Jenna Spinelle

These days, it can feel like some politicians are working against experts in public health and other fields when it comes to actions surrounding COVID-19. There's always been a tension between populism and expertise, but our media landscape and strong partisan polarization are pushing that tension to its breaking point — or so it seems, anyway.

The COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. intensified just as the 2020 Census was getting underway in earnest. As Americans fill their days with news about the new coronavirus, the Census Bureau is doing everything it can to spread the word about completing the Census online while grappling with how to do critical in-person follow up during a time of social distancing. As our guest this week explains, the consequences of an undercount directly impact public health in significant ways.

As if the COVID-19 pandemic wasn't enough to deal with, the World Health Organization says we're now in an infodemic alongside it. We've seen this play out as misinformation and conspiracy theories move from digital to mainstream media and cast a shadow of doubt about information coming from the government and public health experts.

COVID-19 has exposed longstanding racial and economic inequalities in American life, which is evident in the fact that communities of color are being hit the hardest by both the medical and the economic impacts of the virus. Our guest this week argues that now is the time to empower those communities to have a stake in building a better future for themselves and making our democracy stronger in the process.

This episode was recorded before COVID-19 changed everything, but many of the themes we discuss about public opinion polling and the importance of trust and facts to a democracy are more relevant now than ever before.

We spoke with Michael Dimock, president of the Pew Research Center, about how the organization approaches polling in a world that increasingly presents competing partisan visions of reality. Trust in the media and government has been declining for years, if not longer, and may be exacerbated by COVID-19.

From Maine to California, people across the country have gathered at their state capitols over the past few weeks to protest stay at home orders issued by their governors in response to COVID-19. Protest is a hallmark of any democracy, but what happens when doing so comes with health risks? What is motivating people to take to the streets? How should media organizations cover the protests, and how do the people protesting feel about the media?

With each passing day, the relationship between states and the federal government seems to grow more complicated. States are forming coalitions and working together to chart a path out of COVID-19, while sometimes competing with one another for resources. This situation is unique in many ways, but brings to light the complexities of American federalism — our topic of discussion this week.

The general election is going to happen in November, and candidates still need to figure out ways to get their messages out to voters. COVID-19 has changed everything about the way candidates communicate with potential voters and how they position themselves in relationship to the virus.

On this Take Note, we talked about public health messaging, specifically how the U.S. government has communicated about and reacted to the coronavirus outbreak. Also, how dealing with a pandemic is different in a democracy than in an authoritarian country.

Our guest was Nita Bharti, an assistant professor of biology and the Lloyd Huck Early Career Professor in the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State.

This interview is from the Democracy Works podcast, a collaboration between WPSU and the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State. 

The COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. intensified just as the 2020 Census was getting underway in earnest. As Americans fill their days with news about the new coronavirus, the Census Bureau is doing everything it can to spread the word about completing the Census online while grappling with how to do critical in-person follow up during a time of social distancing. As our guest this week explains, the consequences of an undercount directly impact public health in significant ways.

As COVID-19 intensifies, questions about the future of the remaining primary elections and the general election in November are beginning to surface. The last thing you want is large groups of people standing in line near each other for long periods of time. At a time when seemingly everything in life has gone remote, states are starting to think about what a remote election would look like, too. Our guest this week is one of the people helping them figure it all out.

As we've seen over the past weeks and months, democracies and authoritarian countries respond to pandemics very differently. There are balances to be struck — liberty and community, human rights and disease mitigation — that every country's government and culture handle a little differently. We dive into that this week with our first ever all-remote episode as we adjust to the new normal of life during COVID-19.

We've talked a lot on this show about the rise of authoritarian leaders around the world — from Viktor Orban in Hungary to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. We sometimes tend to paint these countries with same brush, often referring to the book How Democracies Die. While the book remains of our favorites, this week's episode is a reminder that populism does not look the same everywhere.

Super Tuesday is this week, but voters in many states have already cast their ballots for races happening this week and throughout the rest of the primary season. From Pennsylvania to Florida, states are expanding access to early voting to give people more options to make their voices heard in our democracy.

