Episodes
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Dobbs v. Jackson
(24:03 or p.7 in the transcript)
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, legal decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned two historic Supreme Court rulings, Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), which had respectively established and affirmed a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Specifically, Roe v. Wade had recognized a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before approximately the end of the second trimester of pregnancy (which the Court understood as the usual point of fetal viability). Caseyhad affirmed the “essential holding” of Roe, which it had described in part as “a recognition of the right of the woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State.” As Caseyexplained, a state unduly interferes in the right to pre-viability abortion if its restrictions “impose…an undue burden on a woman’s ability to make this decision” or present “a substantial obstacle to the woman’s effective right to elect the procedure.” Notwithstanding Roe and Casey and other Supreme Court rulings reaffirming a constitutional right to pre-viability abortion, Mississippi, the state appellant in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, claimed that laws banning pre-viability abortion are not necessarily unconstitutional. States may “prohibit elective abortions before viability,” the state argued, “because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion.” Dobbs drew national attention because it overturned nearly 50 years of judicial precedent and effectively enabled states to impose drastic restrictions on the availability of abortion and even to ban it completely. source
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Missing episodes?
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) and Christian Social Union Party (CSU) in Germany
(19:56 or p.6 in the transcript)
The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, were established as non-denominational Christian parties directly after the Second World War by members of the civilian resistance to National Socialism. Their core values are rooted in Catholic social doctrine, Conservativism, and commitment to a liberal (social) market economy that is provided with a regulatory framework of rules and laws by the state. The CDU/CSU regards itself as a “catch-all party” that expressly combines many different interests and therefore aims to speak and develop policies on behalf of a very large part of the population. The CDU runs for election in all Germany’s states apart from Bavaria, where its place is taken by the CSU, which only stands in Bavaria. The two parties are often known colloquially as “the Union”. In the Bundestag they form the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. The “Union” is traditionally the strongest party in Germany and has governed the country the longest in various coalitions. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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• Central European University: @CEU
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD
• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
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• Central European University: @CEU
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Glossary
QAnon
(17:19 or p.5 in the transcript)
QAnon is a decentralized, far-right political movement rooted in a baseless conspiracy theory that the world is controlled by the “Deep State,” a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, and that former President Donald Trump is the only person who can defeat it. QAnon emerged on 4chan in 2017, when an anonymous poster known as “Q,” believed by Qanon followers to be a team of U.S. government and military insiders, began posting cryptic messages online about Trump’s alleged efforts to takedown the Deep State online. QAnon followers believe that the Deep State will be brought to justice during a violent day of reckoning known as “the Storm,” when the Deep State and its collaborators will be arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay to face military tribunals and execution for their various crimes. Since the 2020 presidential election, QAnon has continued to migrate into the mainstream, becoming a powerful force within U.S. politics. Across the United States, QAnon adherents—animated by false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen”—are running for political office, signing up to become poll workers, filing frivolous election-related lawsuits and harassing election officials. While not all QAnon adherents are extremists, QAnon-linked beliefs have inspired violent acts and have eroded trust in democratic institutions and the electoral process. Many QAnon influencers also spout antisemitic beliefs and the core tenets of “Pizzagate” and “Save the Children,” both of which are QAnon-adjacent beliefs, play into antisemitic conspiracy theories like Blood Libel. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Identitarians
(06:49 or p.2 in the transcript)
The term of “Identitarians” originated in France with the founding of the Bloc Identitaire movement and its youth counterpart, Generation Identitaire. Identitarians espouse racism and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of their respective counties. American Identitarians such as Richard Spencer claim to want to preserve European-American (i.e., white) culture in the US. As Michael McGregor, a writer and editor for Radix wrote in an article in the publication, Identitarians want “the preservation of our identity–the cultural and genetic heritage that makes us who we are.”Identitarians reject multiculturalism or pluralism in any form. Namely, Identitarianism is a post-war European far-right political ideology asserting the right of peoples of European descent to culture and territory which are claimed to belong exclusively to people defined as European. Building on ontological ideas of modern German philosophy, its ideology was formulated from the 1960s onward by essayists such as Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Guillaume Faye and Renaud Camus, considered the movement’s intellectual leaders.
