LSE Podcasts

Why do we buy so much stuff, and what would it take to break the cycle of overconsumption? In this episode of LSE iQ, Sue Windebank explores the social, psychological and economic forces that encourage us to keep buying, when many of the things that we own could be repaired, reused, or shared. Drawing on research in India, Julia Cohen (Corwin) from LSE's Department of Geography shares stories from Delhi's thriving repair and reuse economy, where skilled traders and repairers breathe new life into printer cartridges, laptop batteries and electronic devices that might otherwise be discarded. Frédéric Basso, from LSE’s Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, explains some of the ways consumer culture encourages us to keep buying, from planned obsolescence, rapid product cycles and targeted marketing. The episode also explores how ultra-cheap online shopping has accelerated overconsumption. Lilia Akatova, from the LSE Centre for Economic Transition Expertise, explains how a customs duty exemption for low-value imports helped fuel a surge in parcels arriving directly from China, and discusses efforts by governments to curb the flow of low-cost goods.

Contributors

Lilia Akatova

Frédéric Basso

Julia Corwin/Cohen

Research

Submission to the UK Government consultation on the proposed reform of the customs treatment of low value imports into the UK by Liilia Akatova

Translating system-level change to individuals: Experimental evidence on avenues to communicate about degrowth and green growth by Dallas O’Dell, Frédéric Basso and Ganga Shreedha

Analog Labor in a Digital World E-Waste in India and the Politics of Repair by Julia Corwin

The rise of polarization in American politics has made bipartisan cooperation on important policy issues much more difficult in recent years. Given the potential electoral repercussions of trying to work across the aisle, for many in Washington DC, working in a bipartisan manner has become an act of courage.

This kind of political courage is at the centre of a new book by our guest on this episode of The Ballpark, Rye Barcott. Rye Barcott is former officer in the US Marine corps and was deployed to Bosnia, the Horn of Africa and Iraq and has built a solar power investing firm. He has also founded nonprofit and civic minded organizations like With Honor, which advocates for veteran leadership in elected office and bipartisan cooperation in Congress.

In his book, Courage Can Save Us, he profiles 10 US military veterans, 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats, to examine political courage in the US today. In this conversation with the Phelan US Centre, Rye Barcott discusses the idea of courage in American politics and why it has become increasingly difficult to see, the role of veterans and service members in American and UK politics and the importance of the 2026 midterm elections for bipartisan cooperation on national security.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

Further reading and resources

• Barcott, R. (2026). Courage Can Save Us: Ten Extraordinary Americans and the Fight for Our Future. Apollo.

o US website - https://couragecansaveus.com/

o UK website - https://couragecansaveus.com/uk/

• Rye Barcott (2011). It Happened on the Way to War. [online] Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

• With Honor

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey.

• Fill in our listener survey – it only takes a few minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1

• Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/terms-and-conditions-for-the-ballpark-listener-survey-voucher-prize-draw

In the past decade, America has taken steps that appear deliberately designed to unmake the international order which it set up more than 50 years ago. This has led some commentators to argue that the US is now a revisionist power, seeking to undermine the liberal international order in favour of the ideals of America First.

To understand the consequences of this shift in America’s foreign policy, in October 2026 the Phelan US Centre spoke with Professor Phillips O’Brien, Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews, to discuss what America’s revisionism means for the rest of the world, and how permanent its changes are for the global order.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

Further reading and resources

• Phillips O’Brien, War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why. (Penguin, 2025)

• Ukraine Russia War Talk podcast with Phillips O'Brien and Mykola Bielieskov

• Phillips O’Brien’s Substack

• America as a revisionist power LSE Event recording [YouTube]

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark is ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey.

• Fill in our listener survey – it only takes a few minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1

• Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/terms-and-conditions-for-the-ballpark-listener-survey-voucher-prize-draw

On the 16th and 17th of October 2026 the LSE Phelan US Centre hosted the conference Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic. The conference brought together historians, political scientists, geographers, legal scholars, analysts, and practitioners from the US, EU, and the UK to consider the role of federalism in fuelling polarization in the US and how federalism may be leveraged to tame it. Adopting a comparative and historical perspective, the conference featured frank, sustained discussion of critical issues such as state autonomy, political representation, and fiscal equalization.

