Democracy Jukebox

SNF Agora faculty and fellows contribute to vital public conversations not only through research and writing, but also through the spoken word. This page features selected podcast appearances, both as hosts and guests, where our experts engage in dialogue on topics ranging from civic engagement and democratic resilience to global politics and social movements.

The views expressed are those of the expert and do not represent the views of the SNF Agora Institute or Johns Hopkins University.

Selected Podcasts

  • SNF Agora Professor Steve Teles joins the Realignment Podcast to discuss how Democratic factions are evolving in the Trump era, what lessons they can (and can't) draw from the GOP’s past, and why real change often means challenging your own side.

  • SNF Agora professor Martha S. Jones is an acclaimed scholar and historian whose work illuminates how we understand citizenship and the Black American experience. She has now applied those skills to a memoir, "The Trouble of Color". She gives us new ways to think about race and the color line.

  • What Exactly Is Required to Preserve Our Democracy? It will take a “total mobilization of our forces,” in the words of new Autocracy in America host Garry Kasparov. With SNF Senior Fellow, Anne Applebaum

  • The Supreme Court's ruling last week on birthright citizenship is causing confusion as Trump's ban is expected to take effect in some parts of the country in less than 30 days. Martha Jones, a historian of citizenship at Johns Hopkins University, explains more.

  • Steve Teles, Niskanen Center Senior Fellow and SNF Agora Institute faculty, returns to The Realignment to discuss the abundance agenda.

  • SNF Agora Institute faculty Lilliana Mason created and hosts episode 44. Where does American democracy stand as we are headed into the summer?

  • In something of a followup to our last episode about Elon Musk’s playbook, today we’re digging deeper into the comparison between Washington and Silicon Valley and what it tells us about DOGE. Johns Hopkins International Affairs professor Henry Farrell has been looking specifically at the concept of “blitzscaling”, and this week he joins us on the podcast to talk about how Elon Musk and DOGE are bringing blitzscaling to government.

  • Mini-Interview: Dr. Ruth Braunstein on Resisting Evangelical Extremism

  • SNF Agora faculty Ruth Braunstein maps the contested moral landscape in which Americans experience and make sense of the tax system.

  • Martha S. Jones grew up feeling her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But weeks into college, a Black Studies classmate challenged Jones’s right to speak. Suspicious of the color of her skin and the texture of her hair, he confronted her with a question that inspired a lifetime of introspection: “Who do you think you are?”