PolicyCast

By Harvard Kennedy School

Education

What's PolicyCast about?

A weekly podcast on public policy, politics and global issues hosted by Matt Cadwallader and featuring leading voices from Harvard Kennedy School and beyond.

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223 Democracy’s uncertain p...

03.25.2021

Ten years after the rise of the pro-democracy movements collectively dubbed “the Arab Spring” the Arab world is a complicated mix of governments and societies that have evolved in vastly different ways. There have been democratic successes like Tunisia, setbacks ...

PolicyCast episodes:

03.25.2021 223 Democracy’s uncertain prospects 10 years after the Arab Spring Ten years after the rise of the pro-democracy movements collectively dubbed “the Arab Spring” the Arab world is a complicated mix of governments and societies that have evolved in vastly different ways. There have been democratic successes like Tunisia, setbacks ...
12.08.2020 222 Joe Aldy on how Joe Biden can jumpstart the global climate effort Twelve years ago, Aldy was a member of then President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team as it took over from the George W. Bush administration. He says the objective then was much the same as it is now—figuring out how to ...
11.18.2020 221 Young voters ascendant: How a generational shift won the 2020 election and could remake American politics In 2019, the 72-million strong Millennial generation (23-to-38-year-olds) quietly surpassed the Baby Boomers as America’s largest living generational cohort. In the 2020 election, they made their voices heard with a roar. Not only did younger voters—and particularly younger voters of ...
11.03.2020 220 Garbage in, garbage out: Dissecting the disinformation that clouds our decisions All of the choices we make have one thing in common: Our decisions are only as good as the information we have to base them on. And with the rise of disinformation, misinformation, media manipulation, and social media echo chambers, ...
10.05.2020 219 The end of Us versus Them policing: The tough road ahead for reform After the high-profile police killings of Black people like Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and numerous others, polls show a majority of Americans say we need major changes to how police provide public safety. Policymakers and political leaders—under pressure from the ...
09.15.2020 218 If the Electoral College is a racist relic, why has it endured? The one constant in the history of voting rights in America, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Alex Keyssar says, is that no law has ever been passed to restrict the voting rights of upper-middle-class white men. Other than that, he says, ...
07.01.2020 217 Championing Human Rights Amid Disease and Discrimination Throughout history, governments have seized on catastrophes to seize and consolidate power. Yet official actions like restricting movement, ramping up surveillance, curtailing freedom of assembly, and closing borders can also help control the spread of a deadly pandemic like COVID-19. ...
06.08.2020 216 A Historic Crossroads for Systemic Racism and Policing in America After 400 years of systemic discrimination against black people in America, the volcanic reaction to video of the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis has pushed America to another major inflection point in its seemingly endless struggle ...
05.11.2020 215 No Quick or Easy Answers for the Pandemic's Toll on Developing Economies Harvard Kennedy School Professor Ricardo Hausmann and the Growth Lab COVID-19 Task Force are helping developing countries around the globe develop economic and epidemiological responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Hausmann tells PolicyCast host Thoko Moyo that although some countries are ...
04.20.2020 214 When Discrimination and a Pandemic Collide Harvard Kennedy School Professor Cornell Brooks says America’s legacy of racial discrimination means communities of color are being hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic on everything from health to economics to political disenfranchisement.Brooks says historic systemic discrimination, lack of access ...
04.01.2020 213 Managing crisis without resources: Developing nations brace for Coronavirus Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer Matt Andrews is helping public leaders in the developing world prepare as best they can to respond to the Coronavirus pandemic. But how to do you order a shelter-in-place when 40 percent of your population ...
02.25.2020 212 When Bad Things Happen to Everybody: Crisis Management in a Chaotic World The COVID-19 coronavirus has spread from Asia to Europe and the Middle East and threatens. HKS Senior Lecturer Juliette Kayyem says globalization has changed the nature of the crises we face — and that policymakers and crisis managers must keep ...
02.03.2020 211 Post-expert democracy: Why nobody trusts elites anymore Harvard Kennedy School Professor Archon Fung says we’ve entered an era of “wide aperture, low deference democracy. It’s a dizzying period of wide-open public discourse where a much wider range of ideas and potential policies are being debated and, at ...
01.06.2020 210 The Climate Crisis Was Caused by Economics, Can Economics Be Part of the Solution? The media said the recent UN Climate Summit was an utter failure. Environmental Economist Robert Stavins begs to differ. Stavins, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, says that away from the well-publicized gridlock, ...
