On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Marc Dunkelman, Watson Institute fellow in International and Public Affairs and author of the new book “Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back.” In the book, Dunkelman explores how American progressives transformed from a movement dedicated to ambitious, effective, centralized government projects (think the New Deal or Medicaid) into a movement dedicated to limiting government power. 

As Marc explains, this wasn’t an intentional project but the result of overlapping, competing impulses within the progressive movement and a cultural shift with progressivism in the 20th century, whose effects took decades to fully materialize. 

In charting this transformation and its effects, Dunkelman explains why today, even when in power, progressives seem unable to achieve their own goals, from increasing housing supply to upgrading infrastructure to decarbonizing our energy grid. He also explains how this shift has shaped our electoral politics and what progressives can do to help get progressivism (and America) working again. 

Learn more about and purchase “Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back.”

In 2022, OpenAI, Inc. launched a free version of its software ChatGPT, ushering in a new phase in the widespread use of artificial intelligence. Since then, a constant stream of breakthroughs in AI tech by a handful of companies has made clear that artificial intelligence will reshape our planet more profoundly and more quickly than many of us imagined.

Some of these promised changes are thrilling. Just as many, it seems, are terrifying. 

So, how should we think about the impact AI will have on us all, especially when it comes to the most fundamental questions of humanity's shared future? According to Watson Institute Senior Fellow Malika Saada Saar, to make sure AI serves us all, we can’t be too scared of it. In fact, it’s all of our responsibility to use it and understand it. 

“It's important that all of us be able to have curiosity about the technology and to be able to interact with it. Because if the fourth industrial revolution becomes technology that's only utilized by the few, it's very dangerous,” Saar told Dan Richards on this episode of “Trending Globally.” 

Saar is a human rights lawyer who, before coming to Watson, served as the Global Head of Human Rights for YouTube. On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with her about how human rights law intersects with big tech and about the risks and opportunities AI poses for the future of human rights.

Transcript coming soon to our website

In the 19th century, about one in three Americans moved every year. In the 1960s, that figure had shrunk to one in five 

In 2023, it was one in 13. 

In other words, a smaller percentage of Americans are moving today than they have at any time in our history. As Yoni Appelbaum, historian and deputy executive editor at The Atlantic makes clear in his book, “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity,” this change has played a devastating role in many of the most pressing issues Americans face, from income inequality to economic mobility to political polarization.

On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Appelbaum about why Americans stopped moving, why that’s a problem for all of us, and what we can do to revive this key component of growth and opportunity in the U.S.

Learn more about and purchase “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity”

On February 23, Germans went to the polls. While the establishment center-right CDU/CSU alliance won the largest share of votes, the results revealed a country experiencing profound political and social change. The far-right AfD party received an unprecedented 20% of the vote, while the incumbent center-left party, the SPD, suffered its worst loss in over 100 years. 

So, what does this election tell us about Europe’s largest economy? And as the Trump administration continues to upend U.S.-European relations, and the war in Ukraine challenges Europe’s own sense of security and stability, what will this new governing coalition mean for an international order that, for the first time in decades, has the U.S. and Europe on seemingly divergent paths? 

On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with Watson political scientist and Europe expert Nick Ziegler to help make sense of this election and to place it in the broader context of European politics and global security.

On this episode, Dan Richards talks with Tyler Jost, a political scientist and assistant professor at the Watson Institute. 

Tyler is an expert on international security and Chinese foreign policy, and his new book “Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation,” explores how leaders (in China and beyond) make decisions about when and how to engage in military conflict. Are there open channels of communication between a country’s leaders and security advisors? Are there forums for debate and disagreement? And what can be done to actually help leaders make better decisions?

In one sense, the questions the book explores are timeless. But Jost’s book feels especially timely at this moment, as tensions continue to rise between the U.S. and China, and the world adjusts once again to an American president unmoored by traditional norms and institutions.

The stakes of military conflict today have never been higher, and the need for clear, accurate analysis of the costs and benefits of military actions is more important than ever. And as Jost explains in this episode: there are lessons from history for how to help leaders make better decisions when it comes to national security. Let’s just hope those in power are willing to learn them. 

• Learn more about and purchase “Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation" 
• Transcript coming soon to our website
• Questions? Send us an email at [email protected]

The Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol is a stately room just off the Great Rotunda, whose walls are lined with — you guessed it — statues. The statues celebrate notable figures from all 50 states.

For most of its existence, there wasn’t a single statue of a Black American in this hall. But that changed in 2022 when a statue of Mary McCleod Bethune was delivered to the Hall from Florida.

