Best David Neiman Podcasts (2025)

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160* Hannah Arendt's Refugee Politics (JP) 21:04

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8m ago21:04

21:04

John's “Arendt's Refugee Politics” came out in Public Books in early November. He made the case that his favorite political philosopher, Hannah Arendt is an opponent both of identity politics and also of a cosmpolitan universalism that is blind to all the differences (of race, gender, belief) that make us who though not what we are. Going back to o…

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160* Hannah Arendt's Refugee Politics (JP) 21:04

22m ago21:04

21:04

John's “Arendt's Refugee Politics” came out in Public Books in early November. He made the case that his favorite political philosopher, Hannah Arendt is an opponent both of identity politics and also of a cosmpolitan universalism that is blind to all the differences (of race, gender, belief) that make us who though not what we are. Going back to o…

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Can Feminism be African?: A Conversation with Minna Salami 34:01

8m ago34:01

34:01

Transcript of the interview Minna Salami is a writer, social critic, and thought leader on feminism, knowledge production, and the aesthetics and structures of power. She formerly served as Programme Chair and Senior Fellow at THE NEW INSTITUTE, where she led the Black Feminism and the Polycrisis programme. Her work sits at the intersection of idea…

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Can Feminism be African?: A Conversation with Minna Salami 34:01

22m ago34:01

34:01

Transcript of the interview Minna Salami is a writer, social critic, and thought leader on feminism, knowledge production, and the aesthetics and structures of power. She formerly served as Programme Chair and Senior Fellow at THE NEW INSTITUTE, where she led the Black Feminism and the Polycrisis programme. Her work sits at the intersection of idea…

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Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025) 54:29

3m ago54:29

54:29

In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced econo…

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Nicholas Buccola, "One Man’s Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle Over an American Ideal" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:15:40

1d ago1:15:40

1:15:40

From the acclaimed author of The Fire Is upon Us, the dramatic untold story of Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr.'s decade-long clash over the meaning of freedom--and how their conflicting visions still divide American politics In the mid-1950s, Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as the leaders of two diametrically opposed f…

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On Democracy and Bullshit with Hélène Landemore 1:06:15

15m ago1:06:15

1:06:15

Today I’m speaking with Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus on her 2020 book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2020). Bullshit is a feature of both democracies and dictatorships alike, but it takes di…

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On Democracy and Bullshit with Hélène Landemore 1:06:15

28m ago1:06:15

1:06:15

Today I’m speaking with Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus on her 2020 book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2020). Bullshit is a feature of both democracies and dictatorships alike, but it takes di…

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Cory Doctorow on Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It 1:36:34

4h ago1:36:34

1:36:34

In this special livestream edition of Peoples & Things, host Lee Vinsel and very special guest host, danah boyd, formerly of Microsoft Research, presently Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University, chat with writer and activist, Cory Doctorow, about his new book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do Abo…

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Caroline Jack, "Business as Usual: How Sponsored Media Sold American Capitalism in the Twentieth Century" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:10:38

7d ago1:10:38

1:10:38

Business as Usual: How Sponsored Media Sold American Capitalism in the Twentieth Century, (U Chicago Press, 2024) reveals how American capitalism has been promoted in the most ephemeral of materials: public service announcements, pamphlets, educational films, and games—what Caroline Jack calls “sponsored economic education media.” These items, whic…

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Lisa Vanhala, "Governing the End: The Making of Climate Change Loss and Damage" (U Chicago Press, 2025) 50:06

8d ago50:06

50:06

A searing account of how the international community is trying—and failing—to address the worst effects of climate change and the differential burdens borne by rich and poor countries. Climate change is increasingly accepted as a global emergency creating irrevocable losses for the planet. Yet, each country experiences these losses differently, and…

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Joseph Stiglitz, "The Origins of Inequality" (Oxford UP, 2025) 39:47

14h ago39:47

39:47

Joseph E. Stiglitz has had a remarkable career. He is a brilliant academic, capped by sharing the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and the Nobel Peace Prize, and honorary degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and more than fifty other universities, and elected not only to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Lett…

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Two Decades On: The African Union, Power, and Africa’s Democratic Future 36:38

6d ago36:38

36:38

When the African Union was founded in 2002, it promised to deliver a more united, prosperous, and people-centred continent. Two decades later, Africa’s political landscape tells a more complex story: one of ambition and frustration, democratic progress and reversal, renewed activism, and enduring inequality. How far has the AU come in shaping “The …

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Wolfgang Wagner, "The Democratic Politics of Military Interventions" (Oxford UP, 2020) 37:32

