The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast

This episode focuses on the recent passage of a foreign aid package by the House of Representatives, which includes aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The delay in passing the bill raised concerns about America's reliability in fulfilling its international commitments. The episode explores how partisan divides are reshaping views on foreign policy, with conservatives showing skepticism toward Ukraine but strong support for Israel, and some on the left adopting a critical stance toward Israel while backing Ukraine. Despite these divisions, bipartisan consensus prevailed in Congress, highlighted by overwhelming support for the aid packages. Representative MIKIE SHERRILL of New Jersey shares insights into the evolving landscape of foreign policy and the importance of bipartisan cooperation in shaping America's role abroad. In partnership with Democracy Paradox.

AUDREY JAQUISS interviews RHIANA GUNN-WRIGHT, Climate Policy Director of the Roosevelt Institute. They delve into discussions on the intersection of climate policy with issues such as white supremacy, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and economic concerns. Gunn-Wright explores the importance of universality in climate policy and strategies for navigating reactionary political landscapes. 

Barbara McQuade, a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, discusses her new book Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. Barbara argues disinformation is a threat to democracy. However, the larger threat is not from foreign adversaries, but those within the country who use disinformation for political gain. Still, the even larger attack comes from within ourselves. She argues we need a moral reckoning to preserve democracy in an era where disinformation and misinformation is so widespread. Justin Kempf, host of the Democracy Paradox, interviews Barbara in a wide-ranging conversation about propaganda, social media, and democracy in the 21st century. 

Episode in partnership with Democracy Paradox.

JONATHAN BLITZER, staff writer at The New Yorker, discusses his recent book Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis. According to Blitzer, immigration policy happens at the intersection of international relations and domestic politics. In this episode, he uses personal stories to help explain his points. JUSTIN KEMPF, host of the Democracy Paradox, interviews Blitzer about immigration, Central America, and the many people affected.

Episode in partnership with Democracy Paradox.

Join Secretary MARCIA LIMA and Penn Professor MICHAEL G. HANCHARD in a candid conversation on the pervasive nature of anti-blackness in Brazil and the United States. Lima currently serves as the Secretary of Affirmative Action Policies and Combatting and Overcoming Racism at the Ministry of Racial Equality in Brazil. This conversation examines parallels and disparities between the two countries in addressing systemic racism, as well as the ways in which the fight against racism is portrayed in the media and popular culture. The episode confronts the complexities of racial identity and governance as well as possibilities for global solidarity in the fight for racial justice.

Interviewer: AUDREY JAQUISS. Director of the Institute for Global Sustainability and Professor at Boston University, BENJAMIN SOVACOOL, delves into the crucial concept of energy justice. Sovacool unravels its definition and examines the demographics and locations where it is most pertinent. Distinguishing energy justice from climate or environmental justice, he offers insights into the nuances of this evolving field. Sovacool shares policy recommendations aimed at achieving energy justice and explores the unique roles that individuals and nations play in this collective endeavor. From the interconnectedness of social and environmental concerns to the responsibilities that we all bear in the pursuit of a just energy transition, Sovacool aims to broaden our understanding. Disclaimer: The audio quality varies throughout this episode. We decided it was best to release it nonetheless, due to the quality of the conversation.

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. Associate Professor at Georgetown University, JOSHUA CHERNISS, explores the dynamic relationship between diversity of thought and democracy, acknowledging it as both a core element of democracy's existence while also a significant challenge to its sustenance. He challenges the assumption that democracy will endure, emphasizing the need for active reflection to safeguard its foundations. In this conversation, Professor Cherniss navigates the nuanced terrain of liberal democracy, delving into the depths of political philosophy and its implications for the future of democracy.

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. Philadelphia is a city grappling with complex dynamics surrounding policing, criminality, and a commitment to rehabilitation. HELENA VON NAGY, an Assistant District Attorney in the Municipal Court, delves into the intricacies of Philadelphia's criminal justice system, narrating her day-to-day experiences working at the heart of Philadelphia's legal landscape. She sheds light on the multifaceted world of criminal justice in the City of Brotherly Love.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. On the cusp of a crucial election for Virginia, political activist JOSH STANFIELD discusses the stakes in his second AMC podcast appearance in an interview with political scientist Matthew Berkman. With this being the first legislative election for both Congressional chambers under new maps designed after the 2020 census, the status quo has shifted – aligning with a period of significant political turnover. Stanfield emphasizes the lack of faith that Virginia citizens have in elected officials and in large-scale development projects, culminating in underhanded tactics to bring in tourism and development at the risk of popular discontent and environmental harm. He also discusses how he is able to carve out a living while engaging in frequent freedom of information work and the various legal processes which accompany it.

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. In his recent book, The Principle of Political Hope, political theorist LOREN GOLDMAN attempts to avoid the sense of inevitability that creeps into political thought, either as optimistic faith in unstoppable progress or pessimistic despair at a broken world. Engaging with thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Ernst Bloch, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, Goldman holds up hope as a productive middle ground, combining belief in the possibility of a better world with acceptance of the risk of failure. In his wide-ranging discussion with host Joshua Rose, he explores core questions of political life. Does history have a discernable direction and, if so, what role does that leave for purposive action? Are there clear standards of right and wrong by which to judge political outcomes? Should the individual be constrained by the collectivity? Above all, he argues for experimentation as a goal in itself and as an antidote to politics based on rigid certainties.

Interviewer: AUDREY JAQUISS. The California legislature has passed two bills, now awaiting Governor Gavin Newsome’s signature, that potentially open up a new frontier in environmental law and climate action. As law professor MICHAEL GERRARD and Wharton professor ERIC ORTS explain, SB 253 would require that companies disclose their carbon emissions, and SB 261 their vulnerability to climate-related risks, in a standardized, verifiable way, making it more difficult for them to hide behind vague mission statements and inflated carbon offsets. In their discussion with political scientist Audrey Jaquiss, Gerrard and Orts point out that, while these laws would not directly mandate emission reductions, they would put a powerful tool in the hands of activists, legislators, shareholders and consumers to demand measurable progress in the fight against climate change. They also discuss potential roadblocks, both in the form of legal challenges and relentless lobbying efforts to weaken the final regulations, but remain hopeful that, as it has in the past, California's laws might have an impact well beyond its borders.

