Making Peace Visible

What's it like to lead without a military? This episode, from our friends at Disrupting Peace, focuses on Costa Rica, and explores what happens when a country abolishes its military, Costa Rica’s approach to domestic security, and the ways that having a military can increase violence and instability in a country.Carlos Alvarado Quesada served as President of Costa Rica from 2018 to 2022. While president, he focused on combating climate change, defending human rights, democracy, and multilateralism, which is when countries cooperate to solve problems. Carlos currently teaches graduate courses on leadership at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, where the World Peace Foundation is based. Follow Carlos on Instagram @carlosalvq.Jorge Vargas is Director of the State of the Nation Program in Costa Rica. As an academic researcher, he focuses on state reform and democracy in Central America. Find out more about Jorge’s work at estadonacion.or.cr.Disrupting Peace is a podcast about why peace hasn't worked, and how it still could, from the World Peace Foundation. It's hosted by Bridget Conley, and produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson.Additional music in this episode by Kevin MacLeod and Xylo-Ziko.  ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Venezuela is a tough place to be a journalist. Our guest this episode, Tony Frangie Mawad wrote last year about the possibility of an opposition victory that would upend the regime of President Nicolás Maduro in the country's July elections. But even though the opposition candidate won the vote, Maduro held on to power, and this year has cracked down further on his opponents and an already-weakened media.Frangie Mawad is an independent journalist and political analyst, based in Caracas, Venezuela.  He writes the Substack Venezuela Weekly, where he keeps a close eye on developments both at home, and in the Venezuelan diaspora.  He’s written for international news outlets including Bloomberg, The Economist, and Americas Quarterly, and was an editor for the Caracas Chronicles.Making Peace Visible producer Andrea Muraskin spoke with Tony about what it’s like to work in an authoritarian context, where journalists are often censored and threatened, and sometimes arrested. As you’ll hear, it helps to have a sense of humor, and a long view of history.  This interview was recorded on March 24. Things may have shifted in Venezuela by the time you hear it.  LEARN MOREtonyfrangie.comVenezuela Weekly (English edition)El Chiguire Bipolar - "The Bipolar Capybara" Venezuelan satire website ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

After the end of the Cold War, many academics and policymakers believed that a global state of peace was achievable.  People talked about a “peace dividend”:  A long-term benefit. as budgets for military spending would be redirected to social programs or returned to citizens in the form of lower taxes.  Our guest this episode, Bridget Conley, started her career in peacebuilding in the 1990s. At that time, Western academics and politicians spelled out a formula for creating peaceful nations. You would hold elections, convert the economy to a free market, pursue human rights, and prosecute bad actors. But the post 9/11 years showed that the militarized world order was not going away.There’s been a push in recent years to localize peace efforts – meaning fund them and run them based on direction from people in the effected countries. But to a considerable extent, peacebuilding still revolves around that formula from the 1990s. That’s why Conley launched Disrupting Peace, a podcast that explores why peace hasn’t worked, and how it could.  Bridget is the research director at the World Peace Foundation, a research organization affiliated with Tufts University. Her research is currently focused on mass incarceration in the United States, and she teaches college classes inside the prison system in Massachusetts as part of the Tufts University Prison Initiative. For Conley, prison abolition and international peacebuilding are all about creating societies that solve problems through debate and discussion, not through coercion.  ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

When the Trump administration slashed the budget and suspended most of the staff of the United States Agency for International Development last month, their representatives said the agency was using taxpayer dollars to fund a radical, “woke” agenda around the world. Criticism coming from the Left since the founding of USAID in 1961 has characterized USAID as an arm of American imperialism. The reality, of course, is much more complicated. It’s heartbreaking to hear stories of children suddenly unable to attend school and receive essential vaccinations. But beyond the shockwaves of a sudden halt in the flow of assistance, there's a lot about US foreign aid that's up for debate. Questions like what does it accomplish? Does it really help? How does it