1d ago37:32

37:32

According to a widely shared notion, foreign affairs are exempted from democratic politics, i.e. party-political divisions are overcome-and should be overcome-for the sake of a common national interest. This book shows that this is not the case. Examining votes in the US Congress and several European parliaments, the book demonstrates that contesta…

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Clint Smith, "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America" (Little, Brown and Company, 2021) 1:27:27

11d ago1:27:27

1:27:27

How do we narrate history, both the troubling past and what we chose to remember? Clint Smith sets out to wrestle with this question and its relationship to enslavement in his first nonfiction book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown and Company, 2021). From Monticello plantation to Angola …

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Ihnji Jon, "Cities in the Anthropocene: New Ecology and Urban Politics" (Pluto Press, 2021) 43:07

12d ago43:07

43:07

Climate change is real, and extreme weather events are its physical manifestations. These extreme events affect how we live and work in cities, and subsequently the way we design, plan, and govern them. Taking action 'for the environment' is not only a moral imperative; instead, it is activated by our everyday experience in the city. Based on the a…

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E. Alaverdov and M. W. Bari, "Cultural Heritage Protection and Restoration in Conflict and Post-Conflict Zones" (IGI Global, 2025) 38:18

12d ago38:18

38:18

The protection and restoration of cultural heritage is essential, especially in conflict and post-conflict zones. Armed conflicts frequently result in the destruction or collateral damage of cultural landmarks, artifacts, and traditions. In post-conflict recovery, preserving cultural heritage is not only a matter of historical conservation but help…

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What Democracy Does… and Does Not Do 29:31

13d ago29:31

29:31

This week on Democratic Dialogues, host Rachel Beatty Riedl welcomes Maya Tudor, Professor of Government and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. In her recent article, “What Democracy Does and Does Not Do,” published in the Journal of Democracy, Tudor examines one of the most urgent questions of our time: Does…

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House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr. 55:13

14d ago55:13

55:13

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922–1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan’s first Black member of Congress, was the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till’s killers, worked behind the scenes with Martin Luther King Jr., and founded the…

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House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr. 55:13

14d ago55:13

55:13

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922–1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan’s first Black member of Congress, was the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till’s killers, worked behind the scenes with Martin Luther King Jr., and founded the…

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Carol Mason, "From the Clinics to the Capitol: How Opposing Abortion Became Insurrectionary" (U California Press, 2025) 57:21

3d ago57:21

57:21

Antiabortion stories, images, and policies have primed Americans to embrace attitudes and politics once deemed extreme. Abroad, US antiabortion tactics, personnel, and funds have contributed to a global rise of the Right. From the Clinics to the Capitol: How Opposing Abortion Became Insurrectionary (University of California Press, 2025) is a schola…

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Liam Graham, "Physics Fixes All the Facts" (Springer Nature, 2025) 46:53

9d ago46:53

46:53

Complex systems seem to magically emerge from the interactions of their parts. A whirlpool emerges from water molecules. A living cell from organic molecules. You emerge from the cells of your body. Not since chaos has a concept from physics spread like wildfire to other disciplines. Emergence can be found from chemistry to economics; from psycholo…

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Jack B. Greenberg and John A. Dearborn, "Congressional Expectations of Presidential Self-Restraint" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 48:21

15d ago48:21

48:21

Political Scientists Jack Greenberg (Yale University) and John Dearborn (Vanderbilt University) have a new book that focuses on the idea of presidential self-restraint and the ways in which the U.S. Congress has tried to design Executive positions with an eye towards making real this dimension of presidential norms. The concept of presidential self…

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brian bean, "Their End Is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition" (Haymarket, 2025) 1:00:38

16d ago1:00:38

1:00:38

Where do cops come from and what do they do? How did “modern policing” as we know it today come to be? What about the capitalist state necessitates policing? In this clear and comprehensive account of why and how the police—the linchpin of capitalism—function and exist, organizer and author brian bean presents a clear case for the abolition of poli…

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Joshua Castellino, "Calibrating Colonial Crime: Reparations and The Crime of Unjust Enrichment" (Policy Press, 2025) 52:59

5d ago52:59

52:59

While decolonization liberated territories, it left the root causes of historical injustice unaddressed. Governance change did not address past wrongs and transferred injustice through political and financial architectures. In Calibrating Colonial Crime: Reparations and The Crime of Unjust Enrichment (Bristol University Press/Policy Press, 2024) Dr…

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Muhammad H. Zaman, "Infected: How Power, Politics, and Privilege Use Science Against the World’s Most Vulnerable" (The New Press, 2025) 36:28

