Democracy Paradox

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Robert Strauss Center For International Security and Law

Zoltan Barany on the Ineffectiveness of the Gulf Militaries Nov 23, 2021

Show notes

The last time, and luckily this hasn't really happened since 1990, there was minimal resistance from the Kuwaiti and the Saudi forces. So, this obviously is 30 years ago, but there is little reason to believe that in spite of the hundreds of billions of dollars that is spent on armaments, this state of affairs has changed. Let me just put it this way. Nobody in Tehran is losing any sleep over the prowess of any of the Gulf militaries.

Zoltan Barany
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf here.
Zoltan Barany is the Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Centennial Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf.
Key Highlights

What should be expected of the militaries of the Gulf countries?
Would the Gulf countries be threatened without the American security guarantee?
What types of military investments do the Gulf countries make?
What has the Yemeni War taught us about armies of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries?
How does the leadership of MBS differ from MBZ?

Key Links

Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf by Zoltan Barany

Center for Strategic & International Studies

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Daniel Brinks on the Politics of Institutional Weakness

Elizabeth Nugent on Polarization, Democratization and the Arab Spring

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James Loxton Explains Why Authoritarian Successor Parties Succeed in Democracies

Amory Gethin on Political Cleavages, Inequality, and Party Systems in 50 Democracies Nov 16, 2021

Show notes

Indeed, the moderation of left-wing party’s economic policy proposals in the eighties and in the nineties and the decision to promote an unregulated capitalism with no kind of proper compensation and no tax harmonization leading to greater offshore wealth and rising inequality. All these decisions have played a role in leading the working class to take distance from these parties and, at the same time, enabling these new issues to take a growing importance.
Amory Gethin
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities: A Study of 50 Democracies, 1948-2020 here.
Amory Gethin is a PhD candidate at the Paris School of Economics and a research fellow at the world Inequality Lab. He is a coeditor (along with Clara Martinez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty) of Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities: A Study of 50 Democracies, 1948-2020.
Key Highlights Include

Why have multi-elite party systems emerged in Western democracies?
Describes the divide between the "Brahmin Left" and "Merchant Right"
How do party systems differ between Western and Non-Western democracies?
Descriptions of party systems in India, Eastern Europe, and Brazil
Why have party systems changed?

Key Links

Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities. A Study of 50 Democracies, 1948-2020 edited by Amory Gethin, Clara Martinez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty

Follow Amory Gethin on Twitter @amorygethin

Learn more about Amory Gethin at his personal website

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson on the Plutocratic Populism of the Republican Party

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William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe on the Presidency

Daniel Brinks on the Politics of Institutional Weakness Nov 09, 2021

Show notes

We don't think about institutions until they fail and we think of institutions as being really strong when maybe they've never been challenged. They've never really tried to do anything.

Daniel Brinks
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America here.
Daniel Brinks joins the podcast to discuss his new book The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America. He is the coeditor along with Steven Levitsky and María Victoria Murillo. Dan is a professor of Government and of Law at the University of Texas at Austin and a Senior Researcher & Global Scholar of the Centre on Law and Social Transformation.
Key Highlights

What is institutional weakness?
How does it differ from state capacity?
How does civil society affect political institutions?
What is the role of constitutions?
How do Presidential systems affect other political institutions?

Key Links

The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America edited by Daniel M. Brinks, Steven Levitsky, and María Victoria Murillo

Department of Government at The University of Texas at Austin where Daniel Brinks teaches

Centre of Law and Social Transformation at the Christian Michelsen Institute in Norway where Daniel Brinks is a Senior Researcher & Global Scholar

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Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies

Elizabeth Perry and Grzegorz Ekiert on State-Mobilized Movements Nov 02, 2021

Show notes

What we are doing in this volume is blurring the boundaries between this older conception of top-down mobilized movements and this newer conception of bottom-up organic, spontaneous civil society propelled movements and discovering that there's an awful lot in the middle there.

Elizabeth Perry
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements here.
Elizabeth Perry and Grzegorz Ekiert join the podcast to discuss their new book Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements (coedited with Xiaojun Yan). Elizabeth is the Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Grzegorz is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.
Key Highlights

What are state-mobilized movements?
Why do authoritarian regimes mobilize supporters?
The role of violence in state-mobilized movements
Why do people mobilize to support dictators?
What does it teach us about civil society?

Key Links

Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements edited by Grzegorz Ekiert, Elizabeth J. Perry, and Yan Xiaojun

Harvard-Yenching Institute

Related Content

Erica Chenoweth on Civil Resistance

Jonathan Pinckney on Civil Resistance Transitions

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William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe on the Presidency

Susan Rose-Ackerman on the Role of the Executive in Four Different Democracies Oct 26, 2021

Show notes

Many of these things that you and I are talking about are simply initiatives put forward by the chief executive or maybe by a cabinet minister. Something they want to do and rather than something that they're required to do. And it seems to me that that's a rather fragile base on which to build a more effective participatory process, which doesn't give up on the role of technocracy and expertise.

