Carnegie Council Podcasts

On the next Global Ethics Forum, Foreign Policy Interrupted co-founder Elmira Bayrasli discusses the role of women in entrepreneurship and politics. In this excerpt, Bayrasli tells social entrepreneur Hazami Barmada about the role that confidence and assertiveness have played in advancing her own career.

Documentary filmmaker and TV journalist Kyoko Gasha discusses her film "Mothers' Way, Daughters' Choice," which is about Japanese women (like she herself) who remade their lives in New York City. She also talks about the difficulties facing working mothers in Japan, especially the long working hours, and how the culture is beginning to change.

On the next Global Ethics Forum, Peter Sutherland, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration, discusses the ethics of the refugee crisis. In this excerpt, Sutherland calls for an end to the xenophobia, racism, and nationalism that is defining the immigration debate and a focus on liberalism and rationality

Underlying people's economic fears about migrants taking their jobs are much deeper anxieties about nationality, culture, and race, says Bridget Anderson, professor of migration and citizenship at Oxford. The nation-state is simply not working for a lot of humanity, and we need to come up with new ways of thinking about political communities.

Sonja Pei-fen Dale teaches at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University, where she specializes in LGBT gender issues and identities in Japan. In this fascinating conversation about gender and minorities in Japan today, she discusses the term "X-gender," how LGBT individuals are perceived, the social ideal of the traditional family, and much more.

There are 7.5 million Christians in the Middle East, who live under constant threat of death and humiliation. Danish journalist Klaus Wivel (not a Christian himself) asks: What is the story on the ground and why are so few journalists covering it? Why aren't we in the West doing more to defend the human rights of this beleaguered minority?

On the next Global Ethics Forum, best-selling author Robert Kaplan discusses the challenge of Putin, the EU’s economy, and the future of Europe through the lens of Romania. In this excerpt, Kaplan details Eastern Europe’s changing relationship with NATO and Russia and he relates a conversation with Romania’s former president.

In the Global Gender Gap Report, Japan usually ranks around 100 out of 140 countries, says Mari Miura, a specialist on gender in Japan. The main reasons are economic--a huge gender pay gap; political--underrepresentation of women in politics; and cultural--traditional gender and family roles. But younger generations are trying to change these paradigms.

Senior Fellow Devin Stewart speaks with Natsumi Ikoma, the Center for Gender Studies director, International Christian University, Japan, about the state of feminism in Japanese art, literature, and society. Ikoma, a Carnegie Council Pacific Fellow, describes how women are portrayed in Japanese theater and how female writers are changing public debate.

Until the mid-19th century, Islam was the sole basis of both political legitimacy and social identity across the Middle East. Islamists--a term that doesn't exist in Arabic--believe Islam should continue to be the region's primary identity. In opposition are nationalists and secularists who view Islamism as a serious threat. What will be the outcome?