Interviewer: KIM FERNANDES. Our perspective on emerging technology such as A.I. is often future-oriented and technocratic, focused on how its design features might someday transform the world – and, above all, the advanced economies of the world – in ways wanted and unwanted. In their work at the Data & Society Institute, RIGOBERTO LARA GUZMÁN and RANJIT SINGH have focused instead on the current impacts of A.I. and other data-driven technologies on the lived experience of people in the Majority World – that is, outside of the wealthy economies of the “West” or “Global North.” In their discussion with anthropologist Kim Fernandes, they describe the process of collecting stories for their anthology, Parables of AI in/from the Majority World, and how visions of technology shift when the focus is less on how it works and more on how people must adapt to the parameters it sets, especially when they lack the power or privilege to push back.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In a repeat of the debt-ceiling crisis of the Obama years, House Republicans are threatening to maintain the current $31-trillion limit on borrowing by the federal government, thus raising the specter of imminent default. Wharton Professor ERIC ORTS, in a return to the podcast, worries that this time Republican brinksmanship might signal an actual willingness to go over the brink. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, he argues that the very credibility of their recklessness might prompt Biden to blink first and give in too much, agreeing to spending cuts that will hurt the most vulnerable Americans. Orts proposes instead that Biden embrace Plan B: executive actions based on his constitutionally mandated responsibility to maintain the full faith and credit of the U.S. Despite legal and political risks, it would be worth it because, while at the moment the implicit consensus among creditors is that the U.S. will not default, if events prove them wrong, the ensuing financial panic and recession may have devastating consequences.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Social justice movements are often defined by high-visibility moments that succeed in crystallizing new attitudes and enlarging the scope of national debate. What often follows, as media scholar and activist RACHEL KUO explores in her work, is a slow death by a thousand cuts: co-optation, backlash, internal discord and lack of resources, and the sheer capacity of pervasive state and corporate propaganda to reset the status quo. In her wide-ranging discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, she recounts lessons from recent high-profile movements, in particular Black Lives Matter and the interwoven abolitionist pushes against policing and incarceration. While disheartened by, for instance, the way that violence against minorities – not to mention the seat of American government – gets used to reinforce state violence and surveillance, she draws hope from the dedication and creativity of activists, emphasizing that the most important work happens outside of the media spotlight.

Interviewer: ZACHARY LOEB. When high-profile data breaches or cyber attacks reveal the nation’s vulnerability to hacking, there are often loud calls for tighter cybersecurity. As scholar of science and technology REBECCA SLAYTON points out, however, in a world of limited resources and competing priorities, the degree to which we can secure our infrastructure is not absolute. In her conversation with historian Zachary Loeb, she discusses the ways that vulnerabilities change over time as technologies emerge, how vulnerability is an outcome not just of weak spots in technology but of a person’s or society’s overall adaptive capacity, the difference between the transfer of information and the transfer of actionable knowledge, and the relational nature of expertise and authority. Professor Slayton is the author of the award-winning book, Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012.

Interviewer: ZACHARY LOEB. In the period following World War II and during the Cold War, the United States was the indisputable world leader in technological development, putting the U.S. government in a privileged position to shape technologies for its own economic and security ends. National security expert MELISSA FLAGG argues that since 2000 these circumstances have changed drastically: there are now many more actors in technological development, both in terms of countries across the globe and corporations, domestic and transnational. In her discussion with historian of science and technology Zachary Loeb, she describes the new landscape of emerging technology and the failures of the U.S. government to adapt to it. Having lost its ability to dictate priorities and to limit the challenges that new technologies pose, Flagg argues that the government should work to build coalitions with private sector companies, as well as other nations, and to revamp its approach to promoting innovation.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In the U.S., the institutionalization of the labor movement, with established unions following procedures set out by the NLRB through professional staffs and legal teams, has gone hand-in-hand with its decline. In the face of laws stacked against it, the movement’s growth often comes from upstarts that find new ways to harness the collective power of workers. In recent years, the most spectacular example of this has been the against-the-odds success of the Amazon Labor Union, whose co-founder CHRIS SMALLS worked tirelessly to avoid the pitfalls of other organizing efforts at Amazon. In is discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Smalls describes the working conditions at Amazon, the challenges of organizing its workers, the failures of existing unions to overcome those challenges, the strategies he and his colleagues devised to win a union vote at the JFK8 Warehouse in Staten Island, and the continuing fight for a contract at Amazon – and for the future of American work.

Interviewer: ZACHARY LOEB. The concept of “smart cities” promises better living through data and the software that can use it in real time to control urban systems. Law and Public Policy professor SHEILA FOSTER argues that, among the diverse populations that live in cities, which lives are actually improved by this technology – and which are arguably made worse – very much depends on who gets to participate in their design, implementation, and oversight. In her discussion with historian of science and technology Zachary Loeb, she contemplates whether the transition to smart-city technologies accelerated by the COVID pandemic is permanent; describes how both the amenities and disamenities are affected by new technology; and points to cities such as Barcelona that seem to be striking the right balance between innovation and justice. Foster is the co-author, with Christian Iaione, of Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As with all aspects of American life, Black people were part of the digital revolution from the beginning. CHARLTON MCILWAIN’s work explores multiple strands of this history, in which African Americans appear as both creative subjects and objects of social control. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, he tells of early pioneers who developed software and created networked digital communities before the Internet became widespread. In a second strand, however, he reveals that computational science focused on crime in minority communities as one of its central problems in the late 1960s and 1970s, providing the groundwork not only for the NYPD’s COMPStat system, but much of the AI-assisted surveillance technology that has become so widespread today. These strands came together in the Black Lives Matter movement: a distinctively Black use of social media to counter police violence. McIlwain is the author of  Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter.

Interviewer: ZACHARY LOEB. In the original formulation of urban theorist Jane Jacobs, “eyes on the street” linked public safety to the inadvertent effect of people going about their business and, in the process, monitoring their shared surroundings. In her recent work, media studies professor SHANNON MATTERN has explored how certain technologies, under the umbrella of “smart cities” or “urban tech,” have encroached on this and other ways that people have long managed to live together in cities. In her discussion with historian of science and technology Zachary Loeb, she discusses both the positive and negative impacts of urban surveillance and data collection and how we might, as individuals and communities, navigate between the uncritical embrace of technological mediation – based on either fear or a desire for convenience – and its total rejection. Mattern is the author of A City is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In the tradition of C. Wright Mill’s The Power Elite, author AARON GOOD argues that political science needs to bring power back in and seriously consider the links between social elites and the continuity of U.S. policy from one administration to the next. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Good proposes a tri-partite model of the state that builds on conceptions of a “dual state” comprised of the democratic government and the more shadowy security apparatuses that protect, but also often direct, it. To these, Good adds what he terms “deep political forces”: the ongoing ad hoc involvement in government of economic elites, who, in case after case, initiated for their own reasons ventures that would eventually become U.S. policy, overt and covert, legal and illegal. Good is author of American Exception: Empire and the Deep State.

