Politics on the Couch

Host Rafael Behr talks to Fuschia Sirois, Professor of Social and Health Psychology at Durham University, and co-Editor-in-Chief at the British Journal Of Health Psychology, about procrastination.In this free-flowing conversation, Fuschia and Rafael talk about what procrastination is, how it impacts politics and public policy, what we can do about it, and why Rafael may have incorrectly compared himself to Brad Pitt when he was a lot younger (Raf that is)For more on Rafael Behr, and to order his eagerly anticipated first book:https://rafaelbehr.comFuschia Sirois’ latest bookProcrastination: What It Is, Why It's a Problem, and What You Can Do About ItSome of her other recent publicationsBiskas, M. Sirois, F. M., & Webb, T. L. (2022). Using social cognition models to understand why people, such as perfectionists, struggle to respond with self-compassion. British Journal of Social Psychology, 61, 1160-1182. Open accessSirois, F. M., & Owens, J. (2021). A meta-analysis of loneliness and use of primary health care. Health Psychology Review. Open accessBaird, H. Webb, T. L., Sirois, F. M., & Gibson-Miller, J. (2021). Understanding the effects of time perspective: A meta-analysis testing a self-regulatory framework. Psychological Bulletin, 147 (3), 233-267. LinkSirois, F. M., & Owens, J. (2021). Factors associated with psychological distress in health-care workers during an infectious disease outbreak: A rapid systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Open access.Neff, K., Tóth-Király, I., Yarnell, L., Arimitsu, K., Castilho, P., Ghorbani, N., Guo, H., Hirsch, J., Hupfield, J., Hutz, C. S., Kotsou, I., Lee, W. K., Montero-Marin, J., Sirois, F. M., de Souza, L., Svendsen, J., Wilkinson, L., & Mantzios, M. (2019). Examining the Self-Compassion Scale in 20 diverse samples: Support for use of a total score and six subscale scores. Psychological Assessment, 31, 27-45. LinkThis podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One year on from Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, host Rafael Behr talks to Anne Applebaum about why so many US Republicans and conservatives are still seduced by Putin’s anti-West rhetoric and tropes.Anne, a Pullitzer-prize winning historian, is particularly well positioned to discuss this, and associated issues, given that her most recent book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism looked at why some of her contemporaries had abandoned liberal democratic ideals in favor of strongman cults, nationalist movements, or one-party states.Anne ApplebaumAnne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute, where she co-directs Arena, a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda.A Washington Post columnist for fifteen years and a former member of the editorial board, she has also worked as the Foreign and Deputy Editor of the Spectator magazine in London, as the Political Editor of the Evening Standard, and as a columnist at Slate as well as the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs. From 1988-1991 she covered the collapse of communism as the Warsaw correspondent of the Economist magazine and the Independent newspaper.She has lectured at Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Columbia Universities, as well as Oxford, Cambridge, London, Heidelberg, Maastricht, Zurich, Humboldt, Texas A&M, Houston and many others. In 2012-13 she held the Phillipe Roman Chair of History and International Relations at the London School of Economics. She received honorary doctorates from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and Kyiv-Mohyla University.Anne Applebaum was born in Washington, DC in 1964. After graduating from Yale University, she was a Marshall Scholar at the LSE and St. Antony’s College, Oxford. This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode host Rafael Behr talks to Prof Anand Menon about what the latest polling on 'bregret' means for identity politics, Starmer's strategy on future EU relations, and the economic and democratic health of the UK.Anand Menon is Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London in the United Kingdom, and was appointed in January 2014 as director of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative.Prior to arriving at King's College, London, Menon lectured at Birmingham University. Previously he was Lecturer in European Politics at Oxford University for ten years and a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford for five.BibliographyHis publications include European Politics (Oxford University Press, 2007), co-edited with Colin Hay and Europe: The State of the Union (Atlantic Books, 2008), and he has written for popular publications including the Financial Times, the London Review of Books and Prospect.[2][4]Anand was a Professor of West European Politics, and founding Director of the European Research Institute at the University of Birmingham.For more information on Professor Menon: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/anand-menonFor more information on the UK in a changing Europe https://ukandeu.ac.uk/For more on Rafael Behr, and to order his new book visit https://rafaelbehr.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex alongside other eminent roles in the field of advanced research into the nature of consciousness and perception. His bestselling book ‘Being You: A New Science of Consciousness’ is a masterpiece of making complex scientific issues accessible to the non-expert reader. Anil demonstrates that same skill in this relaxed and free-flowing discussion with Politics on the Couch host Rafael Behr. They talk about the essence of what it means to be a conscious being, whether we can ever be said to experience objective reality, whether our present self is really the same as our past self and some of the moral, philosophical and political issues provoked by those questions.For more information on Professor Seth and ‘Being You’, visit https://www.anilseth.com/Here's the perception census he mentions in the podcast: https://perceptioncensus.dreamachine.worldFor more on Rafael Behr visit https://rafaelbehr.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Karen Stenner, a political psychologist & behavioral economist, discusses authoritarianism, right-wing politics, and strategies to shift human behavior via communications and campaigns. They explore the impact of left-leaning populism on right-wing voters and the complexities of appealing to authoritarian-leaning individuals. The podcast also touches on the dynamics of authoritarian electoral strategies and the intersection of moral values with political beliefs.