On Saturday 17 October, the conference held the panel session, “Rethinking the rules of political representation”. Long-running changes in America’s electoral geography have amplified differences over federal and state power on matters of policy. Recent changes in campaign financing and electoral procedures have raised the stakes. Struggles over political representation are now acute. This panel discussion considered the possibilities for changing the rules of representation.

The session featured Professor Ilya Somin of George Mason University, Professor Jenna Bednar, of the University of Michigan and Professor Jonathan Rodden of Stanford University. The session was chaired by Nicola Lacey, School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at LSE

This recording also features conference closing remarks from Peter Trubowitz, Director of the LSE Phelan US Centre and Professor of International Relations at LSE.

For more information about the Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic conference, including recordings from the other panel sessions, please see the conference website.

This event recording was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

On the 16th and 17th of October 2026 the LSE Phelan US Centre hosted the conference Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic. The conference brought together historians, political scientists, geographers, legal scholars, analysts, and practitioners from the US, EU, and the UK to consider the role of federalism in fuelling polarization in the US and how federalism may be leveraged to tame it. Adopting a comparative and historical perspective, the conference featured frank, sustained discussion of critical issues such as state autonomy, political representation, and fiscal equalization.

On Saturday 17 October, the conference held the panel session, “Power, responsibilities and resources”. Fiscal imbalances between surplus and deficit states have become a lightning rod in debates over the expansion of states’ powers. What adjustments can be taken to redress the imbalances, and at what risk to devolving authority to the subnational level? The panel explored the relationships between changes in the division of powers and the distribution of fiscal resources.

The panel session featured Tracy Gordon of the Urban Institute, Professor Stephanie Rickard of LSE’s Department of Government and Professor Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, of LSE’s Department of Geography and Environment. The session was chaired by Michael Storper, Professor of Economic Geography at LSE.

For more information about the Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic conference, including recordings from the other panel sessions, please see the conference website.

This event recording was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

On the 16th and 17th of October 2026 the LSE Phelan US Centre hosted the conference Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic. The conference brought together historians, political scientists, geographers, legal scholars, analysts, and practitioners from the US, EU, and the UK to consider the role of federalism in fuelling polarization in the US and how federalism may be leveraged to tame it. Adopting a comparative and historical perspective, the conference featured frank, sustained discussion of critical issues such as state autonomy, political representation, and fiscal equalization.

On Saturday 17 October, the conference held the panel session, “Regional Devolution: pathway or roadblock?” In recent decades, many countries have successfully explored the expansion of regional (subnational) powers in response to partisan and regional tensions like those whipsawing the US today. Would such a strategy work in America, or would it only intensify polarization given the regional alignment of the parties?

The session featured Professor Pablo Beramendi of Duke University, Ron Brownstein of CNN and Professor Emily Zackin of Johns Hopkins University. The session was chaired by Peter Trubowitz, Director of the LSE Phelan US Centre and Professor of International Relations at LSE

For more information about the Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic conference, including recordings from the other panel sessions, please see the conference website.

This event recording was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

On the 16th and 17th of October 2026 the LSE Phelan US Centre hosted the conference Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic. The conference brought together historians, political scientists, geographers, legal scholars, analysts, and practitioners from the US, EU, and the UK to consider the role of federalism in fuelling polarization in the US and how federalism may be leveraged to tame it. Adopting a comparative and historical perspective, the conference featured frank, sustained discussion of critical issues such as state autonomy, political representation, and fiscal equalization.

On Friday 16 October, the conference began with the roundtable event, “Reforming the American Republic”. Politics as usual in the US has given way to winner-take-all politics, where federal power is weaponized to “impose” highly conflictual preferences across the national territory, fuelling resentment, polarization, and fragmentation at the regional and state levels. How did America get itself into this political fix and what steps can be taken to tame the divisions and rancor that are roiling its politics?

