Politics on the Couch

Host Rafael Behr talks to Claudia Hammond about political empathy, its power and its limits.

Claudia is probably best known as the presenter of BBC Radio 4's long-running show, 'All in the Mind' which covers psychology, neuroscience & mental health.

She is also the Visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex.

Her latest book, 'The Keys to Kindness,' looks at what constitutes kindness, effective strategies to build more of it into our lives and the benefits of being kind.

She draws on the latest research from psychology and neuroscience, and her work in collaboration with the University of Sussex and the BBC, including the largest global survey ever undertaken into attitudes to kindness.

Links

https://claudiahammond.com/the-keys-to-kindness

https://claudiahammond.com/the-kindness-test

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/kindness/index

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/schools/psychology

Rafael Behr's first book is released today - Thursday 4 May, 2023

'Politics, A Survivor’s Guide,' is all about the infuriating toxicity of politics, how it got that way and how to resist the slide into cynicism and pessimism that are so corrosive of democracy. It’s about the challenge of staying engaged without getting enraged; the need to empathise with people whose views we cannot share and how that is different to appeasement of politics we believe to be dangerous.

The themes include migration, nationalism, family, identity, culture wars, technology, ideology, Europe, Brexit and a little bit of cardiology.

Available from Waterstones:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/politics-a-survivors-guide/rafael-behr/9781838955045

Or, for those who are interested in signed copies, from City Books in Hove:

https://www.city-books.co.uk

Raf will be speaking at literary festivals, theatres, pubs all around the UK. Often he will be in conversation with fellow journalists and authors, hopefully also in conversation with you in the audience. Below is a list of places and times. Click on date for tickets. There may be more to come...

10 May Brighton Festival

17 May Bath Festival

21 May Aye Write, Glasgow Book Festival

23 May 1000 Trades, Birmingham

25 May Hay Festival

7 June The Elephant and Castle Pub, Lewes (no link yet)

12 June Guardian Live, Kings Cross, London

Politics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as both one of the Top 25 UK Psychology, and Political Science podcasts.

https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts

https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts

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In this wide-ranging and informal conversation*, Rafael Behr chats to former colleague Helen Lewis about whether Whatsapp has changed the way politics is conducted, her favourite Tik Tok channel, the incestous nature of Scottish politics, what's really behind the UK government's immigration policy, what we can learn from Florida culture wars, why the middle ground is so hard to occupy, what we have learnt from the pandemic, and Helen's take on why so many men love listening to other men on podcasts, plus much more.

*unstructured

Helen Lewis

Helen writes about the intersection of politics, society, and digital culture for The Atlantic.

Link to Helen’s long read on DeSantis, Trump and the future of American politicsfor The Atlantic

She is also the host of the BBC’s long-form interview series, The Spark.

Her next book, The Selfish Genius, is scheduled for publication in 2023.

Link to ‘The Bluestocking,’ Helen’s substack page.

Rafael Behr has a book out very soon about politics

If you're interested here's a link to pre-order:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Politics-Survivors-Engaged-without-Getting/dp/1838955046/

Now on with the podcast show we call Politics on the Couch.

This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

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Rafael Behr talks to Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit and co-author, along with Research Fellow Lisa James, of a new book called: The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit, a detailed account of the extraordinary way the Brexit process played out in parliament.

Since the 2016 referendum, the hotly contested issue of Brexit has raised fundamental questions about the workings of British democracy. Nowhere was this more true than regarding the role of parliament. This book addresses important questions about parliament's role in the UK constitution, and the impact on this of the Brexit process. While initially intended to re-establish 'parliamentary sovereignty', Brexit wrought significant damage on the reputation of parliament, and the wider culture of UK democracy.

This book is published as part of the ‘Brexit, Parliament and the Constitution’ project, funded through Constitution Unit Director Meg Russell's Senior Fellowship with the ESRC-funded UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) programme.

For more about the book (and a 30% discount code) see this link:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/parliamentary-battle-over-brexit

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Host Rafael Behr talks to Prof. Tim Bale about why people join political parties and how the members impact democracy.