8d ago36:28

36:28

In Infected: How Power, Politics, and Privilege Use Science Against the World’s Most Vulnerable (The New Press, 2025), Professor Muhammad H. Zaman reveals the troubling history of how science and public health have been manipulated to serve the interests of power. Moving from the U.S.–Mexico border to Pakistan, from the Tuskegee syphilis trials to …

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Eram Alam, "The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare" (JHU Press, 2025) 51:39

17d ago51:39

51:39

For more than 60 years, the United States has trained fewer physicians than it needs, relying instead on the economically expedient option of soliciting immigrant physicians trained at the expense of other countries. The passage of the Hart–Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 expedited the entry of foreign medical graduates (FMGs) from p…

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Early Parenthood, Post-Partum Anxiety, and How Diet Affects Metal Health 1:02:22

4d ago1:02:22

1:02:22

Our first episode of season three kicks off with a very special, long-awaited guest…a woman who needs no introduction, but I’m giving her one anyway because she’s ‘a my wife—Amanda Neiman. We explain the reason for our truncated 2nd season and our exceptionally long hiatus: we had a baby! In new-parent fashion, our conversation is a wild, sleep-dep…

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Nancy Neiman, "Markets, Community and Just Infrastructures" (Routledge, 2020) 1:13:59

7d ago1:13:59

1:13:59

A series of market-related crises over the past two decades – financial, environmental, health, education, poverty – reinvigorated the debate about markets and social justice. Since then, counter-hegemonic movements all over the globe are attempting to redefine markets and the meaning of economic enterprise in people’s daily lives. Assessments of m…

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Natasha Piano, "Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science" (Harvard UP, 2025) 56:45

19d ago56:45

56:45

Do competitive elections secure democracy, or might they undermine it by breeding popular disillusionment with liberal norms and procedures? The so-called Italian School of Elitism, comprising Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Robert Michels, voiced this very concern. They feared that defining democracy exclusively through representative practice…

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Rachel Myrick, "Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability" (Princeton UP, 2025) 25:52

19d ago25:52

25:52

Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nati…

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Nancy Neiman, "Markets, Community and Just Infrastructures" (Routledge, 2020) 1:13:59

19d ago1:13:59

1:13:59

A series of market-related crises over the past two decades – financial, environmental, health, education, poverty – reinvigorated the debate about markets and social justice. Since then, counter-hegemonic movements all over the globe are attempting to redefine markets and the meaning of economic enterprise in people’s daily lives. Assessments of m…

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Tamar Mitts, "Safe Havens for Hate: The Challenge of Moderating Online Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025) 45:21

20d ago45:21

45:21

Content moderation on social media has become one of the most daunting challenges of our time. Nowhere is the need for action more urgent than in the fight against terrorism and extremism. Yet despite mass content takedowns, account suspensions, and mounting pressure on technology companies to do more, hate thrives online. Safe Havens for Hate: The…

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13.3 – Ismail Patel and Hatem Bazian 1:07:59

20d ago1:07:59

1:07:59

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Chella Ward spoke with Ismail Patel and Hatem Bazian about Pro-Palestinian resistance and the nature of protests - from the Iraq war demonstrations to the recent protests after the events of October 7th 2023. This conversation extended into the nature of colonial projects of occupation and the role coloniality s…

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Elif Kalaycioglu, "The Politics of World Heritage: Visions, Custodians, and Futures of Humanity" (Oxford UP, 2025) 58:18

21d ago58:18

58:18

What does it take to construct humanity's cultural history and what do these efforts produce in the world? In The Politics of World Heritage (Oxford UP, 2025), Elif Kalaycioglu analyzes UNESCO's flagship regime, which seeks to curate a cultural history of humanity, attached to "outstanding universal value" and tethered to goals of peace and solidar…

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Democratic Dialogues: Pathways of Democratic Backsliding, Resistance, and (Partial) Recoveries 42:09

23d ago42:09

42:09

A podcast from Cornell University’s Brooks School of Public Policy Center on Global Democracy About the Podcast Each week, co-hosts Rachel Beatty Riedl and Esam Boraey bring together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the challenges and possibilities facing democracy around the world. Produced by Cornell’s Center on Global…

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Democratic Dialogues: Pathways of Democratic Backsliding, Resistance, and (Partial) Recoveries 42:09

22d ago42:09

42:09

A podcast from Cornell University’s Brooks School of Public Policy Center on Global Democracy About the Podcast Each week, co-hosts Rachel Beatty Riedl and Esam Boraey bring together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the challenges and possibilities facing democracy around the world. Produced by Cornell’s Center on Global…

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Kate Epstein on How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:33:30

