Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. Penn Professor (emeritus) IAN LUSTICK, who has been teaching on the Israel-Palestine conflict at Penn since 1991, returns to the podcast to share his thoughts on the ongoing crisis.

In this episode, MIRANDA SKLAROFF is in conversation with PETER FRASE, editorial board member of Jacobin magazine and author of Four Futures: Life After Capitalism. Frase presents a case for socialism as a superior alternative to liberal democracy, delving into the critical differences between socialists and social democrats. The discussion also explores the stagnation of electoral socialism in the U.S. since the 2016 election, the reasons behind social democrats' loss of momentum, and the potential pathways to a socialist future

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: JOSHUA ROSE. In her book, Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections, Professor LISA MITCHELL explores the various methods of collective action used by people in India to hold elected officials and government administrators accountable. Moving beyond an exclusive focus on electoral processes, Mitchell argues that to understand democracy — both in India and beyond — we must also pay attention to what occurs between elections.

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. Anti-corruption activist JOSH STANFIELD returns to the AMC podcast. This discussion centers on the significant impact of data centers in Virginia, which currently hosts the largest data center market in the world. These massive facilities, crucial for the growing prevalence of AI and other technologies, bring economic benefits but also pose several serious challenges -- including noise pollution, infringement on natural and historic sites, and increasing the already considerable influence of tech corporations on local politics.

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.

AUDREY JAQUISS sits down with Penn Professor ERIC ORTS to explore the future of environmental regulation and politics in light of recent Supreme Court decisions. In the last two years, the Court has significantly curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to protect wetlands and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. This year, the Court's decision to overturn the longstanding Chevron Deference Doctrine has further endangered numerous environmental regulations. Orts discusses what these rulings mean for the future of environmental policy and the implications for the ongoing battle against climate change.

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.

TANJA PETROVIĆ, principal research associate at the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, discusses her recent book Utopia in Uniform: Affective Afterlives of the Yugoslav People's Army. Moderated by RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN.

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.”