As the South Carolina primary approaches, all eyes are on the African American vote. This week, Michael Berkman is taking over the interviewer's chair for a roundtable discussion on black politics with Ray Block and Candis Watts Smith, who are associate professors of African American studies and political science at Penn State.

ome of the most talked about issues in Congress these days are not about the substance of policies or bills being debated on the floor. Instead, the focus is on partisan conflict between the parties and the endless debate about whether individual members of Congress will break with party ranks on any particular vote. This behavior allows the parties to emphasize the differences between them, which makes it easier to court donors and hold voter attention.

Elections are the bedrock of any democracy. Without confidence in the process or the results, confidence in democracy itself is vulnerable. With the primary season underway and the general election just a few months away, conversations about election security are starting to enter the public conscience. 

The 2020 primary season officially begins today with the Iowa caucus, followed by the New Hampshire primary on February 11 and the South Carolina and Nevada primaries at the end of the month.

It's easy to forget that the primaries have not looked like they do now. In fact, it was not until 1968 that things really began to morph in to the system of state-by-state elections that we know today. Before that, nominees were largely chosen by party leaders in preverbal smoke-filled back rooms.

The Women's March 2020 was held in cities across the country on Jan. 18. What began as a conversation on social media has evolved into a network of groups and organizations that are united in opposition to the Trump administration.

Since 2008, the Tea Party and the Resistance have caused some major shake-ups for the Republican and Democratic parties. The changes fall outside the scope of traditional party politics, and outside the realm of traditional social science research. To better understand what's going on Theda Skocpol, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Strategy at Harvard and Director of the Scholars Strategy Network, convened a group of researchers to study the organizations at the root of these grassroots movements.

This week, we begin a new year and a new season with a look ahead what 2020 will mean for democracy in the United States and around the world. We know that there will be a Census and an election, but will they be carried out in a democratic way? The escalating conflict with Iran is another unknown, but one that will no doubt have ramifications for democracy in the U.S. and abroad.

While the Democracy Works team enjoys a holiday break, we are rebroadcasting an episode with E.J. Dionne that was recorded in March 2019. The McCourtney Institute for Democracy brought Dionne to Penn State for a talk on "making America empathetic again." After spending some with him, it's clear that he walks the walk when it comes to empathy.

As we enter the holiday season, Robert Talisse thinks it's a good idea to take a break from politics. In fact, he might go so far as to say democracy is better off if you do.

Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and author of a new book called "Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place." The book combines philosophical analysis with real-world examples to examine the infiltration of politics into all social spaces, and the phenomenon of political polarization.

One of the things we heard in our listener survey (which there's still time to take, by the way) is that we should have more young people on the show as guests. It was a great suggestion and, after having this conversation, we're so glad to have received it.

Hedrick Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of bestselling books The Russians, Who Stole the American Dream? and many others. Over the course of his nearly 60 years in journalism, he's interviewed some of the biggest politicians and power brokers on the national and international stage. Now, his reporter's curiosity has led him to places like Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Hartford, Connecticut to report on efforts to end gerrymandering, remove money from politics, and fight corruption through grassroots organizing.

This week's episode is a conversation between Michael Berkman, Chris Beem, and Michael Baranowski of The Politics Guys, a podcast that looks at political issues in the news through a bipartisan, academic lens.

Baranowski is an associate professor of political science at Northern Kentucky University. His focus is American political institutions, public policy, and media — which makes him a great match for our own Michael and Chris.

Ranked-choice voting has been in the news a lot lately. It was adopted in New York City's November 2019 election, used for the first time in U.S. Congressional elections last year, and will be the method by which at least a few states choose a Democratic primary candidate in 2020.

But, what is it? How does it work? And, is it more democratic than the single-vote method we're used to? This week's guest has answers to all of those questions.

We’ve talked about immigration several times on this show with good reason. The role that people coming to the United States play in our democracy is an important question and something states, cities, and towns across the country will continue to grapple with as demographics shift.

More than 600 million people voted in India's most recent election, but that does not mean all is well with democracy there. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP recently won re-election on a platform based on Hindu nationalism. As we've seen with other countries experiencing democratic erosion, the people and parties coming to power do not value the liberalism that's essential to liberal democracy.

Climate change one of the most pressing issues of our time, but it's so big that it can be difficult to imagine how you as an individual can make an impact — or even know how to talk about it with other people in a meaningful way. This episode offers a few creative suggestions for addressing both of those things.

Our guest is Graham Bullock, associate professor of political science and environmental studies at Davidson College. His work covers everything from public policy to deliberative democracy, and the ways those things interact when it comes to climate and sustainability.