Democracy IRL
Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Top 10 Democracy IRL Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Democracy IRL episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Democracy IRL for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Democracy IRL episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
02/10/22 • 33 min
Continuing our discussion on the current situation in Ukraine, Francis Fukuyama speaks with Nataliya Gumenyuk, a Ukrainian author and journalist specializing in foreign affairs and conflict reporting. She joins the podcast from her home in Kyiv and shares her perspectives on the conflict, the Ukrainian government, and the country's political landscape.
Nataliya Gumenyuk is the CEO and co-founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab, which aims at popularizing best practices for public interest journalism in the digital age. From 2015 to 2020 she ran the independent TV channel Hromadske. Since the start of the revolution and later conflict in Ukraine, Nataliya has been reporting from the field in Maidan, Crimea, and Donbas. Gumenyuk is the author of the book The Lost Island: Tales from Occupied Crimea (2020), based on six years of reporting from the annexed peninsula. She is also the author of Maidan Tahrir. In Search Of The Lost Revolution (2015), based on her reporting on the Arab Spring.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
12/16/22 • 62 min
As 2022 comes to a close, Francis Fukuyama sits down with his CDDRL colleague and democracy expert Larry Diamond for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of global democracy and the year's dramatic political developments in China, Iran, and the United States.
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also a professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest edited book (with Orville Schell), China's Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), urges a posture of constructive vigilance toward China’s global projection of “sharp power,” which it sees as a rising threat to democratic norms and institutions. He offers a massive open online course (MOOC) on Comparative Democratic Development through the edX platform and is now writing a textbook to accompany it.
Diamond’s book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has also edited or coedited more than forty books on democratic development around the world, most recently, Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
11/23/22 • 42 min
Saeid Golkar has been writing and teaching about Iranian politics for the last decade since he was forced to leave the country. A 2009 alumnus of CDDRL's Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program, Saeid is an expert on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Basij auxiliaries. Last month he joined Francis Fukuyama to discuss the nature and implications of the anti-regime protests that have rocked Iran since the killing of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
Saeid Golkar is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science & Public Service at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. Previously an adjunct professor at Northwestern University’s Middle East and North African Studies Program and a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, he was also a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Golkar was a lecturer from 2004 to 2009 in the Department of Social Sciences at Azad University, Iran, where he taught undergraduate courses on the political sociology of Iran and the sociology of war and military forces.
Golkar received a PhD from the Department of Political Science at Tehran University in June 2008. His recent work can be found in publications such as Middle East Journal; Armed Forces & Society; Politics, Religion & Ideology; and Middle East Policy. Captive Society, his book on the Basij paramilitary force and the securitization of Iranian society, was copublished by Columbia University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press in June 2015.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
06/15/22 • 30 min
Professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, co-founder and board chair of Afrobarometer — the pan-African survey research network and global reference point for high-quality data on African democracy, governance, and quality of life — joins us to discuss the worsening crisis of democracy in West Africa, including that which is enveloping the region's largest country, Nigeria. He also points to some rays of hope as democracy advocates push back against this trend.
E. Gyimah-Boadi is co-founder and board chair of Afrobarometer, the pan-African survey research network and global reference point for high-quality data on African democracy, governance, and quality of life. He is also co-founder and former executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, a leading independent democracy and good-governance think tank. In June 2022 he was appointed president of the board of directors of the Institute for Integrated Transitions.
A former professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, he has also held faculty positions at several universities in the United States, including the American University’s School of International Service, as well as fellowships at Queen Mary University; the Center for Democracy, Rule of Law and Development at Stanford University; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy.
A graduate of the University of California (Davis) and University of Ghana (Legon), Gyimah-Boadi is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) and the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. For his contributions to research and policy advocacy on democracy, accountable governance, and human rights, he has won a myriad of awards, including the Distinguished Africanist of the Year Award of the African Studies Association (2018); the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Peace and Social Justice (2017); and one of the Republic of Ghana’s highest honors, the Order of Volta (2008). He was named one of New African Magazine’s “100 Most Influential Africans of 2021.”
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
05/19/22 • 33 min
In the first of a two-part series on policy and infrastructure, Michael Bennon joins Francis Fukuyama to discuss the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), its impacts, and how to overcome some of the challenges it creates. In a forthcoming report for California 100 — an ambitious statewide initiative to envision and shape the long-term success of the state — Fukuyama and Bennon use CEQA as a case study of California’s governance in an evolving media ecosystem.
