Advertise on podcast: The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. In this episode of the Andrea Mitchell Center podcast, Joshua Rose speaks with Penn Political Science Professor JULIA LYNCH about her book Getting Better: The Policy and Politics of Reducing Health Inequalities and the politics of public health. Drawing on case studies from the United States, Brazil, Germany, and the UK, the conversation explores how social inequality, democratic participation, and political will shape health outcomes - and why expanding political voice may be one of the most powerful tools for improving public health.

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE.  Host JOSHUA ROSE speaks with Dr. ADAM MOHR, Senior Lecturer in Penn's Critical Writing Program, about his 2023 book The West African Revival: Faith Tabernacle Congregation on the Guinea Coast, 1918–1929. Mohr traces how a Philadelphia-based divine-healing church became an unlikely catalyst for a mass revival across West Africa in the aftermath of the 1918 influenza pandemic—when medical systems faltered and religious healing practices took on new urgency. Mohr follows the revival's long arc into the present, including the Pentecostal traditions it helped seed—and the striking ways those West African churches have since returned to Philadelphia through migration.

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. In this episode of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy podcast, host JOSHUA ROSE speaks with Penn Law and History Professor SERENA MAYERI about her book Marital Privilege: Marriage, Inequality, and the Transformation of American Law. Mayeri unpacks how Supreme Court decision-making around family and privacy can defy ideological expectations, why challenges to marriage's legal primacy were often fragmented rather than movement-coordinated, and how today's "traditional family values" revival intersects with longstanding conservative legal projects and post-Dobbs uncertainty.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Over the past decade we have witnessed an unfolding global crisis of democracy, in its liberal-democratic, representative, capitalist form. As elite power has continued to grow without constraints, classical democratic theory has struggled to keep pace with these momentous changes. In this episode, political theorist SAMUEL BAGG sat down with RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN to discuss how elites gain systematic advantages in modern society, and why resisting this state capture is crucial for thinking about the future of democracy. Episode recorded in February 2025.

Interviewer: MATT BERKMAN. Journalist and anti-corruption investigator JOSH STANFIELD joins host MATT BERKMAN to unpack Virginia's feverish election season, discussing campaign cash, a runaway data-center boom, and ethics enforcement. Drawing on his FOIA work, Stanfield details lawsuits over nondisclosure by statewide officials, ICE activity, and government surveillance, reflecting on what all of this means for democracy in Virginia today.

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. Philosopher SCOTT SEHON joins the podcast to discuss his book Socialism: A Logical Introduction (Oxford University Press). Sehon presents a "master argument" for socialism and defines socialism along two axes: collective economic control and egalitarian distribution. He addresses common critiques of socialism based on rights, the sanctity of private property, and concerns about exploitation. The discussion spans Hayek and Friedman, climate change as the clearest market failure, and how logical reasoning can cut through today's polarized debates. *This episode was recorded last year.

Interviewer: MATTHEW ROTH. Anti-vaccine rhetoric is on the rise in the U.S., encouraged now by MAHA-dominated health policies emerging from Washington. It is tempting to paint this as a top-down process, but neonatologist and immunologist BENJAMIN A. FENSTERHEIM argues that the problem runs deeper and is rooted in the institutional arrangements of our healthcare system. In his conversation with historian Matthew Roth, he describes his work caring for newborns, the increasing pushback by parents against routine preventive measures, and his reflections on how the relationship between doctors and patients must fundamentally change to ensure that the best medical decisions are made. Fensterheim is an Attending Neonatologist with the Division of Neonatology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and an Instructor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Interviewer: CARRIE WELSH. Why does the American criminal justice system produce unreliable knowers? In this episode, host CARRIE WELSH is joined by philosopher and prison education director JOHN FANTUZZO and re-entry consultant and executive director RAYMOND POWELL for a conversation about the epistemological foundations of mass incarceration. Drawing on a forthcoming paper and lived experience, they unpack how the prison's economy of credibility systematically undermines the efforts and perspectives of incarcerated people and extends punishment far beyond prison walls. Their conversation ends with a call to center the knowledge of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in efforts to reduce society's reliance on incarceration.

