Root of Conflict

How are authoritarian elites and their collaborators handled in the aftermath of democratic transitions? The modern discipline of documenting transitional justice began with the Nuremberg trials for Nazi perpetrators. The trials shifted the way the international community thinks about accountability for human rights violations committed by authoritarian regimes and are generally the most well-known example of transitional justice. Yet, there exist different procedures of extra-judicial transitional justice—including lustration, truth commissions, and purges—that hold human rights violators accountable and remove them from positions of power without formally sentencing them.

In this episode, we speak with Professor Monika Nalepa, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, about her new book After Authoritarianism and her monumental work building the Global Transitional Justice Dataset at the Transitional Justice and Democratic Stability Lab. We talk about the different implications of transitional justice for both leaders and rank-and-file members of authoritarian regimes and the more recent global phenomenon of democratic backsliding.

Learn more about After Authoritarianism and read it here.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at ThePearsonInstitute.org

Access the transcript here.

Podcast Production Credits:

Interviewing: Olga Bednarek and Isabella Pestana de Andrade do Nascimento
Editing: Nishita Karun
Production: Hannah Balikci

What role did Kurdish women play in Iran's protests last year? The death of Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iranian authorities sparked mass demonstrations for women’s rights under the rallying cry of "Women, Life, Freedom." But the Kurdish minorities behind this resistance have largely been erased—and their movements co-opted before the international community. In this episode, we speak with Rez Gardi, a Kurdish New Zealander lawyer and human rights activist, about how, despite becoming the symbol of a revolution, non-Kurdish activists and news coverage have continually denied Jina her true name and identity. We talk about the long-lived Kurdish resistance against state oppression in Iran, Syria, and Turkey and the broader history of the Kurdish struggle for autonomy and self-determination in the Middle East.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at ThePearsonInstitute.org

Access the transcript here.

Podcast Production Credits:

Interviewing: Hannah Balikci and Zareen Hussain
Editing: Nishita Karun
Production: Reema Saleh

What mental models underpin international development? And how do they hold back actors working in conflict-affected countries? In this episode, we speak with Dr. Mareike Schomerus, author of Lives Amid Violence and Vice President of the Busara Center, one of the first behavioral science research labs in the Global South. Drawing from ten years of research by the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, she argues that the international development sector, in its current form, often fails to take into account the experiences and perspectives of people living in contexts of violence and conflict and offers a new language for transforming development in the wake of conflict. We talk about the colonialist thinking underpins international development, how the sector's unflinching faith in causality creates blind spots for practitioners, and what it means to envision this space anew.

Learn more about Lives Amid Violence and read it here.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at ThePearsonInstitute.org

Access the transcript here.

Podcast Production Credits:

Interviewing: Julia Higgins, Reema Saleh, and Umama Zillur
Editing: Nishita Karun
Production: Reema Saleh

What does an interrupted democratic transition look like? In this episode, we speak to Dr. Ibrahim Elbadawi, managing director of the Economic Research Forum and former Minister of Finance and Economic Planning in the Republic of Sudan. In May of 2023, Dr. Elbadawi joined us in Chicago at the sixth annual Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Lecture to discuss Sudan’s political transition and economic policymaking. The lecture took place just weeks after violent conflict erupted in Sudan. Fighting between two military factions has forced millions of Sudanese to flee the violence and cast a shadow of uncertainty over Sudan's ambitions to transition to a civilian-led democracy.

Watch the Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Lecture featuring Dr. Elbadawi here.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at ThePearsonInstitute.org

Access the transcript here.

Podcast Production Credits:

Interviewing: Hisham Yousif and Kirgit Amlai
Editing: Nishita Karun
Production: Hannah Balikci

What is the human toll of the U.S. immigration bureaucracy? In this episode, we speak with Dr. Chiara Galli, a sociologist at the University of Chicago. Her latest book, “Precarious Protections,” chronicles the experiences and perspectives of Central American unaccompanied minors and their immigration attorneys as they navigate the asylum process and pursue refugee status in the United States.

