The State of Democracy Lecture Series
Fostering continued discussion and debate, this series provides a forum for meaningful discussions of public issues that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
We are fortunate to have one lecture per year sponsored by the Norman M. and Marsha Lee Berkman Fund. Norman M. Berkman is a graduate of Syracuse University (’57) in political science. His wife, Marsha Lee, graduated from Northwestern University. They firmly believe that the State of Democracy Lecture Series they sponsor serves as a valuable link in the political discourse between the University and the community, and fosters understanding of significant contemporary issues.
Watch Previous Lectures
Campaign 2024: Super Tuesday and Beyond
The State of Democracy Lecture Series will host the first of several Election discussions in 2024. The first, a moderated panel discussion leading up to Super Tuesday, will cover how the results could influence the momentum of the candidates for each party.
Grant Reeher - Moderator
Professor, Political Science Department, and Director, Campbell Public Affairs Institute
John Zogby
Founder and Senior Partner of John Zogby Strategies (public opinion polls, marketing and political consulting firm)
Shana Kushner Gadarian
Professor, Political Science Department, and Associate Dean for Research, Maxwell School
Baobao Zhang
Assistant Professor, Political Science Department
Mark Brockway
Assistant Teaching Professor, Political Science Department
March 1, 2024 | Virtual Zoom Webinar
Reconsidering Refugees and Immigration: A Conversation with Dina Nayeri, Iranian-American writer and on the faculty at The University of St. Andrews
Why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars? Former refugee and award-winning author Dina Nayeri begins with this question, then turns to her own shocking and illuminating experiences, which grow into a reckoning with believability in our culture. Who Gets Believed? is as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, history, compassion, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of “good” immigrants. With surprising and provocative questions, her other book, The Ungrateful Refugee, recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience and encompasses real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.
Kristi Andersen, professor emerita of political science and senior research associate of the Campbell Institute, will guide the conversation.
November 10, 2023
Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels
The State of Democracy Lecture Series will host Ioan Grillo, a journalist and writer based in Mexico City, working for outlets including the New York Times, France 24 and National Geographic. He has been covering Latin America since 2001 for news media outlets such as TIME Magazine, Esquire, CNN, Reuters, Al Jazeera, the Houston Chronicle and the Associated Press.
Grillo is author of the book, “Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels.” “The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner-city America and across the border as Mexico’s powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade. Guns and drugs aren’t often connected in our heated discussions of gun control-but they should be.”
In Grillo’s groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, he shows us this connection by following the market for guns in the Americas and how it has made the continent the most murderous on earth.
April 28, 2023
How the Ultra-Rich Avoid Taxes, and Why it Matters for Our Democracy
Jesse Eisinger is a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He is the author of the “ The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives." He serves on the advisory board of the University of California; Berkeley’s Financial Fraud Institute, and he was a consultant on season three of the HBO series “Succession.” He was the lead reporter on “The Secret IRS Files,” a series that explored the tax avoidance techniques of the ultrawealthy, drawing a massive trove of previously never-seen tax records of the richest Americans. It won the Selden Ring and the Barlett & Steele prize, among others.
In April 2011, he and a colleague won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series of stories on questionable Wall Street practices that helped make the financial crisis the worst since the Great Depression. He won the 2015 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary. He has also twice been a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
He was also a regular columnist for The New York Times’ Dealbook section. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, NewYorker.com, The Washington Post, The Baffler, The American Prospect and on NPR and “This American Life.” Before joining ProPublica, he was the Wall Street Editor of Conde Nast Portfolio and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, covering markets and finance.
March 3, 2023
Congressman John Katko: Farewell Address
Four-term elected U.S. Representative John Katko (R-NY) will join Grant Reeher, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, for a discussion reflecting on his legislative record, the current political climate, and his experience during his eight years in Congress. We are honored that he will give his farewell address at Syracuse University.
A Camillus, New York native, John left his 20-year career as a federal prosecutor to run for public office because he believed Central New York deserved strong, independent leadership in Washington. He was first elected to represent the 24th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2014. He was re-elected for a fourth term in November 2020.
In Congress, John serves as Ranking Member on the House Committee on Homeland Security and as a member of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure.
The State of Democracy Lecture Series is sponsored by the Maxwell Dean’s Office and coordinated by the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.
Monday, November 28, 2022
The State of Congress: Looking Toward the Midterms
Sarah Binder is a professor of political science at George Washington University and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, specializing in Congress and legislative politics.
Her books include The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve (with Mark Spindel), and Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock. Both books won the Richard F. Fenno Jr. Prize for the best book published in legislative politics in their respective years of publication, and The Myth of Independence won the Gladys Kammerer Award for the best book published that year on U.S. national policy. Her work has also appeared in the American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, and the American Journal of Political Science.
Binder was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a political science editor at The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog.
October 21, 2022
Is Free Speech Killing Democracy?
Jacob Mchangama is the founder and executive director of Justitia, Denmark's first judicial think tank aiming to promote the rule of law and fundamental human rights and freedom rights both within Denmark and abroad. He is also the host and narrator of the podcast Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech.
