Departures with Robert Amsterdam

In the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, more than 1.8 million people have been disappeared into a vast network of concentration camps without any clear charges, due process, or fair trial. How are these victims selected? Via state-of-the-art predictive artificial intelligence and surveillance technology systems deployed by Beijing that seek to punish people for political activity they may be profiled to potentially commit in the future.

This week on the podcast we're very pleased to feature journalist and author Geoffrey Cain, discussing his excellent new book, "The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future."

Cain's deep dive into the issues surrounding Xinjiang explores how the hardening of Xi Jinping's positions and adversarial tilt toward foreign powers has influenced this implementation of Big Tech in the service of crushing dissent among Uighur Chinese citizens.

The book tells this fascinating story through the eyes of three subjects who survived the "panopticon" and escaped abroad, obtaining impressive government and corporate sources to explain the extent of the police state's technological power and its resulting impact of creating a pervasive culture of fear and paranoia in this region and beyond.

Quite a terrifying read, but also an urgently important wake-up call.

In power since 2005, Angela Merkel's CDU coalition has managed to govern Germany with an admirable level of success, but at the same time during this period, Vladimir Putin's Russia has invaded multiple countries, interfered in elections both near and far away, and run amok with jailings and assassinations of dissidents. How is it possible that still today, many German public officials fail to see that they have a problem in managing relations with Moscow?

Author John Lough, a friend of the podcast and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Programme, tackles this thorny issue in his latest book, "Germany's Russia Problem: The Struggle for Balance in Europe."

Lough explores the uniquely close historical ties between Russia and Germany, including some practices and perceptions dating back to the GDR, as well as Vladimir Putin's training in East Berlin to communicate with and influence prominent German political leaders. Lough argues that Moscow's attempts to rebalance Europe by weakening the European Union and NATO are a direct threat to Germany's national interests, but until recently, there has been little policy developed to respond and contain Moscow.

When we think about dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, we tend to think of extremes. Places like North Korea, with brutal, absolutist rulers vanquishing their opponents with prejudice and limitless power.

But that's really not the reality for most autocratic countries, in fact, there are usually a series of executive constraints, rules, procedures, and structures even in the most non-democratic countries which shape and limit what the leader can do, and how stable transitions of power take place.

That's the focus of attention in Anne Meng's terrific new book, "Constraining Dictatorship: From Personalized Rule to Institutionalized Regimes," in which she sets out to study these institutions, exploring how these rules get created in dictatorships, and how key appointments are made.

Meng argues that the first couple of years in a given autocratic regime are instrumental in the creation of executive constraints, especially when weaker leaders come into power and find themselves creating "institutional promises" to maintain intra-elite support.

In particular, Meng and Robert Amsterdam discuss the case of Paul Biya in Cameroon and how he has sought to unwind many institutional constraints as well as how he has attempted to appoint weak elite successors to ensure he is not overthrown.

To commemorate the 100th episode of our Departures with Robert Amsterdam podcast, for the first time we have invited back a return guest, one of our favorite authors, Philip Zelikow.

Dr. Zelikow is a renowned former diplomat, historian, lawyer academic, and author of extraordinary talent. He has formerly served as the Director of the 9/11 Commission, the former Counsel to State Department, National Security Council, and currently serves as the director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia.

In his latest book, "The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917," Zelikow examines the pivotal period of time when World War I could have ended - right before that fragile peace was squandered.

Zelikow's book unpacks and demystifies a period of failed diplomacy during the great war, and shows how the machinery of engagement works while providing a much more nuanced presentation and appreciation for the operational craft of peacemaking.

Speaking in the podcast with Robert Amsterdam, Zelikow reflects on the disastrous role of American diplomat Edward Mandell House. "Was he a fool or a villain? I would say probably a little bit of both," Zelikow says. "If enough people read this book, they may need to post guards around Edward House's grave to prevent it from being vandalized."

The disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has obliterated many standing global norms, but it's less clear how this crisis could change our approach to solving the world's biggest challenges.

According to Ian Goldin, who is a Professor of Globalisation and Development at the University of Oxford, the coronavirus pandemic could serve as the necessary catalyst to set in motion a much stronger response to a vast array of challenges, from climate change to inequality to conflicts.

With the pandemic, Goldin argues, the entire world is sharing the same experience at the same time for the first time. After going through the crisis together, many people finally understood the essential role of government in their lives. Governments understood that many taboo policies, such as direct relief payments to citizens, banning bankruptcies and evictions, were now possible.

By focusing on reducing the number of participants to a solution, instead of just kicking problems up to the UN level where nothing happens, there are pathways to solving or at least making progress on many major issues of the day - we just have to decide that we want to, argues Goldin.

This July, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary, marking a major milestone and underlining some major questions about its future.

No other communist party has lasted this long, and certainly no other ruling authoritarian government has held its grip on power for a similar period of time in the modern era. But that's not to there was ever inertia. The party's history has been fraught with difficult decisions, successes, mistakes, and sweeping changes of perspective, ideology, and strategic engagement in the global environment.