Interviewer: MELISSA TEIXEIRA. Author, journalist, and 2022-23 Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies MARILENE FILENTO reflects on the recent national election in Brazil that brought former president Lula da Silva back into power. In her discussion with Penn Assistant Professor of History Melissa Teixeira, she describes the response to Lula’s victory over the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro – both the ecstasy on the left and the potential violence from the right. She also considers the prospects for Lula’s presidency, the coalition that backed Bolsonaro, and Brazilian democracy more broadly.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Professor IAN LUSTICK returns to the podcast (see episode 1.15) to discuss the recent Israeli election, its implications, and the one-state reality that now tacitly guides political actors, Israeli, Palestinian and American alike. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, he describes how both Jewish settlers and Palestinian leaders in the Occupied Territories are pushing to declare the territories officially annexed, albeit with different motives. Israeli leaders, reluctant to cross this threshold given the international legal requirements it would trigger, are unlikely to resist the pressure forever. Delving into debates among settlers and right-wing groups, Lustick details the debates about how Israeli sovereignty should be implemented in the context of Palestinian majorities, and he weighs the chances that, in the long run, the result will be a true multi-ethnic polity. In the short-term, however, there might be substantial consequences, especially dangerous to Palestinians, arising from Netanyahu’s political gamesmanship.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. While its place in the mythology of the nation’s founding suggests to many that Virginia must itself be a democracy, political activist JOSH STANFIELD points out that in practice it has fallen far short of that ideal. Governed at first by an oligarchy of white planters, and then during the twentieth century by the corporate-friendly Byrd Machine, it has known only brief interludes of revolt against the entrenched interests controlling the commonwealth. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Stanfield describes the current structural impediments to popular representation that make Virginia an undemocratic outlier: uncompetitive districts, unregulated campaign finance, and poor compensation for legislators to ensure that only the wealthy can serve. Stanfield points out that the chief obstacle, however, is the widespread belief that nothing can ever change. Since 2016 he and other democratic activists have challenged that hopelessness and have notched a number of significant victories in the areas of candidate recruitment, finance reform, and environmental justice.

Series: Democracy and Emergent Technology. Interviewer: ZACHARY LOEB. Even as awareness has risen of disinformation deliberately spread by authoritarian regimes, the forms it takes have become more subtle and insidious, warns digital and foreign policy specialist JESSICA BRANDT. The Russian government, for instance, has shifted away from troll farms and toward amplifying conspiracy theories originating in Western countries themselves; and away from obviously fake news toward misleading half-truths. In her discussion with historian of science and technology Zachary Loeb, she outlines what the U.S. government can do to counter these new strategies, but emphasizes that it is civil society groups – journalists in particular – who must take the lead in fighting against the post-truth world authoritarian leaders would like to create. Brandt was the inaugural speaker in the Mitchell Center’s Democracy and Emergent Technology series. A video of her talk is available here.

Note: This interview was conducted in Portuguese. A transcript with an English translation is available here. Interviewer: DANIELA ALARCON. Amid advancing agricultural frontiers, deforestation, tourism, and the advent of infrastructural megaprojects such as hydroelectric dams, Indigenous peoples in Brazil have struggled to defend their territories, lifeways, and collective aspirations. As a member of the Tupinambá people of Norheast Brazil, leader and activist GLICÉRIA TUPINAMBÁ (also known by her official name, Glicéria Jesus da Silva) has been involved in mobilizations on the local, national, and global levels. In her discussion with anthropologist Daniela Alarcon, she describes the advances, setbacks, and continuing uncertainties in the fight for Indigenous rights and environmental protections. Tupinambá and Alarcon have also collaborated on other projects, including a graphic novel (available here) and a documentary film (available for viewing here).