help? Should it continue? Or, should foreign aid be scaled down over time? Our host, Jamil Simon, has seen USAID projects succeed, and fall short – having worked for more than three decades as a USAID contractor, developing communication strategies to promote reform in more than 20 countries.Our guest, Gregory Warner is a Peabody Award - winning journalist who has reported on USAID on the ground in places including Sub-Saharan Africa, Ukraine and Afghanistan. He was the creator and host of NPR's international podcast Rough Translation. Before that, he was an international correspondent for NPR, based in East Africa. Warner has reported on USAID on the ground in Africa, as well as in Ukraine and Afghanistan. He writes the Substack blog Rough Transition.MORE FROM GREGORY WARNERSubscribe to get Rough Transition in your inbox. Read Warner’s recent reporting about the gutting of USAID and what it says about the perception of America in the world. Listen to the Rough Translation episode about a woman who lied so she could receive aid designated for sexual violence survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Explore the Rough Translation podcast archive. CONNECT WITH USDo you have a story of your own about USAID? Keep the conversation going on LinkedIn, or drop us a line at info@makingpeacevisible.org.Music in this episode is by Xylo-Ziko, Blue Dot Sessions, Gavin Luke, Feras Charestan, and Caro Luna.  ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Often the news covers crises without context. That's especially true when it comes to coverage of the Global South in international media. Our guest this episode, journalist and documentary filmmaker Etant Dupain, gives us a behind-the-headlines look at events in Haiti, his home country. Dupain says that the gangs who control much of the country now are supported by powerful elites. Their aim, his says, is to suppress a grassroots protest movement that is calling for accountability for the embezzlement of billions of dollars in development funds. Dupain's new documentary film, The Fight for Haiti, tells the story of the Haitian movement against corruption and impunity, which started with a tweet and at its height had hundreds of thousands in the street. In this episode, you’ll learn aboutThe problematic history of foreign aid in Haiti including the aftermath of the the 2010 earthquakeThe Petrocaribe agreement with Venezuela that was supposed to fund crucial infrastructure projects in HaitiCreative tactics activists used to demand accountabilityWho profits when gangs overtake a countryWatch a trailer and learn more about the film and the movement at thefightforhaiti.com.Protest audio used in the episode is from the film The Fight for Haiti, used with permission.  ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Israel and Hamas are just over two weeks into a ceasefire agreement, after fifteen months of fighting. This is a paradoxical moment to talk about long term peace. The horrific October 7th attacks and the near - destruction of Gaza that followed, served to amplify already high levels of distrust, hate, and trauma. At the same time, the war has demonstrated to Gazans that their government placed conflict with Israel above their own survival. And it has shown Israelis that an indefinite blockade of Gaza doesn’t ensure their security. So while the ceasefire doesn’t mean the end of the conflict by any means, it does offer an opportunity to envision a way out. Our guest for this episode is Ksenia Svetlova, an expert observer of politics and media in the Middle East and the executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economics, and Security, or ROPES. Svetlova is an immigrant to Israel from the Soviet Union, an Arabic speaker and a Middle East specialist. For fifteen years. Svetlova reported from Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and different countries in the region. She served four years in Israel’s parliament representing the center-left Zionist Union Coalition. MORE FROM KSENIA SVETLOVARead: Netanyahu’s phase two dilemma: Political survival vs defying President Trump, for Chatham HouseListen: ROPESCAST, the podcast from ROPESWatch: Webinars and more on ROPES’ YouTube channel  ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Imagine you’re living through a crisis in your part of the world. It could be a natural disaster, a contentious election, or even a coup d’etat.  Rumors are swirling on social media, on television, and even your family group chat. Events are unfolding rapidly, and you don’t know what to believe.  What if, just by sending a text message, you could reach a trusted source for an instant fact check?  Our guest today, Ed Bice, heads an organization called Meedan, that provides a consumer-facing fact checking service in countries around the world. Meedan’s software integrates with messaging apps, to connect people quickly with trusted news organizations. Instead of asking Chat GPT or Google, you can ask a customized chatbot, and get an answer based on reporting from your local TV station or newspaper.  Meedan’s work has been especially impactful during contentious elections in countries like Mexico, India, and Brazil.  Unfortunately, Meta’s announcement that it will stop fact checking on its platforms this year – including WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook – threatens the funding and support essential for tools like Meedan to combat misinformation.Ed Bice has been working for two decades to make the Internet a more collaborative and democratic space. And he’s still optimistic.    ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

