Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

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What's Trending Globally: Politics and Policy about?

An award-winning podcast from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, exploring today's biggest global challenges with the world's leading experts. Listen every other week by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Trending Globally: Politics and Policy episodes:

06.12.2024
The surprising results of India’s election
On June 4, results came in from the largest democratic election in history. Over 640 million people voted in India’s election, which took place at over one million polling places across the country over the course of six weeks. Many...
05.29.2024
A former police officer (and public health expert) on the opioid crisis and public safety
For this week’s show, we’re sharing an episode of “Humans in Public Health,” a podcast from The Brown School of Public Health. It makes a great follow-up to our episode earlier this month about Rhode Island’s first-in-the-nation legally approved proposal...
05.24.2024
What should the Supreme Court’s role in our politics be?
At the Watson Institute, the beginning of summer means commencement festivities, moving trucks, and bittersweet goodbyes. In American politics, the beginning of summer means something very different: the approach of the Supreme Court's summer recess and, with it, the handing...
05.15.2024
How American firearms fuel violence in Mexico
Mexico, like the United States, has a gun violence problem. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and most of those murders come from firearms. In 2019, for example, almost 70% of the country's 35,000 murders...
05.01.2024
Harm reduction, overdose prevention, and the future of treating America’s overdose epidemic
In February of this year, Providence became the first city in America to approve opening a state-sanctioned overdose prevention center. Sometimes known as safe injection sites, these are facilities where people can bring illegal drugs and consume them under the...
04.17.2024
A new history of the Sandinista Revolution
In the 1970s in Nicaragua, left-wing rebels, calling themselves the Sandinista National Liberation Front, fought to overthrow their country’s dictator. It worked. The Sandinistas led a coalition that took over the government in July 1979, in what became known as...
04.03.2024
What happened to the ‘American dream’?
Here’s a depressing fact: it takes longer to travel from Boston to Los Angeles today than it did 50 years ago. Getting to the airport, getting through the airport, the flight itself — just about every part of the process...
03.20.2024
From Black Lives Matter to January 6, how ‘Black grief’ and ‘white grievance’ shape our politics
The last decade has seen the growth of two political movements that appear diametrically opposed: the Black Lives Matter movement and the rise of Donald Trump. But as our guest on this episode explains, these two movements are linked, and...
03.05.2024
Mark and Carrie Special: 2024 Primaries, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, what’s next for the UK’s Labour Party
We’ve got a lot of exciting new Trending Globally episodes coming up in the next few weeks and months, but this week we’re sharing an episode of another podcast from the Watson Institute: Mark and Carrie. The show is hosted...
02.21.2024
Ukraine is ‘on the ropes’ two years after Russia’s invasion. What’s next for the Russia-Ukraine War?
February 24, 2024, marks two years since the beginning of the War in Ukraine. In the war’s first year, Russia’s assault on Ukraine shook the West, while Ukraine's defense of the territory captivated the world. While no less deadly or...
02.07.2024
The origins of America's separate and unequal schools
In the United States, inequality along the lines of race in education is such a persistent issue that it often fails to make headlines. COVID-19 brought it back to the front of the nation’s consciousness as evidence mounted that nonwhite...
01.24.2024
How backlash came to define American politics, and what it means for the future of public policy
Backlash is hardly a new political force — since America’s founding, change has often been driven by citizens mobilizing in opposition to policies, programs, or social movements. But recently, as our guest on this episode explains, backlash movements have come...
01.10.2024
The new psychology of nuclear brinkmanship (originally released February 2023)
Trending Globally will be back with all new episodes soon, but in the meantime we’re rereleasing some of our favorite episodes from 2023. We hope you enjoy – and have a great start to 2024! *** The beginning of 2023...
12.27.2023
What happens when a prison comes to town (originally released January 2023)
“Trending Globally” will be back with all new episodes soon, but in the meantime, we’re rereleasing a few of our favorite episodes from 2023. We hope you enjoy — and have a great start to 2024! *** In 2007, Watson...
12.13.2023
After four years of COVID-19, are we safer against future pandemics?
This December marks four years since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. On this episode of Trending Globally, Dan Richards speaks with two experts from the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health about the...
11.29.2023
Exploring “the land of inequality” with a Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir Angus Deaton