24d ago1:33:30

1:33:30

In this episode I sit down with Kate Epstein, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden, as she details her research on the intersection of defense contracting, intellectual property, and government secrecy in Great Britain and the United States. We talk about her process in researching and writing her latest book Analog Superp…

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Garrett Hardin’s Tragic Environmentalism 1:15:27

23d ago1:15:27

1:15:27

An ecologist in California claimed that the iron laws of nature locked humanity into destroying our environment. This meant that we must take drastic measures to rein in unfettered capitalism and the American habit of overconsumption, lest we deplete our common resources. That argument made Garrett Hardin one of the most influential and celebrated …

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Michael Lazarus, "Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx" (Stanford UP, 2025) 1:07:03

24d ago1:07:03

1:07:03

Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx by Michael Lazarus Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how…

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Michael Lazarus, "Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx" (Stanford UP, 2025) 1:07:03

25d ago1:07:03

1:07:03

Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx by Michael Lazarus Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how…

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Hindutva and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India 19:53

26d ago19:53

19:53

Kenneth Bo Nielsen is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and leader of the Centre for South Asian Democracy. M. Sudhir Selvaraj is Assistant Professor at the Department of Peace Studies and International Development at the University of Bradford. Kathinka Frøystad is Professor of South Asia Studies at the Universit…

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Taru Salmenkari, "Global Ideas, Local Adaptations: Chinese Activism and the Will to Make Civil Society" (Edward Elgar, 2025) 43:34

26d ago43:34

43:34

Exploring the boundaries, fringes, and inner workings of civil society, Taru Salmenkari investigates local forms of political agency in China in light of the globalization of political values, practices, and institutions in Global Ideas, Local Adaptations: Chinese Activism and the Will to Make Civil Society (Edward Elgar, 2025). She provides a theo…

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Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier, "Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship" (MIT Press, 2025) 43:32

28d ago43:32

43:32

AI is changing democracy. We still get to decide how. AI’s impact on democracy will go far beyond headline-grabbing political deepfakes and automated misinformation. Everywhere it will be used, it will create risks and opportunities to shake up long-standing power structures. In this highly readable and advisedly optimistic book, Rewiring Democracy…

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Nathan E. Sanders and Bruce Schneier, "Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship" (MIT Press, 2025) 43:32

28d ago43:32

43:32

AI is changing democracy. We still get to decide how. AI’s impact on democracy will go far beyond headline-grabbing political deepfakes and automated misinformation. Everywhere it will be used, it will create risks and opportunities to shake up long-standing power structures. In this highly readable and advisedly optimistic book, Rewiring Democracy…

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Matthew D. Nelsen, "The Color of Civics: Civic Education for a Multiracial Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023) 47:18

27d ago47:18

47:18

Matthew D. Nelsen, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, has a new book out that focuses on the content of civic education in the United States, and how we learn about the diverse and varied history of the United States. There is an ongoing and contemporary conversation about civic education in the United States, a…

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Yong-Shik Lee, "Sustainable Peace in Northeast Asia" (Anthem Press, 2023) 1:02:36

30d ago1:02:36

1:02:36

In the long run, countries in Northeast Asia will have to see the need for collective defense. Otherwise, you won’t be able to stop rivalry between powers like the U.S. and China. It sounds utopian now, but so did the idea of French and German soldiers serving under the same command a century ago. – Y.S. Lee, NBN Interview (2025) Sustainable Peace …

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Aileen Teague, "Policing on Drugs: The United States, Mexico, and the Origins of the Modern Drug War, 1969-2000" (Oxford UP, 2025) 55:18

30d ago55:18

55:18

Today, images of cartels, security agents donning face coverings, graphs depicting egregious murder rates, and military guards at US border crossings influence the world's perception of Mexico. Mexico's so-called drug war, as generally conceived by journalists and academics, was the product of recent cartel turf wars, the end of the PRI's single pa…

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José Marichal, "You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem: Renegotiating the Socio-Technical Contract" (Policy Press, 2025) 32:21

1M ago32:21

32:21

In the age of AI, where personal data fuels corporate profits and state surveillance, what are the implications for democracy? This incisive book You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem: Renegotiating the Socio-Technical Contract (Policy Press, 2025) explores the unspoken agreement we have with tech companies. In exchange for reducing the anxiety of…

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Deborah Gordon, "No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World" (Oxford UP, 2021) 46:28

1M ago46:28

46:28

In No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2021), Deborah Gordon shows that no two oils or gases are environmentally alike. Each has a distinct, quantifiable climate impact. While all oils and gases pollute, some are much worse for the climate than others. In clear, accessible language, Gordon expla…