Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

Mark Blyth, a political economist at the Watson Institute and author of "Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers," dives into the complexities of inflation. He discusses competing theories behind its causes and the unique impacts of post-pandemic inflation on different income groups. The conversation highlights how lower-income households bear the brunt, explores innovative solutions like windfall taxes on oil profits, and emphasizes the need for equitable strategies to manage future inflation. Blyth's insights are both timely and thought-provoking.

Mexico, like the United States, has a gun violence problem. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and most of those murders come from firearms. In 2019, for example, almost 70% of the country's 35,000 murders involved firearms.But unlike the U.S., Mexico doesn’t have tens of thousands of licensed firearms dealers. It has two. So how do so many guns make their way into Mexico? And how do these guns shape Mexican society? These are two of the questions Ieva Jusionyte explores in her new book “Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border.” Jusionyte is an anthropologist at the Watson Institute and spent much of the last few years following people whose lives are shaped by guns in Mexico. Guns, which, by and large, come from the United States. On this episode, which was originally broadcast in May 2024, Jusionyte discusses the impact of American firearms on Mexican society and the role they play in spreading violence and trauma on both sides of the border. Learn more about and purchase "Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border."Transcript coming soon to our website

The World Press Freedom Index, which is issued by Reporters without Borders, measures the health of press freedom around the world. They do so along a number of axes, including the economic health of independent media, legal protections for the press and the physical security of journalists. In 2025, the global score on the index was the lowest it’s ever been.On this episode, Dan Richards talks with three journalists and media thinkers who work in a part of the world where press freedom is, at times, a matter of life and death. Chernoh Bah is a Sierra Leonean journalist, historian and postdoctoral research fellow at the Watson Institute. Sadibou Marong is a journalist and Sub-Saharan Africa bureau chief for Reporters Without Borders, based in Sénégal. Zubaida Ismail is a freelance journalist and Ghana's correspondent for Reporters Without Borders.They discuss the state of press freedom in countries across Africa, what the struggle for independent journalism in countries in Africa can teach the rest of the world, and the broader relationship between independent media and democratic health. These guests, along with many others, gathered at the Watson Institute this Spring as part of the Media and Democracy Conference hosted by Watson’s Africa Initiative. You can watch more conversations and presentations from the conference here. 

Tuesday, April 29, marked the first 100 days of Trump’s second term. To help make sense of all that’s happened (and a lot has happened), Dan Richards spoke with political scientist and Interim Director of the Watson Institute, Wendy Schiller.They discussed how Trump’s approach to governing has changed since his first term, and how the country, so far, has reacted to those changes. They also explore what’s been missing from mainstream coverage of this moment in U.S. politics, and the evolving relationship between national politics and institutions of higher education. 

On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Marc Dunkelman, Watson Institute fellow in International and Public Affairs and author of the new book “Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back.” In the book, Dunkelman explores how American progressives transformed from a movement dedicated to ambitious, effective, centralized government projects (think the New Deal or Medicaid) into a movement dedicated to limiting government power. As Marc explains, this wasn’t an intentional project but the result of overlapping, competing impulses within the progressive movement and a cultural shift with progressivism in the 20th century, whose effects took decades to fully materialize. In charting this transformation and its effects, Dunkelman explains why today, even when in power, progressives seem unable to achieve their own goals, from increasing housing supply to upgrading infrastructure to decarbonizing our energy grid. He also explains how this shift has shaped our electoral politics and what progressives can do to help get progressivism (and America) working again. Learn more about and purchase “Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back.”

In 2022, OpenAI, Inc. launched a free version of its software ChatGPT, ushering in a new phase in the widespread use of artificial intelligence. Since then, a constant stream of breakthroughs in AI tech by a handful of companies has made clear that artificial intelligence will reshape our planet more profoundly and more quickly than many of us imagined.Some of these promised changes are thrilling. Just as many, it seems, are terrifying. So, how should we think about the impact AI will have on us all, especially when it comes to the most fundamental questions of humanity's shared future? According to Watson Institute Senior Fellow Malika Saada Saar, to make sure AI serves us all, we can’t be too scared of it. In fact, it’s all of our responsibility to use it and understand it. “It's important that all of us be able to have curiosity about the technology and to be able to interact with it. Because if the fourth industrial revolution becomes technology that's only utilized by the few, it's very dangerous,” Saar told Dan Richards on this episode of “Trending Globally.” Saar is a human rights lawyer who, before coming to Watson, served as the Global Head of Human Rights for YouTube. On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with her about how human rights law intersects with big tech and about the risks and opportunities AI poses for the future of human rights. Transcript coming soon to our website

In the 19th century, about one in three Americans moved every year. In the 1960s, that figure had shrunk to one in five In 2023, it was one in 13. In other words, a smaller percentage of Americans are moving today than they have at any time in our history. As Yoni Appelbaum, historian and deputy executive editor at The Atlantic makes clear in his book, “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity,” this change has played a devastating role in many of the most pressing issues Americans face, from income inequality to economic mobility to political polarization.On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Appelbaum about why Americans stopped moving, why that’s a problem for all of us, and what we can do to revive this key component of growth and opportunity in the U.S.Learn more about and purchase “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity”

On February 23, Germans went to the polls. While the establishment center-right CDU/CSU alliance won the largest share of votes, the results revealed a country experiencing profound political and social change. The far-right AfD party received an unprecedented 20% of the vote, while the incumbent center-left party, the SPD, suffered its worst loss in over 100 years. So, what does this election tell us about Europe’s largest economy? And as the Trump administration continues to upend U.S.-European relations, and the war in Ukraine challenges Europe’s own sense of security and stability, what will this new governing coalition mean for an international order that, for the first time in decades, has the U.S. and Europe on seemingly divergent paths? On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with Watson political scientist and Europe expert Nick Ziegler to help make sense of this election and to place it in the broader context of European politics and global security.

On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Tyler Jost, a political scientist and assistant professor at the Watson Institute. Tyler is an expert on international security and Chinese foreign policy, and his new book “Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation,” explores how leaders (in China and beyond) make decisions about when and how to engage in military conflict. Are there open channels of communication between a country’s leaders and security advisors? Are there forums for debate and disagreement? And what can be done to actually help leaders make better decisions?In one sense, the questions the book explores are timeless. But Jost’s book feels especially timely at this moment, as tensions continue to rise between the U.S. and China, and the world adjusts once again to an American president unmoored by traditional norms and institutions.The stakes of military conflict today have never been higher, and the need for clear, accurate analysis of the costs and benefits of military actions is more important than ever. And as Jost explains in this episode: there are lessons from history for how to help leaders make better decisions when it comes to national security. Let’s just hope those in power are willing to learn them. Learn more about and purchase “Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation" Transcript coming soon to our websiteQuestions? Send us an email at trendingglobally@brown.edu

The Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol is a stately room just off the Great Rotunda, whose walls are lined with — you guessed it — statues. The statues celebrate notable figures from all 50 states.For most of its existence, there wasn’t a single statue of a Black American in this hall. But that changed in 2022 when a statue of Mary McCleod Bethune was delivered to the Hall from Florida.Bethune, who was born in 1875 and died in 1955, might not be the first name you would have guessed to break this racial barrier. But as Noliwe Rooks, chair of Africana Studies at Brown University, shows in her new book “A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune,” her achievements as an educator and civil rights leader were profound, her life story is an inspiration, and her place in the statuary hall is well-deserved. The book — which has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award — is part biography, part memoir and part analysis of a period in American history that’s often overlooked in the story of racial progress. If you’ve never heard of Bethune, this book is for you. And if you think you know the story of Mary McCleod Bethune, this book will probably show you a side of her you haven’t seen before. Learn more about and purchase “A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune”