Democracy Works

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the aftermath of the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, we explore how rising political divides are leading to bigger swings in America's foreign policy — and what that means for our future in the liberal international order.In her book Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Security, Rachel Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs. We discuss how the pendulum swing from one administration to another leads to instability in foreign affairs. As a result, Myrick says the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick also questions the longstanding thinking that having a common enemy to focus on is enough to overcome polarization, as it was during the Cold War.Myrick is the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Her research explores how partisan polarization affects foreign policymaking in democracies, with an emphasis on U.S. national security policy.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

While Democracy Works is on winter break, we're bringing you an episode from our colleagues at The Context, a podcast from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation and a fellow member of The Democracy Group podcast network. Host Alex Lovit looks back at the advice from the show's guests this year about how everyday people can get involved in fighting authoritarianism and encouraging citizen engagement. You'll hear from:Ece Temelkuran, Turkish writer and author of  How To Lose a Country, the Seven Steps From Democracy to FascismDaniel Hunter, educator with Freedom Trainers and director of Choose Democracy,Deva Woodly, professor of political science at Brown University and nonresident fellow at KetteringMaria Stephan, co-lead and chief organizer at Horizons ProjectSharon L. Davies, president and CEO of the Charles F. Kettering FoundationSteven Levitsky, professor of government at Harvard and co-author of How Democracies DieJohn C. Yang,  president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing JusticeWe hope this episode leaves you feeling inspired about what you can do to strengthen democracy in 2026 and beyond. Thank you to the team at The Context for sharing it with us! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We end this season where we started — a conversation about higher education and democracy. This time, Michael Berkman, McCourtney Institute for Democracy director and professor of political science at Penn State, sits down with Brad Vivian, professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State and author of Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education. Berkman and Vivian discuss the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, a proposal issued to several universities by the Trump administration earlier this fall. The compact offers benefits like increased access to federal grants and contracts and priority handling of student visas in exchange for changes in admission practices, a commitment to institutional neutrality, and other demands. Vivan outlines how the compact goes against many of the core values in higher education and what make universities an essential part of American democracy. Beyond the compact, Berkman and Vivian also talk about how education might be a contributing factor in America's growing political divide and how university faculty and leadership should think about this divide.This is our final episode of the year. We will be back with new episodes in January. From our entire team, happy holidays and we'll see you in 2026!Mentioned in this episode:Why I'm Excited About the White House's Proposal for a Higher Ed Compact - Danielle AllenPolarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics - Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's easy to blame algorithms and AI for corroding our information ecosystem, but our guest this week argues that we have just as much, if not more of a role to play in creating the environment we want to see. Ray Block Jr. is the Brown-McCourtney Career Development Professor at Penn State and the Michael D. Rich Chair in Countering Truth Decay and RAND Corporation. He joins us to discuss the new report, "Rebalancing the Information Ecosystem and Renewing Shared Societal Commitments for Information Use," published by RAND earlier this fall. Block's scholarly research includes community organizing and social identity. You'll hear that perspective come through in this conversation, which focuses on how social fabric — not fact checking or tech policy —is the key to creating a healthy information environment and, in turn, a healthy democracy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Paul Martin was fired from his role as USAID Inspector General after he published a report warning that the Trump administration’s plans to dismantle USAID placed more than $480 million in food and other commodities in danger of spoilage or theft. Martin joins us to recount the chaotic few months leading up to his termination from USAID and how his firing fits into a broader assault on independent government oversight and Constitutional checks and balances that are essential to American democracy.Martin served as Inspector General for USAID from January 2024 through February 11, 2025. He previously served for fourteen years as Inspector General for NASA and Vice Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. He received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Penn State, where he was part of The Daily Collegian, and a law degree from Georgetown Law. His lecture, which also features former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, is available on the McCourtney Institute's YouTube channel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We bring you a special crossover episode with Disorder, a show that explores the fundamental principles lurking behind today's most pressing global issues. Jenna Spinelle talks with Disorder host Jason Pack, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and author of Libya and the Enduring Global Disorder. They discuss the state of democracy around the world and why making America's government more like a European country might not be the solution to polarization that some democracy reformers hope it will be. Listen to