This is Democracy

What have we learned about health care policy? What are reform pathways forward? Dr. Suri discusses with Dr. Stephen Sonnenberg how a healthy society makes for a healthy democracy. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, "Dear Doctor." Stephen Sonnenberg has served as clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Howard University College of Medicine, adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College, clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine and clinical professor of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. He is currently adjunct professor of psychiatry at The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, where he served as clinical professor before moving to Texas. At The University of Texas at Austin, he is professor of psychiatry, population health, and medical education at Dell Medical School, adjunct professor in the School of Architecture, Fellow of the Trice Professorship in the Plan II Honors Program, and principal investigator of the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded Patients, Practitioners, and Cultures of Care Project, a research and development effort to create a new undergraduate Bridging Disciplines Program emphasizing the relationship of health care and the humanities. His most important committee assignments at UT Austin include the Rhodes, Marshall and Truman Scholarships Selection Committee and the chairmanship of the Hamilton Book Awards Selection Committee in 2017. Sonnenberg serves on numerous editorial boards and peer review panels of leading journals in the fields of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He has contributed scholarly articles to the leading journals in those fields, is the co-author of the textbook “Psychodynamic Psychotherapy” (American Psychiatric Press, 1991, 1998, 2004), which has been translated into Russian, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Persian, and Japanese, and he is the co-author of chapters in important textbooks of psychiatry. He is the co-editor of “The Trauma of War: Stress and Recovery in Viet Nam Veterans” (American Psychiatric Press, 1985). Early in 2013 the award-winning book “CENTER 17: Space & Psyche,” which he co-edited, was published by the Center for American Architecture and Design, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests focus on the points of intersection of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, medical education, population health and other areas of scholarly inquiry. His subjects of study include war and violence; architecture in relation to health care; psychic trauma and PTSD; addiction and its treatment; education and effective teaching methods; medical humanities, ethics and the doctor-patient relationship; and health and human rights. In the past he has served as co-principal investigator of the Psychology of Deterrence Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; director of research of the Project on the Vietnam Generation at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution; and research scholar at the Center for Psychology and Social Change, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School at Cambridge Hospital.

How are communities and democracies affected by the changing global environment? Dr. Suri talks with professor Sheila Olmstead on the lasting effects climate change will have on government policies, and human lives around the world. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “So Fluorescently Away.” Sheila Olmstead is a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin (UT), a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington, DC and a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. From 2016–2017, she served as the Senior Economist for Energy and the Environment at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Before joining UT in 2013, Olmstead was a senior fellow (2013) and fellow (2010–13) at RFF, as well as associate professor (2007–10) and assistant professor (2002–07) of environmental economics at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Olmstead is currently an editor of the “Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.” She has also served as vice president and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, as associate editor of “Water Resources Research,” co-editor of “Environmental and Resource Economics,” book review editor of “Water Economics and Policy,” and editorial council member for the “Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.” She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University (2002), a master’s in public affairs from The University of Texas at Austin (1996) and a B.A. from the University of Virginia (1992).

What are the historical challenges of democratization in the Middle East? What are the possibilities? Dr. Suri, and Ph.D. candidate Emily Whalen, discuss why global perceptions can be damaging, and how the countries that comprise the Middle East could move towards a true democracy. Zachary sets up the conversation with his poem, “The Last Time I Cried For The Middle East.” Emily Whalen is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Texas – Austin. Her dissertation, The Lebanese Wars: Civil Conflict and International Intervention, 1975-1985, focuses on the transnational history of war and U.S. policy in the Middle East. She is currently a Smith Richardson Predoctoral Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University. Her website is www.emilyingridwhalen.com.

What are the legacies of the Great War for our world today? How can we avoid another terrible war in the 21st century? Dr. Suri talks with University of Texas history professor Michael Stoff about World War I, and what United States citizens should do to stay informed and care for its veterans. This episode opens with a reading of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” by Tom O’Bedlam. Michael B. Stoff received his B.A. from Rutgers College and Ph.D. from Yale University. He is currently Associate Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor and an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer.  For over a decade, he has been the director of the nationally acclaimed Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Oil, War and American Security, co-editor of The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age, series co-editor of The Oxford New Narratives in American History and co-author of five American history textbooks. He has been honored many times for his teaching, most recently with the UT system-wide Regents Outstanding Teaching Award. In 2015, he was recognized for his contributions with induction into the Philosophical Society of Texas. He is at work on a book about Nagasaki and the meaning of the atomic bomb.

