Welcome to Beg to Beg to Differ, The Bull Works Weekly Roundtable

discussion featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum.

We range from center left to center right.

I'm Mona Charon, syndicated columnist and policy editor at the Bullwork, and I am joined

by our regulars Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution and the Wall Street Journal and Damon Linker of the week.

Linda Chavez was supposed to be here, but she is in Ireland and the internet did not cooperate so we will

talk with her next week but we are delighted to welcome our special guest

Yasha Monk professor editor author of a new book Yes,

Munk, professor, editor, author of a new book, The Great Experiment,

Why Diverse Democracy's Fall Apart

and how they can endure.

So welcome, one and all.

Yasha, I'm so glad that we have you because this book is so timely.

You tend to be sort of on the cusp of whatever the news is, the rise of populism around the globe,

and you address that a bit in the book, but this is about ethnic diversity and whether it poses a threat to democracies which you say tend to be

pretty monochromatic or at least to begin that way. So why don't you tell us the

thesis of the book and then if you wouldn't mind touching on one story that I found very interesting about ethnic differences and the different ways these two ethnic groups interact in Malawi versus Zambia.

Sounds great.

All right, let me try and do that without taking over the whole conversation.

Listen, so your characterization of this current moment was exactly right.

We have historically a bunch of democracies like the United States that have always been somewhat ethnically and religiously diverse,

but which used to exclude many people from full participation in the

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