While on occasion condemning racism and promoting ethnopluralist society, it argues that particular modes of being are customary to particular groups of people, mainly based on ideas of thinkers of the German Conservative Revolution, in some instances influenced by Nazi theories, through the guidance of European New Right leaders. Some Identitarians explicitly espouse ideas of xenophobia and racialism, but most limit their public statements to more docile language. Some among them promote the creation of white ethno-states, to the exclusion of migrants and non-white residents. The Identitarian Movement has been classified by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2019 as right-wing extremist. The movement is most notable in Europe, and although rooted in Western Europe, it has spread more rapidly to the eastern part of the continent through conscious efforts of the likes of Faye. It also has adherents among North American, Australian, and New Zealander white nationalists. The United States–based Southern Poverty Law Center considers many of these organizations to be hate groups. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
• Central European University: CEU
• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD
• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
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• Central European University: @CEU
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
• Central European University: CEU
• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD
• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
Follow us on social media!
• Central European University: @CEU
• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre
Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
• Central European University: CEU
• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD
• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
Follow us on social media!
• Central European University: @CEU
• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre
Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
Glossary
African National Congress (ANC)
(02:22 or p.1 in the transcript)
African National Congress (ANC) is a South African political party and Black nationalist organization. Founded in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress, it had as its main goal the maintenance of voting rights for Coloureds (persons of mixed race) and Black Africans in Cape Province. It was renamed the African National Congress in 1923. From the 1940s it spearheaded the fight to eliminate apartheid, the official South African policy of racial separation and discrimination. The ANC was banned from 1960 to 1990 by the white South African government; during these three decades it operated underground and outside South African territory. The ban was lifted in 1990, and Nelson Mandela, the president of the ANC, was elected in 1994 to head South Africa’s first multiethnic government. The party received a majority of the vote in that election and every election after until 2024, when it saw its support plummet to about 40 percent. source
Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) Strategy
(10:30 or p.3 in the transcript)
After democratic elections in 1994, postapartheid South Africa was faced with the problem of integrating the previously disenfranchised and oppressed majority into the economy. In 1996 the government created a five-year plan—Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR)—that focused on privatization and the removal of exchange controls. GEAR was only moderately successful in achieving some of its goals but was hailed by some as laying an important foundation for future economic progress. The government also implemented new laws and programs designed to improve the economic situation of the marginalized majority. One such strategy, called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), focused on increasing the number of employment opportunities for people formerly classified under apartheid as Black, Coloured, or Indian, improving their work skills, and enhancing their income-earning potential. The concept of BEE was further defined and expanded by the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act of 2003 (promulgated in 2004), which addressed gender and social inequality as well as racial inequality. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Great Replacement Theory
(24:45 or p.7 in the transcript)
Replacement theory (in the United States and certain other Western countries whose populations are mostly white) is a far-right conspiracy theory alleging, in one of its versions, that left-leaning domestic or international elites, on their own initiative or under the direction of Jewish co-conspirators, are attempting to replace white citizens with nonwhite (i.e., Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Arab) immigrants. The immigrants’ increased presence in white countries, as the theory goes, in combination with their higher birth rates as compared with those of whites, will enable new nonwhite majorities in those countries to take control of national political and economic institutions, to dilute or destroy their host countries’ distinctive cultures and societies, and eventually to eliminate the host countries’ white populations. Some adherents of replacement theory have characterized these predicted changes as “white genocide.” The claim that national governments or unspecified elites are secretly directing the replacement and eventual elimination of whites has circulated among fringe groups of white supremacists, anti-Semites, and other right-wing extremists since at least the late 19th century. It received much wider attention in the early 21st century with the publication of Le Grand Remplacement (2011), by the French writer and activist Renaud Camus. He argued that since the 1970s, Muslim immigrants in France have shown disdain for French society and have been intent on destroying the country’s cultural identity and ultimately replacing its white Christian population in retaliation for France’s earlier colonization of their countries of origin. He also asserted that the immigrant conquest of France was being covertly abetted by elite figures within the French government. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
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• Central European University: @CEU
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Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
• Central European University: CEU
• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD
• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
Follow us on social media!