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As director of the film Enemies of the State, now available on Hulu and for rent on other platforms, SONIA KENNEBECK found herself in a narrative maze that begins with an all-American couple who built careers in U.S. intelligence, whose adult son, Matt DeHart, happened to be part of the hacker group Anonymous. In 2009, he was arrested for possessing child pornography, but he in turn accused the government of framing him for his involvement with WikiLeaks and Anonymous. He has since become a cause celebre alongside Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Kennebeck describes the painstaking process of vetting the truth when so much of the key information is missing, lost, or deliberately hidden. She also describes her new project on the Reality Winner case. See the trailer for Enemies of the State here.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. The transition away from Apartheid in South Africa during the 1990s has been hailed as a double miracle of nation-building and the establishment of democracy, so much so that at the time it seemed to validate Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of the end of history. Political scientist CAROLYN E. HOLMES, in her political ethnography of contemporary South Africa, highlights the inherent tensions of the transition: between the “selective forgetting” required to join together as a nation and the continuing political salience of remembered wrongs in a competitive democracy; and between the looking forward of “rainbow nation” rhetoric and the necessary looking backward of truth and reconciliation. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, she discusses how these tensions have shaped the current political landscape in South Africa, how history has remained important to how people feel about their nation, and how its experience can inform the analysis of other countries, including the U.S., divided by the legacy of painful pasts.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. At a moment when its actions truly demand international scrutiny, Russia’s place at the center of Western attention seems only natural. That said, historian and SRB Podcast (https://srbpodcast.org/) host SEAN GUILLORY is engaged in multiple projects examining why Russia has loomed so large for so long in the imaginations of America and Western Europe. He argues that Russia provides a unique foil – European enough to potentially be “like us,” yet perpetually failing to conform to Western ideals – against which the West defines itself and its purpose. In his far-ranging discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Guillory describes his podcast series on these themes: one on Lovett Fort-Whiteman, who imagined the Soviet Union as an escape from Jim Crow, but who died in the Gulag; and another on Teddy Roe, an American tourist whose perception of the USSR in 1968, even as he experienced it firsthand, was steeped in Cold War propaganda. They also discuss the invasion of Ukraine as reflecting not only how Russia’s leaders have long imagined its role in the world, but also a shift toward ethnic nationalism.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As our economy, political system, and society in general weather a number of immediate crises, from pandemics to inflation, economist RICHARD WOLFF argues that the real cause of our inability to grapple with them is being ignored. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Wolff contends that the power of capitalism as a governing ideology, and capitalists as a class, make it difficult to mobilize resources for anything other than profit maximization – especially as increasing levels of debt among all manner of borrowers hampers action. As the dynamic center of global capitalism moves east, Wolff argues that America, like many European countries, would benefit from revived socialist politics, either inside or outside the Democratic Party, to help reorganize our economic life around the needs of people, not the revenues of corporations.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Especially since the national reckoning with race following the death of George Floyd, there has been a focus, in both academic and popular discourse, on the continuity of anti-Black racism in U.S. history. Distinguished political scientist ADOLPH REED contests the idea, however, that racism as an immutable force exerting a uniform influence from the era of slavery to the present day, or even that American inequality is chiefly defined by race. His new book, The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives, situates the racial hierarchy of the Jim Crow South in the political economy of the period and in the struggles and negotiations of everyday experience. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, he relates his own personal recollections of growing up during that time and emphasizes the specificity of the era. He takes aim at anti-racist historiography and social analysis, including The 1619 Project and The New Jim Crow, arguing that they miss the distinctive concrete roles that “race relations” has played in different times and places to reinforce social inequality.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Over the course of decades, Neoliberalism has shifted from being an overt ideological position, explicitly arguing for the primacy of the market as a way to organize society, into a set of embedded assumptions and practices that govern much of our economy and politics. Political theorist WENDY BROWN has charted this process and the destruction left in its wake, as commitment to the social has given way to individualistic strategies for coping with market forces. In her discussion with fellow theorist Rafael Khachaturian, she describes the political disarray on both the right and left, even as Trumpism and its international equivalents seem resurgent, as well as the difficulty in general in exercising political control over the global financial system that neoliberalism built. But she also points to activism around the world that challenges entrenched power in its many forms and gives hope that a more equitable society, which achieves a more sustainable relationship with the natural world, is possible.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As he sparks an international crisis over a possible invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has seemingly consolidated his control in an increasingly autocratic regime. Scholar of international relations and Russian political economy ILYA MATVEEV argues, however, that Putin’s turn to greater repression is a sign that his base of power is narrowing. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Matveev points to the broadening class composition of opposition to Putin, the latent dissatisfaction of the billionaire class (despite its continued dependence on the regime), the failure of the Russian government’s COVID response, and Putin’s inability or unwillingness to rally supporters in the streets – all of which forces him to rely more heavily on pure state repression and heightened right-wing rhetoric invoking threats to ethnic Russians. Matveev is Associate Dean for International Relations at the North-Western Institute of Management in St. Petersburg.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Many accounts of the Arab Spring of 2010-11 view it primarily through a political lens: whatever the underlying grievances, its goals centered around removing autocrats from power and replacing them with more responsive governments. Historian JOEL BEININ argues that in fact the Arab Spring protests, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, were rooted in a worker’s movement that had, over decades, launched numerous protests against harsh economic conditions imposed by the so-called Washington Consensus. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Beinin outlines the evolution of economic policy in the Middle East, points to the sources of funding for the post-Arab Spring counter-revolution, and describes the network of business interests – far beyond a narrowly conceived “Israel lobby” – that have cemented Israel’s place in American foreign policy.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The story of Palestine, as much as its territory, has been subsumed by Israel, its recent history typically told as a chronicle of the Jewish state’s establishment, development, and defense. In his new book, The Hundred Years’ War: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, acclaimed historian RASHID KHALIDI refocuses the narrative on the Palestinian experience. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Khalidi describes how this book is different from his previous work: while rigorously documented, it is also highly personal, as he draws upon his own family’s history of dispossession and survival. While he has little patience for the many pretexts, from across the political spectrum, for denying Palestinians their full rights, he argues that mutual accommodation is necessary to move forward from the last hundred years of colonial expansion and violent conflict.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Ever since Marx himself, Marxists have anticipated the day of capitalism’s comeuppance, when its crisis-inducing shortcomings would be laid squarely at its door and people would reject it for a system with more humane tradeoffs. Political economist and social theorist MARTIJN KONINGS cautions that that day has not yet arrived. Even “neoliberalism” – a general rubrick for the ideas and practices that have expanded the scope of the market while loosening the regulations that mitigate its failures – will not be banished anytime soon. In is discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, he describes the institutional changes that have entrenched neoliberal policies, but also its inherent political appeal as an ideology, with its promise of freedom from corrupt government control and its savvy way of blaming capitalism’s crises on the very measures taken to rescue it from collapse. This will allow it to survive the COVID pandemic largely intact, notwithstanding shifts in public opinion toward greater intervention in the economy.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. For many on the Left, elections have come to represent a minimal baseline for political engagement – and not a route in themselves for personal or social transformation. In his work, democratic theorist KEVIN DUONG looks back to a time when this was not the case, when the movement for universal suffrage envisioned itself as giving voice to “the people” in a way that would leave to part of society unchanged. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, he charts the impoverishment of our concept of popular politics, but also explores the vexed question of what it means for the people to gain a voice. He reveals that anti-colonial leaders and theorists often made creative use of the psychoanalytic tradition to help fashion a more flexible ideal of peoplehood. And he sees signs in recent years that the issue of voting access has once again become a way to mobilize around wider concerns about economic and social equality.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. It has long been argued, in support of the case that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, that the Kennedy administration was not threatening enough to powered interests to trigger such a drastic act. In his books, Brothers and The Devil’s Chessboard, longtime journalist and Salon founder DAVID TALBOT argues, to the contrary, that Kennedy represented a deep threat to institutions empowered by, and ideologically committed to, the continuation of the Cold War. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Talbot points in particular to the CIA and its one-time director, Allen Dulles, as having the motivation, experience and wherewithal to both organize the assassination and then, through Dulles’ membership on the Warren Commission, deflect attention from themselves as culprits. Since then, Talbot contends, neither the mainstream media nor the academic establishment have given serious enough consideration to Kennedy’s vision or the forces that opposed it.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In 2021, Wharton professor ERIC ORTS took a leave of absence to run as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He was driven in part by his desire to reform the Senate itself, as he discussed in episode 2.3 of our podcast. The more urgent motivation, however, was his assessment of climate change as a global emergency requiring national mobilization on a massive scale, a view he developed as Director of the Wharton Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Orts outlines not only the technical steps for ramping down carbon emissions, but the policies and political strategies that could help bring about necessary change. While he ended his Senate campaign in early October, after this interview was recorded, his insights into the politics of the climate emergency remain relevant to a problem that we will be grappling with for years to come. The Orts campaign’s “Green Paper on the Climate Emergency and Jobs” is available here.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN.  For two years, LORETTA LYNCH held one of the most powerful and most complicated jobs in the United State government. As Attorney General under Barack Obama, she managed an agency that comprises a network of U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and much else. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, she highlights both the clear policy priorities she brought to the job, including fighting human trafficking and promoting prisoner reentry, and the many balancing acts that the role requires. The discussion ranges to current issues and controversies – including drug legalization, criminal justice reform, right-wing extremism, “entrapment,” the release of classified documents, and the performance of her successors William Barr and Merrick Garland – with AG Lynch providing detailed and nuanced analysis of each topic.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN.  In her new book, A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the First Amendment, constitutional scholar CATHERINE J. ROSS examines the tension between the First Amendment’s protections for free speech and the need to combat the spread of lies that endanger democracy. Verifiable factual falsehoods are rife throughout the public square today, but former President Donald J. Trump’s unparalleled mendacity and its consequences for the nation – measured in threats to electoral legitimacy, COVID-19 deaths, and economic devastation – highlighted the urgent need to confront deception. In her conversation with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Ross proposes an approach consistent with First Amendment doctrine and the separation of powers: presidents work for us, they are subject to the lesser speech rights applicable to government employees, and Congress should use its oversight authority to hold the president to a standard of truth.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. There are some countries which, by dint of geography or incompatible national interests, seem destined for perpetual conflict and antagonism. This is not true, however, in the case of Iran and the United States, insists Iranian-American journalist and historian JOHN GHAZVINIAN. His book, America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present, outlines the series of bad choices – often made for short-term goals without clear regard for long-term consequences – that have formed the basis for a politics of mutual grievance. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Ghazvinian argues that there are strong reasons for the two nations to cooperate, as Ronald Reagan recognized, but that hardliners on both sides, as well as regional interests, are able to exploit a troubled history to maintain a disastrous status quo. John Ghazvinian is also the Executive Director of The Middle East Center at Penn, The Mitchell Center’s partner in this year’s “Social Change and the Global Middle East” series of panels.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. As citizens and politicians in many countries argue passionately about how – or whether – national borders should be secured, they often share a similar set of assumptions: that borders are sharp boundaries enclosing distinct political communities, and that the choice of whether they are open or closed is largely binary. PAULINA OCHOA ESPEJO, author of the recent book On Borders, argues that these views are rooted in what she calls the “desert island” ideal of nationhood. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, she offers an alternative, the “watershed model,” that, in addition to shifting our conceptions of nations and their boundaries, can be put to immediate work forging new ways to cooperate and negotiate with people of other places who share common resources. In addition to her appointment in the Political Science Department at Haverford College, Professor Ochoa is the 2020-21 ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Visiting Fellow at the Andrea Mitchell Center.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Recent movements to reform society and address interpersonal behavior have placed eliminating violence at their center. As political theorist MATT SHAFER points out, however, the concept of “violence” has never had a stable meaning. In his discussion with Rafael Khachaturian, he describes how it has increasingly been torn between the competing poles of the social and the personal. He traces how these conceptions of violence arose beginning in the 1960s – superseding a prior understanding of violence as unsanctioned forcse – and are themselves inadequate to address the age of information and social media. Shafer has been a 2020-21 Mitchell Center Postdoctoral Fellow, during our Free Speech Battles theme year, and will continue his research at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As envisioned by philosopher OLÚFẸ́MI O. TÁÍWÒ, a coming age of climate apartheid will create a new kind of social division within countries and communities between those who can pay to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and those who cannot. On the global scale, climate colonialism will likewise exclude local populations from control over resources as those resources are secured for the world’s elites. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Táíwò describes how the institutions that undergird racial capitalism, including policing, will be used to buttress this growing form of inequality – and how we might imagine a politics that instead produces a more equitable world. Their discussion builds on Táíwò’s August 12, 2020 article in Dissent, “Climate Apartheid Is the Coming Police Violence Crisis.”

