Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

This year, Earth Day marks the beginning of the ninth week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A geopolitical and military crisis that quickly transformed into an energy crisis, this conflict will have far-reaching repercussions for both humanity and our climate. On this episode, Sarah Baldwin ’87 and Dan Richards talk with experts on the politics, economics, and science of fossil fuel about the relationship between war, technological change, and climate change. Sarah talks with Jeff Colgan, political scientist and director of the Climate Solutions Lab at Watson, about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (and the resulting sanctions imposed upon  them) have altered the global fossil fuel market. They also discuss what Jeff sees as the two different ways this crisis could impact our fight against climate change: one that will leave you hopeful, while the other…less so. In the second half we highlight the work of Deborah Gordon, a senior fellow at Watson and an expert on both the policies and technologies that undergird the fossil fuel industry. In her book ‘No Standard Oil,’ Deborah corrects the flawed assumptions many of us have regarding the fossil fuel industry, and how these assumptions get in the way of finding a realistic way to fight the worst effects of global climate change. Learn more about and purchase Deborah Gordon’s book, No Standard Oil:Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World.Learn more about and purchase Jeff Colgan’s book, Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War.Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

Over the past few years, America’s schools have become a battleground in our national politics. Debates about how we teach history and explore issues of race in school have become flashpoints at every level, from school boards to the Oval Office. And there’s one phrase that’s become particularly attached to this tension: “critical race theory.” Those three words have catapulted from the depths of legal academia into the center of partisan politics. But as Danielle Holley-Walker, dean of Howard University Law School and American Council on Education Fellow at Brown University, explains on this episode of Trending Globally, what people today are describing as critical race theory has little to do with its original meaning. And misappropriation of the phrase isn’t just a careless mistake; its use (and misuse) is part of a calculated backlash against social movements that have gained momentum in recent years. On this episode, Sarah talks with Danielle about how the phrase has transformed from a complex legal concept into a conservative talking point, and what that transformation can tell us about race, education, and politics in America today. Read the New Yorker’s 2021 profile of Christopher Rufo. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

The war in Ukraine has upended what many of us thought we knew about the world today. Whether we’re thinking about Russia and Europe or China and Taiwan, it seems like the range of possible outcomes in conflicts around the world has expanded in unsettling ways. In the midst of all this, Watson Senior Fellow Chas Freeman thinks there’s one key concept we’d all benefit from getting reacquainted with: ‘spheres of influence.’ Chas Freeman is one of America’s leading experts on US-China relations, and a wide-ranging thinker on international affairs, diplomacy, and statecraft. On this episode Chas talks with Watson Director Ed Steinfeld about how thinking in terms of ‘spheres of influence’ could help us better understand the world. In fact, it goes beyond just understanding the world. Chas thinks that concept of ‘spheres of influence’ – with a little tweaking – could actually help global superpowers like the US and China navigate and de-escalate conflicts of the future. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

Fiona Hill became a household name in 2019, as a witness during President Trump’s first impeachment hearing. But before all that, she was an intelligence analyst specializing in Russia and Europe for Presidents Obama and Bush. And she watched closely as economic stagnation and inequality in Russia fueled populism and authoritarianism. As her new book explains, a similar trajectory has been playing out in her birthplace in the North of England, and in her new home – the United States. The book, titled ‘There Is Nothing For You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century,’ combines a personal history with a global history, and in the process explains the social and economic forces that lead to anti-democratic movements.  This episode was originally broadcast on the Rhodes Center Podcast, another show from the Watson Institute that’s hosted by political economist Mark Blyth. It was recorded in late February, so some references to the conflict in Ukraine may be a little out of date by the time you’re listening to this. But regardless of where this conflict stands as you hear this, Fiona’s analysis of what brought Russia, the UK, and the US to this troubling reality is as timely as ever.  Watch a recording of the talk Fiona gave to students on our YouTube Channel.Learn more about and purchase Fiona’s book. Recent analyses on the conflict in Ukraine from other experts at the Watson Institute. 

This past November, Daniel Ortega was reelected as president of Nicaragua. He ensured his victory by imprisoning his political opponents and launching the largest crackdown on political dissent in the country in decades. This was just the most recent step in his multi-decade effort to transform Nicaragua from a budding democracy into an authoritarian regime. What can’t be forgotten is that just one year ago this horrific turn didn’t seem inevitable. On this episode, Dan Richards talks with two experts on the subject: one is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute, the other an activist in Nicaraguan politics who is currently living in exile. They explain how Nicaragua got to its current state of extreme repression, and what might be done to change it.  This is also a story with a special connection to the Watson Institute, which hosted a conference in 2019 marking the 40th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. Both of the guests on this episode were at that conference, as were multiple activists who are currently imprisoned in Nicaragua. For more context on this crisis you can listen to the Watson Institute’s limited podcast series Revolution Revisited, which told the story of the Sandinista Revolution from the people who lived it. Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Guests on this episode:Stephen Kinzer: Watson Institute Senior fellow in international and public affairs, and author of Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua.Luis Carrión: Political activist and democracy advocate, and former senior member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.  