• Central European University: @CEU
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Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
Glossary
The 2015 European Refugee Crisis
(01:57 or p.1 in the transcript)
In 2015, a record 1,005,504 asylum seekers and migrants reached Europe in search of security and a better future. (For definitions of refugee, asylum seeker and migrant see here). That same year, almost 4,000 people went missing in the trajectory to Europe, with many presumed to have drowned in the Mediterranean. Fifty percent of people came from Syria, followed by Afghanistan and Iraq. Most people landed on the shores of Italy and Greece, while others trekked from Turkey, through the Balkan states, into Hungary. The majority of refugees and migrants aimed to go to northern and western Europe, particularly Germany and Sweden, where reception and support facilities were deemed to be better. These countries were already home to family and community members of the countries of origin, which asylum seekers hoped would facilitate integration. The uptick in people arriving in Europe was due to several factors. After four years of a brutal civil war, many Syrians felt they could no longer risk their lives in the country. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which by then already hosted four million Syrian refugees, were not ideal options given limited work, education and housing opportunities. The situations in Afghanistan and Iraq were also becoming untenable as extremist groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State strengthened their grips on parts of the countries. In addition, political and social instability in Libya opened the door to increased human trafficking towards Europe. Concurrently, routes to Western Europe via the Balkans were also becoming a viable option: they were cheaper and came recommended by smugglers paid to get people into Europe. This did not result in a rerouting of people, but rather an increase in the number of travellers via the various routes. Another factor that increased the number of migrants and refugees was Germany’s announcement on August 21, 2015, that it would suspend the Dublin Regulation for Syrian asylum seekers in Germany. This meant people could claim asylum in Germany, as opposed to in the country where they first reached Europe. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
• Central European University: CEU
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• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
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• Central European University: @CEU
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Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
Glossary
Foreign direct investment (FDI)
(10:34 or p.3 in the transcript)
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a category of cross-border investment in which an investor resident in one economy establishes a lasting interest in and a significant degree of influence over an enterprise resident in another economy. Ownership of 10 percent or more of the voting power in an enterprise in one economy by an investor in another economy is evidence of such a relationship. FDI is a key element in international economic integration because it creates stable and long-lasting links between economies. FDI is an important channel for the transfer of technology between countries, promotes international trade through access to foreign markets, and can be an important vehicle for economic development. source
Mali Civil War
(17:15 or p.5 in the transcript)
Mali has been in crisis since 2012, when a northern separatist rebellion led by members of the minority ethnic Tuareg community paved the way for a military coup and an Islamist insurgent advance. Rebels—bolstered by arms from Libya and fighters with ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)—declared an independent state of “Azawad” in the north. By mid-2012, AQIM and two allied groups had outmaneuvered the separatists to assert control over much of the north. At the transitional government’s request, France deployed its military in early 2013 to counter an Islamist insurgent advance and ousted insurgent leaders from major towns in the north. A U.N. peacekeeping operation, MINUSMA, was established in mid-2013 to help stabilize the country, absorbing a nascent African-led intervention force. Veteran politician Ibrahim Boubacar Kéïta was elected president, at which point donors, including the United States, normalized relations with Bamako. French forces transitioned into Operation Barkhane, a regional counterterrorism mission that received U.S. military logistical support, in 2014. Under international pressure to reach a peace deal in the north, the government signed an accord in 2015 with two armed coalitions: one led by ex-separatists, and the other by pro-unity groups with ties to Bamako. President Kéïta was reelected in 2018, but opposition mounted over corruption, allegedly fraudulent legislative elections, insecurity, and economic hardships. Large street protests erupted against Kéïta’s administration in mid-2020. State security forces cracked down on protesters, and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mediators failed to achieve a roadmap out of the impasse. The 2020 coup d’état followed. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Tigray War
(03:21 or p.1 in the transcript)
Between 2020 and 2022, Ethiopia fought a war with militants from its northernmost region of Tigray, then under the control of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The conflict was one of the deadliest in recent world history and drew international attention for a preponderance of alleged war crimes, human rights abuses, and ethnic cleansing in Tigray. The war formally ended in November 2022; Tigray was left in ruins, and its capital was turned over to the federal government. Due to the conflict, 5.1 million Ethiopians became internally displaced in 2021 alone, a record for the most people internally displaced in any country in any single year at the time. Thousands also fled to Sudan and other countries in the region. By the time the Pretoria peace agreement took effect, the Tigray War and its associated humanitarian disaster had killed approximately 600,000 people. In late 2022, humanitarian groups were permitted to meaningfully operate in Tigray for the first time since November 2020. source
African Union
(11:37 or p.4 in the transcript)
African Union (AU), intergovernmental organization, was established in 2002, to promote unity and solidarity of African states, to spur economic development, and to promote international cooperation. The African Union (AU) replaced the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU’s headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The OAU was established on May 25, 1963, and its activities included diplomacy (especially in support of African liberation movements), mediation of boundary conflicts and regional and civil wars, and research in economics and communications. The OAU maintained the “Africa group” at the United Nations (UN) through which many of its efforts at international coordination were channeled. The OAU was instrumental in bringing about the joint cooperation of African states in the work of the Group of 77, which acts as a caucus of developing nations within the UN Conference on Trade and Development. In 2000, in a move spearheaded by Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, it was proposed that the OAU be replaced by a new body, the African Union. The African Union was to be more economic in nature, similar to the European Union, and would contain a central bank, a court of justice, and an all-Africa parliament. A Constitutive Act, which provided for the establishment of the African Union, was ratified by two-thirds of the OAU’s members and came into force on May 26, 2001. After a transition period, the African Union replaced the OAU in July 2002. In 2004 the AU’s Pan-African Parliament was inaugurated, and the organization agreed to create a peacekeeping force, the African Standby Force, of about 15,000 soldiers. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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• Central European University: @CEU
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Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
• Central European University: CEU
• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD
• The Podcast Company: scopeaudio
Follow us on social media!