12.10.2019 209 Redistricting and Democracy: Can We Draw the Line on Gerrymandering? Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor of Public Policy Benjamin Schneer says the drawing of electoral districts is a complex and partisan process that often results in politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around. But it doesn't have ...
11.25.2019 208 The Precarious Fate of the African Century A short decade from now, Africa will have the youngest workforce in an aging world and the potential to become a spectacular economic success story. Or it could become home to the overwhelming majority of the world’s poor. Former World ...
11.12.2019 207 Mightier Than the Sword: The Unexpected Effectiveness of Nonviolent Resistance Activists from around the world reach out to Harvard Kennedy School Professor Erica Chenoweth on an almost daily basis. And they mostly ask the same question: How can we fight authoritarianism — and the often-brutal repression that comes with it ...
10.28.2019 206 David Deming on Why Free College is a Good Investment Harvard Kennedy School Professor David Deming, whose research focuses on the economics of education, recently wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “Tuition-free College Could Cost Less Than You Think.” Making college education widely affordable in the U.S. is vital, ...
10.16.2019 205 Fixing Ourselves Is Hard: Iris Bohnet on Solving Bias in the Workplace Iris Bohnet is a behavioral economist, a leading researcher into gender bias, and Harvard Kennedy School's academic dean. She’s got some tough advice for the world’s biggest governments, corporations, and organizations: Stop wasting money on traditional diversity training programs, because ...
09.30.2019 204 Ambassador Wendy Sherman on High-Stakes Negotiation and Authentic Leadership Ambassador Wendy Sherman has been at the table for some of the most challenging negotiations in recent history. She’s held talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and sparred with Iranian officials to hammer out the 2015 nuclear weapons ...
09.16.2019 203 Robot Car Revolution: Using Policy to Manage the Autonomous Vehicle Future Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer Mark Fagan is spearheading the Autonomous Vehicles Policy Initiative at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, helping to ensure government officials can successfully navigate the impending robot car revolution. Mark talks with host Thoko ...
09.14.2019 202 PolicyCast is back! Harvard Kennedy School's PolicyCast is back! Enjoy this preview of our relaunch with host Thoko Moyo of upcoming episodes featuring autonomous vehicles expert Mark Fagan, Center for Public Leadership Director Ambassador Wendy Sherman, and Professor Erica Chenoweth, who has conducted ...
05.30.2018 201 Predicting the Future Through Know-How Professor Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, and Tim Cheston, a research fellow with the center’s Growth Lab, explain how they leveraged data from the Atlas of Economic Complexity to assess the knowhow of more ...
05.23.2018 200 Securing Elections Against Cyber Threats Robby Mook, co-director of the Defending Digital Democracy Project, discusses the cyber security challenges faced by both political campaigns and election officials, and how they can be addressed.
05.16.2018 199 How History Shapes Our Political Beliefs HKS Professor Maya Sen, co-author of the new book “Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics,” explains how she and her colleagues were able to pinpoint the extent to which slavery continues to affect political beliefs to this day.
05.09.2018 198 Negotiating with the North: The Political Stakes Lecturer John Park, director of the Kennedy School’s Korea Working Group, lays out the stakes for both North and South Korea, as well as China and the United States, as they enter into negotiations over denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
05.02.2018 197 Negotiating with the North: Talks and Tactics In the first part of an ongoing series on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Dr. Gary Samore, the Belfer Center’s executive director for research, describes the history of North Korea’s nuclear weapons development and subsequent international efforts to dismantle it, ...
04.18.2018 196 Europe's Evolving Stance on Russia Cathryn Clüver-Ashbrook, executive director of both the Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Trans-Atlantic and European Relations out of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, describes the changing nature of relations between Europe and Russia, providing historical context, examining ...
04.11.2018 195 Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Megaphone from the Diaspora Hamilton Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda discusses his advocacy for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, how he thinks about using his celebrity to effect change, and the falling barriers to minority representation in film and television.
04.04.2018 194 Piketty’s Prescription for Wealth Inequality Economist Thomas Piketty details the policies he believes will be key to overcoming the wealth inequality illustrated in his seminal 2013 book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” He also discusses the 2018 World Inequality Report, which builds on and updates ...
03.28.2018 193 Data Dystopia: Online Ads and Elections Shorenstein Fellow Dipayan Ghosh joins us again for part two of our extended interview on data privacy, digital advertising, and their effect on our democracies. In this episode, Ghosh moves beyond the Cambridge Analytica scandal to focus on publically available, ...
