Book
In Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?, Alexander Keyssar explores the institution’s origins and persistent survival despite widespread public opposition, showing how partisan interests and constitutional barriers have repeatedly derailed reform.
With every presidential election, Americans puzzle over the peculiar mechanism of the Electoral College. The author of the Pulitzer finalist The Right to Vote explains the enduring problem of this controversial institution.
Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through the Electoral College, an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Most Americans have long preferred a national popular vote, and Congress has attempted on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College. Several of these efforts—one as recently as 1970—came very close to winning approval. Yet this controversial system remains.
Harvard University Press, 2020
Podcast
As Venezuela grapples with authoritarian collapse and a controversial U.S. operation that removed Nicolás Maduro, Freddy Guevara joins the podcast to discuss what Venezuelans are feeling and what democratic renewal might actually look like.
Podcast
In the season 2 premiere of Terms of Engagement, Archon Fung and Stephen Richer revisit January 6 with journalist Mary Clare Jalonick to examine what the January 6 Capitol attack reveals about democratic trust, accountability, and political violence.
Podcast
In the season finale, author and political theorist Laura Field joins co-hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to unpack the ideas and beliefs of the New Right and their impact on elections, race, and public debate.
