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Legal and policy podcast
The National Affairs Podcast
Conversations with authors from the quarterly journal National Affairs on public policy.
Latest episodes
- The Digital War on Childhood
The struggle to protect children from social media and other digital dangers too often jumps straight to technocratic policy prescriptions. But to get the policy right, we must first grasp the…
- Is American Democracy in Decline? Actually, It’s Alive and Well in the States
Progressive critics charge that democracy is declining in Republican-led states. But a careful analysis of state-level democratic health shows that red and blue states actually score comparably, and…
- Trump’s GOP and the Future of the Right
The conservative coalition that brought Donald Trump back to power looks increasingly unstable. But this turbulence may be a sign of vitality rather than decline. Once Trump leaves office, this new…
- The Declaration of Independence Didn’t Just Proclaim Natural Rights. It Founded a Nation.
In this 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, we are rightly celebrating its proclamation of natural rights. But the document’s other core purpose — founding a nation — deserves…
- Public Libraries and America’s Reading Crisis
Americans are reading less than ever. Policymakers know this is a problem, but they rarely look to public libraries for solutions. Instead, libraries have embraced an agenda of redundancy, morphing…
- AI Chatbots and the Future of Free Speech
In an era of accelerating digital technologies, the jurisprudence of free speech has been utterly transformed. Our ideas about what the right to speech amounts to, what counts as speech, and whether…
- Freeing Americans from the Tyranny of Vice
American society has become radically permissive of some serious vices in the past few years. Drugs, gambling, and pornography are easier to access legally than ever before. A backlash against this…
- Federal Agencies and the Future of Presidential Power
In principle, federal agency missions are set when agencies are created, and so remain rooted in the ambitions of the president and the Congress who decided they were necessary. But in reality…
- Civic Education: A Path to Unity
Higher education has a civic mission. The public knows that, but faculty and administrators seem to have lost sight of it. Instead of transmitting shared civic principles, universities often frame…
- The Golem, Frankenstein’s Monster, and AI: Applying Ancient Wisdom to Modern Tech
Has artificial intelligence advanced to the point where robots possess creative abilities and impulses? If so, or if that moment comes, what could it mean for humanity, and what would it demand of…
Each title opens on the publisher's page. Summaries are shortened from the feed.
Source: the show's public podcast feed. Updated November 9, 2026. Titles, dates and lengths are the publisher's. 4Conservative hosts no audio and is not affiliated with this show.