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

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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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In this episode host Rafael Behr talks to Dr Karen Stenner, the political psychologist & behavioral economist best known for long ago predicting the rise of Trump-like figures uner the kinds of conditions we now confront.

Her research on authoritarianism and 'Far Right' politics uses psychological theories and methods (in particular, Randomized Controlled Trials) to explain human behavior.

She also use those same theories and methods (particularly RCTs) to shift human behavior via communications and campaigns (of every kind), including designing and embedding messages that de-activate authoritarianism and diminish expressions of intolerance and racism in a society.

We also discuss the recent Labour victory in the Australian general election and the part that 'independent teals' played.

If you'd like to find out more about Dr Stenner and work please visit her site: https://www.karenstenner.com

And you may find her articles below of particular interest.

For Hope Not Hate on how to help authoritarians live in peace with liberal democracy.

https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/11/01/authoritarianism

Her recent piece with Jessica Stern for Foreign Policy on how liberal democracy must treat authoritarianism as a chronic condition to be managed.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/11/capitol-insurrection-trump-authoritarianism-psychology-innate-fear-envy-change-diversity-populism/

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Rafael Behr talks to pollster and political strategist James Johnson about what's next for Labour, a matter of minutes after PM Johnson announced his resignation.

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This week, Rafael Behr and Professor Helen Thompson discuss her new book Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century.

The book, which was released on the day Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, recounts three histories—one about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies.

She explains how a confluence of different crises, building over many years, has created the current mood of global, epoch-defining disorder.

It shows how much of this turbulence originated in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies, and it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the longstanding predicaments energy invariably shapes will remain in place.

In light of her new book and the war raging in Ukraine, in this edition of Politics on the Couch Rafael and Helen discuss a wide-range of ideas and issues:

Topics discussed:

1. Was the Russian invasion of Ukraine an inflection point in history and how do we know if we're living through one?
2. Do individuals and charismatic personalities shape history or merely express longer-running trends and bigger forces?
3. Does Johnson have any ideology? If so, what is it?
4. Can the year we're born can shape our optimism about the future?
5. Has the pandemic affected the way citizens view making big sacrifices for a greater good?
6. How can strong political identities be forged from adversity?
7. Do Western liberal democracies have the capacity to drive through the change needed to make the green transition?
8. Is China as an authoritarian state at an advantage?
9. What lessons has the Ukrainian war taught us about energy policy and green transition?

• Helen's new book: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/disorder-hard-times-in-the-21st-century/9780198864981
• Helen's Cambridge University page: https://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/Staff_and_Students/dr-helen-thompson

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

https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts

https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts

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It will help us work out a sustainable funding model to make more Politics on the Couch episodes.

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This is a Behr and Berman podcast production

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Human beings routinely make terrible choices but humanity still achieves amazing things.

How does this paradox work?

And is it still working when technology seems to amplify the worst in us.

In this episode, Politics on the Couch host Rafael Behr talks to Professor Steven Pinker about the constant struggle between evidence and emotion for control of the political agenda; whether truth and fact are winning the long war against superstition and falsehood, and why rationality always has the last word.

Professor Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of a number of highly acclaimed and prize-winning books about psychology, cognitive science, linguistics and history.

His latest book Rationality: What it is; why it seems scarce; why it matters was published in September.

https://stevenpinker.com/publications/rationality-what-it-why-it-seems-so-scarce-and-why-it-matters

More about Steven Pinker:

https://stevenpinker.com/biocv

Other books by Steven Pinker mentioned in episode

The Better Angels of our Nature

https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-nature

Enlightenment Now https://stevenpinker.com/publications/enlightenment-now-case-reason-science-humanism-and-progress

A couple of references in this episode that might be useful as further reading.

Michael Ignatieff’s book Fire and Ashes, about a failed career in politics

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/27/michael-ignatieff-fire-ashes-review

Jonathan Rauch’s book The Constitution of Knowledge, about the crisis of trust in institutions

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/26/the-constitution-of-knowledge-review-jonathan-rauch-trump

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

https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts

https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts

Help shape the future of Politics on the Couch

Do please take a moment to complete our listener survey which will only take 2-3 minutes. 

It will help us work out a sustainable funding model to make more Politics on the Couch episodes.

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This is a Behr and Berman podcast production

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.