James Loxton on Democracies and Dictators

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.6 • 907 Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

James Loxton is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Authoritarianism: A Very Short Introduction. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and James Loxton explore different types of authoritarian regimes, why they fail, and whether the United States passes the fear test. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: [email protected] Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	300 sensors.
0:03.0	Over a million data points per second.
0:06.0	How does F1 update their fans with every stat in real time?
0:10.0	AWS is how.
0:13.0	From fastest laps to strategy calls,
0:15.0	AWS puts fans in the pit.
0:19.0	It's not just racing, it's data-driven innovation at 200 miles per hour.
0:24.6	AWS is how leading businesses power next-level innovation.
0:29.6	For all of human history, pretty much, or at least post-hunter-gatherer societies,
0:35.6	the vast majority of polities have been under some form of non-democratic
0:41.4	rule. Democracy is really the exception. And the fact that we now think of this as kind of like
0:47.6	the natural way of being, personally I believe that democracy is a better form of government
0:53.2	than authoritarianism. But the fact that we think of it as being sort of a better form of government than authoritarianism.
0:54.9	But the fact that we think of it as being sort of the natural form of government,
0:58.8	that's actually a really new idea.
1:02.3	And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.
1:14.5	On this podcast, we talk a lot about democracy.
1:20.8	Well, we don't really talk as much about the flip side of the coin, about dictatorships,
1:23.0	about authoritarian regimes.
1:26.5	And yet, that is a fascinating field of study.
1:32.9	How should we think about the different kinds of foreign regimes that exist in the world?
1:34.3	How do they tend to perform?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Yascha Mounk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Yascha Mounk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.