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. Democracy Works is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
Show episodes
Cory Doctorow coined the term "enshittification" to describe how tech platforms have eroded over time. According to him, the process goes something like this: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customer
As the lead investigator into both the 2017 racist riot in Charlottesville and the January 6 insurrection, Tim Heaphy has a unique perspective on the cynicism and anger that also fueled Trump’s return to the presidency. All three events, both the violent protests and the peaceful and lawful decisions made at the ballot
Chris Beem, McCourtney Institute for Democracy managing director and research professor of political science at Penn State, talks with author Jonathan Rauch about why the current crisis in American Christianity is also a crisis in American democracy. In his new book Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with De
It's easy to feel defeated in the face of political challenges, but this episode shows that everyone has the capacity to create positive change and contribute to a culture of peace in their communities. In her book "Peace by Peace: Risking Public Action, Creating Social Change," Lisa Silvestri shows how ordinary people
Instances of political violence around the 2024 election and vote certification on January 6, 2025 did not come to fruition the way some experts feared they would throughout last year. But that doesn't mean that we can forget about threats of political violence until it's time for the next election. In fact, political
The results of the 2024 election — from Donald Trump's victory to the failure of democracy reform efforts like ranked-choice voting and citizen-led redistricting — took some in the pro-democracy movement by surprise. How could voters make decisions up and down the ballot that would weaken democracy? Scott Warren argues