Susan Rose-Ackerman
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Democracy and Executive Power: Policymaking Accountability in the US, the UK, Germany, and France here.
Susan Rose-Ackerman joins the podcast to discuss her new book Democracy and Executive Power: Policymaking Accountability in the US, the UK, Germany, and France. Susan is the Henry R. Luce Professor Emeritus of Law and Political Science at Yale University.
Key Highlights Include

How have executives handled the pandemic
Differences between the executives of Germany, France, UK and US
How different executives make rules to implement public statutes
Description of deliberative democracy used in France to create environmental policies
Is the administrative state democratic

Key Links

Democracy and Executive Power: Policymaking Accountability in the US, the UK, Germany, and France by Susan Rose-Ackerman

Susan Rose-Ackerman on Wikipedia

EPuM Interview with Susan Rose-Ackerman on YouTube

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Charles Kupchan on America's Tradition of Isolationism

Tom Ginsburg Shares his Thoughts on Democracy and International Law Oct 19, 2021

Show notes

At the end of the day, I am optimistic despite all the evidence. First of all, I think there are a lot of resources that democracies can use. A lot of areas of law, where as long as we recognize what it is we're fighting for, democracy is worth fighting for and have a common view as to what that means that we can advance it in many places, not just here but abroad. And this might sound a little hokey, but there really is a genuine human demand for freedom and that's not going away.

Tom Ginsburg
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Democracies and International Law here.
Tom Ginsburg is a professor of international law and political science at the University of Chicago. He is the coauthor of How to Save a Constitutional Democracy with Aziz Huq and the author of Democracies and International Law.
Key Highlights Include

How is international law made and enforced?
How do democracies approach international law differently than authoritarian regimes?
Is there a right to democracy?
Differences and similarities between the approach of China and the United States towards international law.
How do regional organizations support democratic norms?

Key Links

Democracies and International Lawby Tom Ginsburg

Follow Tom Ginsburg on Twitter @tomginsburg

How to Save a Constitutional Democracy by Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq

Democracy Paradox Podcast

John Ikenberry on Liberal Internationalism

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Sheryl WuDunn Paints a Picture of Poverty in America and Offers Hope for Solutions

Robert Meister Believes Justice is an Option Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

So, now I've developed a way of talking about revolution as an option that can't be exercised, but that still has present value and I've set up a mechanism for saying what that present value is. Namely the value of the liquidity premium that a democracy that consents to maintaining accumulated wealth can extract for guaranteeing that the wealth continues to accumulate.

Robert Meister
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Justice is an Option: A Democratic Theory of Finance for the Twenty-First Century here.
Robert Meister is the author of the new book Justice is an Option: A Democratic Theory of Finance for the Twenty-First Century and a Professor of Social and Political Thought in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California Santa Cruz.
Key Highlights Include

What is historical justice?
An overview of financial terms
How is justice an option?
Is capitalism compatible with justice?
Will historical justice happen or is it just an option?

Key Links

Justice Is an Option: A Democratic Theory of Finance for the Twenty-First Century by Robert Meister

A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

Spheres of Justice by Michael Walzer

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson on the Plutocratic Populism of the Republican Party

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Learn more about Martin Conway at Balliol College at the University of Oxford

Martin Conway Believes "Democracy Owes its Durability Not to its Principles but to its Flexibility." Democracy in Western Europe from 1945 to 1968 Oct 05, 2021

Show notes

Where you and I and, I think, many others start from an assumption that somehow there is a thing called democracy and we sort of know what it is. But the diversity within democracy is far larger than that. You know, there's clear big institutional temperamental differences between visions of representatives ruling, people ruling, and so on. All these sorts of things are different models of democracy and therefore the word democracy in some respects becomes rather meaningless.

Martin Conway
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com or a short review of Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945—1968 here.
Martin Conway is the author of the new book Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945—1968 and a Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Oxford.
Key Highlights Include

Why Democracy Became Part of Western Europe's Identity
How Democracy was a Process of Continual Negotiation
The Distinct Characteristics of Democracy in Western Europe
An Account of the Transition from the Fourth to the Fifth Republic in France
Lessons for Democracy Today from Western Europe's Past

Key Links

Western Europe's Democratic Age: 1945-1968 by Martin Conway

Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe by Sheri Berman

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Kurt Weyland Distinguishes Between Fascism and Authoritarianism

Michael Hughes on the History of Democracy in Germany

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