Carnegie Council Podcasts

Populist leader President Duterte has killed thousands in his "war on drugs," idolizes Putin, and openly uses fake news and excessive nationalism to consolidate his power. And it's working: he has an 82 percent popularity rating right now. What happened to the nation's liberal democratic heritage? Author and historian Lisandro Claudio discusses the situation and how he is using Youtube videos, articles, and a new book to fight back.

"Indonesian civil societies and academics are very good at collecting cases of discrimination," says Sandra Hamid, author of "Normalizing Intolerance." "But what we don't have is the ethnography of the everyday life of discrimination, things that are not necessarily discrimination with a capital D; this is like your daily experience." Today we see myriad examples of the gradual normalization of belittling and isolating non-Muslims.

Some unpleasant truths for liberals, from William Galston: The rise of anti-pluralist populist movements is caused by a combination of economic factors and migration; we need to take these concerns seriously, instead of feeling morally superior. In the U.S., this will require reintegrating our economy so that small towns and rural areas thrive again; breaking through government gridlock; and purging the "poison" of our immigration policies.

Are there differences in political, social, and economic attitudes among Indonesians--and Indonesian Muslims in particular--based on their levels of religious piety? Intriguingly, Tom Pepinsky and his fellow researchers found that the answer is no; piety is not the deciding factor. Pepinsky also examines Indonesia's approach toward minority rights, which he defines as tolerance for group rights but not for individual rights.

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy discusses China’s complicated relationship with environmentalism. In this excerpt, Economy tells Stephanie Sy how Chinese leadership’s approach toward climate change has evolved in the last few decades.

Today we can accurately measure happiness and we know much more about its causes, says Professor Layard. It turns out that getting richer is often not enough for real happiness. So now, instead of just looking at GDP, many policymakers around the world are focusing on how to raise the level of people's satisfaction with their lives, including their mental and physical health, for example.

Automation is causing the greatest shift in human history and will put millions of Americans out of work, says entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang. His solution? Put human values before GDP and provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month, funded by a 10 percent value-added tax (VAT). This is not a government program, he argues, but a dividend given to we, the people, who are the owners of this country.

Europe is going through deep structural changes, says Andrew Michta of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He argues that it may become "a "Europe of clusters," where countries even within the EU will align themselves differently depending on their economic or security interests. In any case, these shifts are largely driven by internal factors such as the migration crisis, not by U.S. policy towards Europe.

If you wish to understand the depth and breadth of the geographical, historical, technological, and political forces that are shaping our world, there is no better guide than Robert Kaplan. Using Marco Polo's journey as "a geographical framing device for Eurasia today," he examines China's ambitious One Belt One Road project, dissecting China's imperial dream and its multiple, under-reported objectives.

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, International Rescue Committee president David Miliband discusses the moral tragedy of the refugee crisis and what the West needs to do. In this excerpt, Miliband brings up the moral, strategic, and historic reasons for caring about the world’s 65 million refugees.