Rafael Behr talks to pollster and political strategist James Johnson about what's next for Labour, a matter of minutes after PM Johnson announced his resignation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Rafael Behr and Professor Helen Thompson discuss her new book Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century.The book, which was released on the day Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, recounts three histories—one about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies.She explains how a confluence of different crises, building over many years, has created the current mood of global, epoch-defining disorder.It shows how much of this turbulence originated in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies, and it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the longstanding predicaments energy invariably shapes will remain in place.In light of her new book and the war raging in Ukraine, in this edition of Politics on the Couch Rafael and Helen discuss a wide-range of ideas and issues:Topics discussed:Was the Russian invasion of Ukraine an inflection point in history and how do we know if we're living through one?Do individuals and charismatic personalities shape history or merely express longer-running trends and bigger forces?Does Johnson have any ideology? If so, what is it?Can the year we're born can shape our optimism about the future?Has the pandemic affected the way citizens view making big sacrifices for a greater good?How can strong political identities be forged from adversity?Do Western liberal democracies have the capacity to drive through the change needed to make the green transition?Is China as an authoritarian state at an advantage?What lessons has the Ukrainian war taught us about energy policy and green transition?Helen's new book: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/disorder-hard-times-in-the-21st-century/9780198864981Helen's Cambridge University page: https://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/Staff_and_Students/dr-helen-thompsonPolitics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts and Top 25 Political Science Podcasts on the web.https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcastshttps://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Human beings routinely make terrible choices but humanity still achieves amazing things.How does this paradox work?And is it still working when technology seems to amplify the worst in us.In this episode, Politics on the Couch host Rafael Behr talks to Professor Steven Pinker about the constant struggle between evidence and emotion for control of the political agenda; whether truth and fact are winning the long war against superstition and falsehood, and why rationality always has the last word.Professor Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of a number of highly acclaimed and prize-winning books about psychology, cognitive science, linguistics and history.His latest book Rationality: What it is; why it seems scarce; why it matters was published in September.https://stevenpinker.com/publications/rationality-what-it-why-it-seems-so-scarce-and-why-it-mattersMore about Steven Pinker:https://stevenpinker.com/biocvOther books by Steven Pinker mentioned in episode The Better Angels of our Nature https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-natureEnlightenment Now https://stevenpinker.com/publications/enlightenment-now-case-reason-science-humanism-and-progressA couple of references in this episode that might be useful as further reading.Michael Ignatieff’s book Fire and Ashes, about a failed career in politicshttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/27/michael-ignatieff-fire-ashes-reviewJonathan Rauch’s book The Constitution of Knowledge, about the crisis of trust in institutionshttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/26/the-constitution-of-knowledge-review-jonathan-rauch-trumpPolitics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts and Top 25 Political Science Podcasts on the web.https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcastshttps://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Rafael Behr talks to Cambridge University political psychologist Dr Lee de-Wit about the problem with progressive arguments over patriotism, and Labour's constant struggle to connect with socially conservative voters.Links mentioned in this episode:Dr Lee de-Wit's Cambridge University homepage https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/people/lee-de-witArnold Kling's bookhttps://cdn.cato.org/libertarianismdotorg/books/ThreeLanguagesOfPolitics.pdfHaidt and Moral Foundations Theoryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theoryTariq Modood's sitehttp://www.tariqmodood.comYouGov poll on immigrationhttps://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/09/13/what-policy-do-british-voters-want-on-eu-immigration-is-there-a-hidden-consensus/Dr Lee de-Wit's book http://eandtbooks.com/books/whats-your-bias/Dr Lee de-Wit's recent article in the Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/11/politics-left-right-tories-advantage-labourPolitics on the Couch has just been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts on the web.This is the most comprehensive list of Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts on the internet and we're honored to have been selected!https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcastsThis podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain's vast colonial project, amassed over centuries and covering a quarter of the world at its height, is unavoidable in any discussion of race and identity in modern Britain. Or, at least, it should be, but the nation has, until recently, done a remarkable job of avoiding the subject. In this episode, Rafael Behr talks to Sathnam Sanghera about Empireland, his recent book that delves into that Imperial legacy, how it shapes our nation, our culture and defines so much of our politics to this day.Sathnam Sanghera has won multiple awards for his journalism in the Financial Times and the Times. His 2009 memoir, The Boy with the Topknot, was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award, as was his 2014 novel, Marriage Material. Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain was published earlier this year to much acclaim.This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.