Carnegie Council Podcasts

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, Sam Kass details his time as President Obama's White House chef and senior policy advisor for nutrition and the links between climate change and how and what we eat. In this excerpt, Kass and journalist Roxana Saberi discuss an uncertain future for food policy in the United States under Trump.

Francis Wade, author of "The Enemy Within," a new book on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, explains the historical background to the persecution of the Muslim Rohingya minority and gives a first-hand account of the terrible situation now. Has democracy been good for Burma? Will some Rohingya refugees become Islamic extremists?

There is disturbing evidence that China is weaponizing North Korea, and it's time that Washington started asking Beijing some pointed questions, says Gordon Chang. The fact is, the United States has overwhelming leverage over China--we just don't use it enough--and China has overwhelming leverage over North Korea. "These two points lead to one conclusion, and that is, we can, without the use of force, disarm North Korea."

How does climate change play into Xi Jinping's larger strategy for China's economy and its role on the global stage? Xi has a vision for addressing climate change and pollution; but how is it implemented in practice, especially in the hinterlands far from the rich coastal provinces? Elizabeth Economy is an expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy, especially related to environmental matters. She explores these questions and more.

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, Columbia's David Phillips discusses how Erdoğan's Turkey has turned from an important U.S. ally to a rogue regime. In this excerpt, Phillips asks pointed questions about the July 2016 coup, which led to Erdoğan cracking down and consolidating his power.

Duterte is part of an arc of populism in emerging market democracies such as Turkey and India, says author Haydarian, but unlike populist movements in developed economies, its main supporters are the rising middle class. This newly prosperous group demands better living conditions and is increasingly attracted to strongmen leaders like Duterte, "who promise overnight solutions to very complicated 21st-century problems."

Thucydides is not saying that the inevitable frictions between a rising power and a ruling one will always lead to war, says Allison. The danger is when "third-party actions become provocations to which one or the other feels obliged to react, to which the other primary actor feels obliged to respond, which then leads to a cascade, often dragging people where they do not want to go." Think North Korea.

Chernobyl is considered the greatest nuclear disaster of all time. But over decades America's Hanford plant and Russia's Mayak plant each issued almost four times the amount of radiation as Chernobyl. Historian Kate Brown explains that in the closed atomic cities serving these plutonium plants, "residents gave up their civil and biological rights for consumer rights." How does today's America mirror these segregated plutopias?

Representative democracy in the UK has been corrupted by the three B's, says Grayling: blackmail, bullying, and bribery. There are similar problems in the United States. To make things worse, covert persuasion tactics via social media are rampant. Yet we can still make representative democracy work, he says. We need transparency, breaking of the grip of the party machine, and control of the amount of money spent on elections.