To mark this important anniversary, Robert Amsterdam is joined by Hans van de Ven and Philip Bowring, who along with others respectively edited and contributed to the excellent new book, "The Chinese Communist Party: A Century in Ten Lives."

The book takes a novel approach to presenting this complex history, with each author presenting the story of a single individual for each decade, bringing engaging and colorful personal histories to reflect on the Party's relentless pursuit of power and extraordinary adaptability through the transformative decades since 1921.

There is little debate over the fact that Russia is an authoritarian state in Vladimir Putin's grip, one which oppresses the rights of its citizens and suppresses the voice of the political opposition. But this does not mean that elections and the democratic process - weakened as it may be - is not still important in terms of applying pressure on the Russian government and constraining and shaping its choices.

In her fascinating new book, "Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability: Russia 2008–2020," Prof. Regina Smyth of the University of Indiana explores these questions, closely studying a decade of elections to determine how much electoral competition matters to the Putin regime and how competition leaves Russia more vulnerable to opposition challenges than is perceived in the West.

"When there is so much manipulation of elections, elections aren't about winners and losers per se, they are about the information or what you learn from the electoral process," Smyth argues. "Do you learn that the state is strong, or do you learn that the state is afraid of its people and its voters? Do you learn that the opposition can unify, or do you learn that it is simply fragmented?"

Smyth dedicates some terrific research into the regime's response to the rise of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and what those responses mean in terms of the stability of Putin's administration.

Vladimir Putin never seems to go away. No matter what economic or political crisis, invasions of neighboring nations, or crushing oppression of basic civil liberties, he somehow manages to sustain enough of a perception of popular support and legitimacy to keep on going. Why?

That's the question studied in the terrific new book "The Red Mirror: Putin's Leadership and Russia's Insecure Identity" by Gulnaz Sharafutdinova. Taking a social identity theory approach to the puzzle of Putin's popularity, Sharafutdinova argues that he was able to successfully mobilize a collective identity, that "he secured Russia's insecure identity."

The Kremlin captured upon the idea of the juxtaposition between the Putin era of Russia and the chaotic 1990s, Sharafutdinova argues, and was able to build a coherent community of support around that idea, in addition to their revival of many pillars of social identity used in the past by the Soviet Union.

In her discussion with Robert Amsterdam, the author discusses the idea that this idea of "homo sovieticus" has actually been globalized, that we can find collective identity groups created by political leaders (Trump, for example), where a sense of shared victimhood is expressed and a desire to resist against an enemy is articulated through their political support of a candidate.

When we understand how popular support for Putin's regime is sustained and upheld despite obvious setbacks and costs, we can become much smarter about which policies are going to be more successful in dealing with Russia and managing some of the biggest problems that come from its conduct in the international space.

Since Xi Jingping rose to power in 2012, China has embarked on a new phase of expanding their role as a global superpower. Gone are the days of the charm offensive and the peaceful rise, here come the 'wolf warriors.' Xi's "Chinese Dream" has been pitched by state propaganda as a visionary plan for a "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" leading up to the year 2049, but now it seems they are entering a phase where the internal threats significantly outweigh the external challenges to realizing this dream.

Prof. Jing Sun of the University of Denver, who formerly worked as a correspondent for Chinese state media, joins Departures with Robert Amsterdam this week to discuss his fascinating new book, "Red Chamber, World Dream: Actors, Audience, and Agendas in Chinese Foreign Policy and Beyond."

Sun argues that the development and implementation of major Chinese foreign policy decisions are hardly unilateral dictates from the party leadership. Instead, there are a multitude of actors and sources of pressure from society playing out in intraparty fighting, inter-ministerial feuding, social media, TV dramas and movies, among others. Understanding how these forces work and interact can do much to advance our understanding of how China reaches its foreign policy outcomes - decisions which of course have major impacts on the global system writ large.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongol horde exercised control over an unfathomably large empire, spanning thousands of miles from Europe to Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. History has often not looked kindly upon these nomadic civilizations, which has led to some major blindspots regarding astonishing achievements, explosive growth in trade, commerce, and communications, and even a certain level of resilience and tolerance of governing very different and often opposing groups.

Prof. Marie Favereau joins the Departures with Robert Amsterdam podcast this week to discuss her fascinating new book, "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World." As Favereau argues in her book, the Mongol empire had its own unique political regime, including a complex power-sharing arrangement among the khan and the nobility which rewarded the best administrators and diplomats and fostered an economic order that was mobile, organized, and innovative. The success of this empire provided a early governance model for Russia, influenced social practice and state structure across Islamic cultures, and disseminated a sophisticated knowledge of nature across vast territories.

This enjoyable conversation with Favereau will make you rethink past assumptions about the Mongol empire, and better understand how it influenced the world which followed.