Carnegie Council Podcasts

From financing mechanisms to labor policy to the rise of the suburbs, General Motors had a huge effect on the development of the United States in the 20th century. In this wide-ranging talk with historian Ted Widmer, Detroit-based journalist Anna Clark explains how 1919 was a turning point for the automobile manufacturer and why 2019 could be another pivotal year.

Political scientist Daniela Segovia, currently an Eisenhower Fellow, discusses the importance of empathy when working on and thinking about migration policy in Latin America. She also touches on her own story as a Venezuelan migrant living in Mexico. What should governments and international organizations be doing? How can concerned citizens help?

The massacre in rural Elaine, Arkansas was one of the most violent episodes of 1919's Red Summer of racist confrontations, but it also remains one of the least-known. In this talk with historian Ted Widmer, Penn State's Professor Nan Woodruff explains the causes and how it fits in to the post-World War I context. Why are people still reluctant to speak about this massacre? How should we remember this dark chapter in American history?

Carnegie Council Senior Fellow Jean-Marie Guéhenno, former head of United Nations peacekeeping operations, discusses the tensions between the individual and the collective in a world filled with political tension, pervasive surveillance, and fear of risk. What is the role of the UN in this environment? How can we avoid the violent upheavals that marked other transitional phases in humanity?

How can established powers manage the peaceful rise of new great powers? Bard's Michelle Murray offers a new answer to this perennial question, arguing that power transitions are principally social phenomena whereby rising powers struggle to obtain recognition as world powers. How can this framework help us to understand the economic and military rivalry between United States and China?

Generation Z makes up over 30 percent of the world's population and this group of people, most under the age of 20, are already having an extraordinary effect on society, culture, and politics. Tatiana Serafin, journalism professor at Marymount Manhattan College, breaks down the power of this generation, focusing on climate change activism. How can they turn their energy into concrete action?

"In our foreign policy, for at least half a century, we have been spectacularly blind to the power of tribal politics," says Amy Chua, author of "Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations." What does this mean in 2019? How can Americans move past tribalism? Don't miss this conversation with Chua and Bard College's Walter Russell Mead, moderated by Bard's Roger Berkowitz.

Heather M. Roff, senior research analyst at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, thinks some researchers are having the wrong conversations about AI. Instead of wondering whether AI will ever be a moral agent, we should be focused on how to program the technology to be "morally safe, right, correct, justifiable." What are some practical uses for AI today? How can it be used responsibly in the military realm?

University of Washington's Professor Stephen Gardiner discusses the ethics of climate change from intergenerational, political, and personal perspectives. Should individuals feel bad for using plastic straws or eating meat? What should the UN and its member states do? And how can older generations make up for "a massive failure in leadership" that has led, in part, to the current crisis?

Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G), gives an update on his team's work after a busy week in New York. In the wake of troubling IPCC reports on climate change's effect on the oceans and land use, what more can the UN do? What are the challenges of nature-based solutions? And how should we handle climate change fatigue, individually and on a societal level?