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Democracy Works: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Penn State McCourtney Institute for Democracy
The Democracy Works podcast seeks to answer that question by examining a different aspect of democratic life each week — from voting to criminal justice to the free press and everything in between. We interview experts who study democracy, as well as people who are out there doing the hard work of democracy day in and day out. The show’s name comes from Pennsylvania’s long tradition of iron and steel works — people coming together to build things greater than the sum of their parts. We believe that democracy is the same way. Each of us has a role to play in building and sustaining a healthy democracy and our show is all about helping people understand what that means.
Latest Episodes
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- May 18, 202638 min
How to create social change that sticks
Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change and democracy reform are structural. They are larger than any one person can solve on their own, yet we're bombarded with information about individual actions like attending a public meeting or lowering your carbon footprint. Do these individual actions even matter? Should we focus instead of fixing broken systems? For our final episode of the season, we explore how individual actions and structural reform can work together to create lasting social change on a range of issues, including democracy. Our guests offer a way out of the either-or thinking and a framework for creating lasting social change. In Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change, Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think. Brownstein and Kelly join us on the show to discuss examples of how individual actions leveled up to create larger-scale change, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the milk pasteurization movement in the early 20th century. We also discuss how the lessons from these movements can be applied to democracy reform campaigns like campaign finance reform and ranked-choice voting. Brownstein is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at John Jay College and Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Kelly is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, where he is also the Director of the Cognition, Agency, and Intelligence Center. This is our final episode before our summer break. Thank you to Brandon Stover for editing the show this year, to WPSU for production and promotional support, and to Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Cyanne Loyle, and Candis Watts Smith for sharing their insights on the show. We'll see you in September! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- May 4, 20261h 4m
Talk Nerdy: Black Evidence with Candis Watts Smith
Democracy Works host Candis Watts Smith joins Cara Santa Maria on the Talk Nerdy podcast to discuss her new book, Black Evidence: A History and a Warning. From Reconstruction to Redemption, from the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation to the execution of the Southern strategy, from 2020’s multiracial protests to the swift elimination of policies etching out a more inclusive society, Americans regularly experience periods of racial reckoning followed by walloping retrenchment. In Black Evidence, Smith shows that this pattern is the result of an American habit: denying the truths about our society that Black people experience and remember. Smith then delivers a warning: the effects of this habit ripple out, dulling our ability to identify the signs of authoritarianism and heightening our tolerance for cruelty. Still, she shows how these same truths offer models to overcome our repeated predicament. Talk Nerdy host Cara Santa Maria is a clinical health psychologist, science communicator, podcaster, and Emmy Award-winning journalist. In addition to Talk Nerdy, she co-hosts the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast and coauthored Skeptics Guide to the Universe book. Subscribe to Talk Nerdy Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Apr 20, 202631 min
When politics enters the doctor's office
From the COVID-19 pandemic to debates over vaccines and the Make America Healthy Again movement, politics and medicine are intertwined in ways not seen in previous generations. When politics enters the doctor's office, what does it mean for the health of our democracy? Julianna Pacheco is working to answer that questions and joins Democracy Works host Chris Beem for a conversation about medicine and politics. They also discuss deaths of despair and how feeling hopeless can lead to political disengagement. Pacheco is professor and department chair of political science at the University of Iowa. She received a Ph.D. in political science from Penn State and postdoctoral training as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Michigan. She is currently a Carnegie Fellow and part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Research Leaders Program. Her research sits at the nexus of political science and population health. She is currently working on a book looking at the role of physicians on the polarization of health. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Apr 6, 202646 min
The Declaration of Independence and democracy renovation
Danielle Allen's work straddles the line between past and present. On one hand, she's on the road this year talking about America's 250th anniversary in the context of her book on the Declaration of Independence. On the other hand, she's hard at work on Substack writing and talking about democracy reform (or renovation she calls it). She's also leading a coalition working to bring nonpartisan primary elections to Massachusetts through a ballot initiative this fall. Allen return to the show to discuss America's Semiquincentennial and what lessons today's democracy renovators can draw from the process that the Founders undertook to create the Declaration of Independence. We also discuss her work on Educating for American Democracy and Our Common Purpose, two national projects launched in 2021 that were the subject of her first appearance on the podcast. She talks about what's changed, for better and worse, in the past five years. Discussed in this episode: Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality - Allen's book on the Declaration of Independence The Renovator - Allen's Substack Coalition for a Healthy Democracy - group leading the Massachusetts nonpartisan primary ballot measure Educating for American Democracy Our Common Purpose Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Mar 16, 202634 min
Janet Napolitano on higher education and democracy
What is the role of higher education in a democracy? To what extent should American universities respond to the demands of those in power? Are we meeting this moment? As a former governor, cabinet secretary, and university president, Secretary Janet Napolitano is uniquely positioned to address these questions. She spoke with Michael Berkman, director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and professor of political science at Penn State. This conversation is, in many ways, a follow up to the one that Michael had with Penn State professor Brad Vivian at the end of 2025. Napolitano is a professor of public policy and director of the new Center for Security in Politics at the University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. A distinguished public servant, she served as the president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, as the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, as Governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009, as Attorney General of Arizona from 1998 to 2003, and as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona from 1993 to 1997. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Mar 2, 202620 min
Is public media still public?
