TED Talks
TED: How AI and democracy can fix each other | Divya Siddarth
We don't have to sacrifice our freedom for the sake of technological progress, says social technologist Divya Siddarth. She shares how a group of people helped retrain one of the world's most powerful AI models on a constitution they...
TED Talks
TED: A crash course in making political change | Katie Fahey
You don't need political power to make real change, says activist Katie Fahey. She tells the story of how she led a successful movement in Michigan to end gerrymandering — the practice of drawing district lines to favor one political...
TED Talks
TED: Democracy works — we just need better leaders | Lindiwe Mazibuko
South Africa transitioned to democracy in the 1990s with a visionary constitution, but the promises of that constitution are largely unfulfilled to this day. Public leader Lindiwe Mazibuko explores how poor leadership failed to deliver a...
Curated Video
Mandela's former jailer on Robben Island talks about his former prisoner
The former Robben Island prison guard who befriended Nelson Mandela during his time on the island prison described him as a "father" and "a person which you can look up to."
Christo Brand was a young jailer when Mandela, who had already...
PBS
Could the Electoral college system ever change?
President-Elect Donald Trump captured the White House by winning the Electoral College, even as Hillary Clinton won about half a million votes more than Trump. In response, some are calling for a national popular vote to decide the...
Crash Course
Legal System Basics: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine takes a first look at the judicial branch. It's pretty easy to forget that the courts, and the laws that come out of them, affect our lives on a daily basis. But how exactly these decisions are made and where each...
Crash Course
Judicial Decisions: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig Benzine is going to dive into the factors that influence judicial decisions. As you may have noticed, the Supreme Court recently handed down some pretty big decisions on same-sex marriage (in Obergefell v Hodges) and the...
Crash Course
Sex Discrimination: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to talk about employment discrimination, and we're going to focus primarily on women in the workforce. Discrimination against women tends to be handled somewhat differently in the courts as they are not a minority....
Crash Course
Congressional Leadership: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine explores the leadership structure of congress. We’ll break out the clone machine to examine the responsibilities of the speaker of the house, the majority and minority leaders as well as the majority and minority...
Crash Course
How Presidents Govern: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine talks about how the president gets things done. Filling the role of the executive branch is a pretty big job - much too big for just one person. It's so big that the president employs an entire federal...
TED Talks
TED: The shift we need to stop mass surveillance | Albert Fox Cahn
Mass surveillance is worse than you think, but the solutions are simpler than you realize, says lawyer, technologist and TED Fellow Albert Fox Cahn. Breaking down the crude tactics law enforcement uses to sweep up massive amounts of data...
Crash Course
Supreme Court of the United States Procedures: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine talks about what happens when a case makes it to the Supreme Court of the United States (or the SCOTUS). We're going to focus on court procedure today. We talk about how to petition to get your case heard, how...
Crash Course
Congressional Delegation: Crash Course Government and Politics
In which Craig Benzine teaches you about delegation, and informal powers. What are all these federal agencies about? Well, the president has a lot of stuff to do as the chief executive, and as much as Americans like to talk about...
Crash Course
Political Campaigns: Crash Course Government and Politics
So political campaigns are a pretty big deal in the United States. For instance the 2012 presidential election clocked in at the most expensive ever - at around $6 billion dollars! Needless to say, money plays a very big role in American...
Crash Course
Equal Protection: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to talk about the most important part of the Constitution - the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, we're going to discuss the "equal protection" clause and how it relates to our civil rights. So we've spent the...
Crash Course
Search and Seizure: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig talks about police searches and seizures. Now, the fourth amendment says that you have the right to be protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" but what exactly does this mean? Well, it's complicated. The...
Crash Course
Freedom of the Press: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to finish up our discussion of the First Amendment with freedom of the press. Like an individual's right to free speech, the press has a right, and arguably responsibility, to tell the public what the government is...
Crash Course
Congressional Decisions: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig breaks out the crystal ball to try and figure out why our congresspeople do the things that they do. We’ll talk about the three motivating factors of congressional decisions - constituency, interest groups, and political...
Crash Course
Bureaucracy Basics: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine discuses bureaucracies. Bureaucracies tend to be associated with unintelligible rules and time-wasting procedures, but they play an important, though controversial, role in governing. From the FDA to the EPA,...
Crash Course
Discrimination: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to wrap up our discussion of discrimination by looking more closely at those “discrete and insular minorities” referenced in the 14th Amendment. We’ll talk about instances of discrimination of Asian, European, and...
TED Talks
TED: In praise of conflict | Jonathan Marks
Conflict is bad; compromise, consensus and collaboration are good -- or so we're told. Lawyer and bioethicist Jonathan Marks challenges this conventional wisdom, showing how governments can jeopardize public health, human rights and the...
Crash Course
Social Policy: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to talk about social policy - in the United States this means achieving one of three goals: protecting Americans from risk, promoting equal opportunity, or assisting the poor. Many Americans strongly believe in...
Crash Course
Structure of the Court System: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine is going to talk about the structure of the U.S. court system and how exactly it manages to keep things moving smoothly. We’’ll talk about trial courts, district courts, appeals courts, circuit courts, state...
Crash Course
Due Process of Law: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig is going to continue our discussion of due process. Technically, we started last week with the 4th amendment and search and seizure, but this week we’re going to look at the 5th and 6th amendments and how they ensure a...