In June 2016, the government of Colombia signed a historic peace agreement with the armed rebel group known as FARC-EP to end a conflict that over five decades had taken the lives of at least 260,000 Colombians and displaced over 7 million. Three years later, the peace accord—a complex effort to not only stop the fighting but also address the underlying causes of the conflict, and to seek truth, justice, and reconciliation for victims—remains not fully implemented as new political disputes and leaders have hampered its progress. On this episode, experts Ted Piccone and Vanda Felbab-Brown explain the situation and how to move forward.  Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter.  The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

Deepfakes are videos that make a person appear to say or do something they did not say or do, and they are coming to an election near you. With the 2020 election contests coming up, how can we guard ourselves against deep fakes and prevent them from changing the outcome of an election? To address this problem, this episode features a conversation with , a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies and the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. He is also a professor of electrical engineering, public policy, law, and management at UCLA. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

The language of racism and white supremacy is all around us; people are getting hurt, and also killed. But racism also pervades our public policies. To address these issues and how to move forward, this episode features a discussion with two Brookings experts: , David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program, and , senior fellow in the Governance Studies Program and also in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

In June, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that “the Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections,” and just recently the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a bipartisan report finding that governments at all levels are unprepared to combat a Russian attack on U.S. election infrastructure. Meanwhile, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has refused to allow a vote on House-passed election security measures, calling such efforts partisan and pointing to steps the Trump administration has taken to bolster election security. On this episode, , the vice president and director of Governance Studies and Founding Director of the  at Brookings, addresses these issues.  Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

Brookings Press Director Bill Finan sits down with Donald P. Green, the J.W. Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Doctor Green is co-author, with Alan S. Gerber, of "," now in its fourth edition from the Brookings Press. In "Get out the Vote," Green and Gerber take a scientific approach to the challenge of voter mobilization, and examine new data on the efficiency of various campaign tactics, including door-to-door canvassing, email, direct mail, and telephone calls.  Also on the program, Senior Fellow David Wessel discusses whether the crisis in state and local pensions we so often hear about is really a crisis at all. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

Nearly half of the pregnancies in the United States each year are unplanned, and such unwanted or mistimed pregnancies can create negative outcomes for women, children, and families. Greater access to birth control, especially long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCS) empower women to only have children if, and when, and with whom they want. As restrictions on abortion become more widespread, how can states and organizations increase the availability of family planning information and access to contraceptive methods like LARCS? In this episode, Brookings Senior Fellow leads a conversation with former Delaware Governor and , the co-founder and co-CEO of Upstream USA, a non-profit working to expand opportunity by reducing unplanned pregnancy in the US. Also on the program, in a new Metro Lens segment, Senior Fellow , director of the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking, describes how the digital revolution is shifting where jobs are concentrating and why this job density matters to cities and regions. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

Jonathan Stromseth, a senior fellow and Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asian Studies at Brookings, interviews Brookings President John R. Allen about the strategic significance of Southeast Asia, US relations with countries in the region, and the China challenge. President Allen recently returned from an extended trip to East Asia, where in June he opened and participated in a Brookings conference in Taipei on “The Risks of the Asian Peace: Avoiding Paths to Great Power War.” That conference is part of a broader Brookings project focused on Sustaining the Long Peace in East Asia. Subsequently, President Allen traveled to Singapore where Stromseth had an opportunity to join him for a series of dialogues with senior officials and regional policy experts. In this episode, President Allen reflects on his trip and considers the possible implications of his discussions and observations for U.S. Asia policy. Also on the program, what’s happening in Congress, with Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds on divisions in the House Democratic caucus and why inter-party polarization is the more serious issue in Congress. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

The authors of a new book argue that national security “fearmongering” is causing U.S. leaders to focus more on the threats that Americans perceive—like terrorism and nuclear war—than the ones that exist at home, like gun violence and the opioid crisis. In Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans (Yale University Press), Michael Cohen and Micah Zenko argue that “The American public is being fed, by politicians and pundits alike, a steady diet of threat inflation that has made them deeply fearful of the world outside their borders.“ In this episode, Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe and senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings, speaks with Zenko, a columnist at Foreign Policy, about the premise of the book, the geopolitical risks that do exist, and what role foreign policy might play in the 2020 presidential election. Zenko explains why the mid-1990s were the most dangerous time to be alive, the wide array of domestically driven risks, and why these factors matter more to American security than distant threats. Also, meet Christen Linke Young, a fellow in our USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy. Find out what she’s working on and why she recommends reading both Dreamland, by Sam Quinones, about the rise of the opioid epidemic, and Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.   Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

After three years of intensive collaboration with Brookings, public, private, and civic leaders in California’s Inland Empire have launched an ambitious strategy to expand opportunity and grow middle-class jobs in the region. In this episode, several of those leaders and Brookings experts discuss why this work is so important, how the Inland Empire reflects broader economic challenges and opportunities, and what other city-regions can learn to develop smarter approaches to building inclusive economic growth. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter.  The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

Liah Greenfeld, professor of sociology, political science, and anthropology at Boston University, talks with Brookings Institution Press Director Bill Finan about her new book, "." She explains her broad definition of nationalism, Shakespeare's role in shaping the language of democracy and modernity, and how modern notions of "white nationalism" may not be nationalism at all. Also on the program, Senior Fellow looks at why the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates and allow inflation to rise. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .