Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

February 24, 2024, marks two years since the beginning of the War in Ukraine. In the war’s first year, Russia’s assault on Ukraine shook the West, while Ukraine's defense of the territory captivated the world. While no less deadly or consequential, the war's second year has looked very different. The war has become a stalemate on the battlefield, altering the politics in Kyiv, the Kremlin, and among their respective allies. Neither country’s leaders appear to be looking for a way out of the war anytime soon, and the prospect of peace in Ukraine seems as far away as it’s been at any point in the last two years. On this episode, Dan Richards discusses the state of the War in Ukraine with Lyle Goldstein, a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities. They explore the shifting definitions of “victory” in both Kyiv and the Kremlin over the past 12 months, what an end to this conflict might look like, and what it would take to bring both country’s leaders to the negotiating table. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

In the United States, inequality along the lines of race in education is such a persistent issue that it often fails to make headlines. COVID-19 brought it back to the front of the nation’s consciousness as evidence mounted that nonwhite students were experiencing roughly twice as much learning loss as their white counterparts. Yet, as our guest on this episode explains, if history is any guide, more attention to the issue doesn’t necessarily mean better outcomes for nonwhite and poor students. There’s a long history of well-financed, elite (largely white) institutions investing time and money to try and address inequality in American education with little to show for it. Even more unsettling, these efforts often make the problem worse. On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Noliwe Rooks, chair of Africana Studies at Brown University, and the author of an award-winning book, “Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education.” They discuss the surprising history of some of America’s most influential school reform efforts, and the deeper historical patterns and racist structures that keep our education system broken for so many American children. Learn more about and purchase “Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education.”Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

Backlash is hardly a new political force — since America’s founding, change has often been driven by citizens mobilizing in opposition to policies, programs, or social movements. But recently, as our guest on this episode explains, backlash movements have come to dominate our politics in unprecedented ways. He argues that to build a more stable and healthy politics, we need to better understand how these forces work. Why do certain policies, movements, or individual politicians incite powerful backlash movements while others don't? And why — whether we’re talking about immigration, healthcare, reproductive rights, or countless other issues — has backlash come to dominate so many different policy realms? On this episode, Dan Richards explores these questions with Eric Patashnik, a political scientist at the Watson Institute, and author of the book “Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age.” In the book, Patashnik provides a theory of political backlash — what causes it, why it’s diffused through our politics over the last few decades, and how policymakers and politicians can learn to remain effective in a political moment dominated by backlash and countermobilization.   Learn more about and purchase “Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age”Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

Trending Globally will be back with all new episodes soon, but in the meantime we’re rereleasing some of our favorite episodes from 2023. We hope you enjoy – and have a great start to 2024!***The beginning of 2023 saw a disturbing milestone: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the ‘Doomsday Clock’ forward to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it’s been to ‘Doomsday’ since the clock was established in 1947. But what would it take for a nuclear weapon to actually be used in the world today? And if one was used, how would the rest of the world respond? In this episode (originally released in February 2023), the second in our limited series on the theory, policies, and practice of conflict escalation, you’ll hear from two experts rethinking how nuclear threats are understood and modeled. Rose McDermott is a professor of International Affairs at the Watson Institute, and Reid Pauly is an assistant professor of Nuclear Security and Policy at Watson. Their paper “Decision-making Under Pressure: The Mechanisms and Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship” is the lead article in the current issue of International Security. In it, they reframe one of the most fundamental theories for understanding nuclear risks: nuclear “brinkmanship.” They highlight why conventional models of brinkmanship fail to fully explain how a nuclear crisis might unfold and explore what interventions are needed to prevent one from starting. Read Rose and Reid’s paper, “Decision-making Under Pressure: The Mechanisms and Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship.”Listen to the first episode in our limited series, “Escalation,” with Lyle Goldstein. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

“Trending Globally” will be back with all new episodes soon, but in the meantime, we’re rereleasing a few of our favorite episodes from 2023. We hope you enjoy — and have a great start to 2024!***In 2007, Watson Professor John Eason moved with his family from Chicago to Forest City, Arkansas. At the time Eason was getting his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and he moved to Forest City to learn about America’s mass incarceration crisis from a perspective that’s often overlooked: that of the towns where America’s prisons are located. What effect do prisons have in these often underserved rural communities? And what role do these communities play in what scholars and activists often call the “prison industrial complex”? What he found was a story that defied easy explanation. “After a week in Forest City…everything I had thought I'd known about why we build prisons was completely changed,” Eason described.  His book about Forest City, “Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation,” explores the town’s politics, history, and culture to offer a nuanced picture of how prisons affect the communities that house them. In doing so, he unsettles many of the notions Americans have about the relationship between race, class and mass incarceration. On this episode of “Trending Globally” (originally broadcast in January 2022), Eason explains what brought him to Forest City, what he found once he got there, and how it changed his view of the prison-industrial complex. Whether you see prisons as a necessary part of society or an institution in need of abolition, John’s work provides essential context for envisioning a more humane and just way forward for America’s carceral system. Learn more about and purchase “Big House on the Prairie”Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts 