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The approach to free speech embodied by the First Amendment of the American Constitution is often considered, by Americans at least, to be a model for the rest of the world. Historian FARA DABHOIWALA argues that it is actually an outlier best ignored by other countries. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Dabhoiwala locates what he calls the “peculiar shape” of the First Amendment in an era much like our own, the early eighteenth century, when trolling and fake news raised serious concerns about the abuse of speech – and when two mercenary journalists, writing anonymously, weaponized an absolutist conception of free speech to bury these concerns. Dabhoiwala looks back to this history to help Americans broaden their idea of free expression going forward.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN.In an era when “free speech on campus” has become a slogan weaponized by conservative groups, historian JOAN WALLACH SCOTT insists on treating academic freedom not as an individual right of untrammeled speech, but as a collective right to carry out the work of universities: teaching, researching, and learning. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Scott argues that institutional changes are at the root of current crises in academic freedom, as universities increasingly envision themselves as businesses, their students as customers – rather than citizens in training – and their largely non-tenured faculty as an expendable workforce. Scott is the author of Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom (2019). Note: This interview was recorded in October 2020.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. It is widely known that social media increases political polarization among its users, creating an environment in which mis- and disinformation can spread easily. JAIME SETTLE, author of Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America, argues that what is not so well understood is exactly how social media drives polarization. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, she points to a surprising answer: it is not overt political speech that has the biggest impact, but the implicit political messages embedded in personal posts. The algorithms of platforms such as Facebook further amplify this effect. Short of abolishing social media altogether or drastically curtailing free speech, Settle suggests reforms that can help diminish the risks to our democracy. Note: This interview was conducted in December 2020, before the Capitol riot.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The concept of hurt sentiments first became ensconced in the Indian legal code almost two-hundred years ago, under the influence of the British government official T.B. Macauley. As historian NEETI NAIR explores in a book progress currently in progress, the concept has expanded its reach in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in recent years to allow for extra-judicial forms of censorship and political action – to the extent that India has been said to have become a “republic of hurt sentiments.” In her conversation with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Nair gauges the state of free speech and secularism in India by analyzing the reasons behind the censorship – or, alternately, the rampant/limited circulation – of key texts. These include the assassin Nathuram Godse’s defense statement in the Gandhi murder case of 1948; and four lines on the Ramayana epic, dating back over two millennia, that caught the unwanted attentions of a Hindu vigilante political party in 1993, then on the fringes of Indian politics. She also extends her argument to the recent Citizenship Amendment Act and its opposition.

Interviewer: KATIE RADER. For decades, University of Pennsylvania student activists have demanded that Penn pay PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) to help fund Philadelphia public schools. The movement intensified in 2020, with over 1,100 faculty and staff joining a pro-PILOTs petition. Among them was Social Policy and Practice Professor DENNIS CULHANE, who in September joined a panel discussion on PILOTs sponsored by the Mitchell Center. In his discussion with political scientist Katie Rader, he revisits the topic in the wake of Penn’s donation of $100-million over ten years for environmental remediation of Philadelphia schools. He addresses whether this amount is the fair share that PILOTs activists have demanded, but also whether unilateral, voluntary donations are a path to true equity. He suggests that the Pennsylvania legislature make revisions to the state’s tax code to ensure a more reliable source of funds for public education.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As an African-American Republican, political commentator TARA SETMAYER had long embraced the compassionate conservativism and optimistic individualism of the Jack Kemp wing of the party, along with a broader commitment to fiscal responsibility and small government. A senior advisor to the Lincoln Project, she has now formally left the Republican Party out of the sense that it has jettisoned these values in the Trump era. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Setmayer describes her outrage at Trump’s betrayal of Constitutional norms, her interpretation of minority voting behavior in the election, and her reasons for not becoming a Democrat. While recognizing the continuing obstacles, she plans to work toward a revival of bipartisan cooperation and pragmatic governance.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Conceptual artist and political activist NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA is a founding member of the art collective Pussy Riot, which since 2011 has focused attention on feminism, LGBT rights and human rights violations at home and abroad. In August 2012, she was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance by Pussy Riot in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, she reflects on Russian politics, the promise of activism, and the origins and future of her art and music. Despite the entrenched economic and political power of elites in Russia and worldwide, she describes her reasons for feeling hopeful.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Growing up within the white nationalist movement as the son of one its leaders, Don Black, and the godson of its most famous political figure, David Duke, DEREK BLACK was a true believer – until he wasn’t. He very publicly renounced his beliefs in an open letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Black draws from his own experience renouncing a hateful ideology to suggest the types of strategies that might change the minds of others in the movement. He does not offer quick or easy answers, however, emphasizing the emotional difficulty of leaving behind a close-knit community of adherents. Black’s life story has also been featured in the New York Times, NPR, in an interview at the Holocaust Memorial Center, and in his appearance in the Mitchell Center’s Free Speech Battles series.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As the political climate and the prevalence of social media have combined to raise the incidents and visibility of hateful speech, there have been growing calls to enact bans on such expression. NADINE STROSSEN, author of the new book, HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship, argues against such policies as counterproductive and ultimately harmful. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, she defends the line the First Amendment draws against dangerous speech and urges that social media companies adhere to international standards of free speech, even as she calls for resistance to hate speech and prosecutions of bias crimes. President of the American Civil Liberties Association (ACLU) from 1991 to 2008, she recounts the Supreme Court case that established the internet as we know it, as well as the legacy of Bush v. Gore and the role the ACLU might play in a contested election this year. Strossen recently spoke at the Mitchell Center’s Campus Free Speech Conference.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Nationalist populist movements, fueled by resentment against ruling elites, typically attack the norms and procedures of liberal democracy, viewing them as rigged, corrupted, or under the control of nefarious minorities. In his new book, That Is Not Who We Are!, distinguished political scientist ROGERS SMITH cautions that followers of these movements should not be dismissed as irredeemably authoritarian. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, he stresses that the success of populist movements often rests on effective storytelling that addresses people’s anger and fear in a way that resonates with their sense of national belonging. Smith argues that progressives and liberals can create equally compelling narratives, consistent with democratic and egalitarian values, that draw from America’s history and national identity. Smith, the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and the President of the American Political Science Association (2018-2019), was also the founding director of the Penn Program for Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionalism, which became the Andrea Mitchell Center in 2017.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As the Democratic Party seeks to regain the Presidency and retain the House of Representatives in November, it well recognizes that the chief stumbling block to consolidating government control is the U.S. Senate. Wharton Guardsmark Professor ERIC ORTS argues that this short-term predicament is due, in no small part, to the many ways that the Senate was designed from the start to thwart small-d democracy. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Orts provides a detailed analysis of the Democrats’ prospects in flipping the Senate, with a focus on tight races in swing states. He then considers the history and structure of the Senate as an institution, which was established, in James Madison’s words, to “protect the minority of the opulent,” from slaveholding elites to modern-day business interests. Far from hopeless, however, Orts proposes a bold way to reform the Senate both in terms of electoral fairness and effective governance (as previously detailed in his January 2019 Atlantic essay, “How to Fix the Senate”). Note: This interview was recorded on August 7, 2020, prior to the party conventions.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Amid our current partisan rancor, Retired Army General WESLEY CLARK has chosen to focus instead on the common ground among Americans that could provide the basis for productive policymaking. The founder of Renew America Together, Clark has sought out leaders from both parties, including former governors Tom Ridge (R-PA) and Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), to help make the case for civility and compromise. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, he argues that a commitment to core norms and the rule of law has allowed the American political system to self-correct over time. Formerly the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during the Kosovo War, Clark likewise makes the case for strengthening rules-based international institutions as a means for preventing chaos and war. He criticizes attacks by the Trump administration on these institutions as short-sighted – and a boost to longstanding efforts by Russia and China to undermine American power.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, documentarian IVY MEEROPOL describes the stories she was obliged to cut from her 2019 HBO film, Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn, for lack of definitive proof. This included a quickly buried investigation in the 1980s into Cohn’s involvement in the Jeffrey-Epstein style trafficking of minors. Meeropol also pursued a lead suggesting that a statement by one of his acquaintances, that “Roy could have you killed,” was not at all figurative. Cohn appeared in Meeropol’s own family story as the prosecutor who framed her grandmother, Ethel Rosenberg, and then urged that she be executed. He went on to assist Joe McCarthy in his anti-Communist witch hunt, and then to become a Republican power broker whose influence rested on favors, threats, media savvy, and connections. It was Cohn’s support that paved Donald Trump’s entry into political life. While many have simply declared him evil, however, Meeropol never loses sight of the ways his actions were motivated by self-protection in a society deeply hostile to gay men.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Bernie Sanders has twice failed to win the nomination for President, but in the process has transformed the policies and politics of the Democratic party. WINNIE WONG, a founding organizer of Occupy Wall Street, a co-founder of People for Bernie 2016, and a senior adviser to the Sanders 2020 campaign, urges that these transformations should be pushed further, even as the nomination has been clinched by a moderate. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Wong looks back at what she felt at the time were strategic missteps by Sanders, while emphasizing strengths of the campaign that the mainstream media has been reluctant to acknowledge. Her focus, however, is on the perils and promise of the current moment: a public health and economic crisis that calls for bold policies to protect the public welfare; a Democratic candidate attempting to rally the party, including its left wing; and a progressive movement that, without Sanders as a unifying figure, risks becoming the “wild west.”