Ayesha Rascoe, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday and Weekend Up First, joins us to discuss what it's like being a political reporter in a polarized country and what the "public" in public media looks like amid the loss federal funding. Rascoe joined NPR in 2018 and served as White House correspondent during the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. We talk about covering the White House and how her work covering energy policy prepared her for covering day-to-day politics. She is also the editor of HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience, a book of essays about the impact of historically Black colleges and universities. Rascoe is an alumnae of Howard University, where she was editor of the school newspaper. You might notice that this episode is shorter than usual. That's because a dead car battery on a very cold winter morning in Pennsylvania delayed us getting to the recording studio. We apologize and will be back to normal on the next episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Feb 16, 202638 min
Embracing mindful democracy
Democracy is often framed as a battle between political candidates or parties that have opposing viewpoints and are trying to win over voters to join their side. However, there’s another way to think about democracy as a system of self governance that everyone shares and has a stake in preserving and protecting.Jeremy David Engels articulates the latter point of view in the book, On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World. The book blends Engels’s prior work studying democratic theory and history with his experience in yoga, meditation and Buddhism. Engels joined us to discuss the concept of mindful democracy and why it’s important to consider during the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. He describes how we can — and should — consider a "declaration of interdependence" in addition to the Declaration of Independence the country is celebrating this year. We also talk about the different conceptions of democracy outlined by John Dewey and Walter Lippmann Engels is Liberal Arts Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State and a mindfulness and yoga teacher. You can find him in the classroom, lecture hall, on a meditation cushion, or a yoga mat, sharing his insights on how to become capable, compassionate, and engaged democratic citizens. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Feb 2, 202646 min
How AI is changing democracy
AI is changing many aspects of our lives, so it's reasonable to expect that it will impact democracy, too. The question is how? Two experts in technology and politics join us to discuss how we can harness AI's power to strengthen democracy. Yes, there will be deepfakes and automated misinformation, but there can also be greater opportunities for the government to serve people and for all of us to have a greater say in our systems of self governance.In their book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders describe how AI could change political communication, the legislative process, bureaucracy, the judiciary, and more. It's a more hopeful argument than you might expect. They discuss how AI’s broad capabilities can augment democratic processes and help citizens build consensus, express their voice, and shake up long-standing power structures. As they say in the interview, AI is just a tool; how we use it is up to us.Schneier is a security technologist and the New York Times bestselling author of 14 books, including A Hacker’s Mind. He is a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc.Sanders is a data scientist focused on making policymaking more participatory. He has served in fellowships at the Massachusetts legislature and the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University.Related EpisodesThe Problem(s) with Platforms (Cory Doctorow)Building Better Bureaucracy (Jennifer Pahlka)Laboratories of Restricting Democracy (Virginia Eubanks) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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About Democracy Works
The Democracy Works podcast seeks to answer that question by examining a different aspect of democratic life each week — from voting to criminal justice to the free press and everything in between. We interview experts who study democracy, as well as people who are out there doing the hard work of democracy day in and day out. The show’s name comes from Pennsylvania’s long tradition of iron and steel works — people coming together to build things greater than the sum of their parts. We believe that democracy is the same way. Each of us has a role to play in building and sustaining a healthy democracy and our show is all about helping people understand what that means.
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