55 Voices for Democracy podcast Thomas Mann House

Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner talk music and politics with German pianist Igor Levit.

Chantal Mouffe interviewed by Tom Zoellner in Los Angeles and Aida Baghernejad in Berlin.

Renowned German-Austrian novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann's latest novel, Tyll, was published in the US this year, three years after it became a bestseller in Germany. A fantastical picaresque set during the Thirty Years War, it has subtle but clear parallels to our present situation, with strife-torn Europe and America, fractured by religion, intolerance and seemingly endless war.

Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and former Ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom, is the author of World in Danger: Germany and Europe in an Uncertain Time (Brookings Institution Press, 2020). he discusses the three T's that he thinks are necessary to a world safe for democracy: trust, truth, and transparency.

Tom Zoellner and Aida Baghernejad interview Belarussian President-Elect Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and journalist and activist Franak Viačorka on the political crisis in Belarus.  Tsikhanouskaya is in exile in Lithuania as "the last dictator in Europe," Alexander Lukashenko, clings to power after a decisive loss in the election.

Tom Zoellner talks to Dipayan Ghosh about the politics of digital regulation, and the way the evolving digital ecosystem impacts democratic processes.