• Central European University: @CEU
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Subscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks!
Glossary
Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity
(05:36 or p.2 in the transcript)
On November 21, 2013, one and a half thousand people rallied through social networks. They took to the Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) to express their protest against pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. At the same time, people in different cities of Ukraine gathered every day and organized events in support of European integration. On the night of November 29-30, about 400 activists, mostly students, remained on the streets of Kyiv. Armed fighters of the former police unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine called “Berkut” forced people out of the square. They used explosive packages, beating people with batons and stomping them with their feet. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the center of Kyiv on December 1, 2013, to protest the forceful dispersal of peaceful protesters. Due to the European integration slogans, the events were called Euromaidan. This turned into a struggle for the renewal of the state system, the defense of democratic ideas, and the refusal to submit to the pro-Russian regime. The struggle became known as the Revolution of Dignity. Protesters occupied the building of the Kyiv City State Administration (KMDA) and the House of Trade Unions, where the Headquarters of the National Resistance were located. Independence Square and nearby streets were filled with protesters. Euromaidan activists began to set up tent cities, surrounded by barricades and several roadblocks. On December 8, 2013, the “March of Millions” took place in Kyiv, a public event with over a million participants. Activists decided to block the Presidential Administration and Government buildings. On the night of December 10-11, “Berkut” and units of internal forces launched an assault to disperse peaceful protesters. The impetus for the escalation of the confrontation was the adoption of “dictatorship laws” by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on January 16, 2014. They limited the rights of citizens and expanded the powers of special officers to punish participants in protest actions. On January 19, Euromaidan started a move to prepare an open-ended picket of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The march met with units of internal troops and special units of “Berkut” on Hrushevsky Street — clashes began that lasted all night. Armed security forces used stun grenades and rubber bullets, as well as a water cannon, against the demonstrators. Euromaidan activists wore construction helmets, and they threw cobblestones and Molotov cocktails at the police. On January 22, 2014, another illegal decision was made to extend the powers of the security forces that acted against Euromaidan participants. They were allowed to use light noise and smoke grenades delivered from the Russian Federation. On this day, for the first time during the Revolution of Dignity, two activists – Armenian Serhii Nigoyan and Belarusian Mykhailo Zhiznevskyi – died from gunshot wounds on Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv. Hundreds were injured by rubber bullets, debris, and chemical burns. At the end of January, the uprising spread to other regions of Ukraine. Protesters occupied administrative buildings, and they removed pro-Russian heads of state administrations from their positions. On February 18, 2014, activists marched to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, where deputies were supposed to consider changes to the Constitution of Ukraine. Activists called on the parliament to return the Constitution of 2004, according to which the political system of Ukraine was supposed to become parliamentary-presidential again, which reduced the possibilities for usurpation of power. The peaceful offensive turned into mass clashes between the Euromaidan and security forces. The Berkut police special unit dispersed the demonstrators on the approaches to the parliament and began an assault on the Maidan. On this day, more than 20 Euromaidans were killed with firearms. The events of February 20, 2014, on Instytutska Street in Kyiv entered the modern history of Ukraine as “Bloody Thursday”. On this day, snipers killed 48 Euromaidans. On the same day in 2014, Russia began the occupation of Crimea, and in the spring they invaded Eastern Ukraine. Eight years later, in 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Nation-state
(07:01 or p.2 in the transcript)
Nation-state is a territorially bounded sovereign polity—i.e., a state—that is ruled in the name of a community of citizens who identify themselves as a nation. The legitimacy of a nation-state’s rule over a territory and over the population inhabiting it stems from the right of a core national group within the state (which may include all or only some of its citizens) to self-determination. Members of the core national group see the state as belonging to them and consider the approximate territory of the state to be their homeland. Accordingly, they demand that other groups, both within and outside the state, recognize and respect their control over the state. As a political model, the nation-state fuses two principles: the principle of state sovereignty, first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which recognizes the right of states to govern their territories without external interference; and the principle of national sovereignty, which recognizes the right of national communities to govern themselves. National sovereignty in turn is based on the moral-philosophical principle of popular sovereignty, according to which states belong to their peoples. The latter principle implies that legitimate rule of a state requires some sort of consent by the people. That requirement does not mean, however, that all nation-states are democratic. Indeed, many authoritarian rulers have presented themselves—both to the outside world of states and internally to the people under their rule—as ruling in the name of a sovereign nation. source
