Over a span of thirty years, climate and the environment went from a nuisance to become a top-tier priority for U.S. military leaders. Sherri Goodman, a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, details the keys to this military environmental awakening in her new book, Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership and the Fight for Global Security. In this episode, Sherri sits down with Talking Policy host Lindsay Shingler to discuss the core themes from her book, and what she has learned over her long career as an environmental advocate and change agent within the highest ranks of American military leadership.

This interview was conducted on November 4, 2024. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

With several major wars threatening to spill over into wider regional conflicts, and a U.S. presidential election looming, the question of what power an American president has to wage war has become more pressing. In a new episode of Talking Policy, host Lindsay Shingler sits down with Patrick Hulme, an IGCC affiliate and Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Stanford University, to take a deeper look at U.S. presidential war powers. Patrick explains how presidential war powers have evolved and what U.S. allies think, and weighs in on what a Harris or Trump presidency may imply for future U.S. involvement in foreign wars.

This interview was conducted on August 28, 2024. The conversation was edited for length and clarity. 

A new, dangerous nuclear era is upon us. China is rapidly expanding its arsenal; Russia is threatening to use its nukes in Ukraine; and North Korea is undertaking provocative tests of its delivery systems. Is a nuclear arms race at hand?

In this special episode of Talking Policy, host Lindsay Shingler is joined by three experts who have devoted much of their careers to nuclear weapons security. Alex Bell is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability at the U.S. State Department; Gov. Jerry Brown is the executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; and John Scott is a nuclear scientist who serves as Division Leader of X-Theoretical Design at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Together, they answer the question of how the world can step back from the nuclear brink.

In the fifth and final episode of our podcast miniseries, Democracy and Its Discontents, host Lindsay Shingler is joined by the two leaders of IGCC’s Future of Democracy initiative, Emilie Hafner-Burton and Christina Schneider, who reflect on the state of American democracy and why it is worth protecting and strengthening. Emilie Hafner-Burton is a professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and author of Making Human Rights a Reality. Christina Schneider is a professor of political science at UC San Diego, an expert in research on the domestic politics of international cooperation, and the author of two books, including The Responsive Union: National Elections and European Governance.

Why are voters in democracies around the world being wooed by aspiring autocrats? What do these types of leaders promise, and do they actually deliver?

In the fourth episode of our podcast miniseries, Democracy and Its Discontents, host Lindsay Shingler is joined by Stephan Haggard to analyze the track record of “strong states” that have elected populist leaders. Stephan is a research professor at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and serves as research director for democracy and global governance at IGCC.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric has proved to be an effective tool for some political voices to translate cultural and economic anxieties into votes in their bid for power. As a result, partisan division is at an all-time high, and political leaders continue to stoke the flames of prejudice.

In the third episode of our podcast miniseries Democracy and Its Discontents, host Lindsay Shingler is joined by Zoltan Hajnal, who explains how and why the discourse around immigration is so effective at overshadowing all other dividing lines in American politics and creating confusion and division throughout the country. Zoltan, a professor of political science at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, is author of White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics, and co-author of a new book: Race and Inequality in American Politics: An Imperfect Union.

Democracy is supposed to be by and for the people, but limitless, unregulated money flowing into politics weakens the voice of the majority and gives outsized influence to elites who can distort the democratic process in their favor. What is the point of the rule of law, when it’s essentially for sale?

In the second episode of our democracy miniseries, host Lindsay Shingler is joined by UCLA professor Marty Gilens, author of Democracy in America? What Has Gone Wrong and What We Can Do About It. Together, they look at the role of money in U.S. elections—and in American politics as a whole—and explore the corrosive impact it has on representation.

Democracy is built on trust—and accountability. Citizens need information to hold those in power to account. But disinformation is eroding our trust in institutions, in experts, and even in our fellow citizens.

In the first episode of Talking Policy’s new miniseries, Democracy and Its Discontents, host Lindsay Shingler talks with Simone Chambers, a professor of political science at UC Irvine, about what disinformation is, and how it’s impacting voter trust—both in elections and in the institution of democracy itself. Chambers is the author of Wrecking the Public Sphere: The New Authoritarians’ Digital Attack on Pluralism and Truth (with Jeff Kopstein) and the new book Contemporary Democratic Theory.

U.S. democracy is facing unprecedented challenges. Political polarization is at its highest level in decades. An uncharted new media environment is spreading questionable information and undermining public trust. And profound economic and societal changes are prompting deep dissatisfaction with democratic institutions and procedures. What’s going on with democracy—and how can we save it?

For forty years, IGCC’s network of scholars from across the University of California has leveraged world-class academic expertise toward addressing the most serious matters of global security. As the world experiences reversals in democratic governance and a resurgence of authoritarianism, understanding the causes of U.S. democratic discontent could not be more salient to IGCC’s mission of utilizing rigorous research to help build a more peaceful and prosperous world.

This has been the year of the election, bringing half the world’s population to the polls in contests of varying degrees of legitimacy. As 2024 closes with a general election in the United States, we are releasing a five-episode Talking Policy podcast miniseries featuring in-depth conversations about the most pressing problems faced by U.S. democracy and how they can be addressed.

Democracy and Its Discontents will explore the spread of misinformation in political discourse, the influence of money on the U.S. electoral system, how political actors promote division and enmity, and how the rise of populist demagogues is testing democracies across the world. The series will place these challenges in historic context to ask if the risks to U.S. democracy are really so unprecedented and how we can reinvigorate the democratic ideals that the nation was founded upon.

In a new episode of Talking Policy, host Lindsay Shingler talks with Jimmy Goodrich, an IGCC nonresident fellow and leading expert on technology, geopolitics, and national security with a focus on China and East Asia. Jimmy weighs in on the realities and misconceptions surrounding China’s heightened political and economic rhetoric, and what this posture may mean for future competition with the United States.

This interview was conducted on August 6, 2024. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.