Democracy in crisis: The two-party problem

02/18/22 • 59 min

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Vox Senior Correspondent Zack Beauchamp talks with political scientist Lee Drutman, author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop. They discuss the history of the two-party system in American politics, and examine a number of possible structural reforms that could work to get the U.S. out of the morass it's in, looking to several other countries' democracies for inspiration.

Host: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Lee Drutman (@leedrutman), senior fellow, New America

References:

"How does this end?" by Zack Beauchamp (Vox; Jan. 3)
Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America (Oxford; 2020)
"Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States" by Matthew H. Graham and Milan W. Svolik (American Political Science Review, 114 (2); May 2020)
"One way to reform the House of Representatives? Expand it" by Lee Drutman and Yuval Levin (Washington Post; Dec. 9, 2021)

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This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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Host: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Guest: Lee Drutman (@leedrutman), senior fellow, New America

References:

"How does this end?" by Zack Beauchamp (Vox; Jan. 3)
Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America (Oxford; 2020)
"Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States" by Matthew H. Graham and Milan W. Svolik (American Political Science Review, 114 (2); May 2020)
"One way to reform the House of Representatives? Expand it" by Lee Drutman and Yuval Levin (Washington Post; Dec. 9, 2021)

Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.

Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

This episode was made by:

Producer: Erikk Geannikis
Editor: Amy Drozdowska
Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey
Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Previous Episode

The curse of the midterms

Dylan Matthews and Jerusalem Demsas are joined by Vox’s Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) to talk about the midterm elections. More specifically, why the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress. They discuss the theories of this phenomenon and what, if anything, can work on the margins. Plus, a white paper about Obamacare and the 2010 midterm elections.

References:

Why the president’s party almost always has a bad midterm

The political science of door-knocking and TV ads

White paper: “One Vote Out of Step? The Effects of Salient Roll Call Votes in the 2010 Election”

Dylan’s old, wrong article arguing that congressional position-taking doesn’t matter much

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer

Dara Lind, engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

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Next Episode

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References:

Clara Jeffery's summary of why the recall succeeded

Former Green Party mayoral nominee Matt Gonzalez’s case for the recall

Former board president Gabriela López's post-mortem after she was recalled

López’s 2021 interview with the New Yorker on school renaming

The $87 million lawsuit

Lowell alum Justin Lai arguing in favor of the new admissions policies

The Asan American backlash against changing Lowell admissions (see also)

Students in selective exam schools don’t seem to reap many benefits

A review of exam schools nationwide

Putting “non-gifted” students in gifted classrooms helps them a lot

White Paper: The Effects of the “Great Resignation” on Labor Market Slack and Inflation