Episode 8.5: Elite Power and the Meaning of Democracy

Interviewer: JOSHUA ROSE. In this episode, host Joshua Rose speaks with DR. NATASHA PIANO, Assistant Professor of Political Theory at UCLA, about her book Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science. Together, they revisit early twentieth-century political theorists who challenged conventional understandings of democracy, elections, and elite power. Their conversation explores how concerns about plutocracy, political accountability, and democratic legitimacy shaped twentieth-century political thought, and why these debates remain deeply relevant as contemporary democracies grapple with growing inequality, institutional distrust, and democratic backsliding.