This December marks four years since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. On this episode of Trending Globally, Dan Richards speaks with two experts from the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health about the ways our society’s approach to public health has changed since 2019. They discuss how we should be thinking about COVID-19 in our daily lives, the unexpected ways international conflicts have changed conversations around pandemic preparedness, and what the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 can teach us about how societies learn from disasters.Guest on today’s episode: Jennifer Nuzzo is an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University’s School of Public HealthWilmot James is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of global health, international security, and a Senior Advisor to the Pandemic Center. Watch Jennifer Nuzzo’s TED talk about how to prepare for future pandemicsLearn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

On this episode, political economist and Watson professor Mark Blyth talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir Angus Deaton about his new book, “Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality.” You may not know Angus Deaton by name, but you probably know a phrase he helped to make famous: “deaths of despair.” In 2015, Deaton and his wife and research partner Anne Case published a paper that revealed something startling: an increase in mortality rates among white middle-aged men and women in the 2000s and 2010s in the United States. Deaton and Case attributed this to a confluence of factors, including economic stagnation, social isolation and the opioid crisis. In explaining this topic, they did something economists usually avoid doing: They told a sweeping but still complex and nuanced story about American society and economy in the 21st century.In this conversation, Mark and Angus Deaton discuss Deaton’s new book, as well as its relationship to his work on deaths of despair. They also explore why the field of economics ignored the issue of inequality for so long, and why in the last decade that’s started to change. This episode was originally broadcast on the Rhodes Center Podcast, another podcast from the Watson Institute. If you want to hear a longer version of this conversation, you can find it by subscribing to the Rhodes Center Podcast or by visiting their website. Learn more about and purchase “Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality.”Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts.

How do our individual experiences shape our political views? What role do our own stories and memories play in how we think about the world around us? How can we use our memories — even our most painful ones — to help build a more peaceful politics? These are complicated questions, and not of the variety we often ask on this show. But historian Omer Bartov thinks that trying to answer them is essential to finding political solutions to our most vexing problems. And in his new book “Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis,” Bartov powerfully makes the case.  On this episode of Trending Globally, Dan Richards talks with Bartov about the book — which weaves together personal stories, historical analyses and a moral critique of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians — and how individual stories and personal memories are inextricably linked to the politics we create. Although this podcast was scheduled before the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the interview took place in the wake of the events of October 7 and therefore those events are a big part of the conversation. But as this conversation hopefully makes clear, Bartov’s book and analysis are even more important and relevant in our current moment.Learn more about an purchase “Genocide, the Holocuast, and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis”Reading recommendations from Omer Bartov:“Gate of the Sun” and “Children of the Ghetto” by Elias Khoury“Khirbet Khizeh” by S. Yizhar“Facing the Forests” A. B. Yehoshua“Return to Haifa” by  Ghassan KanafanlLearn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

Last year, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Considered by many to be the biggest climate and energy bill ever passed, the IRA included roughly $370 billion to help shift the U.S. to cleaner forms of power. And it was just one of three laws passed by the administration that will play into the United States’ move away from fossil fuels. The impact of these policies, however, will go far beyond our climate. Indeed, they form the core of “Bidenomics,” and they’re going to reshape our economy and our politics for decades to come. They will do so in ways we can predict, and in ways we can’t. On this episode, Dan Richards speaks with two experts on the politics of climate change about this unprecedented collection of legislation and how it will transform our economy, change our planet and possibly realign our politics. Guests on this episode:Jeff Colgan is a political scientist, and ​​director of the Climate Solutions Lab at the Watson Institute. Robinson Meyer is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times and the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a new media company focused on climate change. Hear from Robinson Meyer and many others about all things climate change at Heatmap NewsGet 50% off your first year subscription to Heatmap using the code BROWN50 Read Jeff Colgan’s October 2023 Op-Ed in the New York TimesWatch Robinson’s talk in October at the Watson Institute’s Climate Solutions LabLearn more about the Climate Solutions LabLearn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

In 1982, Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. An ex-Black Panther, he had no prior criminal record. Amnesty International investigated his case and found in many ways that it "failed to meet minimum international standards.” He’s been incarcerated for more than 40 years.Over those decades, Abu-Jamal has become a leader of the anti-death penalty movement and an influential critic of mass incarceration. He’s written multiple books, and appeared on countless radio programs and documentaries — all while serving what is now a life sentence. This fall, scholars and activists met at Brown to mark a new chapter in Abu-Jamal’s story. The John Hay Library at Brown University, in partnership with Brown’s Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, and the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, acquired Abu-Jamal’s writings — 97 boxes — and opened them to the public. On this episode: Dan Richards talks with two Brown archivists about this new collection, and what it’s like preserving the work of one of the most famous incarcerated people in America. Dan also speaks with a scholar at Brown who is working to collect the histories of incarcerated people about the importance of filling this gap in our nation's historical record. Watch the opening remarks of the "Voices of Mass Incarceration" symposium’ Read more about the collection of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s archivesLearn about the Watson Institute’s other podcastsGuests on this episode:Amanda Strauss – Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Director of the John Hay LibraryChristopher West – Curator of the Black Diaspora, Brown UniversityNicole Gonzalez Van Cleve – Associate Professor of Sociology, Brown University