In this episode you’ll hear from Ieva Jusionyte, an anthropologist and associate professor of international security and anthropology at the Watson Institute. In addition to teaching and research, she also has a side job – as a licensed EMT. In May 2015 she combined these two passions. She moved to Nogales, AZ, to study emergency responders on the US-Mexico border. For two years she studied life along this border, and worked on it as an EMT herself. What she found became the subject of her book, ‘Threshold: Emergency Responders on the U.S.-Mexico Border.’ In it, she explores how the US-Mexico border – as a legal boundary, an idea, and a physical space – changes emergency response, and what these changes reveal about how borders affect people who live near them. Learn more about and purchase Ieva’s book. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

Over the past few months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has built up a massive  military presence on Russia’s border with Ukraine. As a result, pundits, politicians, and casual observers of the news have all been asking the same questions: would President Putin actually invade Ukraine? And if so, what would that mean for the rest of the world? These are fair questions, of course. But Michael Kennedy, our guest on this week’s episode of Trending Globally, thinks this framing might actually obscure more than it illuminates.Michael is a professor of sociology at the Watson Institute and an expert on social transformation in Eastern Europe in the post-Cold War era. He’s written and taught extensively on Ukraine, and on this episode he helps make sense of this crisis that defies easy explanation. Despite the complexity of the situation, there’s one thing Michael wants us all to see clearly right now: the stakes of this crisis – for the Ukraine, the US, and democracies around the world – couldn’t be higher.  Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

The B-2 Spirit, known as the ‘Stealth Bomber,’ is one of the most advanced aircrafts in the US military. It has a fuel efficiency of about 4.2 gallons per mile. (That’s not a typo; it’s less than one mile per gallon.) Burning a full tank of gas in a B-2 releases roughly 250 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s more than 50 times what the average car releases in an entire year. And that’s just for one trip, for one plane in the US military – the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuel. “The size of that consumption is kind of hard to get your head around,” says Neta Crawford on this episode of Trending Globally. Neta Crawford is a professor of political science at Boston University and co-founder of the Costs of War project, which is housed at the Watson Institute. The project works to uncover the financial, human, political, and environmental costs of America’s post-9/11 wars. This year Trending Globally has teamed up with the Costs of War project to explore what they’ve found.On this episode you’ll hear from Neta Crawford on her groundbreaking work calculating the size and scope of the US military’s carbon footprint. In the process of uncovering the extent of the military’s fuel consumption and carbon emissions, she also traces the long and complex relationship between national security, fossil fuels, and climate change. Learn more about Neta Crawford’s work. Learn more about the Costs of War Project.Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts.

It’s been 12 months since a mob of American citizens, driven by the false belief that the presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, attacked the US Capitol. The insurrectionists couldn’t overturn the election results, but they did make us question basic assumptions about the state of American democracy.  On this episode, host Sarah Baldwin ‘87 and producer Dan Richards talked with experts at Watson and Brown about the attack. They asked scholars of political science and international affairs: what did the insurrection teach us about the state of American politics? How has it changed us? And, perhaps most important: what do we need to do to protect our institutions going forward?Guests featured on this episode:Wendy Schiller, Professor of Political Science and Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and PolicyJuliet Hooker, Professor of Political Science at Brown University Rose McDermott, Professor of International Relations at the Watson InstituteStephen Kinzer, Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs at the Watson InstituteLearn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. Read what other experts at Watson had to say in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection. 

In 1996, Keith Harper began to work on a lawsuit against the US government. It was a class action suit filed by Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Confederacy in Montana. She claimed something that many people had long known to be true, but that had never been directly addressed in the US legal system: the US government owed many, many Native Americans a lot of money.Keith Harper - who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation - became a lead prosecutor for the plaintiff class, which grew to include hundreds of thousands of Native Americans. The case, known as Cobell v. Salazar, became one of the largest class action suits in US history. It awarded a total of $3.4 billion dollars to Native Americans across the country. But as Keith explained to Sarah on this week’s episode of Trending Globally: “It was an important milestone. But we should recognize, it was a mere measure of justice, and not full justice.”Keith would go on to serve as the US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council under President Obama starting in 2014. He was the first Native American ever to be appointed to an ambassadorship. This year he’s serving as a senior fellow at the Watson Institute, and on this episode we explore both the groundbreaking case Cobell v. Salazar and what Keith sees as the relationship between Native American rights, international law, and human rights more broadly. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts.