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
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
This episode marks the first time that all five of our hosts (Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, Cyanne Loyle, Candis Watts Smith, and Jenna Spinelle) are together on one episode. It's also the first time we've all been together since the election. We take some time to reflect on changes in America's political party, the dec
Balazs Trencsenyi, co-director of Invisible University for Ukraine (IUFU), joins us to discuss the university's work to uphold education and democracy in Ukraine amid the country's ongoing war with Russia. IUFU, an initiative of Central European University was founded shortly after the start of the war in 2022. Since t
Colleen Shogan, archivist of the United States, joins us for a conversation about democratizing access to national records and running a non-partisan organization in an increasingly polarized country. Shogan was appointed by President Biden and has been criticized by both sides of the political spectrum for trying to u
We're excited to bring you an episode from Bad Watchdog, the podcast from the Project on Government Oversight and one of our colleagues in The Democracy Group podcast network. This is the first episode of the show's second season, which takes a deep dive on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Established in the
We are collecting our thoughts about what's next for democracy following the 2024 election and will take up the question during our end-of-year episode in December. Democracy Works host Michael Berkman, director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and professor of political science at Penn State talks with Christ
