The AEI Events Podcast

For the fourth and final episode in a miniseries centered around a new Oxford University report on “Citizenship in a Networked Age,” Adam White is joined once again by two of the report’s co-authors: Professor Andrew Briggs and Dr. Dominic Burbidge.

They further explore issues raised in the previous two panels’ discussions of “Community, Platform, and Institution” and “Algorithmic vs. Democratic Decisionmaking.” They then turn to the report’s final recommendations, with an eye to the value of civic unity and empathy in fractious times. How do our most personal relationships—with family, friends, neighbors—shape the way we act as citizens in a networked age?  

For the third episode in a miniseries centered around a new Oxford University report on “Citizenship in a Networked Age,” Adam White explores democratic and algorithmic decision-making.

Can we draw a clear distinction between the two categories? How should we understand them in terms of efficiency, accuracy, dignity, and other values? He’s joined in this conversation by Cary Coglianese of the University of Pennsylvania, Maleka Momand of Esper, and Ari Schulman of The New Atlantis.

For the second episode in a miniseries centered around a new

Oxford University report

on “Citizenship in a Networked Age,” Adam White is joined in conversation on

“community, platform, and institution” with David Brooks of The New

York Times, Yuval Levin

of AEI and National Affairs, and Christine

Rosen of Commentary. They discuss how our relationships, our communities,

and our social institutions are channeled and changed by internet platforms –

and what, if anything, ought to done about it.

We encourage “audience participation” in this event. If you have questions for Adam White or the authors of “Citizenship in a Networked Age,” we ask that you please send them to [email protected] or tweet them @Unprecedential.

It’s obvious that we live in a networked age, but it is not obvious how to understand the effects that modern technologies are having on the way will live, love, relate, and govern. How are social media and other Internet platforms shaping us — and how should we shape them?

A new report from University of Oxford and Templeton World Charity Foundation, “Citizenship in a Networked Age: An Agenda for Rebuilding our Civic Ideals,” attempts to reckon with such weighty matters, seeking the relationship between human nature and modern technology. Do the classical paradigms of citizenship account for this networked age? What virtues ought we cultivate to promote human flourishing in our new public square?

AEI resident scholar Adam White will explore this report, and some of its themes, in a series of four AEI Events Podcast episodes. And we begin with his conversation with two of the report’s authors, Professor Andrew Briggs and Dr. Dominic Burbidge.

Even before the US Constitution was ratified, the notion of empowering federal judges to declare statutes unconstitutional was controversial and complicated. Since Marbury v. Madison (1803), judicial review has become essential to the Supreme Court’s role in our republic. Yet the Court’s actual exercise of that power in many instances reignited political controversy.

In his new book, “Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present” (University Press of Kansas, 2019), Keith Whittington reviews the Court’s decisions declaring laws unconstitutional. His book highlights and clarifies the Court’s role in our constitutional order, how it has evolved over time, and its relationship with contemporaneous political developments.

Please join AEI for a conversation between Dr. Whittington and AEI’s Adam White on this provocative new understanding of judicial review.

This audio first appeared at an AEI event held on February 21, 2020, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.

Following his convincing electoral victory, Boris Johnson still faces two daunting challenges. The first is to negotiate a permanent economic relationship with the European Union by the end of 2020. The second is to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom following the Scottish National Party’s strong showing in the election.

Our panel of experts, to include the EU and Irish Ambassadors to the United States, discusses Johnson’s likely success in meeting those two challenges and the economic and political implications of Brexit for the UK and Europe.

This audio first appeared at an AEI event held on January 28, 2020, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.

COVID-19 has devastated the US economy, disrupted the nation’s food supply chains, significantly affected federal and state safety-net programs for low-income households, and catastrophically damaged the financial well-being of tens of millions of families. These impacts are disproportionately disrupting the lives and incomes of the most vulnerable populations — perhaps especially children, single-parent households, the elderly, and the homeless — leading to increasingly widespread concerns about rising food insecurity, hunger, and malnutrition for those populations.

Diane Schanzenbach, Scott Winship, Angela Rachidi, and Joseph Glauber join Vincent Smith, director of agricultural studies at AEI, to discuss the food supply and food insecurity issues created by COVID-19 and current and potential policy responses to address the critically important challenges that the nation faces.

This audio first appeared at an AEI event held on May 4, 2020, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.

North Korea is the world’s most repressive state — and the Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) is the key apparatus in Pyongyang’s administration of tyranny. The OGD may be little known in the United States, but, according to North Korean defector Jang Jin-sung, it is “the only entity that actually matters when it comes to decision-making or policy-making” in the Kim family regime. But what exactly is the OGD, how does it operate, and why do North Korea watchers, American policymakers, and human rights activists need to know about it?

Robert M. Collins lifts the veil on this ominous apparatus in the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea’s new report “Organization and Guidance Department: Control Tower of Human Rights Denial”. Enjoy this panel discussion with Nicholas Eberstadt on the report and the latest research about the OGD.

Related Materials: – Kim Jong Un’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year | The New York Times | August 15, 2019 – Trump meets Kim Jong-un this week. There’ll be one winner | The New York Times | February 25, 2019 – With Kim Jong Un, there’s no ‘win-win’ | The Wall Street Journal | May 23, 2018

This audio first appeared at an AEI event held on September 19, 2019, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.

The world continues to change rapidly, and the distinctions between institutions have been blurred. At a time when other institutions, like corporations, are taking a broader view of their responsibilities, should universities be thinking differently about their role? What should higher education institutions focus on, and how should they be judged? Join AEI as University of Virginia President James E. Ryan addresses these questions.

This audio first appeared at an AEI event held on February 20, 2020, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.

Three days before the South Carolina Democratic primary, AEI’s election experts convened for the first Election Watch event of the 2020 campaign.

With interest in the 2020 elections at record levels, AEI’s Election Watch team returns to help you navigate 2020’s important contests. The panel of experienced analysts will discuss fundamentals including the calendar, the contestants, and the contours of the 2020 electorate. They will examine what has happened thus far in the race and what it means for the next contests, including South Carolina on February 29 and Super Tuesday on March 3. In addition, they will take an early look at the 2020 Senate and gubernatorial races and discuss the strength of the political parties.

AEI’s Election Watch program has provided election analysis in all 20 presidential and congressional election years since 1982. The series is the longest-running election analysis program in Washington.

This audio has been edited for time and first appeared at an AEI event held on February 25, 2020, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Watch the full event here.