On this episode, political economist and Watson professor Mark Blyth talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir Angus Deaton about his new book, “Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality.” You may not know Angus Deaton by...
11.15.2023
Israel, Palestine, and ‘personal history in times of crisis’
How do our individual experiences shape our political views? What role do our own stories and memories play in how we think about the world around us? How can we use our memories — even our most painful ones —...
11.01.2023
The political ramifications of a ‘green transition’ in the US
Last year, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Considered by many to be the biggest climate and energy bill ever passed, the IRA included roughly $370 billion to help shift the U.S. to cleaner forms of power....
10.18.2023
Archiving the ‘Voices of Mass Incarceration’ at Brown’s John Hay Library
In 1982, Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. An ex-Black Panther, he had no prior criminal record. Amnesty International investigated his case and found in many ways that it "failed to meet...
10.04.2023
Seeing America through the eyes of refugees
One day in the year 2000, in the midst of the Second Congo War, Honoria* fled her home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and never returned. After 16 years in a refugee camp in Uganda, she relocated to...
09.20.2023
How participatory budgeting can strengthen our democracy
Imagine if, when you were in middle school, an Ivy League professor came to your school and told you that you were going to be part of an experiment. You were going to get to decide how the money in...
09.06.2023
Why the West is thinking about the coup in Niger all wrong
This summer, military forces in the West African country of Niger pushed the country’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, out of power. This was not the first coup in Niger’s history, or in the recent history of the Sahel region of Africa....
08.16.2023
The 2024 Election: Voting Laws, Trump's Legal Woes & Political Exhaustion
On August 23, at least 5 GOP hopefuls for the party’s presidential nomination will take to the stage in Milwaukee for their first primary debate. In other words, the 2024 election is about to get real. In this episode, Dan...
07.26.2023
The perils and promise of AI
In the last year, programs like ChatGPT, Dall-E and Bard have shown the world just how powerful artificial intelligence can be. AI programs can write hit pop songs, pass the bar exam and even appear to develop meaningful relationships with...
06.28.2023
Is Nigeria ready for political change? The answer might lie in its infrastructure.
In May, Nigerian political veteran Bola Tinubu was sworn in as president of the country. The outcome was predictable, but that doesn’t mean there were no surprises in this year’s election. The biggest, perhaps, was the national rise of progressive...
05.24.2023
The politics behind Turkey’s pivotal election
On May 14, 2023, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faced the most challenging test of his political career from a multi-party coalition led by social democrat and reformer Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The diverse coalition Kılıçdaroğlu represents, known as the Table of...
05.10.2023
How Taiwan became “the most dangerous flashpoint in the world”
This Spring, visiting professor at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs’ China Initiative Lyle Goldstein made his first trip to China in five years. He met with military strategists, government officials and scholars to try to better understand...
04.26.2023
Cybersecurity is much more than a tech problem
You’ve seen it in the headlines, and maybe you’ve felt it in your own life: over the last few years, cyber attacks have become more frequent and more damaging. They can also vary widely in nature, ranging from minor nuisances...
04.12.2023
What do we mean when we talk about the ‘free market’?
There are some ideas that inform so much of our thinking about the world that we tend to take them for granted. One example: the idea of the “free market.” Whether we’re talking about income inequality, climate change, or the...
03.29.2023
How domestic violence legislation has failed to keep women safe
Every minute, roughly 20 people in America (mostly women and children) become victims of domestic violence. The effects of these crimes ripple out to families and communities in every corner of the United States. Yet, despite this, policymakers have failed...
03.15.2023
How the Inflation Reduction Act will change our country (and our planet)
Last year, the biggest piece of climate legislation in American history was signed into law. However, it wasn’t always touted as such; even its name - “The Inflation Reduction Act” – avoided the topic of climate. This puts it in...
03.01.2023
Can Democracy “Deliver the Goods”? Lessons from Kerala, India
If asked to think of parts of the world that have made impressive progress in social measures like literacy rates, life expectancy and infant mortality rates over the last century, you might first imagine a small, affluent country in Northern...
02.15.2023
What Stories Are Missing From Black History – and How Should We Tell Them?
February is Black History Month, and in this episode of “Trending Globally,” you’ll hear from two scholars at Brown who are bringing to light overlooked aspects of the Black experience in America. In the first half of the episode, Mack...
02.01.2023