Bethune, who was born in 1875 and died in 1955, might not be the first name you would have guessed to break this racial barrier. But as Noliwe Rooks, chair of Africana Studies at Brown University, shows in her new book “A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune,” her achievements as an educator and civil rights leader were profound, her life story is an inspiration, and her place in the statuary hall is well-deserved. 

The book — which has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award — is part biography, part memoir and part analysis of a period in American history that’s often overlooked in the story of racial progress. 

If you’ve never heard of Bethune, this book is for you. And if you think you know the story of Mary McCleod Bethune, this book will probably show you a side of her you haven’t seen before. 

Learn more about and purchase “A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune”

On Monday, January 20, Donald Trump was once again sworn in as President of the United States. The ceremony was moved indoors due to the cold, where Trump declared in his inaugural address that no president has ever been tested like he has, and that “the new golden age for America starts now.” 

However, it wasn’t all speeches and ceremonies on Monday — Trump also signed dozens of executive orders, affecting U.S. policies on a range of issues, including climate change, public health, immigration and transgender rights. And while his administration is only days old, last week, we also saw the beginning of confirmation hearings in Congress for his cabinet nominations. 

On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with political scientist Wendy Schiller about what these early moves in Trump-world can tell us about what’s to come in a second Trump administration and how Trump will operate in a country that seems more open to his brand of politics now than it was in 2016.

Guests on this episode:

• Wendy Schiller is a political scientist and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at the Watson Institute. She is also the interim director of the Watson Institute. 

While there are many hurdles to addressing the climate crisis in a meaningful way, there’s been one consistent bright spot in climate news over the last decade: the price of renewable energy — particularly solar and wind power — has dropped dramatically. By many measures, they’re now cheaper to produce than fossil fuels. 

So does that mean that when it comes to a “green transition,” the hardest part is behind us? With wind and solar now cheaper than fossil fuel, can simply let “the market” take care of the rest? 

According to Brett Christophers, a professor at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University and author of the new book “The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet”: absolutely not.

On this episode (originally broadcast on the Rhodes Center Podcast) political economist and Rhodes Center director Mark Blyth talks with Brett about why cheap renewable energy production won’t lead to renewables dominating the energy market. In doing so, they also put the entire energy economy under a microscope and challenge the notion that the private sector will ever be able to lead us through a green transition.

Learn more about and purchase “The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet”

Watch Brett’s October 2024 talk at the Rhodes Center

Subscribe to the Rhodes Center Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts

In the last two presidential elections in the United States, one issue has entered our political debates in a way we haven’t seen in recent history: the health and future of American democracy itself. And as Rob Blair, a political scientist at the Watson Institute and co-founder of the Democratic Erosion Consortium, explains, this isn’t without reason. 

“I am not especially bullish on the future of American democracy. I think it has deteriorated quite a bit in recent years, and I suspect we will see continued deterioration in the years to come,” Blair explained to Dan Richards on this episode of Trending Globally. 

However, while this erosion is concerning, it might not mean exactly what you think it does. 

“If what we're expecting is tanks rolling down the streets at least anytime in the immediate future, I think that's very unlikely...the end can just be a worse democracy,” said Blair.

On this episode, Blair talks with Dan about the  nuanced, complex reality of democratic erosion in the U.S. and around the world: what causes it, how to measure it, what it looks like in our politics, and how we might stop it. 

Learn more about the Democratic Erosion Consortium

In January of 2019, journalist Elizabeth Rush joined 56 scientists and crew people aboard an ice-breaking research vessel to study the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica. The glacier, which is about the size of the state of Florida, has been nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier” for the effect its disintegration would likely play in the rise of global sea levels. 

“If we lose Thwaites, there's great concern that we will lose the entirety or big portions of the West Antarctic ice sheet and that those glaciers combined contain enough ice to raise global sea levels 10 feet or more,” Rush told Dan Richards on this episode of Trending Globally. 

Rush recounts her voyage aboard the Palmer and how it reshaped her understanding of our changing climate and planet in her 2023 book, “The Quickening: Antarctica, Motherhood and Cultivating Hope in a Warming World.” However, as the title suggests, the book is also about another, more personal journey: Rush’s decision to have a child. 

The resulting book is part adventure travelogue, part mediation on the meaning of motherhood, and part climate change manifesto. It also offers some much-needed wisdom on how to envision a future when it feels like the world is falling apart.

Learn more about and purchase “The Quickening”

Learn more about “The Conceivable Future”