This Authoritarian Life

This Authoritarian Life explores how people experience, adapt to, and resist authoritarian politics in their everyday lives. Each month, anthropologists Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren speak with guests from around the world to understand what authoritarianism looks like up close — and how it can be contested. Group winner of the 2025 New Directions Award of the American Anthropological Association , TAL combines ethnographic insight with accessible storytelling to reveal the textures of life under authoritarian stress. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook : www.instagram.com/this_authoritarian_life www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

This Authoritarian Life is a society podcast hosted by Kristóf Szombati & Erdem Evren, with 14 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Kristóf Szombati & Erdem Evren hosts This Authoritarian Life, a society show with 14 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #3

  Hijacking the Opposition: Is This the End of Multi-Party Politics in Turkey? (Turning Points) #3

  Jun 9, 20261h 1mS3

  🎙️ Our "Turning Points" season pivots from the dramatic electoral shifts in Hungary to a sudden constitutional crisis in Turkey. In an unprecedented move, a regional court has annulled the 2023 congress of the main opposition party (CHP), effectively decapitating its elected leadership and handing control back to a defeated old guard. In this episode, Erdem and Kristóf dissect how Erdoğan is attempting to engineer a "controlled opposition." Together, we trace the roots of this drastic state intervention back to the CHP's sweeping victories in the 2024 local elections. Those wins signaled a credible threat to the ruling AKP, which is currently struggling to maintain its popularity amidst a crippled economy, soaring inflation, and mounting public anger. The conversation pushes hard against the limits of traditional party politics in a deeply authoritarian landscape. By exploiting internal factionalism and relying on archaic legal mechanisms, the regime has paralyzed the institutional opposition, raising serious fears that Turkey's multi-party system has effectively come to an end. Drawing comparisons to the political stagnation of pre-2026 Hungary, we ask whether hoping for a return to democratic "normalcy" within the current parliamentary framework is a trap. Can grassroots, grievance-based politics—such as the recent wildcat miners' strikes or a resurgence of the Gezi spirit—overcome a captured institutional opposition? How will the Kurdish political base react to the crushing of the main republican party? And what happens when the opposition's political imagination remains entirely limited to political parties that the state can dismantle at will? 🎧 Tune into This Authoritarian Life — "Hijacking the Opposition: Is This the End of Multi-Party Politics in Turkey?", with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren. Third episode in Season 3 exploring authoritarian turning points. Send us a text message Follow us on Instagram : @this_authoritarian_life Follow us on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #2

  Hungary After the Landslide: Is This the End of Illiberalism? (Turning Points) #2

  Apr 20, 20261h 1mS3

  🎙️ Our Hungary election mini-series continues in the wake of a seismic result: Péter Magyar's Tisza party swept Fidesz from power with a two-thirds supermajority, ending sixteen years of Viktor Orbán's rule. In this episode, Kristóf is joined by his former party co-founder and political economy scholar Gábor Scheiring to make sense of what happened — and the treacherous transition ahead. Together, we trace how Orbán's political settlement unraveled under the weight of a stagnant low-wage economy and exhausted moral authority. The conversation pushes hard against the celebratory end-of-history narrative. Magyar, a former Fidesz insider, won by pairing an anti-corruption message with Fidesz-lite nationalism. Now, armed with a two-thirds supermajority, he faces an entrenched Fidesz apparatus that still wields massive influence over the media, economy, and judiciary. Drawing on the cautionary example of Slovakia — where a pro-European correction gave way to a new cycle of illiberalism under Robert Fico — we ask whether Hungary risks repeating the pattern. Can Tisza move beyond the short-term "sugar rush" of unlocking billions in frozen EU funds? What happens when a new dominant party fills the entire democratic space, with only a weakened civil society to enforce accountability and no left-wing challenger in sight? And what does Orbán's defeat mean for the European far right? 🎧 Tune into This Authoritarian Life — "Hungary After the Landslide: Is This the End of Illiberalism?", with Gábor Scheiring and Kristóf Szombati. Second in a two-part series on Hungary's 2026 election. Send us a text message Follow us on Instagram : @this_authoritarian_life Follow us on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #1

  Hungary Before the Vote: Is Orbán's System Cracking? (Turning Points) #1

  Apr 3, 202658 minS3

  🎙️ Our Hungary election mini-series begins nine days before the April 12 vote. In this episode, Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren discuss what is actually at stake in Hungary's election — beyond the question of whether Viktor Orbán wins or loses. Drawing on Kristóf's recent trip to Budapest and his earlier ethnographic research on how Fidesz built power in rural Hungary, the conversation explores the tense atmosphere before the vote, the rise of Péter Magyar, and the limits of his promise of "regime change." What happens when the clientelist machinery that helped sustain Fidesz’s rule begins to falter? What does Péter Magyar’s promise of ‘regime change’ actually amount to? And how much of the system Orbán built might survive even if Fidesz loses power? 🎧 Tune into This Authoritarian Life — Hungary Before the Vote: Is Orbán's System Cracking? , with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren. First in a two-part series. After the vote, we'll be joined by political economist Gábor Scheiring to discuss the result and its wider implications for authoritarian politics in Europe. Send us a text message Follow us on Instagram : @this_authoritarian_life Follow us on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #5

  The End of Policing? Abolitionism in New York’s City Hall (Frontlines) #5

  Feb 27, 20261h 7mS2

  🎙️ Season 2 of This Authoritarian Life continues at another frontline: policing as a site of concentrated state violence and neoliberal austerity management. In this episode, we speak with Alex Vitale — Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project, and author of the influential book The End of Policing . He joins us from New York, where he serves on the transition team for Mayor Zohran Mamdani's new administration, helping to build a Department of Community Safety. What do real estate developers have to do with why your city sends armed officers to deal with homelessness? Newark's violent crime is at a 60-year low — not because of more policing, but less. What are they doing differently, and why is New York so far behind? Abolition is a powerful critique — but what happens when it has to become policy? What compromises, resistances, and contradictions emerge when the theory meets City Hall? 🎧 To find out, tune into This Authoritarian Life, Season 2, Episode 5 — The End of Policing? Abolitionism in New York’s City Hall , with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren. Send us a text message Follow us on Instagram : @this_authoritarian_life Follow us on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #4

  Unsafe Positions: How Precarity and Repression Silence the University (Frontlines) #4

  Jan 28, 20261h 5mS2

  🎙️ Season 2 of This Authoritarian Life continues at another frontline: the university — where political repression and economic precarity work together to silence critical voices and disempower those who produce knowledge . In this episode, we speak with Aslı Vatansever — a sociologist of work who was dismissed from her position in Istanbul after signing the 'Academics for Peace' petition and now lives and works in Berlin, where she wrote At the Margins of Academia: Exile, Precariousness, and Subjectivity . Why are precarity and repression "two sides of the same coin" — and how do they produce hopelessness and self-censorship? What happened to Turkish academics who signed the Peace Petition — and why did the German response to the university protests against Israel's war in Gaza feel like déjà vu? How do scholarships supporting 'scholars at risk' work as a type of stigma and trap? 🎧 To find out, tune into This Authoritarian Life, Season 2, Episode 4 — Unsafe Positions: How Precarity and Repression Silence the University , with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren. Send us a text message Follow us on Instagram : @this_authoritarian_life Follow us on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on This Authoritarian Life. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.