Tom Ginsburg is a professor of international law and political science at the University of Chicago. He is the coauthor of How to Save a Constitutional Democracy with Aziz Huq and the author of Democracies and International Law. At the end of the day, I am optimistic despite all the evidence. First of all, I think... Continue Reading →
International Law and Democracies International is a riddle for the political theorist. It exists despite the absence of any formal state or government. So, not only is there no international body to enforce its edicts, but it lacks any formal institution to promulgate its laws. It bypasses the notion of sovereignty traditional democratic theory depended... Continue Reading →
Robert Meister is the author of the new book Justice is an Option: A Democratic Theory of Finance for the Twenty-First Century and a Professor of Social and Political Thought in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California Santa Cruz. So, now I've developed a way of talking about revolution as an... Continue Reading →
Justice is an Option Rarely do I read a book that leads me to think differently about economics, but Robert Meister’s effort to quantify the price of historical justice has done exactly that. His latest book, Justice is an Option, builds on the debates surrounding distributive justice. It builds on the work of John Rawls,... Continue Reading →
Martin Conway is the author of the new book Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945—1968 and a Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Oxford. Where you and I and, I think, many others start from an assumption that somehow there is a thing called democracy and we sort of know what it is.... Continue Reading →
Western Europe's Democratic Age Over the last few years it has almost become cliché to refer to the democratic recession. Many of the most fragile democracies have reversed or even collapsed. Among the most recent involves the collapse of the government in Afghanistan due to the withdrawal of American troops. The experience serves as a... Continue Reading →
Donald Horowitz joins the podcast to discuss the formation of constitutions in democracies. Donald is the James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science Emeritus at Duke University. His most recent book is Constitutional Processes and Democratic Commitment. The most beautiful thing that happened in Indonesia, by the way, which was a polarized society along... Continue Reading →
Constitutions In October 2020 Chileans made the monumental decision to rewrite their constitution. Many view this as a democratizing event despite the fact that Chile democratized in 1990 with the negotiated transition from the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Nevertheless, the transition to democracy was widely considered as incomplete at the time, because the Pinochet... Continue Reading →
Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley join the podcast to discuss the politics behind Mexico's criminal wars. Guillermo is an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame. Sandra is an Assistant Professor at CIDE’s Political Studies Division in Mexico City. They are the authors of Votes, Drugs, and Violence: The Political Logic of Criminal Wars... Continue Reading →
Mexico: An Overview Tomorrow’s podcast features a conversation with Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley about the politics of criminal violence in Mexico. Their research transcends Mexican politics to provide insights about democratization and criminal governance. But it helps to have a basic overview of Mexico’s political system. This is not an outline designed for serious... Continue Reading →
