Between democracy and autocracy is an anocracy, defined by political scientists as a country that has elements of both forms of government — usually one that's on the way up to becoming a full democracy or on the way down to full autocracy. This messy middle is the state when civil wars are most likely to start and the one that requires the most diligence from that country's citizens to prevent a civil war from breaking out.
Barbara F. Walter, author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them has spent decades studying civil wars around the world and working with other political scientists to quantify how strong democracy is in a given country. She joins us this week to discuss those findings, how the democratic health of the United States has shifted over the past decade, and more.
Walter is the Rohr Professor of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and completed post docs at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University and the War and Peace Institute at Columbia University.
How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them
Barbara F. Walter on Twitter
Abortion is not always a clash of absolutes
Millennials' slow climb to political power
A summer of the individual vs. the common good
Extreme maps, extreme politics [reboradcast]
Jan-Werner Müller on democracy's rules
Does Congress promote partisan gridlock? [rebroadcast]
Pete Davis is dedicated to the hard work of democracy
Masha Gessen on the Moscow duel
Walter Shaub on transparency, ethics, and democracy
A different take on local news and democracy
How to end democracy's doom loop [rebroadcast]
Democracy as a way of life
Your guide to ranked-choice voting [rebroadcast]
Is it possible to overdo democracy? [rebroadcast]
Looking back to move forward
The people vs. the bureaucrats in Flint
There is no "I" in democracy
How democracies can win the war on reality
Conspiracism finds a home on the intellectual right
The Federalist Society's ideas have consequences for democracy
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
City Manager Unfiltered
Potencial Americano
The ASIC Podcast
The Chris Plante Show
Red Eye Radio