Mchangama's talk will take seriously the idea advanced by many that free speech has been “weaponized” by extremists and turned against the very values this freedom was meant to serve, as witnessed by the attack on the Capitol on January 6th which could not have happened without a campaign of lies and disinformation that went viral on social media. But it will use both historical and contemporary examples to argue that free speech is still the “Bulwark of Liberty” and the foundation of democracy and that using censorship and repression to protect democracy is a cure worse than the disease.
April 29, 2022
Sports and Resistance in the U.S.
Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation Magazine, and author of 11 books on the politics of sports, including his most recent book, “The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World.” He is also the producer of the forthcoming documentary, “Behind the Shield: NFL at the Crossroads.”
March 25, 2022
Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, writes frequently for C.N.N., and other news and analysis sites, on fascism, authoritarian leaders, propaganda and threats to democracy around the world and how to counter them. She discusses her new book, "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," the first study to place President Donald Trump in the context of a century of authoritarian leaders that use a playbook of corruption, violence, propaganda, and machismo to stay in power.
April 30, 2021
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights
Gretchen Sorin, Distinguished Professor at S.U.N.Y. Oneonta and director of The Cooperstown Graduate Program, discusses her new book, which was the basis of a major P.B.S. documentary uncovering the history of how the automobile profoundly changed African American life.
The acclaimed historian reveals how the car―the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility―holds particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road.
April 16, 2021
Post-Election Panel: What Happened and Why? What Are the Likely Policy Implications?
Join Grant Reeher and four Maxwell School faculty members in this discussion about the 2020 U.S. election. Panelists for this State of Democracy lecture are:
- Leonard Burman, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics and co-founder of the Tax Policy Center
- Jenn Jackson, assistant professor of political science
- James Steinberg, University Professor for Social Science, International Affairs and Law and formber U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
- Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science
November 6, 2020
Public Service in Ordinary and Extraordinary Moments
Maxwell alumnus Michael Atkinson, former U. S. Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, was dismissed by President Donald Trump in April 2020. In September 2019, Atkinson alerted Congress to a whistleblower complaint regarding the president’s communications with Ukraine, pressing for an investigation into Joe Biden and his son – the resulting scandal led to President Trump’s impeachment.
Atkinson speaks of his experience as Inspector General and in public service.
October 9, 2020
Making Sense of Impeachment: A Panel Discussion
Shana Gadarian and Thomas Keck, professors of political science, Sean O'Keefe, University Professor and Howard G. and S. Louise Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership, and Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science, discussion the impeachment of Donald Trump and its broader historical and political context.
November 15, 2019
Women in American Politics: 100 Years After Suffrage
One hundred years after winning the right to vote, what are the current opportunities and challenges for women pursuing elected office? What are the roles they play as voters and as leaders of social movements? And what can we expect from the 2020 presidential election cycle, which includes a record number of women candidates?
This State of Democracy event features a panel discussion among leading scholars and regional political leaders: Susan Carroll, professor of political science and senior scholar at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics; Joanie Mahoney, chief operating officer at SUNY-ESF and former Onondaga County Executive; and New York State Assemblywoman Pam Hunter. Moderator will be Kristi Andersen, Chapple Family Professor of Citizenship and Democracy Emeritus at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, Cazenovia Town Councilor and a regular panelist on WCNY’s Ivory Tower.
March 1, 2019
Combative Federalism: Why So Many States Are Suing Trump
Alan Greenblatt, investigative reporter covering politics and policy issues for Governing Magazine, explores the divide between state and national powers under our current president, Donald Trump. As this talk follows the Midterm elections, state-level results are included in the discussion.
November 9, 2018
The Oath and The Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents
Can the president launch a nuclear attack without congressional approval? Is it ever a crime to criticize the president? Can states legally resist a president’s executive order?
Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science at Brown University, dives deep into the U.S. Constitution to answer questions that Americans are asking more than ever before. From the document itself and from history’s pivotal court cases, we learn why certain powers were granted to the presidency, how the Bill of Rights limits those powers, and what "we the people" can do to influence the nation’s highest public office―including, if need be, removing the person in it.
September 14, 2018
What Really Happened: The Hillary Clinton Campaign, and Its Lessons
Amie Parnes, senior political correspondent for The Hill and a regular CNN political analyst, and Jon Allen, columnist for Roll Call and adjunct professor at Northwestern University, discuss their experiences covering the 2016 presidential election, speculate about some of the political lessons the election suggests and reflect on the current political climate.
November 3, 2017
Farewell Address: The Need for Reflection in a Hot-Take Culture
In this farewell address from Mayor Stephanie Miner, city of Syracuse, looks back on her tenure, draws lessons learned, and connects those experiences with a broader challenge facing our contemporary political culture.
October 27, 2017
Rights and Racism: The Complex Legacies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Recognizing the centennial of women's suffrage in New York State, Lori Ginzberg will discuss her recent book, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life. Known as a social activist and American suffragist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton [1815-1902] was a prominent figure in the early women's rights effort.
