During an era of identity politics, culture wars and increasing awareness of the structural biases that contribute to global inequality, it’s easy to become pessimistic about the possibility of making diverse democracies work. Yascha Mounk is a writer and political scientist whose recent book, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How ... Show More
Yesterday
Sex, Gender and Christianity: A 3,000 Year History, with Diarmaid MacCulloch and Mary Beard (Part Two)
In the twenty-first century, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary revolutions in attitudes to sex and gender in human history, bringing liberation for some and fury and fear for others. Understanding the history of Christia ... Show More
37m 44s
Mar 16
Sex, Gender and Christianity: A 3,000 Year History, with Diarmaid MacCulloch and Mary Beard (Part One)
In the twenty-first century, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary revolutions in attitudes to sex and gender in human history, bringing liberation for some and fury and fear for others. Understanding the history of Christia ... Show More
34m 44s
Mar 15
Is the Russia–Ukraine War a Failure of Strategy? With Lawrence Freedman
In an age of grinding wars, nuclear brinkmanship, and political volatility, what does strategy really mean - and how do leaders make decisions when the world feels chaotic? In this episode, Lawrence Freedman draws on decades of scholarship and his experience as official historian ... Show More
50m 39s
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
Mar 2024
Jacqueline Kennelly, "Burnt by Democracy: Youth, Inequality, and the Erosion of Civic Life" (U Toronto Press, 2023)
Burnt by Democracy: Youth, Inequality, and the Erosion of Civic Life (University of Toronto Press, 2023) by Dr. Jacqueline Kennelly traces the political ascendance of neoliberalism and its effects on youth. The book explores democracy and citizenship as described in interviews wi ... Show More
1h 5m
Sep 2023
Michèle Lamont, "Seeing Others: How Recognition Works-And How It Can Heal a Divided World" (Atria, 2023)
How can we challenge and change inequalities? In Seeing Others: How Recognition Works— and How It Can Heal a Divided World (Atria, 2023), Michele Lamont, Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, at Ha ... Show More
36m 53s
Jan 2022
Bilal Baloch on Indira Gandhi, India's Emergency, and the Importance of Ideas in Politics
<p>We have core ideas that form a part of our worldview, but those core ideas are not fixed in the way in which we talk about rationality and interest in that they can evolve. And we have to, when we think about human behavior, political behavior, we have to give serious attentio ... Show More
45m 8s
Dec 2023
1. The Future of Democracy
This year's BBC Reith Lecturer is Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, Oxford University. He will deliver four lectures called “Our Democratic Future,” asking how we can build a politics that works for all of us with systems which are ... Show More
58m 8s