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Political polarization, particularly in the United States, is being inflamed by structural forces, including the dominance of two parties and winner-take-all representation. Lee Drutman, senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America, speaks on reforms like proportional representation and multi-member districts, and why we should view democracy more like a living, evolving ecosystem than a problem to fix.

Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow and author Richard Heinberg interviews David Stasavage, author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today. David summarizes polarization and capacity to deal with crises in democracies and autocracies, discusses the challenge of scale in modern democracies, and shares how past democracies like Athens and the Iroquois Confederacy dealt with polarization.

Bringing up the Earth’s growing human population (and its associated impacts) is not something you typically do in polite circles. If you do introduce the topic of overpopulation, even among staunch environmentalists, you risk being called all sorts of undignified names.

Jennifer McCoy, professor of political science at Georgia State University and nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses the influence of “political entrepreneurs” and the implications of a world facing increasing resource constraints, which can exacerbate polarization and conflict within and between nations. Professor McCoy offers examples of nations that overcame pernicious polarization and points to “win-win” strategies for navigating the 21st century’s challenges.

Richard Heinberg explores why societies become polarized and traces the causes and history of polarization in the U.S. He unpacks the dangers of polarization and the ways it tears societies apart, before seeing what can be done to reverse polarization.

Richard Heinberg explores questions about democracy and political polarization in the context of profound changes in environmental, economic, and technological conditions, including whether democracies or autocracies are better able to respond to crises.