A Conversation with Maria Popova
Listen to the full episode:
Time Codes:
00:35 Growing up in communist Bulgaria
01:11 Recognizing authoritarianism at a young age
04:26 Deciding to study in America
13:35 Shock at developments in the U.S.
14:48 Weaponization of the judiciary
18:00 The courts as a bulwark
26:16 How conspiracy theories take root
30:23 Combatting conspiracy theories
35:35 Differences between Americans and Canadians
38:45 The Canadian response to American aggression
42:00 How to fight the authoritarian playbook
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Authoritarian Alarm Bells are Ringing
Maria Popova knows authoritarianism when she sees it. A professor of political science at McGill University in Montreal specializing in governance, rule of law, democratic transformation, and institutional decay in post-communist Europe, she recognizes an alarming number of similarities between her region of expertise and developments in the United States.
Maria grew up in communist-era Bulgaria and made her way to the U.S. after the fall of the Berlin Wall to study at Dartmouth and Harvard. She’s seen a lot on her journey from Sofia to the American Ivy Leagues to Canada, but today she’s seeing something she never imagined possible: the U.S., which she had viewed as the pinnacle of Western democracy and a model for things like judicial independence, is now increasingly exhibiting the traits of democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, and corruption that she has been tracking in Eastern Europe for years. As she puts it, Eastern Europe is in many ways the “canary in the coal mine” for the rising authoritarian tendencies that we see in what appeared to be consolidated democracies like the U.S. Her conclusion is simple: the U.S. is in “dangerous territory,” in terms of democratic unraveling.
In our conversation, Maria tells us about her childhood and schooling in Bulgaria, and the dawning realization that she was living in an authoritarian society. We discuss the similarities between the traditional authoritarian playbook for weaponizing the judiciary in Eastern Europe and what’s going on at the U.S. Department of Justice, but also how what’s happening in America differs. We talk about the rise of conspiracy theories, how they take hold in a society and gather steam, eventually eroding the shared reality that is necessary for a democracy to properly function, and some strategies for combatting them. And in the face of the unprecedented assaults by the Trump administration on Canada, where Maria is now a citizen, she tells us what Canadians think about this radical change in relations, and how she sees Americans vs. Canadians more generally.
There is hope, though. Maria gives us some straightforward advice on what we can do to counteract the rising authoritarian tide and work to ensure that the U.S. and other countries don’t succumb to the authoritarian playbook she’s spent her career studying.
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