Michael Bennon is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) for the Global Infrastructure Policy Research Initiative. Michael's research interests include infrastructure policy, project finance, public-private partnerships, and institutional design in the infrastructure sector. Michael also teaches Global Project Finance to graduate students at Stanford. Prior to Stanford, Michael served as a Captain in the US Army and US Army Corps of Engineers for five years, leading Engineer units, managing projects, and planning for infrastructure development in the United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Thailand.
ABOUT CALIFORNIA 100
California 100 is a transformative statewide initiative focused on inspiring a vision and strategy for California’s next century that is innovative, sustainable, and equitable. The initiative is incubated at the University of California and Stanford, and is guided by an expert and intergenerational Commission.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
Bruce Cain on the Politics of Climate Adaptation
Democracy IRL
02/09/23 • 33 min
Bruce Cain, professor of Political Science at Stanford and Director of the University's Bill Lane Center for the American West, joins Francis Fukuyama to talk about the new book he is writing on the political challenges of adapting to a changing climate in California and other western states.
Bruce Cain is an expert in U.S. politics, particularly the politics of California and the American West. A pioneer in computer-assisted redistricting, he is a prominent scholar of elections, political regulation and the relationships between lobbyists and elected officials.
Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Cain was director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and executive director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech, 1988 and UC Berkeley, 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). He is currently working on state regulatory processes and stakeholder involvement in the areas of water, energy and the environment.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
How Generative AI Will Revolutionize Everything
Democracy IRL
08/14/23 • 47 min
Jerry Kaplan is a renowned Silicon Valley veteran, computer scientist, and serial entrepreneur who has previously authored two books on AI, with a new one on generative AI forthcoming from Oxford University Press. In this episode, he joins Francis Fukuyama to discuss why he has suddenly decided that GAI is a genuinely big deal and a technology that will fundamentally change the ways we work and live.
An artificial intelligence expert and innovator, Jerry Kaplan founded several Silicon Valley start-ups. He is the author of Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know, Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, and Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure. Kaplan currently teaches at Stanford University.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
12/07/22 • 44 min
Peidong Sun is a Distinguished Associate Professor of Arts and Science in China and Asia-Pacific Studies in the History Department at Cornell University. Previously, she was a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and has written extensively on social issues in China. Professor Sun joins Francis Fukuyama to discuss the protests that have taken place across many cities in China over the past several weeks. Prompted by anger over the country's prolonged COVID lockdowns, these protests have also questioned the legitimacy of the Communist Party regime.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
Homelands: A Conversation with Timothy Garton Ash
Democracy IRL
10/09/23 • 44 min
Historian and author Timothy Garton Ash joins Francis Fukuyama to talk about his new book, "Homelands: A Personal History of Europe," covering a period from 1945 to the present. Bookended by World War II and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ash discusses the efforts made by Europeans to contain the demons of the early 20th century and measures the degree of success they have had.
Timothy Garton Ash is the author of eleven books of political writing or ‘history of the present’ which have charted the transformation of Europe over the last half-century. He is Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He writes a column on international affairs in the Guardian, which is widely syndicated.
His latest book, Homelands: A Personal History of Europe, was published in English in Spring 2023 and has appeared or will soon be appearing in at least nineteen other languages. For full details, visit his website.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
06/06/23 • 24 min
Political scientist Anna Gryzmala-Busse's new book disputes the scholarly consensus that war drove European state formation. She located the beginning of the state much earlier in Medieval history, with respect to institutions like law, parliaments, bureaucracy, and the like. In this episode, she joins Francis Fukuyama to discuss her new book on the religious origins of the European state.
Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.
In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.
Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.
Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.
Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.
Other areas of interest include informal institutions, the impact of European Union membership on politics in newer member countries, and the role of temporality and causal mechanisms in social science explanations.
Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.
To learn more, visit our website or follow us on social media.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Democracy IRL have?
Democracy IRL currently has 27 episodes available.
What topics does Democracy IRL cover?
The podcast is about News, Democracy, Policy, Podcasts and Politics.
What is the most popular episode on Democracy IRL?
The episode title 'The Islamic Republic and Protests in Iran, with Political Scientist Saeid Golkar' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Democracy IRL?
The average episode length on Democracy IRL is 38 minutes.
How often are episodes of Democracy IRL released?
Episodes of Democracy IRL are typically released every 17 days, 1 hour.
When was the first episode of Democracy IRL?
The first episode of Democracy IRL was released on Feb 8, 2022.
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