The New Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship
January 24th, 2023 marked an unsettling milestone: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the ‘Doomsday Clock’ forward to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it’s been to ‘Doomsday’ since the clock was established in 1947. But what would...
01.18.2023
What Happens When a Prison Comes to Town
In 2007, Watson Professor John Eason moved with his family from Chicago to Forest City, Arkansas. At the time Eason was getting his PhD at the University of Chicago, and he moved to Forest City to learn about America’s mass...
12.21.2022
How to De-Escalate the War in Ukraine
2022 is coming to a close, but one of the most consequential events of the last year continues unabated: the War in Ukraine. As we approach the one-year mark of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, experts and casual observers (not to...
12.07.2022
Mark and Carrie Special: World Cup Politics, the Future of the GOP, and Crypto’s Fraud Problem
We’ve got a lot of exciting new Trending Globally episodes coming up in the next few weeks and months, but this week we’re sharing an episode of another podcast from the Watson Institute: Mark and Carrie. The show is hosted...
11.22.2022
The Historic Opportunities and Challenges for a Post-Bolsonaro Brazil
On October 30, 2022, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known by most simply as Lula – defeated Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election. On Lula's agenda: rebuild Brazil’s social safety net, restore the country’s democratic institutions, and...
11.09.2022
Ambassador Suzi LeVine on the Unsung Power of the States
This year’s US midterm elections were as consequential as any in recent history. But it’s not just the headline-grabbing national races for Congress that will reshape the country in the coming years. There were also thousands of state-level elections on...
10.26.2022
What Led to Sri Lanka’s Crisis and Unrest – and Where Does The Country Go From Here?
On the morning of July 9, 2022, tens of thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in front of the country’s Presidential Palace. By the afternoon, they had overwhelmed the guards and entered the grounds. The country’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the...
10.12.2022
What Does “Hispanic Heritage” Mean in 2022?
To mark the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, Trending Globally teamed up with the Watson Institute’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies to explore the breadth of ‘Hispanic Heritage’ in 2022. In the first part of the show, Dan Richards...
10.07.2022
The Protests in Iran Are About More than Hijabs
From the Watson Institute at Brown University, this is Trending Globally. I’m Dan Richards. On September 13, 2022, a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini was detained by the country’s ‘morality police’ for improperly wearing her hijab. Three days later,...
09.28.2022
Does Anger Win Elections?
On Sunday, September 25, the far-right Brothers of Italy party won a commanding victory in Italy’s general election. They’ll be the leading party in the country’s right-wing governing coalition, and their leader, Giorgia Meloni, is likely to become prime minister. ...
09.14.2022
Learning from Afghan Refugee Resettlement in Rhode Island
In the fall of 2021, tens of thousands of Afghan citizens were evacuated out of Afghanistan as the Taliban re-took the country. Many of these people resettled in the United States, and many more will resettle here in the coming...
08.31.2022
The Past, Present, and Future of Organized Labor in America
High-profile unionization drives at companies like Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks have focused attention on organized labor in the US in a way unseen in half a century. The attention isn’t without merit: there were more successful union elections in 2022...
08.17.2022
The Secret History of the Pope and World War II
In March 2020, the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives of Pope Pius XII – also known as the Vatican’s ‘secret archives’ – were opened to scholars from around the world. Historian and Watson Professor David Kertzer was one of those scholars. What...
07.13.2022
Is the Supreme Court Ready for the 21st Century?
In 1973, the Supreme Court made abortion a constitutional right in its Roe v. Wade decision. This June, in a 6-to-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court undid that right. The decision set off shockwaves...
06.22.2022
The Domestic Costs of America’s Post-9/11 Wars
This past year, Trending Globally has been teaming up with the Costs of War Project to explore the effects of 20 years of America’s post-9/11 wars. Past episodes have explored America’s growing military presence around the world, the refugee crisis...
06.08.2022
Can We Make Social Media Safe for Democracy?
For many politicians, policymakers, and voters, the 2016 election of Donald Trump was a shocking lesson in the massive role tech companies, like Facebook and Twitter, play in our politics. Since then, their role has only gotten bigger. And as...
05.25.2022
One Economist Makes the Case for Expanding Immigration
Today, there are over 25 million people living as refugees around the world. Humanitarian crises in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, and countless other countries have led to this staggering figure. No matter the circumstance, it’s a human tragedy – one which...

