Danube Institute Podcast

In the race for the presidency, a right wing candidate faces off against the mayor of the country’s largest city.  In a rising country, the battle is between two identities: the global, liberal one. Versus a national conservative vision.  As with Romania, so now with Poland. On Sunday June the first, Eastern Europe’s new powerhouse will decide its destiny.  Will Poland’s next President be the candidate sympathetic to Donald Tusk’s centrist government? Or will the country’s voters turn right – thereby ensuring a legislative logjam until 2027?  For now at least, everything is still to play for. And just as with Romania, it is a game with many turns left to run. As the race quickens, Gavin Haynes talks to Michael O'Shea, the Danube Institute's Visiting Fellow, who covers the Visegrád states, on whether Karol Nawrocki can do what George Simion could not. Danube Politics is the current affairs brand of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based think tank, specialising in Hungarian affairs, conservatism and geo-economics.

The battle against ‘progressive education’ is always ongoing. This week in Britain, Michael Gove’s successor as Education Secretary, Bridget Philipson, introduced a bill that will take British education back, to a decolonised, knowledge-light world that “centres the learners”, as the jargon goes. Gove had established a more rigorous, conservative curriculum. It had proved astoundingly successful with learners – albeit less popular with the teaching unions. Now, the pendulum has swung back, and all the same discredited ideas will soon return to English schools. Few will have counted the tocks of the pendulum as well as Professor Anthony O’Hear. From the late 1980s, Anthony advised a number of British governments on education policy, and he set up the department of education at the University of Buckingham. As he explains to Dr Calum TM Nicholson, he wants to warn us about the dangers of forgetting. And to tell us about the redeeming power of a truly liberal education, in a world of hyper-liberal education. *** Danube Knowledge is a podcast from the Danube Institute, showcasing research and ideas from the research department of the Institute. 

Is IMEC simply an anti-Belt and Road Initiative project, or something more? What can the economic and geopolitical benefits be for the US? Can America reclaim global leadership through soft power ? We spoke with Daniel F. Runde, the director of the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks the Institute's guests, decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians about their unique ideas.Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

As the Conclave begins to elect a new spiritual leader to a billion Catholics, Rod Dreher finds himself looking towards the deeper meaning and purpose of the Papacy, the Church, and religion, in a secular world. Do Catholics need a moderniser, or a traditionalist? Constancy, or renewal? The theme mirrors the great secular debate between populism and the establishment. How much do we need our leaders to be 'relatable'? What is the source of their power: is it ordinariness, or the extraordinary?After all, populist insurgent Nigel Farage is presently toasting big UK wins for his Reform Party in the UK; while establishment conservatives Pierre Poilievre and Peter Dutton were both dumped out of their respective election battles in Canada and Australia. Finally, we turn to Trump’s film tariffs. The latest front in his war for American jobs. Could it ever work? What would it even mean? And what does the global roster of film scripts say about the liquid capital that the modern film business represents? This month, Rod is joined by Lord David Frost of Allenton, former Conservative peer. And Anthony O’Hear, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buckingham, and Visiting Fellow at the Danube Institute. *** The View From The Danube is the keystone video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based think tank that aims to bring Conservative perspectives from the Anglosphere together, in the heart of the European capital of Conservativism. It stars Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option and Living in Wonder, a senior fellow at the Danube Institute, John O’Sullivan, former speechwriter to Margaret Thatcher, the founder and President of the Danube Institute, and Calum Nicholson, the Director of Research. This month, Anthony O’Hear fills in for Calum. With regular guests, we’ll be looking at how Conservatism is changing in a world that is itself changing beyond recognition.

What world order will emerge after the decline of American hegemony? What is China's big strategy, its foreign policy plan? Why is Hungary significant to China? We asked Yan Xuetong, a prominent Chinese foreign policy expert and the Director of The Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University.Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks the Institute's guests, decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians about their unique ideas.Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

What is the geopolitical significance of Central Asia? Why did Turkic states form a regional organization? And what is Hungary’s role in it? We spoke with Kubanychbek Omuraliev, the Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States about national identity, economic interests, and connectivity.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks the Institute's guests, decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians about their unique ideas.Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

The new Syrian administration began life with supreme tactical daring. But it will take more than military prowess to hold together this fractured state. To keep together a tapestry of Alawites, Kurds, Yazidis, Druze and others, it will require a grand pax between the region's biggest players. Hungary claims a certain status as a 'keystone state' in central Europe. In other words: a country that punches above its weight geopolitically, and is super-connected to the region. Ibrahim Mammadov, a Researcher at the Danube Institute, is a citizen of what he considers to be another keystone state within its own region: Azerbaijan. Together, Mammadov points out, the two countries represent a unique geopolitical circuit that encompasses all the key players in any potential Syrian peace deal: Iran, Israel, Russia, Turkey, the US, and to some extent the EU. Could Hungarian-Azeri shuttle diplomacy be the best way to bind together the bigger players? After all, as the Danube Institute's Director of Research, Calum Nicholson, finds out, the key skill set of mid-ranking keystone states is precisely that they are honest brokers. They can touch the third rail of power without raising the suspicion of others. You can read Ibrahim's original paper on the Danube Institute's website, here: https://danubeinstitute.hu/api/v1/companies/381/files/5122155/download

Hugo Martin wants to turn Hungary into a linguistic superpower. Inspired by Balázs Orbán’s state strategy of ‘connectivity’, he foresees Hungary using its central place in Europe to leverage language-learning. He proposes creating a specialised diplomatic corps, to make Hungarians fluent in obscure languages and dialects, giving the country a prime advantage in small or obscure foreign markets that, taken together, represent a big important market. As he points out, learning foreign languages outside of English or German has become an unaffordable luxury for many of the nation's youth. Here, he chats to the Danube Institute's Director of Research, Calum Nicholson, about his recent paper sketching out the 'Connectivity Corps'. You can read Hugo's original paper here: https://danubeinstitute.hu/api/v1/companies/381/files/5122223/download

How was Donald Trump's vice president discovered in 2016? Why did JD Vance go from critic to Trump supporter, and what led him into politics? We asked Rod Dreher, a senior fellow at the Danube Institute, about American conservatives' antipathy towards the EU elite, the threat of soft totalitarianism, and the film based on his book. The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks the Institute's guests, decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians about their unique ideas.Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

In an environment of low interest rates and low returns, private equity was advertised as a clever means to increase returns in a difficulty investment environment. Private equity allows investors to get access to assets that are not traded on the public markets and so, in theory, can offer them exclusive, higher returns. But the private equity structure also risks that a lack of transparency can be used to cover up bad investments and this could even create financial and economic instability. Is private equity driving property bubbles in multiple countries by allowing for a loophole to get around post-2008 bank regulations? Is private equity a blessing or a curse? Analyst David P. Goldman talks to Danube Institute Visting Fellow Philip Pilkington.