The roundtable featured Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times, Professor Aziz Z. Huq of the University of Chicago and Professor Suzanne Mettler of Cornell University. The event was chaired by Professor Larry Kramer, the President and Vice Chancellor of LSE.

This recording also features conference opening remarks from Peter Trubowitz, Director of the LSE Phelan US Centre and Professor of International Relations at LSE.

For more information about the Taming polarization: Reforming the American federal republic conference, including recordings from the other panel sessions, please see the conference website.

This event recording was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

President Donald Trump’s two terms in the White House have seen the president criticize judges who make rulings he disagrees with, threaten military action, raise tariffs, and shutter federal agencies and departments all without congressional approval. These actions and others have led to warnings from many commentators that America is in a state of constitutional crisis.

In September 2026, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Jack Rakove, the William R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Law, emeritus, at Stanford University. For Professor Rakove, we have moved beyond a state of constitutional crisis to a time of what he terms, constitutional failure. In our conversation, we talked about how constitutional failure is a product of President Trump’s policies, leadership, and how he has used executive power, the role of political polarization, and the links with what many see as the US’ recent decline in democracy and the erosion of democratic norms.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

Further reading and resources

• Professor Rakove’s articles at the Washington Monthly

• Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979; reprinted by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

• Rakove, Jack N. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History

• Rakove, Jack N. Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.

• Rakove, Jack N. The Ticklish Experiment: A Political History of the Constitution, 1789–2024. Forthcoming.

• Barber, Sotirios A. Constitutional Failure. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014.

• Brandon, Mark E. Free in the World: American Slavery and Constitutional Failure. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.

• Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018.

• May, Ernest R. “Lessons” of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973

• Neustadt, Richard E., and Ernest R. May. Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers. New York: Free Press, 1986

• Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark is ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey.

• Fill in our listener survey – it only takes a few minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1

• Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/terms-and-conditions-for-the-ballpark-listener-survey-voucher-prize-draw

We all have an anecdote of a time when we’ve had an in-person conversation and then received an online advert about something we discussed. This leads many of us to believe our phones are eavesdropping on our conversations.

In this episode of LSE iQ, Charlotte Kelloway asks: Are our phones listening to us? She speaks to Professor Edgar Whitley of LSE’s Department of Management about the dangers of algorithms controlling the information we see.

Privacy expert Dr Carissa Véliz from the University of Oxford reveals how sensitive personal data can be bought and sold by data brokers.

Professor Nick Couldry from LSE’s Department of Media and Communications, discusses our increasing dependence on AI and how it’s training us to use it more and more.

Contributors

Nick Couldry

Carissa Véliz

Edgar Whitley

Research

Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and how to Fight Back by Nick Couldry and Ulises Ali Mejias

Predatory AI: How We Can Resist Corporate Capture of the Human Mind by Nick Couldry

Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Véliz

Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI by Carissa Véliz

Report on a study of how consumers currently consent to share their financial data with a third party by Edgar Whitley

Is America experiencing a constitutional crisis, or have we reached the point of constitutional failure? At this LSE Phelan US Centre event on 29 September 2026, leading scholar on American constitutional history, Professor Jack Rakove, explored this question in a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the US Constitution in the age of Trump with LSE’s President and Vice Chancellor, Professor Larry Kramer.

Jack Rakove is the William R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Law, emeritus, at Stanford University. After completing his Ph.D. in History at Harvard University, Rakove joined the faculty of Colgate University in 1975, then moved to Stanford five years later. He is the author of eight books, including The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (1979); Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996), which won the Pulitzer Prize in History; and Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (2010), which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize. He has edited seven other books, including The Cambridge Companion to The Federalist (2020). Rakove is a past president of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Larry Kramer has been President and Vice Chancellor of LSE since April 2024. A constitutional scholar, university administrator, and philanthropic leader, he was previously the President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Dean of Stanford Law School.

This event recording was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.