Policy 360

Last week, President Donald Trump signed a controversial executive action related to immigration. The action implements a number of changes to our current policies: refugees won't be admitted to the United States for 120 days, for example. It also limits immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq; Syria; Iran; Libya; Somalia; Sudan; and Yemen, and the action blocks Syrian refugees indefinitely. The executive action is called, "Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorists Entering The United States," and it has led to protests at many airports around the country.

David Schanzer is the Director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, and Associate Professor of the Practice at the Sanford School. Prior to his academic appointments, Schanzer served in a number of positions in Washington, including that of Democratic Staff Director for the House of Representatives' Committee on Homeland Security.

Professor Schanzer discusses the executive order on immigration and its impact on homeland security with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell.

"passport-12" flickr photo by oso flickr.com/photos/oso/153973593 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license​. Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

Colin Kahl, former National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden and Deputy Assistant to President Obama, spoke at the Sanford School Wednesday about his experience working in foreign policy and his expectations of the Trump administration.

During his visit, Kahl recorded an episode of Policy 360 with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell. 

Special thanks to Professor Peter Feaver and his Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, the Duke Department of Political Science, and the Triangle Institute for Security Studies for sponsoring Colin Kahl’s visit to Duke.

Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: incompetech.com/

Do children from low-income background benefit from living in economically mixed communities? Professor Candice Odgers, associate director of the Center for Child and Family Policy, says that growing up in the shadow of wealth may have a surprising effect on a child's development.

Odgers talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell.

Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: incompetech.com/

"Sentenced to One Year in School" flickr photo by adwriter shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license.

Can it be physically damaging to be African American? Assistant Professor Jay Pearson says there's chromosomal evidence that our bodies react to a combination of ethnicity stress and socioeconomic status. There are important resources associated with those identities that can enhance health, but there are also important risks associated with those identities that can compromise health.

Pearson talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell.

Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: incompetech.com/

What happens when there are very high hopes for a particular policy idea, and then researchers conclude the results are not as promising as they once seemed? Are there lessons to be learned from this?

A widely hailed initiative that combines franchising business models and telemedicine to deliver better quality health care in rural India has failed to improve care for childhood diarrhea and pneumonia, found a large-scale study by Assistant Professor Manoj Mohanan and researchers at Stanford and University College London.

Manoj Mohanan is an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. He’s also appointed in Economics at Duke and as an assistant research professor in the Duke Global Health Institute.

Mohanan talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell.

Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

Is the United States a country in inevitable decline, or are we a country in renewal? Should our foreign policy commitments include indefinite deployments of United States troops, or should we rely on our allies throughout the world to help maintain our interests? These are the kinds of questions the next administration will have to face, Peter Feaver says.

Peter Feaver is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke. He also serves as Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He served in the White House during two administrations.

Feaver talks with Sanford's Dean, Kelly Brownell.

Susan Coppedge is the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Her office estimates there are 21 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. From sex trafficking to labor trafficking, many in the world are vulnerable. In this conversation Coppedge talks about innovative ways in which her office is trying to combat the problem.

In the second of a two-part conversation with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, we explore the innovative ways he is addressing the issue of race in his city. He led a campaign to remove Confederate monuments from city property. He publicly apologized for the city’s role in the slave trade. But it was the murder of a 9-year-old boy, James Darby, that made the issue personal to him. The little boy had written a letter to President Clinton to say he was frightened that he would die. Eight days later, James Darby was dead, shot by another African American young person in Landrieu’s neighborhood. Since then, Mayor Landrieu has vowed to explore the related issues of race and gun violence. Six months ago, Landrieu had a chance to meet James Darby’s killer in Angola Penitentiary.

Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu speaks about his role in reinvigorating the Louisiana port city. Landrieu was voted "America's top turnaround mayor" in a survey of mayors compiled by POLITICO Magazine. He first took office in 2010, and is serving his second term as the elected leader of the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and impacted by the BP oil rig explosion in 2010.

Music: Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: www.incompetech.com/

Emily Oster evaluated data behind many of the accepted rules of pregnancy. (Should you drink caffeine? Is sushi OK?) She says most advice given to moms-to-be is wrong. More recently, she's been studying how grocery store purchases change once a person has been diagnosed with a health challenge like diabetes. Household scanner data "helps us look at people outside of a monitored health setting, and really see in the real world what are the changes people make, what changes are impossible to make, and who is able to change a lot," she says.