Julia Sonnevend Archives - Public Seminar

Democracy

The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

Or, why should ordinary citizens trust unelected experts anymore?

May 8, 2025 • by Mark Frazier, James Miller, Kim Lane Scheppele and Julia Sonnevend

Good evening, my name is Jim Miller. I am a professor of politics and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research, and I have organized, and will be moderating tonight’s panel with the ungainly title, on bureaucracy and its discontents. To discuss the tensions created by professing democracy as ...

The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

North America

Trump’s Charm Offensive

“You guys are the same as me”

November 1, 2024 • by Adam Koehler Brown

A #1 with a large fry, made and served by the forty-fifth president of the United States: Donald Trump was working a drive-through at a McDonald’s last weekend in Pennsylvania. He salted fries and greeted customers, a stunt meant to mock Kamala Harris and her repeated claim to have worked ...

North America

When Politicians Make Nice

A conversation with sociologist Julia Sonnevend about her new book, Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics

September 11, 2024 • by Claire Potter and Julia Sonnevend

When United States president Joe Biden stumbled on the debate stage on June 27, 2024, it wasn’t that he just seemed old, it was that a man who had charmed voters for half a century with his bright smile, kindness, and folksy quips seemed to have vanished. ...

Feature

Understanding Media in Dark Times

The extensions of men and women

March 16, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

The authoritarian threat in the United States and its resistance are actively being constituted through media, and the whole world is not only watching: it is actively participating. The Presidency of Donald Trump is not imaginable without Twitter. But also Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and, this week, the nation wide walk ...