Democracy Works

Gerrymandering is one of the topics we've discussed most on this show, with good reason. But those conversations mostly stopped at the solution of creating independent redistricting commissions to draw electoral maps, taking the process out of partisan-controlled state legislatures. While that's undeniably a good thing, this week's guest argues it's just one part of a bigger solution. An independent nonpartisan commission is not always going to create a nonpartisan map. Christopher Fowler is an associate professor of geography at Penn State and a member of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf's Redistricting Advisory Council. His research  examines the way our choices about geographic boundaries shape the outcomes we are able to observe. He examine neighborhoods, school catchment areas, electoral districts, metropolitan areas, and labor markets with a focus on how these units of observation reflect the distribution of populations in space. After the interview, Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith discuss whether ideas like ranked-choice voting and multi-member districts can take hold in America's political landscape. Regular listeners of the show will not be surprised to hear that Chris is doubtful, while Candis is optimistic.Additional InformationFowler's Monkey Cage article on redistrictingPennsylvania Redistricting Advisory CouncilRelated EpisodesExtreme maps, extreme politicsOne state's fight for fair maps Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Carol Anderson's book One Person, No Vote was written before COVID-19, but many of the patterns she discussed are more salient than ever as states enact new voting restrictions ahead of the 2022 midterms. In the book and in this conversation, Anderson traces the history of voter suppression since the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder,  which nullified critical pieces of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.She draws parallels between poll taxes and literacy tests in the Jim Crow era to voter ID laws and other modern-day barriers designed to keep people of color from voting. As Mark Twain famously said, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." After listening to this conversation, it's hard not to think that's the case with voting. This week is National Voter Education week, an effort to bridge the gap between registering to vote and casting a ballot. Visit votereducationweek.org to learn more about this important effort.Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of the bestselling books One Person No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation's Divide, and The Second: Race and Guns in a  Fatally Unequal America. Additional InformationAnderson's websiteAnderson on TwitterBrennan Center for Justice on DMV closuresRelated EpisodesLaboratories of restricting democracy Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The problems of disinformation, conspiracies, and cancel culture are probably familiar to many of our listeners. But they're usually talked about separately, including on this show. In his new book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, Jonathan Rauch ties these threads together and shows how they contribute to a larger problem of a departure from facts and truth in favor of feelings and falsehoods. The book reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”—our social system for turning disagreement into truth. The institutions that Rauch describes as "reality-based communities," universities, media, government organizations, and the courts, need our support now more than ever as they face attacks from illiberal forces across the political spectrum. But are the problems on the left and the right really the same? Rauch argues they are. Michael Berkman and Chris Beem consider that equivalency after the interview.Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program and the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer of The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.  He has also authored research on political parties, marijuana legalization, LGBT rights and religious liberty, and more.Additional InformationThe Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of TruthKindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free ThoughtJonathan Rauch on TwitterRelated EpisodesHow democracies can win the war on realityAndrew Sullivan on democracy's double-edged swordJonathan Haidt on the psychology of democracyHow conspiracies are damaging democracy Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As we've said many times on this show, democracy is long and slow, which is the exact opposite of the ethos that Amazon has pushed into our culture through quick shipping, easily accessible entertainment, its takeover of cloud computing, and more.Amazon's expansion across America, from distribution facilities to data centers, is exacerbating regional inequities and contributing to the unraveling of America's social fabric. Not only that, cities competing for Amazon's  new facilities offer tax breaks that prevent funding from going to basic government services. And, the company's takeover of government procurement has taken lucrative contracts away from local businesses.Alec MacGillis, a senior reporter at ProPublica, chronicles these trends in new book Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America. The book chronicles how Amazon contributed to the gap between the country’s winning and losing regions, and how its workplace practices foster isolation and competition, rather than camaraderie and shared goals. Was Amazon deliberately trying to undermine democracy? Or using the existing system to its benefit?  We talk with MacGillis about founder Jeff Bezos's political philosophy and how it's impacted the company's decision-making over the years. We also discuss what we as democratic citizens can do to push back against some of these forces.  Additional InformationFulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click AmericaAlec MacGillis on TwitterAlec's websiteRelated EpisodesCan corporations be democratic citizens?Reimagining citizenship in a consumer world Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Candis Watts Smith takes a turn in the interviewer's chair this week for a conversation about abortion and American democracy following the passage of SB8 in Texas and the Supreme Court's response to it. Like a lot of things in American democracy, it's complicated.As Candis says in the episode, it isn’t typical for us to discuss “hot topics” or policy matters, per se, on Democracy Works. But, this policy and the Supreme Court’s response to it throws a great number of matters related to democracy into relief, including federalism, the role of the Court to protect and uphold the U.S. Constitution and constitutional rights, state politics as laboratories of democracy and policy innovation, and partisan strategies to create the country in their ideological image. Candis talks with Rebecca Kreitzer, associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert on gender and political representation, reproductive health policy and political inequality.  