Disorder Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode is a collaboration with our colleagues at News Over Noise, the podcast from Penn State's News Literacy Initiative. We recorded this interview on October 27, the first day of U.S. Media Literacy Week, an event that highlights the power of media literacy education and its essential role in education all across the country.The conversation focuses on how AI complicates and already-complicated news literacy landscape. With so many news outlets and journalists striking out on their own as content creators, it can feel overwhelming to keep up with the news each day without the added complication of having to question whether what you're seeing is real or computer-generated "AI slop." Despite those challenges, our guests are confident that each of us has the skills and ability to separate factual information from AI slop and make good decisions about how we consume the news.You'll hear from Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, News Over Noise host Cory Barker, and the following guests:Pam Brunskill, News Literacy ProjectSean Marcus, Poynter Institute/MediaWiseJenna Meleedy, National Association of Media Literacy Educators  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Civic education is full of nostalgia. Horace Mann, John Dewey, and the Cold War era often come up in conversations about the current state of affairs. Judge Marjorie Rendell knows this well because she grew up in the postwar era and understand how different today's civic education is from what she received as a young student. She saw it firsthand when she visited classrooms across Pennsylvania during her eight years as the state's First Lady and decided to do something about it when she left the role.Today, the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement conducts mock trials, read-alouds, and other activities designed to transform civic education from something dry and boring into something exciting for elementary and middle school students. The center also has an eye to the future and are exploring how graphic novels and AI can help their work moving forward. Rendell joins us to talk about the center's work and her current role as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. We discuss what it's like to be a federal judge in the current political climate ,and the role that judges and lawyers can play in helping students learn about the Constitution.The Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement received the McCourtney Institute for Democracy's 2025 Brown Democracy Medal.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The movement to end gerrymandering is something we've covered on the show several times over the years. Until recently, the conversation focused on independent redistricting commissions formed as a result of grassroots action from voters who felt that gerrymandering led to elected officials who didn't represent the values of the communities they served. The issue is now decidedly more partisan thanks to efforts to redraw maps to benefit Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California — even as majorities of voters across the political spectrum continue to come down against partisan gerrymandering.What's a nonpartisan reformer to do in this new reality? We spoke with two people who recently won victories to create fairer maps in their states. Carol Kuniholm is the co-founder and chair of Fair Districts PA, which won a court case to redraw Pennsylvania's maps in 2021 and is pushing for the creation of an independent redistricting commission in the Keystone State. Emma Addams is co-executive director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, which was part of a coalition that filed a complaint that led to a Utah court striking down the state's congressional map in August 2025. Kuniholm and Addams discuss how they created the coalitions necessary to create change, the peril that comes with making redistricting a partisan issue, and why the efforts in Texas and California might not work out the way the parties expect. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last time Cynthia Miller-Idriss was on the show, we discussed how political extremism was making its way to the mainstream through a variety of channels. This time, we're looking at how misogyny and gender-based violence have become mainstream and the implications for our democracy. Miller-Idriss write about this trend in her new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism. The book draws from her work studying political violence and extremism, but also from her experience as a female public figure who regularly receives death threats and misogynistic comments directed at her. We talk about both in the interview, as well as organizations that are working to address the crises among American men and boys. For those local to Penn State, Miller-Idriss will present a lecture on Man Up and sign copies of the book on Thursday, October 23 at 6:30 p.m. in 114 Welch Building. The event is free and open to the public. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Summer is typically a quiet time for higher education but this summer has been anything but quiet amid funding cuts, lawsuits, and questions about the value of American colleges and universities.Our guests this week are part of Stand Together for Higher Ed, a new nonpartisan movement of university faculty and staff focused on building collective power to uphold the core values of higher education. Kathy Roberts Forde is a professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mark Pachucki is associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-author of the university's Mutual Defense Academic Compact (MDAC) resolution. Ford, Pachucki, and their Stand Together for Higher Ed colleagues spent the summer talking to faculty and staff from universities across the country about what they can do to defend their institutions amid ongoing attacks and threats from the federal government. They don't have a quick, easy answer but they do have a plan for how people across campuses come together to share how higher education impacts our everyday lives.Is this approach enough? Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith disagree on the value of Stand Together's approach and discuss their differences at the end of the episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For our final episode of the season, we present a conversation with Ben Rhodes recorded at in Washington, D.C. at the end of May. Democracy Works is going on summer break. We'll be back with new episodes in September!The Democracy Group's first live podcast recording featuring foreign policy expert and fellow podcaster Ben Rhodes  in conversation with Kamy Akhavan of Let's Find Common Ground and Stephanie Gerber Wilson of Freedom Over Fascism about America’s place on the world stage and how the health of American democracy impacts other democracies around the world. They also discuss how podcasting can shape messaging and narrative in a fractured media environment. About Ben RhodesRhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, and The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. He is currently co-host of Pod Save the World. His work has also been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs.  From 2009-2017, Rhodes served as a speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. In that role, he led the secret negotiations with the Cuban government that resulted in the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba.To learn more about each of the featured podcasts, visit the Shows page at democracygroup.org/shows. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In a rebroadcast from 2023,  we discuss how to meet the demands that democracy places on us without sacrificing our own personal mental health in the process. Many of us can conjure moments when politics made us feel sad. But how often do those feelings translate into more serious forms of depression or other mental health issues? And if politics does make us depressed, what do we do about it? Christopher Ojeda has spent the past few years exploring these questions and joins us this week to talk about the relationship between depression and democracy. Ojeda is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California Merced and author of the forthcoming book The Sad Citizen: How Politics Is Depressing and Why It Matters, which will be released in June from the University of Chicago press. He visited Penn State in 2023 to give us an early glimpse of this important work on the relationship between democratic engagement and individual mental health. We discuss how to meet the demands that democracy places on us without sacrificing our mental health in the process. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jeff Sharlet has spent the past few years embedded in the deepest corners of the growing far-right movement in the United States. He's come to think of it as a black hole, something that can pull people in with ever-shifting grievances and a desire for power. He chronicles the movement and the characters in it in his book The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War and joins us to discuss the book and how he's thinking about its thesis in the context of the new Trump administration. We also discuss some of Sharlet's more recent reporting on war churches in Idaho and Washington, and how things that were on the fringes of the movement five years ago are now squarely in the mainstream.Sharlet is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing and Director of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. He is also the author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, which was adapted into a Netflix documentary series, and This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers.His reporting on LGBTQI+ rights around the world has received the National Magazine Award, the Molly Ivins Prize, and Outright International’s Outspoken Award. His writing and photography have appeared in many publications, including Vanity Fair, for which he is a contributing editor; The New York Times Magazine; GQ; Esquire; Harper’s Weekly; and VQR, for which he is an editor at large. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From fights over masks and vaccines to the loss of social connection, the year 2020 accelerated many of the trends that were already happening in America and created new obstacles for the country to overcome. In his book 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed, sociologist Eric Klinenberg takes on a journey back to that year and everything that happened in it through the eyes of seven New Yorkers, one from each of the city's boroughs.Klinenberg, who recently delivered the Colloquium on the Environment lecture for the Penn State Sustainability Institute, joins us on Democracy Works to discuss how the pandemic accelerated political polarization and distrust in institutions in America and what we can do to repair that damage before the next pandemic or other major crisis comes our way. The book and the podcast interview allow us to see 2020—and, ultimately, ourselves—with clarity and empathy. Klinenberg is the Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the author of Palaces for the People, Going Solo, Heat Wave, and Fighting for Air. He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, and This American Life. He recently visited Penn State to present the 2025 Colloquium on the Environment for Penn State Sustainability; watch his lecture here.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last week's Wisconsin Supreme Court election put a spotlight on state-level politics and the way that national politics can influence what happens in the states. But there are a lot of other developments happening at the state level that you might have missed. We catch up on what's happening with Alex Burness, a reporter who covers state and local democracy and criminal justice issues for Bolts.As the name suggests, Bolts covers the "nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up." The topics we cover in this episode include:Felon disenfranchisement and mail-in votingMail votingThreats to election administratorsState-level Voting Rights ActsWe also discuss how national politics are shaping decisions that state legislatures make — even when those decisions appear to go against policies that people in a state overwhelmingly support. For more on this dynamic, check out our episode with Jake Grumbach on his book Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics.Learn more about Bolts Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.