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Populations around the world have been electing more and more autocratic leaders in the past couple decades, via supposedly free, fair, and democratic elections. The freedom of the press is being impinged upon in many places, and fear, outrage and misinformation are often taking the place of reasoned debate. Minority populations in some countries are increasingly oppressed...

How can Americans restore their confidence in their government?

Technology has changed the way we think and interact with one another, and social media platforms are intentionally engineered to be addictive and manipulative. Those messages are in the documentary "The Social Dilemma," which was created by Jeff Orlowski's filmmaking company Exposure Labs. "Big social," says Orlowski, is transforming our information ecosystem. He tells Vi...

What can fix a democracy in crisis?

Liberal democracies are threatened by nationalist populist leaders and identity politics says Stanford professor Francis Fukuyama.

Political scientist Rob Reich challenges us to consider the role of philanthropy in democracy.

America’s Founders didn’t envision activist groups mobilizing on social media and disinformation spreading across the internet. Thanks to the web, new threats to democracy — like the January 6th attack on the US Capitol — have emerged. Nate Persily, professor of law at Stanford, talks with Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center, about why passion may...

Ahead of the midterms, what are we hearing about the candidates, the campaigns, and the issues?

Have Democrats become too identified with technocratic ways of speaking — about the economy, the pandemic, climate change? Has this deepened the political divide between those with and those without college degrees? Can Democrats reconnect with working-class voters who were drawn to Donald Trump? A few people inside the Democratic Party, including Colorado senator Michael...

Senator Cory Booker on the problems Democrats, and all Americans, need to confront.

Imagine a new kind of democracy — one that puts governance back in the hands of the people. This is the idea behind political theorist Hélène Landemore's book "Open Democracy." Contemporary representative democracies, like in the United States, are broken, she says, so why not reinvent popular rule? In a conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic,...

What might we learn from the past about the current state of politics and democracy in America?

What were the ideals of the framers, and what can they teach us about modern American democracy?

When President Biden expanded the nation's Child Tax Credit in March, US Senator Michael Bennet applauded the move. Bennet, a democrat from Colorado, has been working to increase support for families since he introduced the American Family Act in Congress in 2017. Now he wants to make the Credit, which pays most American families $250 or $300/child each month, permanent. H...

The United States is facing one of the most difficult tests in its 244-year history. American democracy is struggling, economic and social justice are under interrogation, faith in institutions is declining, and a pandemic is touching us all. Is national unity a far-off dream?

Are we seeing a new era in American politics? Two former Republican presidential candidates weigh in

What are the ways in which people are viewing voting through the lens of race?

Kleptocracy presents a growing threat to US national security and international peace, as money laundering and other forms of public “grand corruption” increasingly undermine democracy, cripple development, weaken Western soft power, and accelerate state collapse.

Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal thinks American democracy is at risk if President Trump isn’t held accountable.

Instead of coming together during the pandemic, many Americans have grown farther apart. People are increasingly living in different realities of news, politics, and information, which is putting public health, elections, and democracy at risk. False and misleading information online are partly to blame, says Vivian Schiller, director of Aspen Digital. "Much of this stems...