What's Trending Globally: Politics and Policy about?

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Trending Globally: Politics and Policy episodes:

The surprising results of India’s election

A former police officer (and public health expert) on the opioid crisis and public safety

What should the Supreme Court’s role in our politics be?

How American firearms fuel violence in Mexico

Harm reduction, overdose prevention, and the future of treating America’s overdose epidemic

A new history of the Sandinista Revolution

What happened to the ‘American dream’?

From Black Lives Matter to January 6, how ‘Black grief’ and ‘white grievance’ shape our politics

Mark and Carrie Special: 2024 Primaries, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, what’s next for the UK’s Labour Party

Ukraine is ‘on the ropes’ two years after Russia’s invasion. What’s next for the Russia-Ukraine War?

The origins of America's separate and unequal schools

How backlash came to define American politics, and what it means for the future of public policy

The new psychology of nuclear brinkmanship (originally released February 2023)

What happens when a prison comes to town (originally released January 2023)

After four years of COVID-19, are we safer against future pandemics?

Exploring “the land of inequality” with a Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir Angus Deaton

Israel, Palestine, and ‘personal history in times of crisis’

The political ramifications of a ‘green transition’ in the US

Archiving the ‘Voices of Mass Incarceration’ at Brown’s John Hay Library

Seeing America through the eyes of refugees

How participatory budgeting can strengthen our democracy

Why the West is thinking about the coup in Niger all wrong

The 2024 Election: Voting Laws, Trump's Legal Woes & Political Exhaustion

The perils and promise of AI

Is Nigeria ready for political change? The answer might lie in its infrastructure.

The politics behind Turkey’s pivotal election

How Taiwan became “the most dangerous flashpoint in the world”

Cybersecurity is much more than a tech problem

What do we mean when we talk about the ‘free market’?

How domestic violence legislation has failed to keep women safe

How the Inflation Reduction Act will change our country (and our planet)

Can Democracy “Deliver the Goods”? Lessons from Kerala, India

What Stories Are Missing From Black History – and How Should We Tell Them?

The New Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship

What Happens When a Prison Comes to Town

How to De-Escalate the War in Ukraine

Mark and Carrie Special: World Cup Politics, the Future of the GOP, and Crypto’s Fraud Problem

The Historic Opportunities and Challenges for a Post-Bolsonaro Brazil

Ambassador Suzi LeVine on the Unsung Power of the States

What Led to Sri Lanka’s Crisis and Unrest – and Where Does The Country Go From Here?

What Does “Hispanic Heritage” Mean in 2022?

The Protests in Iran Are About More than Hijabs

Does Anger Win Elections?

Learning from Afghan Refugee Resettlement in Rhode Island

The Past, Present, and Future of Organized Labor in America

The Secret History of the Pope and World War II

Is the Supreme Court Ready for the 21st Century?

The Domestic Costs of America’s Post-9/11 Wars

Can We Make Social Media Safe for Democracy?

One Economist Makes the Case for Expanding Immigration