Topics covered inlcude:

• what people get from joining a political party;
• what parties get from their members;
• why membership of parties has declined;
• in particular why so many Conservative women joined, and then left in their droves;
• how membership differs between the two major parties;
• how the role of members has changed; and
• members impact on the democratic health of the nation

Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London.

He's the author of several books on British and European party politics, including, Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership in the 21st Century, the research for which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and generated the website http://esrcpartymembersproject.org.

His most recent book, The Conservative Party after Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation is out on 30 March 2023.

Tim's also a frequent contributor to broadcast and print media in the UK and abroad.

This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

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Ahead of the first bilateral summit between the two countries' leaders for five years, Rafael Behr talks to Georgina Wright, from the Institut Montaigne in Paris, about what the French really think about us Brits, and what we often get wrong about French discourse, customs and political culture. Quite a lot, as it happens.

Georgina Wright is Senior Fellow and Director of Institut Montaigne’s Europe Program. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, associate of the Institute for Government in London and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Britain and Europe at the University of Surrey.

Before joining Institut Montaigne, she was senior researcher at the Institute for Government (2019-2020) and research associate at Chatham House (2014-2018). She has also worked for the European Commission and NATO in Brussels.

Georgina regularly represents Institut Montaigne on national and international news media, and has written widely for foreign policy outlets. She studied at the University of Edinburgh and the College of Europe (Bruges).

https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/experts/georgina-wright

This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

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In this edition, Rafael Behr talks to England's most prodigious political screenwriter and playwright - James Graham.

He's probably most well known for writing the recent BBC1 hit drama 'Sherwood', which aired on BBC One in 2022 to rave reviews, and will return for a second series.

James also wrote Quiz (ITV) in 2020, which was one of the most watched UK television dramas of the year; and Brexit: An Uncivil War, which garnered huge public attention and critical acclaim in 2019. It was broadcast on Channel 4 and HBO, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie, and a BAFTA for Single Drama.

In this episode James talks to Rafael about how narratives are fundamental to political storytelling, what they are, why recently parties on the right seem to have been better at them, where James draws his inspiration for writing from, and what his next play is about.

More about James

For theatre, James’s play Best of Enemies, about the political debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr., opened at the Young Vic in 2021, and is currently playing on the West End. It has been nominated for an Olivier for Best New Play, and won a Critics’ Circle Theatre Award.

His new musical, Tammy Faye, with music from Elton John and lyrics from Jake Shears, opened at the Almeida in 2022.

Ink - about the early days of Rupert Murdoch - opened to huge praise at the Almeida before transferring to the West End in September 2017, where it played in the theatre next door to James’ other new play – political romantic comedy Labour of Love - creating theatre history.

James's breakout play This House premiered at the National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in September 2012 and transferred to the Olivier in 2013 where it enjoyed a sell-out run. It garnered critical acclaim and a huge amount of interest and admiration from current and former MPs for his rendition of life in the House of Commons.

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Host Rafael Behr talks to Fuschia Sirois, Professor of Social and Health Psychology at Durham University, and co-Editor-in-Chief at the British Journal Of Health Psychology, about procrastination.

In this free-flowing conversation, Fuschia and Rafael talk about what procrastination is, how it impacts politics and public policy, what we can do about it, and why Rafael may have incorrectly compared himself to Brad Pitt when he was a lot younger (Raf that is)

For more on Rafael Behr, and to order his eagerly anticipated first book:

https://rafaelbehr.com

Fuschia Sirois’ latest book

Procrastination: What It Is, Why It's a Problem, and What You Can Do About It

Some of her other recent publications

Biskas, M. Sirois, F. M., & Webb, T. L. (2022). Using social cognition models to understand why people, such as perfectionists, struggle to respond with self-compassion. British Journal of Social Psychology, 61, 1160-1182. Open access

Sirois, F. M., & Owens, J. (2021). A meta-analysis of loneliness and use of primary health care. Health Psychology Review. Open access

Baird, H. Webb, T. L., Sirois, F. M., & Gibson-Miller, J. (2021). Understanding the effects of time perspective: A meta-analysis testing a self-regulatory framework. Psychological Bulletin, 147 (3), 233-267. Link

Sirois, F. M., & Owens, J. (2021). Factors associated with psychological distress in health-care workers during an infectious disease outbreak: A rapid systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Open access.

