PBS and NPR for Southwest Florida
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Is Democracy in Danger - and should you care?

jackgoldstone.gmu.edu
Professor Jack Goldstone

We’re joined by Professor Jack Goldstone in advance of his lecture here at FGCUthis Friday, March 23 at 6:00 p.m. called "Is Democracy Dead - and should you care?" It’s part of the 2018 Dr. Erich Liebert World Affairs Lecture Series.He is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, and a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Previously, Dr. Goldstone was on the faculty of Northwestern University, and the University of California, and has been a visiting scholar at Cambridge University, UCLA, UC-San Diego, and the California Institute of Technology, as well as director of research institutes at the Russian Academy of National Economy in Moscow, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Professor Goldstone’s research focuses on conditions for building democracy and stability in developing nations, the impact of population change on the global economy and international security, and the cultural origins of modern economic growth.  He has worked extensively with the US Agency for International Development and the World Bank on providing democracy assistance to fragile states. Goldstone is the author of Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World [1993; 2016], awarded the 1993 Distinguished Scholarly Research Award of the American Sociological Association; and, Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History [2008].

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.