Danube Institute Podcast

Next weekend French voters go to the polls in the second round of elections to the French National Assembly after the "far Right" National Rally headed by Marine Le Pen scored a strong but not decisive success in the first round. France's President Emmanuel Macron had called the elections in a response to its victory in the European elections to demonstrate that the Euro-results were an aberration by rallying the other parties to defeat the NR nationally. But Macron's own party came a poor third p\ after the Rally and the left-wing Popular Front, This last round will decide whether the National Rally will leap over the cordon sanitaire that has excluded the party from office until now or face continued exclusion by a Centre-Left coalition. And if the former, will President Macron form of working partnership or "cohabitation" with the NR administration? Or will he seek to block it? And what is likely to be the impact on wider European politics? In the second of three programs on the elections and their consequences between French,, American, and Hungarian experts, Anne-Elisabeth Moutet of the London Sunday Telegraph and Daniel Mahoney, author of several books on French and European politics, and Eszter Soos, a leading Hungarian academic specialist in French politics and culutrewill discuss these and other questions.

Overview and predictions for the first round of the French elections. Over the next two weekends French voters will be going to the polls to select a new national government. France's President Emmanuel Macron called the elections in an emergency response to the victory of the "far-right" National Rassemblement,, in elections to the European Assembly. Apparently he intended to demonstrate that the Euro-results were an aberration by rallying the other parties to defeat the NR nationally. But opinion polls show that the NR's support among voters is almost forty per cent and holding up well whereas the President's own centrist liberals are trailing in third place. These elections open up the possibility of major changes in the conduct of France's democracy and government. Will the National Rassemblement be able to enter into government for the first time leaping over the cordon sanitaire that has excluded the party from office until now? If so, will President Macron form of working partnership or "cohabitation" with the NR administration? Or will he resign? And what is likely to be the impact on wider European politics? In the first of three programs on the elections and their consequences between French, American, and Hungarian experts, Anne-Elisabeth Moutet of the London Sunday Telegraph and Daniel Mahoney, author of several books on French and European politics discuss these and other questions.

Új, angol nyelvű ismeretterjesztő kötet jelent meg a Batthyány Lajos Alapítvány és a Danube Institute gondozásában „Theologians on Modern Politics” címmel. A közeledő nemzetközi bemutató apropóján a Danube Institute vezető kutatójával, a kötet társszerkesztőjével, Dr. Darabos Ádámmal Dallman Kristóf egyháztörténész beszélgetett az intézet podcast sorozatának legújabb epizódjában. A diskurzus során szóba került a kutatás alapgondolata, a kötetté formálódás folyamata, valamint a teológusok, illetve politikai gondolkodók kiválasztási módja és mondanivalójuk aktualitása korunkban.

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had the honour to have a discussion with Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, International Media Spokesperson of the Israel Defence Forces. We started our conversation by asking Lieutenant Colonel Shoshani about his military background and his role in telling the IDF’s story to the world. Lieutenant Colonel Shoshani reacted to a question about the intelligence failure of the IDF on Oct. 7 and IDF's fight against the denial of the Arab world and the ignorance of the West regarding Hamas's brutality, including sexual violence and torture.

In this episode of Reflections from Budapest, we continued our discussion with Shirel Liberman, an Israeli activist and the co-founder of Shift, a women-led impact network aimed at supporting women in public diplomacy and enhancing Israel's positive global influence. In this part, Shirel walked our listeners through her own experiences on the October 7th massacre and highlighted the lack of international response to Hamas's violence, including sexual violence. To conclude, Shirel shared her experiences of organizing tours to the kibbutzim where the atrocities took place.

In this episode of Reflections from Budapest, we continued our discussion with Nadia Matar, co-chairman of the Sovereignity Movement. We asked Mrs Matar about the Islamic extremism and security in the West Bank. In our conversation we also discussed the Gaza War and the case of the hostages. In the end, Mrs Matar shared with us her views about the Israeli sovereignity and the future of the West Bank and Gaza.

In this episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had a two-part discussion with Shirel Liberman, an Israeli influencer of the Voices of Israel program, Chief of Operations at Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy and the co-founder of "Shift," a women-led impact network aimed at supporting women in public diplomacy and enhancing Israel's positive global influence. In this part, we started our conversation by asking Shirel about her previous experiences with pro-Israel advocacy. As Shirel was also involved in the We're Brothers Initiative, which formed before October 7th at the time of the mass anti-government protests against judicial reform to bring people together, we discussed how a deeply divided society became united for a couple of months following the October 7th massacre. We concluded by discussing the rise of anti-Semitism around the world, Zionism and its major role in the Israeli society.

In this episode of Danube Dialogues, John O'Sullivan and Eric Hendriks discuss the reality of world-cultural zones with James Bennett, the popularizer of the term "the Anglosphere".

This is the second webinar in the “China Keywords” series of the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute. In this webinar, Eric Hendriks, the director of TPPI's China Initiative, and Logan West of the Danube Institute talk with Yan Xuetong about the concept of Wangdao, or "The Kingly Way." Among China's most influential foreign policy thinkers, Yan Xuetong is the author of numerous books, including Analysis of China's National Interests (1996), Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power (Princeton University Press, 2011), and Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers (Princeton University Press, 2019). He is a distinguished professor and dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University.

In this episode of Reflections from Budapest, we asked Nadia Matar, co-chairman of the Sovereignity Movement. We asked Mrs Matar about the Jewish identity and its connection to the Land of Israel. Since Nadia Matar currently live in the West Bank, she gave us insight into the situation of the israeli settlement in the region and the relation with the Palestinians. Mrs Matar also share with us her personal memories and thoughts about the most famous persons in the settlement history.