Neff, K., Tóth-Király, I., Yarnell, L., Arimitsu, K., Castilho, P., Ghorbani, N., Guo, H., Hirsch, J., Hupfield, J., Hutz, C. S., Kotsou, I., Lee, W. K., Montero-Marin, J., Sirois, F. M., de Souza, L., Svendsen, J., Wilkinson, L., & Mantzios, M. (2019). Examining the Self-Compassion Scale in 20 diverse samples: Support for use of a total score and six subscale scores. Psychological Assessment, 31, 27-45. Link

This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

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One year on from Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, host Rafael Behr talks to Anne Applebaum about why so many US Republicans and conservatives are still seduced by Putin’s anti-West rhetoric and tropes.

Anne, a Pullitzer-prize winning historian, is particularly well positioned to discuss this, and associated issues, given that her most recent book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism looked at why some of her contemporaries had abandoned liberal democratic ideals in favor of strongman cults, nationalist movements, or one-party states.

Anne Applebaum

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian.

She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute, where she co-directs Arena, a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda.

A Washington Post columnist for fifteen years and a former member of the editorial board, she has also worked as the Foreign and Deputy Editor of the Spectator magazine in London, as the Political Editor of the Evening Standard, and as a columnist at Slate as well as the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs.

From 1988-1991 she covered the collapse of communism as the Warsaw correspondent of the Economist magazine and the Independent newspaper.

She has lectured at Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Columbia Universities, as well as Oxford, Cambridge, London, Heidelberg, Maastricht, Zurich, Humboldt, Texas A&M, Houston and many others.

In 2012-13 she held the Phillipe Roman Chair of History and International Relations at the London School of Economics.

She received honorary doctorates from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and Kyiv-Mohyla University.

Anne Applebaum was born in Washington, DC in 1964. After graduating from Yale University, she was a Marshall Scholar at the LSE and St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

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In this episode host Rafael Behr talks to Prof Anand Menon about what the latest polling on 'bregret' means for identity politics, Starmer's strategy on future EU relations, and the economic and democratic health of the UK.

Anand Menon is Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London in the United Kingdom, and was appointed in January 2014 as director of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative.

Prior to arriving at King's College, London, Menon lectured at Birmingham University. Previously he was Lecturer in European Politics at Oxford University for ten years and a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford for five.

Bibliography

His publications include European Politics (Oxford University Press, 2007), co-edited with Colin Hay and Europe: The State of the Union (Atlantic Books, 2008), and he has written for popular publications including the Financial Times, the London Review of Books and Prospect.[2][4]Anand was a Professor of West European Politics, and founding Director of the European Research Institute at the University of Birmingham.

For more information on Professor Menon: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/anand-menon

For more information on the UK in a changing Europe https://ukandeu.ac.uk/

For more on Rafael Behr, and to order his new book visit https://rafaelbehr.com

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Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex alongside other eminent roles in the field of advanced research into the nature of consciousness and perception. His bestselling book ‘Being You: A New Science of Consciousness’ is a masterpiece of making complex scientific issues accessible to the non-expert reader.

Anil demonstrates that same skill in this relaxed and free-flowing discussion with Politics on the Couch host Rafael Behr. They talk about the essence of what it means to be a conscious being, whether we can ever be said to experience objective reality, whether our present self is really the same as our past self and some of the moral, philosophical and political issues provoked by those questions.

For more information on Professor Seth and ‘Being You’, visit https://www.anilseth.com/

Here's the perception census he mentions in the podcast: https://perceptioncensus.dreamachine.world

For more on Rafael Behr visit https://rafaelbehr.com

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