What did the 2018 elections mean? What are the results and why do they matter? Dr. Suri sits down with Bryan Jones and James Henson to deconstruct the results, bring context to them and look forward to 2019 and beyond. Bryan Jones, an entrepreneur and technologist, has started several companies and been issued multiple technology-based patents. In addiction to being the founder and CEO of Strive and Solve Ventures, a boutique investment and advisory services firm, Bryan is also the Chairman of Stand Up Republic, a non-partisan 501c4 founded by Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn to defend democratic ideals, norms and institutions. Bryan has a BSc Engineering, an MBA and a JD, all from the University of Texas at Austin. While at UT, Bryan was a 21-time All American swimmer, an American Record holder and captained the 2000 NCAA Championship team. Bryan has served as a board member of several organizations, including The Athletes Village, TeamTopia, the Greater Austin Chamber, PeopleFund, USA Swimming, The Seton Fifty and The Texas Exes.  He was also recently recognized as a 2018 Outstanding Young Texas Exes. James Henson directs the Texas Politics project and teaches in the Department of Government at The University of Texas, where he also received a doctorate. He helped design public interest multimedia for the Benton Foundation in Washington, D.C., in the late 1990s and has written about politics in general-interest and academic publications. He also serves as associate director of the College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services unit at UT, where he has helped produce several award-winning instructional media projects. In 2008, he and Daron Shaw, a fellow UT government professor, established the first statewide, publicly available internet survey of public opinion in Texas using matched random sampling. He lives in Austin, where he also serves as a member of the City of Austin Ethics Review Commission.

This week, Jeremi meets with UT freshman Juliet Suarez and first time voter Jillian B. Smith. They discuss the importance of voting in the midterm elections, and how the right to vote could extend further to all U.S. residents in the future. Zachary sets up the interview with his poem, “Vote for Me.” Juliet Suarez is a Mexican citizen who has lived in Texas for the past 10 years. She is currently a freshman IRG and sociology major in the Liberal Arts Honors program at UT. She is passionate about political issues; thus, despite lacking the ability to vote, she seeks opportunities to participate in politics in whatever other ways she can. Jillian Smith is from Frisco, TX and is currently a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin. She is studying Government, Middle Eastern Studies, and Arabic. In her hometown, she was engaged in local politics and policy under the mentorship of a city councilwoman.

How has Congress changed in the last few decades? How can new, young leaders (hopefully elected this November) reform Congress to serve our democracy better? This week, Jeremi talks to domestic policy specialist and LBJ School professor, Ruth Ellen Wasem. They discuss how Congress could adapt to a changing political climate, and if it truly represents U.S. voters. Zachary sets up the interview with his poem, “One Man.” For more than 25 years, Ruth Ellen Wasem was a domestic policy specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service. She has testified before Congress about asylum policy, legal immigration trends, human rights, and the push-pull forces on unauthorized migration. Wasem earned master’s and doctoral degrees in history at the University of Michigan, largely funded by the Institute for Social Research. Wasem currently is engaged with a group of international scholars who are researching asylum and the rise of the political right, and she presented research papers focused on the U.S. context in Italy and Belgium over the summer of 2017. She is also writing a book about the legislative drive to end race- and nationality-based immigration. From this research, she has written “The Undertow of Reforming Immigration,” for “A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: The U.S. in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965,” (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming 2018). Other recent publications include “The US Visa Waiver Program: Facilitating Travel and Enhancing Security,” (Chatham House, 2017), “Welfare and Public Benefits” in “American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change,” 2nd Edition, (M.E. Sharpe, 2014), and “Tackling Unemployment: The Legislative Dynamics of the Employment Act of 1946” (Upjohn Institute Press, 2013).

