In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work.
We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the main ideas of Political Man, we discuss cleavage theory as a sociological and group based approach to political competition and contrast it with the Downsian perspective. The third part of the conversation covers Gary’s joined work with Lipset that addresses the question of why there has never been a successful socialist party in the United States.
The conversation goes beyond the work of Lipset alone and focuses on several main themes of political sociology as well as many political transformations of the last 100 years.
If you want to know more about Gary and his work, you can visit his website. http://garymarks.web.unc.edu/
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Political science reading recommendation:
Achen, Christopher/Bartels, Larry, 2016, Democracy for Realists, Princeton University Press
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In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work.
We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the main ideas of Political Man, we discuss cleavage theory as a sociological and group based approach to political competition and contrast it with the Downsian perspective. The third part of the conversation covers Gary’s joined work with Lipset that addresses the question of why there has never been a successful socialist party in the United States.
The conversation goes beyond the work of Lipset alone and focuses on several main themes of political sociology as well as many political transformations of the last 100 years.
If you want to know more about Gary and his work, you can visit his website. http://garymarks.web.unc.edu/
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Political science reading recommendation:
Achen, Christopher/Bartels, Larry, 2016, Democracy for Realists, Princeton University Press
In this episode I talk to Daniel Ziblatt who is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University.We discuss his 2018 book How Democracies Die co-authored with Steven Levitsky. (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562246/how-democracies-die-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/)
The book investigates how authoritarian leaders within democracies erode democratic norms and institutions and how democratic regimes eventually turn into autocratic ones. It argues that political parties play a key role for the stability of democracy as they act as gatekeepers against authoritarians. When political parties fail to do that and authoritarians get elected, they have many opportunities to erode democratic safeguards – even while staying within the law.
Our conversation also focuses on the role that conservative parties play more generally for the stability of democracy. Historically a party family whose compromising capacity was essential for democratic stability, many of these parties today have allowed radical right rhetoric into the democratic mainstream. Especially the US Republican party has radicalized and currently a real threat exists for the stability of liberal democracy in the US.
If you are interested in Daniel and his research, you can follow him on Twitter under "at" dziblatt or visit his website https://scholar.harvard.edu/dziblatt/home
I hope you enjoy the conversation
Reading recommendation: Paul Starr “Entrechment. Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies” https://www.degruyter.com/yaleup/view/title/565297?language=en
Transformation of European Politics Podcast
In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work.
We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the main ideas of Political Man, we discuss cleavage theory as a sociological and group based approach to political competition and contrast it with the Downsian perspective. The third part of the conversation covers Gary’s joined work with Lipset that addresses the question of why there has never been a successful socialist party in the United States.
The conversation goes beyond the work of Lipset alone and focuses on several main themes of political sociology as well as many political transformations of the last 100 years.
If you want to know more about Gary and his work, you can visit his website. http://garymarks.web.unc.edu/
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Political science reading recommendation:
Achen, Christopher/Bartels, Larry, 2016, Democracy for Realists, Princeton University Press