The Yellow Vests Protests
(37:51 or p.10 in the transcript)
In France, in November 2018, the gilets jaunes started as a movement directed against what was considered to beexcessive taxation, especially on fuel. Protesters wearing gilets jaunes – yellow high visibility vests which motorists are legally obliged to have in their car and wear in case of accident or breakdown – blocked major roads as a sign of protest. This thus led to the collective name of the movement: the gilets jaunes (or yellow vests in English). Beyond the sustained blocking of some roads, the movement developed into regular demonstrations on Saturdays across the country blocking roads and city centers. At their peak in November 2018, the movement mobilized between 300,000 and 1.3 million people, depending on sources. Not unsurprisingly, considering the fractured, spontaneous and leaderless nature of the protests, the demands of the protesters spread to include the resignation of the French president, a general reduction in taxes, increases in public services and state pensions, and so on. Some gilets jaunes even called for revolution and said the movement was the start of a civil war. The polymorphous, uncontrolled and uncontrollable nature of the movement also provided an opportunity for some of its supporters to engage in violence against the police and symbols of the state such as motorway tollbooths, police speed cameras (over 50% of which were destroyed), government buildings, locations associated with the elite (such as Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs-Elysées) and so on. This violence is said to have cost the French economy an estimated at €200 million according to the French insurance industry and has resulted directly or indirectly in 12 deaths and 4000 injured. source
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Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:
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Glossary
Feudalism
(03:10 or p.1 in the transcript)
Feudalism as a historiographic construct designated the social, economic, and political conditions in western Europe during the early Middle Ages between the 5th and 12th centuries. Feudalism and the related term feudal system are labels invented long after the period to which they were applied. They refer to what those who invented them perceived as the most significant and distinctive characteristics of the early and central Middle Ages. The expressions féodalité and feudal system were coined by the beginning of the 17th century, and the English words feudality and feudalism (as well as feudal pyramid) were in use by the end of the 18th century. They were derived from the Latin words feudum (“fief”) and feodalitas (services connected with the fief), both of which were used during the Middle Ages and later to refer to a form of property holding. Use of the terms associated with feudum to denote the essential characteristics of the early Middle Ages has invested the fief with exaggerated prominence and placed undue emphasis on the importance of a special mode of land tenure to the detriment of other, more significant aspects of social, economic, and political life. source
The Great Depression (1929)
(19:44 or p.5 in the transcript)
Great Depression was the worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world, sparking fundamental changes in economic institutions, macroeconomic policy, and economic theory. Although it originated in the United States, the Great Depression caused drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in almost every country of the world. Its social and cultural effects were no less staggering, especially in the United States, where the Great Depression represented the harshest adversity faced by Americans since the Civil War. The timing and severity of the Great Depression varied substantially across countries. The Depression was particularly long and severe in the United States and Europe; it was milder in Japan and much of Latin America. Perhaps not surprisingly, the worst depression ever experienced by the world economy stemmed from a multitude of causes. Declines in consumer demand, financial panics, and misguided government policies caused economic output to fall in the United States, while the gold standard, which linked nearly all the countries of the world in a network of fixed currency exchange rates, played a key role in transmitting the American downturn to other countries. The recovery from the Great Depression was spurred largely by the abandonment of the gold standard and the ensuing monetary expansion. The economic impact of the Great Depression was enormous, including both extreme human suffering and profound changes in economic policy. source
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