Venezuela is a country where the crisis of democracy has been unfolding for years, and where the collapse of institutions has left citizens facing not only political repression and economic hardship, but also the consequences of a fragile state unable to fully protect them.

After years of Nicolás Maduro's rule, Venezuela remains at a crossroads. A country that once had some of Latin America's strongest democratic institutions watched them be dismantled from within.

My guest is Armando Armas, a Venezuelan lawyer and former member of the National Assembly, elected in 2015 when the opposition won a historic majority against Nicolás Maduro. In 2017, as Maduro moved to replace that Assembly with a government-controlled Constituent Assembly, pro-government groups stormed the building and assaulted him. Forced into exile, he now works for his country's democratic transition.

Venezuela is a warning, because democracy did not disappear overnight. We discuss how authoritarian regimes do not always abolish elections: sometimes they simply drain them of meaning. They capture institutions, weaken the judiciary, control information, and turn the state into an instrument of political survival, reshaping the story a country tells about itself through the media.

But as Armas tells me, Venezuela is also a story of resilience. A transition takes more than removing a dictator: it takes rebuilding institutions, restoring trust, and making sure that liberation does not become a new form of dependence. And Venezuelan civil society, he argues, is ready for that.

With reason, not rage.

In this episode:

∙ Venezuela's authoritarian playbook: institutions, courts and media

∙ The rule of law as the foundation of democracy

∙ The Venezuelan kleptocracy

∙ When elections survive but democracy dies

∙ How the international community failed Venezuela

∙ Dismantling an autocracy without violence

∙ The challenge of a democratic transition

∙ Maduro's capture and international law

∙ Exile, resilience and the soul of a country

Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction

1:40 – Democracy is about truth

4:40 – The day of the assault on the rule of law

9:40 – Meaningless elections, Cuba and a lesson from Gramsci

14:25 – The media in private hands

19:00 – Is Venezuela resisting?

24:00 – How the international community failed the Venezuelan people

27:30 – The post-Maduro era: just a change of master?

35:40 – María Corina Machado will not be anyone's puppet

39:00 – We have to earn our liberation

46:45 – How Venezuela is preparing for elections

50:00 – The soul of a country, seen from exile

55:30 – We know the cost of our trauma

56:55 – Use AI to choose your representatives wisely

Author and host: Ivan Scalfarotto

Editor and social media: Ludovica Taurisano

Graphic designer: Paola De Bartolo

Visual identity: Martina Santurri

Sound designer: Enrico Cabua

There is No Real Alternative for Germany, with Hans-Jochen Wagner

This time, Budapest steps onto a stage.

Not because politics belongs to theatre (well, sometimes...), but because artists often understand politics better than politics understands itself.

That is why I invited Hans-Jochen Wagner. One of Germany's best-known television and theatre actors, he has spent his career telling stories about his country, most recently in Deutsches Haus, the acclaimed series inspired by the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. He is not a politician. Yet Germany's democratic anxieties belong to everyone, not only to those who sit in parliament.

So we begin with a question that still echoes more than thirty years after reunification: is there still a border between East and West Germany?

For Wagner, that border no longer divides territories. It divides experiences. While one part of the country had decades to learn democracy, the other was suddenly asked to live it. Perhaps that helps explain why some Germans are once again longing for a state that promises to take care of everything.

Memory, too, can become a political battleground. We discuss how Germany confronted the legacy of the Third Reich, why acknowledging historical responsibility should never be mistaken for inherited guilt, and how the far right turns fear into identity while offering very few answers to the problems it claims to solve.

As the German Left struggles to offer a compelling political vision, many mainstream parties have chosen an easier path: echoing the language of the Alternative für Deutschland. But, Wagner warns, voters will always prefer the original.

His answer is surprisingly simple: do not wait for the state to organise your life. Join a club. A theatre. A sports association. A political party. Meet people. Build communities.

Democracy does not organise itself.

People do.

Because democracy begins at home.

With reason, not rage.

In this episode:

∙ Is there still a border between East and West Germany?

∙ The Wall that still divides Germany

∙ Responsibility without guilt: remembering the Third Reich

∙ The first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial and why memory still matters

∙ Why echoing the AfD only strengthens the AfD

∙ Germany's cultural sector under pressure

∙ Can art still challenge power?

∙ Why young Europeans still believe in a federal Union

∙ Democracy starts when isolation ends

Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction

1:30 – The border between East and West Germany

7:35 – They promised to take care of the people

11:50 – The Berlin Wall shaped many generations

13:28 – The feeling of guilt among young Germans

20:05 – The true Alternative for Germany

25:09 – The populists sell lies

28:00 – Where is the money?

33:20 – The German Left and Sahra Wagenknecht

36:30 – Less money and more censorship for intellectuals

45:00 – The next five years in Germany

47:00 – Youth is working for a federal Union

51:00 – Stop your isolation

Author and host: Ivan Scalfarotto

Editor and social media: Ludovica Taurisano

Graphic designer: Paola De Bartolo

Visual identity: Martina Santurri

Sound designer: Enrico Cabua

We are now moving from Budapest to Serbia, where I am joined by Dragana Djurica — Secretary General of the European Movement in Serbia, who also sits on the board of the European Movement International. Before that, she spent almost ten years as a senior expert at the Regional Cooperation Council.

We begin with a question that concerns far more than the Western Balkans: has Serbia been lost on Europe's doorstep?

For Djurica, the frontier between democracy and autocracy does not follow a map. It runs through people's everyday lives. Democracies rarely collapse overnight: more often, they erode slowly, as citizens grow accustomed to fear and resignation.

As soon as people think there is no point in fighting.

Like frogs in boiling water.

We discuss how the Serbian regime, led by Aleksandar Vučić, has captured institutions, especially the media, through which language and reality are shaped and manipulated. In such a system, criticising corruption becomes an act against the state, while defending democratic values is portrayed as a betrayal of the country.

Yet the student-led protests have challenged that narrative. For the first time in years, many Serbians — adults, too — realised they were not alone, and that it was worth it.

But we should not romanticise protests in the streets. Moral force is not enough: it must become a political strategy. The streets can awaken society, but only institutions can transform it.

On Serbia's future as a democracy also rests the future of Europe's own security and credibility. So let us all remember: the Serbian people are not the Serbian regime.

In this episode:
∙ Like frogs in boiling water: how democracies slowly erode
∙ How autocratic regimes manipulate language through the media
∙ The Serbian student protests and what comes next for Vučić
∙ From student movement to political organisation: what is needed
∙ Serbia between Brussels, Moscow and Beijing
∙ Why the European Union cannot afford to lose Serbia
∙ Serbia on Europe's doorstep: threat or opportunity

With reason, not rage.

Timestamps
0:00 – Introduction
1:10 – Like frogs in boiling water
8:30 – My region deserves a chance
14:35 – How perverse is an autocratic regime
17:25 – Serbians are protesting, what happens now?
18:00 – Regimes have the monopoly over reality
23:00 – When a protest movement organises
27:20 – Vučić first dominated the media
33:00 – Propaganda and LGBTQ+ communities
34:00 – What are Serbia's geopolitical interests?
40:00 – Serbia is a matter of security for the EU
49:00 – Serbian citizens are not the regime

Author and host: Ivan Scalfarotto
Editor and social media: Ludovica Taurisano
Graphic designer: Paola De Bartolo
Visual identity: Martina Santurri
Sound designer: Enrico Cabua