Spanning six years of research between the Obama and Trump administrations, her ethnographic research examines the paradoxical and precarious criteria that decide who is deserving and whom we should protect—and how U.S. asylum laws fail to protect children escaping life-threatening violence. We talk about her work, how recent immigration changes are impacting unaccompanied minors, and how Chicago will grapple with an unanticipated migration influx.

Learn more about “Precarious Protections" here.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org
Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast

Podcast Production Credits:

Interviewing: Natalie Reyes, Gabriela Rivera, and Reema Saleh
Editing: Ricardo Sande
Production: Reema Saleh

How can geography explain Brexit and Britain’s changing relationship with the rest of the world? In this episode, we speak with Dr. Ian Morris, a historian and archeologist at Stanford University. His latest book, “Geography is Destiny,” chronicles the ten-thousand-year history of Britain’s relationship with Europe and how it has adapted in a globalizing world. We talk about maps, how the British Isles went from a relatively
unimportant country on the edge of other empires to a globe-spanning power from its periphery, and what geography has to tell us about the future of Britain’s place in the world.

Learn more about “Geography is Destiny:”
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157272/geographyisdestiny
This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org

Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast

Podcast Production Credits:
Interviewing: Hannah Balikci, Zareen Hussain, and Reema Saleh
Editing: Ricardo Sande
Production: Reema Saleh

How can we imagine liberation under colonial rule? In this episode, we speak with Dr. Somdeep Sen, a post-colonial studies professor at Roskilde University. His book, "Decolonizing Palestine," draws on his ethnographic research in the region to study how Israeli occupation shapes life and politics in the Palestinian territories. He documents how liberation is not a single moment in history but instead a complicated process that begins before and continues long after the colonizer loses power. We talk about how settler-colonialism is embedded at heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict and what the struggle for liberation can look like around the world.

Learn more about “Decolonizing Palestine:” https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752742/decolonizing-palestine/

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org

Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast

When does the force of argument become stronger than the argument of force? In this episode, we speak with Jon McCourt, a community peace activist for over forty years in the City of Derry, North of Ireland. As a young man, he marched on the first civil rights demonstration in Derry in 1968. Witnessing the murder of friends and neighbors on Bloody Sunday, he joined the Irish Republican Army to resist British occupation. He left the IRA in 1976, and since then, he’s worked to build bridges between Catholic and Protestant communities in the North of Ireland and foster peace and reconciliation. For the first fifteen minutes, we talk about the history of the troubles and the Irish resistance before going on to discuss his work, personal experiences, and how victims and survivors move forward after conflict.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org

Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast

Podcast Production Credits:
Interviewing: Hisham Yousif and Reema Saleh
Editing: Ricardo Sande
Production: Reema Saleh

How do civilians cope while living in a country at war? In this episode, we speak with Dr. Greta Uehling, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Michigan. Her forthcoming book, “Everyday War,” draws on her ethnographic research in Ukraine after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. She documents how the conflict disrupted lives and reshaped people's social worlds outside of our conventional understandings of war. We talk about the ordinary, everyday actions that people took to contribute to fighting and how civilians came together to deliver comfort and care.

Learn more about “Everyday War,” coming out this February: https://gretauehling.com/

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org

Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast

The Republic of Somaliland is a de facto sovereign state in the Horn of Africa. Declaring independence from Somalia in 1991, Somaliland is a self-governing country, with democratic elections and a distinct history, but it’s still considered part of Somalia by the international community. In this episode, we speak with Bashir Goth, the Head of the Somaliland Mission in the United States. We talk about how Somaliland has navigated state-building without international recognition, democracy and development, and what Somaliland has to offer the world in the coming decades.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org

Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast

Podcast Production Credits:
Interviewing: Deqa Aden and Joshua Charles
Editing: Ricardo Sande
Production: Reema Saleh