03.28.2018 192 Data Dystopia: Privacy and Regulation As the Cambridge Analytica scandal continues to unfold, Joan Shorenstein Fellow Dipayan Ghosh, who recently left Facebook's Privacy and Public Policy team, joins us for a double-header on data privacy, digital advertising, and their effect on our democracies. In this ...
03.21.2018 191 The Equal Rights Amendment Professor Jane Mansbridge explains why efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution have failed in the past, but could now have a real shot at ratification.
03.14.2018 190 How Cities are Thriving in a Populist Era Bruce Katz explains what makes cities different from state and national governments, and why that difference has allowed them to thrive while populism and partisanship grip state and national governments. Using Boston, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Copenhagen as examples, Katz illustrates ...
03.07.2018 189 Bringing Economics to the People Tufts Professor Michael Klein explains how he’s using Econofact.org to better inform the broader public about economics. The non-partisan publication features easily-digestible briefs on topical economic issues authored by a network of economists around the country, including HKS Professors David ...
02.28.2018 188 New Orleans' Confederate Monuments Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, a Hauser Visiting Leader at the Center for Public Leadership, describes the years-long process involved with removing four confederate monuments in New Orleans, including statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
02.21.2018 187 Reinventing City Government HKS Prof. Stephen Goldsmith describes how cities are poised to shed the strict bureaucracies of the 20th century in favor of a distributed governance model where the city acts as a platform and service providers can be evaluated by outcomes.
02.14.2018 186 Is Social Media Good For Democracy? Adam Conner, a spring 2018 fellow at the Institute of Politics, digs into the nuance behind the question many are asking about platforms like Facebook and Twitter, namely: are they good for democracy?
02.07.2018 185 Turning a Personal Loss into Policy Action on Opioids Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld, a non-resident senior fellow at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, knows firsthand the damage inflicted by the ongoing opioid crisis. After losing his son to addiction in late 2017, he has committed himself to finding solutions ...
02.01.2018 184 Lessons Learned as a Political Prisoner in Venezuela Francisco Marquez Lara MPP 2012 describes his experience as a political prisoner in his home country of Venezuela. He describes what drove him to pursue his political advocacy despite the inherent risks, what his experience was like in captivity, what ...
12.20.2017 183 Stop Calling It Fake News The Shorenstein Center’s Claire Wardle and journalist Hossein Derakhshan explain how information disorder explain how information disorder has taken the world by storm, breaking down how it’s created, produced, and distributed, paying particular attention to the ways in which social ...
12.13.2017 182 The Mueller Investigation HKS Lecturer Juliette Kayyem provides context to the endless stream of news regarding Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In addition to giving a brief on what we now know, Kayyem also discusses the ...
12.07.2017 181 Another Round on Tax Reform With tax reform legislation now in conference committee having cleared both the U.S. House and Senate, HKS Professor Jason Furman returns with an update on where things stand.
11.29.2017 180 A State Department in Crisis HKS Professor Nicholas Burns sounds the alarm about what he sees as a deliberate attempt to dismantle the US State Department and Foreign Service.
11.22.2017 179 Talking Politics over Turkey HKS Senior Lecturer Jeff Seglin offers advice and strategies on how to handle conversations about politics with family and friends who you may not see eye to eye with. And as an added bonus, he shares his family recipe for ...
11.15.2017 178 Kansas City’s Embrace of Innovation Kansas City Mayor Sly James explains why city governments have become models for policy innovation and good governance while federal and state governments continue to be mired in partisan gridlock. He speaks to the value of data-driven decision making, as ...
11.08.2017 177 Exploring the Atlas of Economic Complexity HKS Professor Ricardo Hausmann, the director of the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, explains the concept of economic complexity and why it has become a reliable predictor of future economic growth. He also discusses the Atlas of Economic Complexity, ...
11.01.2017 176 Reason for Doubt on Tax Reform HKS Professor Jason Furman speaks with host Matt Cadwallader about the Trump administration’s tax reform proposal, expressing serious doubts about some of the claims made by the Council of Economic Advisors, a White House agency he previously presided over as ...
10.25.2017 175 CEO to Interior Secretary Former US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, currently a Fall 2017 Fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, recounts her experiences as a private sector executive and how they shaped her attitude towards environmental stewardship, and ultimately prepared her for ...
10.18.2017 174 Stress: A Surgeon General's Warning Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and former Doctors for America CEO Alice Chen dive into the state of healthcare in the United States, from the Trump administration’s recent moves to end cost-sharing subsidies, to finding ways to cut costs ...