Rebecca was one of our first guest on Democracy Works back in 2018 and we're thrilled to have her back for a second appearance on this critically-important topic.Additional InformationRebecca's Monkey Cage article on Texas's  heartbeat lawPostscript podcast on abortion from the New Books NetworkRebecca Kreitzer on TwitterRelated EpisodesBehind the scenes of the "year of the woman" - Rebecca's first appearance on the show   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Generational divides in American politics are nothing new, but they seem particularly striking now as the oldest Millennials turn 40 this year. This generation has different lived experiences than its predecessors, but has been sidelines from political power as Baby Boomers live longer and benefit from incumbency advantages. Charlotte Alter has spent the past four years documenting these dynamics and join us this week to discuss.Alter is a senior correspondent at Time magazine and author of The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America. The book covers national-level politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elise Stefanik, as well as local leaders like mayors Svante Myrick (Ithaca, New York) and  Michael Tubbs (Stockton, California). Alter's reporting defines the class of young leaders who are remaking the nation–how grappling with 9/11 as teens, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, occupying Wall Street and protesting with Black Lives Matter, and shouldering their way into a financially rigged political system has shaped the people who will govern the future.Additional InformationThe Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform AmericaCharlotte Alter on TwitterThinking Is Cool podcastRelated EpisodesWill Millennials disrupt democracy? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're back after our summer break. Michael, Chris, Candis, and Jenna catch up on what happened over the summer, from COVID vaccine mandates to school board chaos to the refugee crisis in Afghanistan. The underlying theme of it all is one of democracy's central tensions — the collective vs. the individual. The tension between individual liberty and the common good plays itself out in America's COVID response, debates over how race and history are taught in schools, and how we respond to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. We discuss all of those issues this week and reflect on what our responsibilities are as democratic citizens. Related EpisodesRefugees and the politics of displacementThe clumsy journey to antiracismAdditional InformationChris Beem in The Conversation: Why refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is immoral and un-AmericanCandis Watts Smith in The Fulcrum: Experts fear ban on critical race theory could harm civics educationHurt Your Brain newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As redistricting begins across the country, we revisit our conversation with journalist and author David Daley about the consequences for American democracy if gerrymandering happens again this time around.  This episode originally aired in January 2021, not long after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.Daley has spent the past decade covering attempts by politicians to draw those maps to their advantage in a practice known as gerrymandering. He's also covered the groups of citizens across the country who pushed back against them to win some major reforms that will make the process look different now than it did in 2010.Daley is a journalist and author of Unrigged: How Citizens are Battling Back to Save Democracy. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Slate, the Washington Post, and New York magazine. He is a senior fellow at FairVote, the former editor of Salon, and lives in Massachusetts.Additional InformationDaley's op-ed on democracy deserts in The GuardianUnrigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save DemocracyDaley on TwitterRelated EpisodesOne state's fight for fair mapsNext-generation democracy: An interview with high school student Kyle Hynes, who won Pennsylvania's citizen mapmaking contest. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Democracy and populism diverge at a single point. It’s like a fork in a road where both traditions depend on a common history, but they split in two. At first it may seem the choice doesn’t matter. You believe that eventually they will both lead to the same destination except they don’t. The choice leads to two different outcomes. Populism uses some of the same language of democracy. It has a similar vocabulary. But as we go farther down its path, the less in common they have with each other.Jan-Werner Müller is among the most recognizable voices on the subject of populism and democracy.  This conversation from the Democracy Paradox podcast touches on some of their most challenging aspects from political leadership to majority rule to militant democracy. This conversation explores some of the ideas at the heart of this podcast. Ideas that give definition to the very meaning of democracy.Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and author of Democracy Rules and What is Populism? Additional InformationDemocracy ParadoxDemocracy RulesJan-Werner Müller at Princeton Politics  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Some of the most talked-about issues in Congress these days are not about the substance of policies or bills being debated on the floor. Instead, the focus is on the partisan conflict between the parties and the endless debate about whether individual members of Congress will break with party ranks on any particular vote. This behavior allows the parties to emphasize the differences between them, which makes it easier to court donors and hold voter attention.Some amount of competition between the parties is necessary in a healthy democracy, but have things gone too far? Frances E. Lee joins us this week to explain.Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs. She is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era with James M. Curry.Additional InformationLee's book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual CampaignHer lecture at Penn State on lawmaking in a polarized eraLee's websiteRelated EpisodesCongressional oversight and making America pragmatic againUnpacking political polarization Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.