How has media coverage of politics changed in the last 30 years? How can it change for better in the future? Jeremi Suri sits down with renowned film producer Paul Stekler to get an expert opinion about how drastically American media has changed over the past decades – but also in many ways how it has remained the same. Zachary Suri sets up the interview with his poem, “Seasons of Knowing.” Paul Stekler is a nationally recognized documentary filmmaker whose critically praised and award-winning work includes George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire; Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style; Vote for Me: Politics in America, a four-hour PBS special about grassroots electoral politics; two segments of the Eyes on the Prize II series on the history of civil rights; Last Stand at Little Big Horn (broadcast as part of PBS’s series The American Experience); Louisiana Boys: Raised on Politics (broadcast on PBS’s P.O.V. series); Getting Back to Abnormal (which aired on P.O.V. in 2014); and 2016’s Postcards from the Great Divide, a web series about politics for The Washington Post and PBS Digital. Overall, his films have won two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Awards, three national Emmy Awards, and a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. See a brief summary of his films on American polities here. Watch a career reel of his films here. Dr. Stekler, who was RTF Chair from 2010 to 2017, has a doctorate in Government from Harvard University, where his work focused on Southern politics. He previously was a political pollster in Louisiana, while teaching at Tulane, and was the founder of Center for Politics and Governance at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. His writing, on subjects like Hollywood blockbuster films, the greatest Texas documentaries, American politics and politics as depicted in documentary films has appeared in the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, the International Documentary Association’s magazine, among other places, and in the book, “Killing Custer,” co-written with the late Native American novelist James Welch. Stekler was named film school Mentor of the Year in 2014 by Variety Magazine. Stekler’s films have all been broadcast nationally on PBS, on POV, the American Exoerience, Frontline, and as specials. He’s also been an Executive or Consulting Producer on a number of documentaries including Margaret Brown’s Be Here to Love Me, Peter Frumkin’s Woody Guthrie: Ain’t Got No Home, Karen Skloss’ Sunshine, and Keith Maitland’s The Eyes of Me. He also played in New Orleans’ only working bluegrass band, Wabash, weekly at the Maple Leaf Bar in the 1980’s.

This week’s topic covers the Supreme Court and Democracy. How has the the Supreme Court contributed to and detracted from American democracy? What are the prospects for the coming years? Zachary begins with a scene-setting poem, “Closing the Tab.” Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of approximately 400 articles, book reviews, or commentaries in professional and popular journals–and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization. He has also written six books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award, 2d edition 2011); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012); An Argument Open to All: Reading the Federalist in the 21st Century (2015); and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and teh Flaws that Affect Us Today (forthcoming, September 2017). Edited or co-edited books include a leading constitutional law casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (6th ed. 2015, with Paul Brest, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, and Reva Siegel); Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (2016); Reading Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (1988, with Steven Mallioux); Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (1995); Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (1998, with William Eskridge); Legal Canons (2000, with Jack Balkin); The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion (2005, with Batholomew Sparrow); Torture: A Collection (2004, revised paperback edition, 2006); and The Oxford Handbook on the United States Constitution (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2015). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010. He has been a visiting faculty member of the Boston University, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Yale law schools in the United States and has taught abroad in programs of law in London; Paris; Jerusalem; Auckland, New Zealand; and Melbourne, Australia. He was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1985-86 and a Member of the Ethics in the Professions Program at Harvard in 1991-92. He is also affiliated with the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jewish Philosophy in Jerusalem. A member of the American Law Institute, Levinson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. He is married to Cynthia Y. Levinson, a writer of children’s literature, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Dr. Suri spends today’s episode with Sean Hassan and Alison Tate discussing Catholicism, Islam, and how to represent communities of minority faiths – particularly in Texas, where leadership roles are usually held by people of the majority holding traditional Christian beliefs. Zachary Suri recites his poem “An American Jew.” Alison Tate serves the Catholic Church in twenty-five counties in Central Texas as the secretariat director of formation and spirituality and the director of youth, young adult and campus ministry at the Diocese of Austin, as well as the coordinator of Region 10 Catholic Youth Ministry which encompasses Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. She received a B.A. in history from Loyola University New Orleans, an M.A. in theology from St. Mary’s University of San Antonio and a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin. Having grown up in Austin, Alison stays busy with her husband, sons and extended family in her free time. Sean Hassan was elected to the Austin Community College Board of Trustees in 2016, the first Muslim American elected in Austin, Travis County, and potentially all of Central Texas. Last month, the Board approved the opening of a Childcare Facility at the ACC Highland campus, so that ACC students who have young children and no childcare can drop their children off for a couple of hours, on campus, while they study, get tutoring, or take an exam. This was one of Sean’s key campaign issues, though he is the first to say that this is only a start to addressing the needs of parents who are attending ACC to improve their future. Sean spent much of his professional life in the non-profit sector including as a Vice-President with the Boys & Girls Clubs.