Yale history professor Timothy Snyder speaks with Robert Siegel about the rise of authoritarianism. On Point, WBUR Read more »
The divided public heart
What drives political change – culture or economics? The surge of the Right in the United States and Europe in the past two years has renewed debate on this important question. On one side, the cultural determinists attribute Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise of European populist movements to nativism, […] Read more »
U.S. population keeps growing, but House of Representatives is same size as in Taft era
The U.S. House of Representatives has one voting member for every 747,000 or so Americans. That’s by far the highest population-to-representative ratio among a peer group of industrialized democracies, and the highest it’s been in U.S. history. And with the size of the House capped by law and the country’s […] Read more »
Trump Against the Tide
Democratic voters, especially young, white liberals, have been moving sharply in a progressive direction, not only on issues of race, but across the board — on the economy, on immigration and on the environment. CONT. Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times Read more »
Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists
The warning signs are flashing red: Democracy is under threat. Across Europe and North America, candidates are more authoritarian, party systems are more volatile, and citizens are more hostile to the norms and institutions of liberal democracy. These trends have prompted a major debate between those who view political discontent […] Read more »
As Population Growth Slows, Populism Surges
… The last time that populism — what we broadly define as political movements that ostensibly set the interests of “ordinary people” against elites as well as an “other” — swept across Europe and the United States was marked by the same combination of slow economic and fertility growth that […] Read more »