RevDem Podcast

In this conversation with RevDem guest contributor Norman Aselmeyer, Andreas Eckert – author of German-language overviews of the history of colonialism and of slavery – presents his approach to the history of colonialism and how the study of this subject has evolved in the early 21st century; reflects on the special challenges of composing a global history of slavery; shares his views on the ongoing German debates regarding colonial crimes; and discusses the current state and special pitfalls of global history writing. Andreas Eckert, historian of modern Africa at Humboldt University in Berlin, is one of Germany’s leading scholars of African history. Since 2009, he has been the director of the international research centre Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History. Throughout his career, he has held fellowships and guest professorships all over the world. He taught and researched at institutions such as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, the Swedisch Collegium in Uppsala, SOAS, and others. Andreas Eckert has published numerous books and articles on the history of labour, colonialism, global history, and the historiography of African history. Today, we will speak about two of his latest books on the history of colonialism and slavery: Kolonialismus (S. Fischer, 2006) and Geschichte der Sklaverei: Von der Antike bis ins 21. Jahrhundert [History of Slavery. From Ancient Times to the 21st Century](C.H. Beck, 2021). Norman Aselmeyer, PhD, is a lecturer of modern history at the University of Bremen. His research interests lie at the intersection of African and global history.

In this extended conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Franziska Exeler – author of the new monograph Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and Its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus – discusses the extremely violent history of Belarus during the Second World War; analyses the various choices people made under the dire constrains of the Nazi German occupation and the challenges of drawing on Soviet sources to analyze those choices; zooms in on the issue of Soviet retribution and its ambiguities; and reflects on how the partisan experience and narrative has continued to shape the country.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, three authors of the new collective monograph Socialism Goes Global. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation, Péter Apor, James Mark, and Steffi Marung, dissect the relationship between eastern Europe and the extra-European world in the age of decolonization; explain how key East European traditions of relating to the extra-European world have evolved over time; analyse the extent to which long-standing civilizational and racial hierarchies were overcome, or perhaps reproduced, via East–South connections during the Cold War; show how the study of this alternative form of globalization can help us reconsider the end of European state socialism; and discuss some of the key contemporary consequences and legacies of socialist world-making today. ​ James Mark is a Professor of History at the University of Exeter Steffi Marung is the Director of the Global and European Studies Institute of Leipzig University Péter Apor is a senior research fellow (tudományos főmunkatárs) in contemporary history at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Socialism Goes Global. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation, coordinated by James Mark and Paul Betts, is published by Oxford University Press. Its main contributors are – next to Péter Apor, Paul Betts, James Mark, and Steffi Marung – Alena Alamgir, Eric Burton, Bogdan Iacob, and Radina Vučetić.

In this conversation with RevDem section heads Vera Scepanovic and Ferenc Laczó, Fritz Bartel – author of the new The Triumph of Broken Promises. The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism – explains how the notion of breaking promises cancapture developments of the late Cold War period and why democracies proved more successful at doing so; argues that a structural explanation of the rise of neoliberalism is more convincing from a historical point of view; discusses how the U.S. empire came to pay for itself and with what consequences; and reflects on how his arguments about breaking promises in the Global North can help us understand political trends today. Fritz Bartel is an assistant professor of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. The Triumph of Broken Promises. The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism is published by Harvard University Press.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Kasia Krzyżanowska, Peter Verovšek — author of “Memory and the future of Europe. Rupture and integration in the wake of total war” — discusses the importance of foundational stories for communities; explains the influence of personal experience on the European integration; shows differences in remembering the past in West and East Europe and ponders on the consequences of Russian aggression on Ukraine for the European memory.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Charlotte Wiedemann – author of the just released German-language volume Den Schmerz der Anderen begreifen. Holocaust und Weltgedächtnis (To Grasp the Pain of Others. Holocaust and Global Remembrance) – explores the inequalities of the reigning “economy of empathy”; discusses ways to connect the histories of National Socialism and global colonialism to each other; reflects on problematic aspects of German memory culture today; and suggests paths through which more pluralistic and inclusive memory cultures might be fostered.

