Carnegie Council Podcasts

Successful nonviolent movements need three things: the cool factor, memorable branding, and humor, says Popovic. He cofounded the Serbian youth movement Otpor!, which played a major role in toppling Milosevic, and his work training activists in Egypt and Tunisia is widely credited for inspiring Arab Spring protesters.

From Spain to Scotland to even the United States, separatist movements are making headlines. Do any of these have a chance to succeed? Or all they just for show?

How should states deal with hate speech? In the U.S., the prevailing attitude is that hate speech should be protected. In other liberal democracies, hate speech is more restricted. Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University, has a new take.

After decades of violence, rebel group FARC is negotiating with the Colombian government. The group has unsuccessfully petitioned the American government, though, to release a FARC leader, incarcerated in the U.S., to take part in the talks. Should the U.S. release the prisoner in a gesture of good faith?

Drawing on over 30 years of experience of reporting on Saudi Arabia, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Karen Elliott House takes us behind the scenes in this secretive Kingdom--a country ruled by a coterie of princes with an average age of 77, where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 20.

It's the job of Human Rights Watch to shine a spotlight on human rights abuses worldwide, including in the U.S., says its executive director Ken Roth. We speak not for the public conscience, but to it, "and if we have hit that conscience accurately, it’s reflected in shame, and governments then have to respond to that."

Newspapers have long straddled an awkward line between public service and profit. Now those values are in conflict. The internet has upended the industry and profits are way down. But is the web a good substitute? What happens when a city loses its daily paper?

Why do smart people cheat? Why do we eat more than we should or text while driving? In this funny and insightful talk, behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the hidden factors that shape our most puzzling decisions and shows how emotions, peer pressure, and sheer irrationalism dictate our behavior.

Although he was allegedly retired from the military when the affair took place, the scandal surrounding David Petraeus highlights the different ethical standard that members of the armed services are held to. Should adultery be deemed illegal for military personnel?

"Why is it that the political system today seems so gridlocked? Why is the issue of brinkmanship in America so incredibly debilitating and so very real? Is there something which has always been the case in U.S. history or is there something else going on today which is fueling this problem and making this age of brinkmanship so pernicious?"