Oxford Policy Pod

Did the media get it wrong in 2016? And, how have lessons in covering Donald Trump shaped media coverage of the 2020 presidential elections? On this week’s episode of Oxford Policy Pod, Suta Kavari posed these questions to Everett Rosenfeld.

Everett covered the 2016 elections as digital editor for CNBC and reflects on his time covering a very bizarre presidential election. He also talks about some of the lessons from covering 2016 U.S. elections, what the media got wrong, and how to watch the results.  

From Wednesday, 16 September 2020, A Look at the Issues, your monthly policy discussion will become Oxford Policy Pod.

In Season 2, Join Suta Kavari every week as he speaks to leading experts in public policy from the Blavatnik School of Government and the University of Oxford, analysing and debating some of the most pressing policy challenges we face today.  

With fears increasing that Covid-19 is set to reach full speed in South Africa, this episode explores what went wrong in a country that was praised for having one of the most effective responses at the start of the pandemic.

The South African government has been walking a tightrope of trying to protect an underfunded healthcare system, while also trying to revive a stagnant economy, long hurt by years of corruption. On this episode, we hear from public health expert Dr Kerrigan McCarthy and economost Dr Miriam Altmam. Later on, Dr Anna Paherick from the Blavatnik School joins us to talk about why the school chose South Africa as a case study. 

On this episode of A Look at the Issues engages with Dame Helen Ghosh who is currently Master of Balliol College, Oxford, former Permanent Secretary at the UK’s Departments for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, and the Home Office about how government’s respond to and design policy. Dame Helen reflects on her time as a senior civil servant and offers insights into how to manage a crisis similar to what we are facing.

Also joining to discuss the politics of policymaking in their countries, are two public policy students at the Blavatnik School of Government. Felipe Saavedra from Colombia, and Toby Parker from the UK highlight some of the considerations that go into policy design, and also share insights into some of the challenges that policymakers face.

COVID-19 has not only upended our lives but also changed the ways in which we engage with anything else, and especially public policy. Governments around the world have responded differently to threats posed by COVID-19, implementing a variety of measures to contain the spread of the virus and save lives. The focus of many interventions has been about saving lives and sustaining an economy while in lockdown.

In this episode, we look at measures that governments right across the world have taken to contain the spread of COVID-19. Our first discussant, Tom Hale, an Associate Professor in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government joins us to talk about the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, which has been collating data on the different policy responses governments around the world have taken to contain the outbreak.

We then talk to two students; Pollyana Lima from Brazil, and Femi Adebola from Nigeria, who are currently reading for a Master of Public Policy (MPP) at the Blavatnik School. They been working closely on the Government Response Tracker, and share insights on some of the interesting patterns in responses from governments around the world and reflect on how their respective governments have responded.

While some political leaders, like the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly referred to the virus as a “little flu”. We engaged with someone who had the “little flu”, Woo Wee Meng, also reading for an MPP, paints an intimate picture about life in quarantine and isolation in Singapore with COVID-19.

On 21 March, South Africa observed Human Rights Day, a day that commemorates the events of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and the brutal legacy of human rights violation during apartheid. The month of March is also serves as a reminder of the sacrifices that went into the struggle for democracy in South Africa. 

At the dawn of democracy in 1994, South Africa enshrined into its constitution one of the most extensive Bill of Rights of any country in the world. In part as a demonstration of the new democratic government’s dedication to embracing “shared values of human rights and dignity for everyone”. The preamble to South Africa’s constitution, often cited in Constitutional Court judgments, recognised “injustices of our past” and adopted the new constitution as the supreme law of the land intended to “heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”. 

On this episode of A Look at the Issues we are joined by someone with intimate knowledge of the struggle that went into the constitution-making process in South Africa. Justice Kate O’Regan was appointed by then President Nelson Mandela to serve on the first bench of the Constitutional Court in 1994, the youngest of the justices and one of only two women at the time. Recorded a day after International Women’s Day, Kate reflects on a time in South African history that was filled with hope and anxiety and her role in the design of a new constitutional democracy.

Professor Kate O’Regan is the director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford. Kate was a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court (1994 – 2009) and ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia (2010 – 2016). She also served as inaugural chairperson of the United Nations Internal Justice Council.

In political science, there is accountability when actions by the government are in line with the needs of her citizens. In this Episode, a look at the issues dives in to explore the different ways we can hold the government to account. Join us to listen in on four different experiences from Anelize, Callum, Nick and Prianka.

Anelize Almeida works as attorney of the National Treasury in Brazil. Today, she shares her insights and lessons derived from the bureaucratic legalistic environment in which organisations are immerged in Brazil.

Callum Voge, has worked in the Czech Republic to work at a non-profit media organisation, where he established over 80 new media partnerships for the organisation in 55 countries. He also negotiated and implemented a grant in cooperation with the Kazakhstan branch of the Open Society Foundations.

Nick Kirby is the Director of the Building integrity program at the Blavatnik School of Government, here at Oxford University where they research the meaning of integrity in government, its importance, drivers and inhibitors.

Prianka Rao is a Lawyer who has previously assisted the Indian government in drafting legislation on issues ranging from healthcare to primary education. She has also spent time, tracking the functioning of parliament and state legislatures, as well as spent some time practising law in the Supreme Court of India.  

On this episode of A Look of the Issues, we follow on from our conversation last week about Brexit and talk to Damian Boeselager about the need to counter rising populism in post-Brexit Europe. Damian is a German Member of the European Parliament and co-founder of Volt, the first pan-European party in the European Union. At 32, Damian finds himself in a European Parliament that is younger and more diverse than it has ever been, albeit it more divided than ever. The young MEP has hit the ground running and on this episode of A Look of the Issues, he shares why the establishment of Volt was a response to the rise in nationalistic tendencies across the Europe and around the world. He also gives us tips on how to actively engage with politics wherever we find ourselves.

At the stroke of midnight on Friday, 31 January 2020, Brussels time, the United Kingdom formally left from the European Union. Setting in motion a frantic 11-month transition period in which to negotiate everything from a trade deal to new rules on travel. Long anticipated and highly contested, “Brexit” has captured the mind and imagination of not only British politics, but society for the last four years. With Brexit semi-delivered, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson must now chart new waters and carve out a new role for Britain in the highly uncertain global political economy. 

On this episode of A Look at the Issues, our host, Suta Kavari, was in Brussels talking to members of the public and Members of the European Parliament about what a post-Brexit future looks like for the European continent. Suta spoke to Svenja Hahn, German MEP for Free Democratic Party, and a member of the Renew Europe alliance.

Back in Oxford, Suta spoke to Calum Miller about the broader implications of Brexit for the UK and hopes for the future. Calum was the former Principal Private Secretary to former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and now serves as the Chief Operating Officer at the Blavatnik School of Government.