In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Peter Osnos discusses his new edited volume George Soros: A Life in Full. Osnos introduces the concept of the volume, reflects on Soros’ remarkably complex character, addresses his path-breaking philanthropy and special commitment to education, and dissects his profound and fraught connection to Hungary and the post-Soviet world. Peter Osnos has had a long and distinguished career as a reporter, editor, and publisher. He worked for The Washington Post and then at Random House until he founded Public Affairs in 1997. He has published a host of major authors and public figures, including four former US Presidents and several of the most celebrated personalities in human rights, business, and media. In 2021, Peter Osnos released An Especially Good View. Watching History Happen, a reported memoir. George Soros: A Life in Full is out on April 5. It contains chapters by Leon Botstein, Eva Hoffman, Michael Ignatieff, Ivan Krastev, and Darren Walker, among a host of other distinguished authors.

Britain is probably the last country that comes to mind when one thinks of alliances of parties. But, in fact, there have been many examples of co-operation among parties both in the governmental, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary arenas. No academic work has analysed yet these various examples of cooperation in a comprehensive fashion. The first one will be Alan Wager’s book to be published by Oxford University Press. He discusses his work with Zsolt Enyedi, Party Co-Op Series host and a professor of political science at the Central European University.

India, like many countries, faces democratic backsliding. In the newest episode of the RevDem Rule of Law podcast, assistant editor Gaurav Mukherjee talks to Tarunabh Khaitan (Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford, Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the Faculty of Law, Fellow at Mansfield College, and Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Law School) about his recent work on the phenomenon of democratic backsliding in India, the rise of an unchecked executive, and the role that courts and opposition parties play in protecting democracy.

Thanks to the Latin American experience political science realized the significance of the institutionalization of political parties and party systems. The actual forms and logic of cooperation among parties has received so far less attention, even though party alliances play a crucial role in a number of countries of the region. In this episode, Zsolt Enyedi and Jennifer McCoy examine party cooperation in Nicaragua, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia.

Simone Weil’s figure poses a challenge to each reader of hers. In this conversation, our editor Kasia Krzyżanowska speaks to prof. Robert Zarestky (professor at the University of Houston), about the heroine of his recently published biography: Simone Weil.

In this conversation, Lucija Balikić, a researcher affiliated with the CEU Democracy Institute and a PhD candidate at the History department of the same university, discusses Forging Germans: Youth, Nation and the National Socialist Mobilization of Ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia (1918-1944) (Oxford University Press, 2020) with the author, Caroline Mezger. The conversation touches upon issues related to researching children and youth as historical actors in their own right, complex avenues of negotiating “Germanness” in historical perspective, as well as the dynamics of the National Socialist takeover of youth organizations in the regions of Bačka and Western Banat during the interwar and World War II periods.

In this conversation with our editor, Kasia Krzyżanowska, Dr. Signe Larsen (a Fellow by Examination in Law at Magdalen College, University of Oxford) talks about her recently published book The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union (OUP 2021). In this interview, Dr. Larsen elaborates on the (largely unacknowledged) nature of the EU as a federation, varieties of constitutionalism within EU Member States, and the impact of colonial legacies on the EU.

Zsolt Enyedi in conversation with Krystof Dolezal, political scientist and strategist about party cooperation in Czechia during the 2021 parliamentary elections. They discussed the rationale behind two opposition blocks, reasons of its success, and the lessons that could be drawn from this instance of party cooperation.

On Monday 21 February, the Review of Democracy and the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law co-hosted an event on the Court of Justice of the EU’s judgment on the budget conditionality regulation. An article co-authored by two of the panelists,’Linking Money to Values - the New Rule of Law Regulation and its Constitutional Challenges’, was cited by the Advocate General in the Opinion for the case. In this podcast, Oliver Garner and one of those co-authors, Professor Antonia Baraggia (Associate Professor in the Department of Italian and Supranational Public Law at the University of Milan), discuss the judgment and conditionality as a constitutional tool in more detail.