Interviewer: CARRIE WELSH. Why does the American criminal justice system produce unreliable knowers? In this episode, host CARRIE WELSH is joined by philosopher and prison education director JOHN FANTUZZO and re-entry consultant and executive director RAYMOND POWELL for a conversation about the epistemological foundations of mass incarceration. Drawing on a forthcoming paper and lived experience, they unpack how the prison’s economy of credibility systematically undermines the efforts and perspectives of incarcerated people and extends punishment far beyond prison walls. Their conversation ends with a call to center the knowledge of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in efforts to reduce society’s reliance on incarceration.
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Episode 7.5: Trump and the Era of Ungoverning: A Discussion with Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum
Interviewer: MATTHEW ROTH. In their 2024 book Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos, Professors RUSSELL MUIRHEAD (Dartmouth) and NANCY ROSENBLUM (Harvard) analyze the emergence of “ungoverning,” a political trend aimed at limiting or dismantling key functions of the administrative state. They situate this development within broader shifts in American politics, tracing its roots to earlier debates over the role of government and examining how it has been intensified in the Trump era. In conversation with historian Matthew Roth, they reflect on what makes this movement distinctive, the challenges it poses for democratic governance, and the importance of safeguarding (and also reforming) the administrative state.
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Episode 7.4: The Age of Choice: A Conversation with Sophia Rosenfeld
Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. Historian and Penn Professor SOPHIA ROSENFELD discusses her new book The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life, exploring how choice became central to modern ideas of freedom — and why our obsession with it can leave us anxious, overwhelmed, and divided. From the rise of shopping and religious freedom to romance, politics, and reproductive rights, she traces the surprising history and complicated legacy of living in an “age of choice.”
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Episode 7.3: Rethinking the COVID Era: A Conversation with Frances Lee and Stephen Macedo
Interviewer: MATTHEW ROTH. When the Sars-CoV-2 spread across the world in the spring of 2020, it triggered unprecedented lockdowns in nearly every country, including democracies where such drastic measures were previously considered unlikely to be feasible. The hope was that the virus could be stopped and eventually eliminated, and that deaths could be minimized in the meantime. In their new book, In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, political scientists FRANCES LEE and STEPHEN MACEDO examine the sequence of decisions that led to these policies and conclude that not only did they not work as envisioned, but that the decision-making process itself was deeply flawed. In their conversation with historian Matthew Roth, the authors describe the pre-existing consensus among health officials, that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) would likely be counterproductive; how that consensus quickly flipped during the crisis, after which open debate was stifled; the political polarization that led to different measures in different U.S. states; and the reasons why the comparative, pre-vaccine mortality data from the states show no sign of that a more stringent approach helped.
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Episode 7.2: Brazil's Pink Tide and the Politics of Redistribution
Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. In this episode, host Rafael Khachaturian speaks with sociologist and political theorist NARA ROBERTA SILVA about the trajectory of Brazil’s left over the past two decades. Together, they unpack the rise and contradictions of the Workers' Party (PT), Brazil’s role in the Latin American “pink tide,” and the tensions between grassroots mobilization, state power, and neoliberal constraint. From participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre to Lula’s turn to pragmatic governance, Silva offers a sharp, historically grounded reflection on the promises and limits of leftist rule in the Global South. The conversation also turns to the reactionary surge that followed, tracing the conditions that enabled Jair Bolsonaro’s rise.
The ANDREA MITCHELL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY aims not just to promote, but to understand, democracy. Global in its outlook, multifaceted in its purposes, the Mitchell Center seeks to contribute to the ongoing quest for democratic values, ideas, and institutions throughout the world. In THE ANDREA MITCHELL CENTER PODCAST, we interview scholars, journalists, and public thinkers grappling with the challenges facing our democracy. Many of the episodes are linked to our other programming, such as our 2018-19 "Democracy in Trouble?" series, our 2019-20 "Reverberations of Inequality" series, and our ongoing "Capitalism / Socialism / Democracy." Other episodes are one-off interviews with scholars associated with the Mitchell Center -- or with thinkers whose work is central to our effort to understand democracy in all of its complexity.
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