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. American Jewish philanthropy has long been celebrated for its virtues, extending from the local to the global, the Jewish to the non-Jewish, and modest donations to vast endowments. In her book, The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex, and in her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, LILA CORWIN BERMAN argues that the history of American Jewish philanthropy reveals a complicated reality of changing and uneasy relationships among philanthropy, democracy, and capitalism. Jewish philanthropy grew to have a tight relationship with the governing forces of American life, reinforcing and even transforming the nation’s laws and policies. Berman also discusses the challenges of critically examining money, power, and Jewish institutions in a period of rising anti-Semitic hatred. Berman is Director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. For those who seek an end to intergroup violence, it might seem natural to embrace peace as a universal ideal. MURAD IDRIS cautions, however, that in practice peace as a moral ideal has been widely deployed to vilify enemies and justify extreme measures against them – that is, to lay the groundwork for war. In his book, War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought, and his discussion with Oberlin professor Matthew Berkman, Idris examines the specific formulations of peace as a Western ideal, dating back to Plato, and how these have underwritten various forms of collective violence. He suggests alternatives that, while not so lofty, might do more to curtail ongoing conflict and injustice. Berkman and Idris also discuss how war and peace are used metaphorically during the current coronavirus crisis.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In the absence of a robust and coordinated response from the national government, U.S. states have shouldered the responsibility of confronting the coronavirus pandemic. As Wharton Legal Studies professor ERIC ORTS has observed, this has led not only to a hodge-podge of policies, but often active competition between states for scarce equipment, protective gear, and Covid-19 tests. In an op-ed in the Washington Post co-authored with Amy Sepinwall, Orts proposed one way to reduce this “50-state anarchy”: interstate compacts that allocate resources and coordinate plans. In his discussion with Oberlin Political Science professor Matthew Berkman, Orts justifies the need for this kind of federalism – which has since been implemented in a number of regions – as he describes the abandonment of national plans, formulated by the Bush and Obama administrations, for addressing pandemics. He likens the crisis to a war by the nation against an invisible foe, a metaphor that the White House has at times embraced without, however, a commensurate dedication to finding and eliminating the enemy.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Even in the United Kingdom, with its longstanding reputation for rigid class distinctions, the common presumption in the twenty-first century is that people progress in their careers according to talent and hard work. In his interviews with members of elite occupations, however, SAM FRIEDMAN discovered that getting ahead in these careers often has much to do with the advantages of a privileged class origin. These advantages range from the “bank of mum and dad,” enabling greater career risks (and rewards), to the less tangible behavioral markers of accent and manners that make it easier to fit into elite workplace cultures or find favor with well-placed mentors. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Friedman weighs whether efforts should be directed to achieving equality of opportunity or, rather, to reducing the outsized rewards of success. He argues that either way, the first step is to puncture the myth of meritocracy. Note: This interview was recorded way back in September 2019, when Friedman presented his work at the Mitchell Center’s “Reverberations of Inequality” Conference – long before the current coronavirus crisis was on the horizon.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. As the old saying goes, when you are holding a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER argues in an upcoming book that, in our society, the police have become that sort of hammer, blocking us from envisioning other ways to resolve conflict even as the police themselves are responsible for violence inflicted on poor and minority neighborhoods. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Ciccariello-Maher describes cases in Latin America where communities have simultaneously expelled police and criminals, taking control into their own hands. While he does not contend that police abolitionists will achieve their goals quickly, he points to the value of the “abolitionist horizon” in opening up the American imagination – and policy discussions – to radical alternatives to ubiquitous policing.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In his book Paradigm Lost, IAN LUSTICK argues that negotiations for a two-state solution between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River are doomed and counterproductive. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can enjoy the democracy they deserve but only after decades of struggle amid the unintended but powerful consequences of today's one-state reality. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, and basing his argument on the decisiveness of unanticipated consequences, Lustick shows how Zionism's partially successful Iron Wall strategy for dealing with Arabs, an Israeli political culture saturated with a specific way of remembering the Holocaust, and the Israel lobby's dominant influence on American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, combined to scuttled efforts to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Yet, he maintains, the death of the two-state solution has also unintentionally set the stage for struggles that, along with new international pressures such as the BDS movement, might ultimately establish a more broadly inclusive democracy in the single state of Israel. Ian Lustick holds the Bess W. Heyman Chair in the Political Science Department of the University of Pennsylvania.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. “Identity politics” is a term typically marshaled to attack something the speaker dislikes, whether it a conservative deploring “special rights” accorded to minority groups or a progressive bemoaning anything that distracts from a focus on economic justice. ASAD HAIDER’s 2018 book, Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump, excavates the origin of the term within the radical politics of the Combahee River Collective, showing how foregrounding a widely neglected group – black women – was envisioned as a step toward realizing universal emancipation. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Haider argues that, by similarly embracing the ideal of the emancipation of all, Marxist traditions retain their political relevance even as they need to be continually rethought and reworked to address current crises, from the Great Recession to the presidency of Donald Trump. Haider is a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the New School of Social Research and a founding editor of Viewpoint Magazine. Note: This episode was recorded on February 28, 2020, prior to widespread coronavirus countermeasures.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Berlin is home to Europe’s largest Palestinian diaspora community and one of the world’s largest Israeli diaspora communities. In their book, The Moral Triangle, SA’ED ATSHAN and KATHARINA GALOR explore the resulting tensions in the context of German guilt about the Nazi Holocaust, which has led to a general disavowal of anti-Semitism and strong support for the Israeli state at the same time that Palestinians in Berlin report experiencing increasing levels of racism and Islamophobia. In their discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Atshan and Galor show how public discourse has been affected by Germany’s recent welcoming of Middle Eastern refugees and point to spaces for solidarity among Germans, Israelis and Palestinians. They also discuss the recent coronavirus outbreak, the varied responses to it by German states, and the impact on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. The rise of human rights as an international ideal has not only failed to address the longstanding problem of distributional equity, argues historian SAMUEL MOYN, but has coincided with burgeoning economic inequality both within nations and globally. In his far-ranging conversation with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Moyn points to the compatibility of the human rights agenda, with its emphases on status equality and sufficient (but not equal) provision, with the market fundamentalism that has guided policymakers throughout the world since the 1970s. While acknowledging the limits of the welfare states that preceded this shift, Moyn calls for a return to the ideals and movements, such as the labor movement and Socialism, that made economic equality a priority. Moyn is the author, most recently, of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World. Note: This interview was conducted via Zoom on January 31, 2020.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. More than seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records dogging them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. They also often find themselves entangled by a web of court-ordered monetary sanctions – fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution payments – that further hamper their ability to reenter society. In her research, sociologist ALEXES HARRIS explores what this system looks like on the ground, drawing from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Harris describes the arbitrary ways in which these sanctions are applied, the reasons they have burgeoned in recent decades, and the impacts they have on the lives of poor people. She urges that Americans reform the system root and branch so that those guilty of crimes have a meaningful path to redemption and restored citizenship.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. For many decades, health researchers assumed that they knew how to correct for gender – specifically, how to take research carried out primarily on men and adjust their recommendations for women. In her own research, CHLOE BIRD has demonstrated that, on the contrary, the differences in biological responses between men and women requires that more research be done specifically on women. In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Bird details how biological factors related to pregnancy and childbirth have implications not just for women’s health outcomes throughout their lives, but for their financial security and overall wellbeing. A Senior Sociologist and Chair of the Diversity Forum at the RAND Corporation, Bird urges researchers not simply to “add women and stir,” but to supplant seemingly gender-blind practices with true equity.