This is a pivotal moment in Syria, the abrupt end of a brutal dictatorship that killed and tortured thousands and terrorized Syrian society. The Assad regime also suppressed speech, and we’re now seeing a surge in independent reports on the news and social media. The big question is what happens next? And what does this change mean to the region? In this episode, we welcome back Zaina Erhaim to share her perspective on the sudden fall of the Assad regime, and what's ahead for Syria. Zaina is an award winning Syrian journalist, who is widely recognized for her commitment to ethical reporting and amplifying marginalized voices. She began her career reporting on the civil war in Syria, but fled to the UK after both the Assad regime, and opposition forces threatened her life. Zaina Erhaim is the managing editor of Jeem, and a communications consultant. Note: This interview was recorded on December 22, 2024. On December 30, Syria’s transitional government appointed Maysaa Sabrine as head of the Syrian central bank, the first woman to hold the role. Listen to our 2022 episode with Zaina Erhaim, Decolonizing international journalismMore from Zaina Erhaim on Syria after Assad:New York Times Opinion | Al-Assad Is Gone, and One Idea Fills My BrainNew Internationalist: Where to now for Syria’s women? Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post: Images and narratives of Syria’s historic moment ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Please consider supporting our work at the intersection of peace, conflict, and the media! Make a tax-deductible contribution today at makingpeacevisible.org. Thank you! When you look at the online reactions to major events, or watch news footage of political rallies, you might conclude that people on the political Left have a completely different moral compass, – or sense of right and wrong–, from people on the political Right. But Kurt Gray, a social psychologist who studies morality and politics, says that’s not true. The main thesis behind Gray’s work at the Deepest Beliefs Lab at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his new book Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics, and How to Find Common Ground – is that humans share a sense of morality based on fear of harm, the product of our evolutionary heritage.  However perceptions of who is vulnerable to harm and how those vulnerable should be defended differs widely across the divide. In this episode, Kurt Gray draws on research to shed light on issues includingWhy so many people reacted positively to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian ThompsonWhy we often think our communities and our children are less safe than they actually areHow the decline of local news may contribute to polarization Why facts rarely change minds in a political argumentHow to approach politics with a sense of “moral humility” Learn more about Kurt Gray and the book at kurtjgray.com. Follow his newsletter, Moral Understanding: The Science of What Divides Us, at moralunderstandingnewsletter.com.   ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Support this podcast with a tax-deductible donation. Photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind and writer Alisa Sopova create intimate, accessible portraits of Ukrainian civilians living close to the frontlines of the Russian invasion. Sometimes their subjects are picnicking in a park or tending a garden. Other times, they’re repairing a ceiling damaged by shelling or waiting for departure on an evacuation train. Anastasia and Alisa have been working together in Ukraine since the Maidan Revolution, also known as the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014. And over the years, they’ve returned to visit the same families, witnessing how the war touches men, women, and children over time. Independent Projects5K From the Frontline Welcome to DonetskInternational media work:NPR: The Ukraine war isn't new. These intimate photos show 3 families enduring it for yearsThe New Humanitarian: How seven years of war and COVID-19 split Ukraine in twoThe New York Times: Opinion: Where There Are Fish in the Tap Water and Women’s Uteruses Fall OutTime Magazine: The Strange Unreality of Life During Eastern Ukraine's Forgotten WarMusic in this episode by Doyeq, One Man Book, and Bill Vortex ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!