Older episodes

PolicyCast

What's PolicyCast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

PolicyCast episodes:

223 Democracy’s uncertain prospects 10 years after the Arab Spring

222 Joe Aldy on how Joe Biden can jumpstart the global climate effort

221 Young voters ascendant: How a generational shift won the 2020 election and could remake American politics

220 Garbage in, garbage out: Dissecting the disinformation that clouds our decisions

219 The end of Us versus Them policing: The tough road ahead for reform

218 If the Electoral College is a racist relic, why has it endured?

217 Championing Human Rights Amid Disease and Discrimination

216 A Historic Crossroads for Systemic Racism and Policing in America

215 No Quick or Easy Answers for the Pandemic's Toll on Developing Economies

214 When Discrimination and a Pandemic Collide

213 Managing crisis without resources: Developing nations brace for Coronavirus

212 When Bad Things Happen to Everybody: Crisis Management in a Chaotic World

211 Post-expert democracy: Why nobody trusts elites anymore

210 The Climate Crisis Was Caused by Economics, Can Economics Be Part of the Solution?

209 Redistricting and Democracy: Can We Draw the Line on Gerrymandering?

208 The Precarious Fate of the African Century

207 Mightier Than the Sword: The Unexpected Effectiveness of Nonviolent Resistance

206 David Deming on Why Free College is a Good Investment

205 Fixing Ourselves Is Hard: Iris Bohnet on Solving Bias in the Workplace

204 Ambassador Wendy Sherman on High-Stakes Negotiation and Authentic Leadership

203 Robot Car Revolution: Using Policy to Manage the Autonomous Vehicle Future

202 PolicyCast is back!

201 Predicting the Future Through Know-How

200 Securing Elections Against Cyber Threats

199 How History Shapes Our Political Beliefs

198 Negotiating with the North: The Political Stakes

197 Negotiating with the North: Talks and Tactics

196 Europe's Evolving Stance on Russia

195 Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Megaphone from the Diaspora

194 Piketty’s Prescription for Wealth Inequality

193 Data Dystopia: Online Ads and Elections

192 Data Dystopia: Privacy and Regulation

191 The Equal Rights Amendment

190 How Cities are Thriving in a Populist Era

189 Bringing Economics to the People

188 New Orleans' Confederate Monuments

187 Reinventing City Government

186 Is Social Media Good For Democracy?

185 Turning a Personal Loss into Policy Action on Opioids

184 Lessons Learned as a Political Prisoner in Venezuela

183 Stop Calling It Fake News

182 The Mueller Investigation

181 Another Round on Tax Reform

180 A State Department in Crisis

179 Talking Politics over Turkey

178 Kansas City’s Embrace of Innovation

177 Exploring the Atlas of Economic Complexity

176 Reason for Doubt on Tax Reform

175 CEO to Interior Secretary

174 Stress: A Surgeon General's Warning

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