Larry Diamond joins us this week to talk about the threat China’s model of authoritarian capitalism poses to liberal democracy in the United States and around the world. Economics drives politics, and it’s easy to admire China’s growth while looking past things like increasing surveillance and lack of respect for norms and the rule of law.
We’ve wanted to do ... Show More
Mar 8
Guoqi Xu, "The Idea of China: A Contested History" (Harvard UP, 2026)
What counts as China, and who counts as Chinese? China became a capitalist superpower by investing in globalization. Now that it has established its credentials—and emerged as a major US competitor—its leaders are looking within, focused on suppressing dissent and fostering cohes ... Show More
1h 11m
Mar 6
Patrick Chung, "Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026) by Dr. Patrick Chung traces the origins of today’s United States-led capitalist world economy. The nation’s foreign policy during the Cold War saw two unpr ... Show More
1h 1m
Mar 1
Christine Loh, "Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2018)
There can be little doubt that Hong Kong has stood out as a particularly intense East Asian news hotspot in recent years. Whether reports have focused on pro-democracy protests, abducted booksellers or PRC Mainland integration plans, most of this news has revolved around a common ... Show More
59m 37s
Jan 2023
There’s Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed
<p>There are few stories that are more crucial to the world’s future than what’s happening in China. Take any of the most important issues of our time — climate change, geopolitics, the global economy, advanced technologies — and China is at the center of them. American politics ... Show More
1h 19m
Mar 2022
Democracy in Crisis: Putin’s Assault (with Anne Applebaum & Michael McFaul)
Over the course of this season of the podcast, Hillary has been examining the challenges our democracy faces. Today, she looks abroad to Russia’s brutal, unprovoked attack on Ukraine, and considers what led to this moment and what’s at stake in this war–for Ukraine, Russia, the U ... Show More
1h 10m
Feb 2024
Lisa Herzog, "Citizen Knowledge: Markets, Experts, and the Infrastructure of Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023)
For better or worse, democracy and epistemology are intertwined. For one thing, politics is partly a matter of gathering, assessing, and applying information. And this can be done responsibly or incompetently. At least since Plato, a leading critique of democracy has focused on t ... Show More
1h 7m
Oct 2020
TURNOUT Episode 1: ‘Democracy is a group sport’
The right to vote can sometimes be described as a “struggle,” a “fight,” even a “war.”But how did this come to be and who has been fighting to make every generation’s path to the ballot a little less arduous? On this episode of Turnout, Katie Couric goes back to the beginning, to ... Show More
34m 22s