Democracy Digest: 20 Podcasts to While Away Winter

The Cable

This production of the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group and the Institute of Current World Affairs in Washington is all about "the threats to democracy in Europe and the transatlantic relationship, with a particular focus on backsliding countries in Central Europe".

Hosted by Gregory Feifer and Susan Corke, The Cable seeks to answer questions such as why populism is popular, how propaganda works and who defines patriotism and how. 

Recent episodes cover the legacy of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia, the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, Turkey's political landscape and elections in Poland and Hungary.

Sarajevo Calling

This twice-monthly podcast hosted by journalist Aleksandar Brezar and political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic tends to focus on political issues in the Western Balkans though it also dips a toe into cultural and social matters from across Southeast Europe.

Episodes tackle topics ranging from French obstruction of EU enlargement ("Macron says 'Nah'), emigration and schisms between the Serbian and Montenegrin churches to the question: what is 'Yugonostalgia'? ("A shared post-traumatic psychosis, a lament for a golden past, a cultural movement, or something still different?")

A general view of the surroundings of the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on December 7, 2019. The city was covered with a thick layer of fog. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

In Between Europe

As the title suggests, In Between Europe comes to you from the twixt point of Europe — which is to say, Central Europe. Hosts Zselyke Csaky and Gergely Romsics interview experts, discuss politics and current affairs and engage in a "history minute" each episode.

The topics are broad: the...