Interviewer: AUDREY JAQUISS. The 43rd Governor of Florida and presidential candidate JEB BUSH is currently a Penn Presidential Professor of Practice affiliated with the Mitchell Center, and we appreciate his engagement with our programs: debating students on immigration policy at the Penn Political Union, joining Togolese activist Farida Nabourema for a discussion on authoritarian rule for our “Democracy in Trouble?” Series, and now sitting down with political theorist Audrey Jaquiss for a discussion of our political moment. In topics ranging from climate change, immigration, the labor movement, and political polarization, Governor Bush speaks in terms that are recognizably conservative — and Republican, in the traditional sense — but which are, in their temperate tone and willingness to grapple with complicated facts, increasingly unfamiliar in today’s combative, Twitter-fueled political environment.

Interviewer: MARTHA FARAH. Combining the perspectives of neuroscience and sociology, brothers BRUCE MCEWEN (head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University) and CRAIG MCEWEN (Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Bowdoin College) explore the feedback loops between social inequalities and biological responses to chronic stress, which create potentially life-long consequences for health and life trajectories. In their discussion with Martha Farah (Director of the Center for Neuroscience & Society at Penn), the brothers describe how they chose to collaborate with each other late in their respective careers – and how their work has given them hope that interventions at all stages of life can either prevent or help repair the damage of early childhood adversity. Note: Sadly, Bruce McEwen passed away on January 3, 2020, due to complications from a stroke. His collaboration with his brother was one of the many accomplishments of his long career.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. In March 2016, American learned from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that the city of Ferguson, Missouri had been operating a “predatory system of government.” Police officers were acting as street-level enforcers for a program — aggressively promoted by city officials — using fines and fees to  extract resources from poor communities of color and deliver them to municipal coffers. JOE SOSS (University of Minnesota) argues that what the DOJ discovered in Ferguson is not an anomaly in U.S. history or of contemporary American governance. In his discussion with political theorist Rafael Khachaturian, Soss places the punitive state alongside other predatory organizations – businesses such as payday lenders and rent-to-own stores – with whom poor and minority communities are all too familiar. Tracing the rise of exploitative criminal justice fees and fines over the last few decades, and their impact on women in particular, Soss reveals the intertwined financial and punitive burdens that reinforce poverty and disadvantage in America.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Since the days of Massachusetts Governor Eldridge Gerry (pronounced with a hard g), whose 1812 redistricting plan for the state senate produced the salamander-shaped district that made his name famous, American political parties have sought to draw electoral maps to their own advantage. What has changed recently, argues DAVID DALEY, is the sophistication of the technology available to achieve this end – and the slowness of laws and courts to keep up. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Daley describes how Republicans made a brilliant political play in the 2010 elections to gain control of state legislatures and, consequently, the power to draw electoral maps. And while lower courts have been open to computer-aided fairness tests, the Supreme Court under John Roberts has rejected this role for the judiciary. Daley, author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count, find room for hope, but fears that time may be running out to prevent “democracy deserts” from appearing in many U.S. states.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Union membership in the United States has experienced a long decline. From a peak of over 30 percent of the labor force in 1945, it now hovers around 11 percent. Legal scholar BRISHEN ROGERS (Temple University and a Visiting Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, Georgetown Law) argues that, more than the ineluctable forces of automation and globalization, it is this decline that is responsible for the high levels of income inequality in the U.S. While these processes are intertwined, Rogers uses a comparative approach to tease them apart. To redress inequality, he advocates that we adopt systems of sectoral bargaining that have succeeded in other countries to keep more income in the hands of working people. His discussion with Matthew Berkman, Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College, followed his presentation at the Mitchell Center’s REVERBERATIONS OF INEQUALITY Opening Conference.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The ways in which Facebook pollutes public discourse are inherent and inescapable features of its business model, argues SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. In his discussion with political scientist and Mitchell Center interviewer Matthew Berkman, he attributes the platform’s malign effects to its scale, which encompasses 2.2 billion users; the perverse logic of its algorithms, by which attempts to confront hateful messages only serves to amplify them; and its advertising system, which can target and segment audiences in unprecedented ways. Above all, he points to the ways in which Facebook has crowded out other venues of expression more suitable for democratic deliberation, from public libraries to the brief flourishing of blogs on the Internet in the early 2000s. For Vaidhyanathan, the best way to deal with Facebook would be to break it up – and to do everything we can to take back our deliberative spaces.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Since its beginnings after the Revolutionary War, refugee policy has helped establish the contours of the U.S. nation-state, argues EVAN TAPARATA, the 2018-2020 Mitchell Center JMC Postdoctoral Fellow (a fellowship supported by the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History). Taparata’s dissertation, No Asylum for Mankind: The Creation of Refugee Law and Policy in the United States, 1776-1951, won the 2019 Best Dissertation Award in the Arts & Humanities from the University of Minnesota. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Taparata traces the history of refugee policy to the beginnings of the American republic and reveals the ways that it has always been subordinate to national projects that have benefited the U.S. These range from the resettlement of pro-Revolutionary Canadians on land wrested from Native Americans to the rhetorical imperative during the Cold War of presenting America as a humane refuge from the evils of Communism.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The United States, and Western democracies more generally, currently view Russia through the lens of their own internal crises, argues MARLENE LARUELLE, expert on Russian politics and author of Understanding Russia: The Challenges of Transformation. In her discussion with political scientists and Mitchell Center interviewer Matthew Berkman, Laruelle describes how the focus on election interference distorts our vision of Russia, portraying it as a closed-off society under monolithic authoritarian rule, guided by an implacable opposition to free democracies rather than geopolitical interests. By placing Russia outside of “international norms,” Western democracies are also able to deflect the way in which they have progressively undermined many of those norms themselves, especially as anti-liberal and anti-democratic movements gain steam. Ultimately, Laruelle counsels against anti-Russian hysteria and for a more clear-eyed view of the world.

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many have celebrated the expansion of voting rights to more Americans. Journalist ARI BERMAN (Mother Jones) has focused his reporting on areas where disenfranchisement not only endures, but has actually gotten worse in recent elections. In his conversation with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Berman discusses the complexities of the current situation – where, depending on the state, rights are either expanding or being suppressed – while emphasizing the clear fact that, while both parties are guilty of some practices such as gerrymandering, it is the Republican Party that is determined to hamper the ability of many citizens to vote.