second World War; analyses the various choices people made under the dire constrains of the Nazi German occupation and the challenges of drawing on Soviet sources to analyze those choices; zooms in on the issue of Soviet retribution and its ambiguities; and reflects on how the partisan experience and narrative has continued to shape the country.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, three authors of the new collective monograph Socialism Goes Global. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation, Péter Apor, James Mark, and Steffi Marung, dissect the relationship between eastern Europe and the extra-European world in the age of decolonization; explain how key East European traditions of relating to the extra-European world have evolved over time; analyse the extent to which long-standing civilizational and racial hierarchies were overcome, or perhaps reproduced, via East–South connections during the Cold War; show how the study of this alternative form of globalization can help us reconsider the end of European state socialism; and discuss some of the key contemporary consequences and legacies of socialist world-making today. ​ James Mark is a Professor of History at the University of Exeter Steffi Marung is the Director of the Global and European Studies Institute of Leipzig University Péter Apor is a senior research fellow (tudományos főmunkatárs) in contemporary history at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Socialism Goes Global. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation, coordinated by James Mark and Paul Betts, is published by Oxford University Press. Its main contributors are – next to Péter Apor, Paul Betts, James Mark, and Steffi Marung – Alena Alamgir, Eric Burton, Bogdan Iacob, and Radina Vučetić.

In this conversation with RevDem section heads Vera Scepanovic and Ferenc Laczó, Fritz Bartel – author of the new The Triumph of Broken Promises. The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism – explains how the notion of breaking promises cancapture developments of the late Cold War period and why democracies proved more successful at doing so; argues that a structural explanation of the rise of neoliberalism is more convincing from a historical point of view; discusses how the U.S. empire came to pay for itself and with what consequences; and reflects on how his arguments about breaking promises in the Global North can help us understand political trends today. Fritz Bartel is an assistant professor of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. The Triumph of Broken Promises. The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism is published by Harvard University Press.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Kasia Krzyżanowska, Peter Verovšek — author of “Memory and the future of Europe. Rupture and integration in the wake of total war” — discusses the importance of foundational stories for communities; explains the influence of personal experience on the European integration; shows differences in remembering the past in West and East Europe and ponders on the consequences of Russian aggression on Ukraine for the European memory.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Charlotte Wiedemann – author of the just released German-language volume Den Schmerz der Anderen begreifen. Holocaust und Weltgedächtnis (To Grasp the Pain of Others. Holocaust and Global Remembrance) – explores the inequalities of the reigning “economy of empathy”; discusses ways to connect the histories of National Socialism and global colonialism to each other; reflects on problematic aspects of German memory culture today; and suggests paths through which more pluralistic and inclusive memory cultures might be fostered.

Teodora Miljojkovic, RevDem assistant editor, interviews Professor John Shattuck, international legal scholar, diplomat, human rights leader and previous CEU rector. In his early career, Professor Shattuck was a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Politics at Princeton University and lecturer at the Harvard Law School. In the early post-Cold War years, Professor Shattuck, while serving as the US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, had a key role in the negotiations of the Dayton Peace Agreement and he was instrumental in the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Today, Professor Shattuck is a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and Professor of Practice at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Teodora and Professor Shattuck discussed  the book “Holding Together - the Hijacking of Rights in America and How to Reclaim Them for Everyone” by Professor Shattuck, Sushma Rahman and Matthias Riss from the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, which was published by The New Press. This followed the launch event for the book at the CEU in Vienna.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Fabio Wolkenstein – author of the new book Die dunkle Seite der Christdemokratie. Geschichte einer autoritaeren Versuchung (The Dark Side of Christian Democracy. The History of an Authoritarian Temptation) – sketches the broad variety of Christian politics across modern Europe; discusses the types of political Catholicism and explains how Christian Democratic attitudes to liberalism and democracy have evolved over time; and reflects on how Christian Democracy may have changed over the past half a century – and whether parties like Law and Justice in Poland or Fidesz in Hungary might be seen as representing new forms of Christian politics.