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Today's episode is brought to you by whoop the world's most powerful, personalized digital fitness and health coach. To day's guest is bryan closs, who is an associate professor in global politics at university college london. And his new book is called corruptible, who gets power and how it affects us. There are some things that can be done to make it less likely that people who get into power become corrupted.

All societies grant more power to some citizens, and there is always a temptation to use that power for the benefit of themselves rather than for the greater good. Power corrupts, we are told — but to what extent is that true? Would any of us, upon receiving great power, be tempted by corruption? Or are corruptible people drawn to accrue power? Brian Klaas has investigated these questions by looking at historical examples and by interviewing hundreds of people who have been in this position. He concludes that power can corrupt, but it doesn’t necessarily do so — we can construct safeguards to keep corruption to a minimum.

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Brian Klaas received his D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford. He is currently Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London and a columnist for The Washington Post. His new book is Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us. He is host of the Power Corrupts podcast.