Lori Ginzberg, professor of history and women's studies at Pennsylvania State University, focuses on the lessons Elizabeth Cady Stanton's life and work offer for modern feminism and democracy.
October 6, 2017
No Slippery Slopes: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy and the Future of Marriage
Will same-sex marriage lead to more radical marriage reform? Should it? Some warn of a dramatically slippery slope from same-sex marriage toward legalizing polygamy and adult incest, and the dissolution of marriage as we know it; others embrace such changes.
Stephen Macedo, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, argues that both sides are wrong: the same principles of democratic justice that demand marriage equality for same sex couples also lend support to monogamous marriage.
March 3, 2017
Racial Mobility: The Dynamics of Race and Inequality in the United States
Most studies of inequality in the United States assume that a person’s race is an input into our stratification system: a static, individual attribute that is ascribed at birth and helps to explain who accrues advantages or disadvantages throughout life.
Aliya Saperstein, professor of sociology at Stanford University, demonstrates instead that race is both multi-dimensional and malleable: how Americans see racial difference has been shaped by centuries of discrimination and inequality, so a person’s race does not simply pre-date their upward or downward mobility; how we perceive each other and identify ourselves is also a result of those experiences. This “racial mobility” represents a vicious cycle between racial categorization and inequality that has important implications for both data collection and public policy.
October 28, 2016
Democracy for Realists
Assailing the romantic folk-theory at the art of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, speakers Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters.
Achen is the Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences and professor of politics at Princeton University. Bartels holds the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University.
April 15, 2016
From Kandahar to Aleppo: Applying the Lessons of Afghanistan
Robert Grenier is a highly decorated twenty-seven year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Clandestine Service and a renowned expert on the Middle East, South Asia and counterterrorism.
In this State of Democracy lecture, Grenier speaks about his experiences of the "southern campaign", which drove al-Qa’ida and the Taliban from Kandahar, its capital, in an astonishing eighty-eight days.
March 4, 2016
Making and Opposing War in Peacetime: American Democracy After 9/11
In this lecture Sidney Tarrow, Emeritus Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Government at Cornell University, draws from his book War, States and Contention, which shows how "contentious politics"—disruptions of the settled political order caused by social movements—sometimes trigger, animate and guide the course of war; sometimes rise during war—and in war's wake—to change regimes or even overthrow states.
Tarrow draws on evidence from historical and contemporary cases, including revolutionary France, the United States from the Civil War to the anti—Vietnam War movement, Italy after World War I and the United States during the decade following 9/11.
November 6, 2015
The Politics of Inequality in the United States: How does growing inequality in income affect political equality in the United States?
Martin Gilens, professor of politics at Princeton University, discusses his research on representation, public opinion and mass media, especially in relation to inequality and public policy. Following Gilens talk is a panel discussion with Christopher Faricy and Spencer Piston, both assistant professors of political science, and Amy Ellen Schwartz, Moynihan Professor of Public Affairs.
"The ability of citizens to influence government policy is at the heart of democracy. But citizens are quite unequal in their ability to shape government policy to their liking,” Gilens says. “This vast discrepancy in government responsiveness to citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although perfect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society."
March 20, 2015
Does Citizenship Require Sacrifice
Almost everyone agrees that citizenship carries with it both rights and responsibilities. But how far do the responsibilities extend? Must individuals be willing to sacrifice something important in order to be good citizens? Does good citizenship, rightly considered, necessarily involve some kind of meaningful sacrifice?
Those questions are called here, among a panel of distinguished Maxwell School faculty with a wealth of varied personal, professional and academic experiences related to the topic.
February 13, 2015
Can American Democracy Survive Corruption?
An immensely talented and creative scholar, Zephyr Teachout, professor of law at Fordham University, brings a rich background in laws governing political behavior, both domestically and abroad, as well as the insights of her original work on corruption and its constitutional history.
Teachout is the former National Director for the Sunlight Foundation, and was the Director of Internet Organizing for Howard Dean's Presidential campaign. Most recently she ran against Andrew Cuomo for the 2014 Democratic Party nomination for Governor of New York. Teachout is a political consultant for nonprofits, political campaigns, and citizen journalism. She is the author of Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United.
November 14, 2014
The American Opportunity Agenda
United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand addressed proposals to help more middle-class women workers gain financial security by modernizing America's outdated workplace policies.
Gillibrand was first sworn in as U.S. senator from New York in January 2009. Prior to her service in the Senate, she served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing 10 counties in upstate New York's 20th congressional district. She serves on the Senate agriculture, armed services, and aging committees.
January 17, 2014
Can Democracy Cure Capitalism?
With Richard Wolff, emeritus professor of economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts
October 3, 2013
Trump Revealed
Michael Kranish, Washington Post reporter and 1979 Syracuse University graduate (Newhouse and Maxwell), discusses his latest book, Trump Revealed, which he co-authored with Marc Fisher, senior editor at The Washington Post.
September 14, 2012