Democracy in Danger UVA Karsh Institute

At colleges across America this spring, thousands of students and many faculty called on their institutions to recognize Israel’s war in Palestine as a genocide, and to disclose their interests in arms, oil and violence. Administrators did not take kindly to the students’ demands or their tactics, and called in the police instead. Today on the show — our final episode for now — historian Lauren Lassabe Shepherd says these events fit a pattern of campus conflict going back decades to the Vietnam War.

There were 645 mass shootings in the United States in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Earlier this week, a gunman opened fire at a Detroit water park and injured nine people, including children. Today, we’re bringing you an episode from earlier this season, one we produced after the deadly Kansas City Super Bowl Parade shooting. Historian Andrew McKevitt and sociologist Jennifer Carlson join Will for a conversation about the history, politics and economics of America’s lethal gun culture.

With EU election results in, it looks like the forces of extreme nationalism will pull the continent’s politics rightward. But in Poland, the center has held after voters booted the far-right Law and Justice Party from power last fall. This week, we revisit our take on that election in Poland and its place on the European landscape, with the feminist scholar and activist Agnieszka Graff. She discusses that remarkable turn of events and what still lies ahead for her country.

Nearly 80 years ago, Juan José Arévalo took office as Guatemala’s first democratically elected head of state. Only a decade later, the CIA engineered his successor’s ouster — and the end of the Guatemalan revolution. A vicious civil war ensued over the rest of the century, killing as many as 200,000 civilians. Today, Guatemalans are hopeful that their newly elected leader, Bernardo Arévalo, son of the first president, will usher in a second political spring. But our two guests say he faces an uphill battle.

In this second follow-up to “No Good Reason,” we offer Siva’s full interview with Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas. She was a teenager when she first learned that her parents and their families had been incarcerated during World War II. It was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dubious policy of confining Japanese Americans on suspicion of disloyalty. Inkelas reflects on her parent’s experience and the marks it left on her own life.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is an unabashed autocrat. He has jailed political opponents, gone after Muslims with violence and hateful rhetoric, and dismantled checks on his power. So what explains Modi’s continued popularity? As some 600 million Indians head to the polls, we explore this question with political analyst Radha Kumar. She discusses what it would take for democratic renewal to take root in the world’s most populous nation, and what the past might portend for her country’s future.