Interviewer: MATTHEW ROTH. In their 2024 book Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos, Professors RUSSELL MUIRHEAD (Dartmouth) and NANCY ROSENBLUM (Harvard) analyze the emergence of "ungoverning," a political trend aimed at limiting or dismantling key functions of the administrative state. They situate this development within broader shifts in American politics, tracing its roots to earlier debates over the role of government and examining how it has been intensified in the Trump era.  In conversation with historian Matthew Roth, they reflect on what makes this movement distinctive, the challenges it poses for democratic governance, and the importance of safeguarding (and also reforming) the administrative state.

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE.  Historian and Penn Professor SOPHIA ROSENFELD discusses her new book The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life, exploring how choice became central to modern ideas of freedom — and why our obsession with it can leave us anxious, overwhelmed, and divided. From the rise of shopping and religious freedom to romance, politics, and reproductive rights, she traces the surprising history and complicated legacy of living in an "age of choice."

Interviewer: MATTHEW ROTH. When the Sars-CoV-2 spread across the world in the spring of 2020, it triggered unprecedented lockdowns in nearly every country, including democracies where such drastic measures were previously considered unlikely to be feasible. The hope was that the virus could be stopped and eventually eliminated, and that deaths could be minimized in the meantime. In their new book, In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, political scientists FRANCES LEE and STEPHEN MACEDO examine the sequence of decisions that led to these policies and conclude that not only did they not work as envisioned, but that the decision-making process itself was deeply flawed. In their conversation with historian Matthew Roth, the authors describe the pre-existing consensus among health officials, that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) would likely be counterproductive; how that consensus quickly flipped during the crisis, after which open debate was stifled; the political polarization that led to different measures in different U.S. states; and the reasons why the comparative, pre-vaccine mortality data from the states show no sign of that a more stringent approach helped. 

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. In this episode, host Rafael Khachaturian speaks with sociologist and political theorist NARA ROBERTA SILVA about the trajectory of Brazil's left over the past two decades. Together, they unpack the rise and contradictions of the Workers' Party (PT), Brazil's role in the Latin American "pink tide," and the tensions between grassroots mobilization, state power, and neoliberal constraint. From participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre to Lula's turn to pragmatic governance, Silva offers a sharp, historically grounded reflection on the promises and limits of leftist rule in the Global South. The conversation also turns to the reactionary surge that followed, tracing the conditions that enabled Jair Bolsonaro's rise.

Interviewer: MATTHEW ROTH. In an era that has seen the rise of right-wing populism, which has often pitted itself against the institutions of liberal democracy, recent election outcomes in Canada and Australia hint at a counter-trend. Political scientist LORI TURNBULL, an expert on not just Canadian politics but of the nuts-and-bolts of Canadian democracy, guides us through her country's recent election, which in many ways was similar to that of the 2024 US election. A highly unpopular leader was dragging down the electoral prospects of his party as it was challenged by an insurgent conservative movement. The outcome, however, was very different. In her discussion with historian Matthew Roth, she explores why the the national political landscape changed so swiftly, what the stakes of the recent election were, and how Canadian democratic institutions differ in their functioning and spirit from those of the US. And she assesses the long-term health of Canadian democracy as it faces many of the same cultural and political challenges reshaping the rest of the world, as well as some that are uniquely its own. 

INTERVIEWER: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN. In this episode, Rafael Khachaturian speaks with IRA ALLEN, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies at Northern Arizona University, about his latest book, Panic Now: Tools for Humanizing. Allen explores panic as a vital, practical response to the unfolding crises of climate, capitalism, and colonial legacies. He argues for embracing panic as a catalyst for solidarity, novel social forms, and collective resilience in the face of civilizational collapse—offering a provocative rethinking of how we might navigate and even thrive amid uncertainty.

INTERVIWER: YARA DAMAJ. Author SARAH TOWLE discusses her book, Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands.