The Conversation Weekly

We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. The list goes on. So, where does Donald Trump fit in? In this six-part podcast series, The Making of an Autocrat, we are asking six experts on authoritarianism and US politics to explain how exactly an autocrat is made –...

Is America watching its democracy unravel in real time? In  The Making of an Autocrat  from The Conversation, six of the world’s pre-eminant scholars reveal the recipe for authoritarian rule. From capturing a party, to controlling the military, Donald Trump is borrowing from the playbook of strongmen thoughout history. This is the story of how democracies falter — and what might happen n...

In the latest escalation of tensions between the US and Venezuela, the US President Donald Trump ordered a "complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. His Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, called the move "warmongering threats", and accused the US of trying to steal its resources. In this episode we speak to Pablo Uchoa , a PhD candidate researching Venezue...

Oecusse, a rugged, remote district of Timor-Leste in south-east Asia, is usually a pretty sleepy place. But in August, Oecusse was rocked by a large police raid on a suspected scam centre, later linked by a UN report to organised crime networks running scamming operations across south-east Asia. And then in early September, a Facebook post by one of Timor-Leste’s high...

Donald Trump’s fixation on South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority has become a central plank of US refugee policy, with their applications now given priority under a new refugee system. This preoccupation by some Americans with white Afrikaners has a long history dating back to the publication of a  large sociological study  focusing on poor white Afrikaners in the 1930s. In t...

Twice a year, 40 scientists gather together for five days to decide what strains of influenza to vaccinate against for the next flu season. It takes around six months to prepare the vaccine – which usually includes protection against three different strains of flu. Europe and the US are heading into a flu season that some are warning could be particularly severe this winter. While even as summer a...

As Pakistanis and Indians struggle with hazardous air quality, in Beijing – a city once notorious for its smog – the air quality is currently rated as good. Ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government was so concerned about pollution that it introduced temporary restrictions on cars, shut down factories and work on some construction sites. It would take a few more yea...

Since the 1960s, scientists have been developing and honing models to understand how the earth’s climate is changing. One such pioneer of early climate modelling is Syukuro Manabe, who won the Nobel prize in physics in 2021 for his work laying the foundation for our current understanding of how carbon dioxide affects global temperatures. A seminal paper he co-published in 1967 was voted the&n...

At dawn on October 28, residents of Rio de Janeiro woke to the sound of gunfire. Battles continued throughout the day in the favelas of Alemão and Penha, as police mounted a huge operation targeting the Commando Vermelho, or the Red Command, one of Brazil’s largest organised criminal gangs. In the days that followed, as graphic images showed lines of bodies on the streets, it emerged that at least...

In the 16th century, witches and demons weren’t just for Halloween. People were terrified and preoccupied with them – even kings. In 1590, James VI of Scotland – who was later also crowned James I of England – travelled by sea to Denmark to wed a Danish princess, Anne. On the return journey, the fleet was hit by a terrible storm and one of the ships was lost. James, a pious Protestant who would go...

One American company called Strategy owns more than 3% of all bitcoin in existence. In August 2020, its executive chairman, Michael Saylor, pioneered a new business model where publicly listed companies buy cryptocurrency assets to hold on their balance sheet. More than 100 other public companies have since followed Saylor’s lead and become bitcoin treasury companies, together holding mo...

As one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution, the River Mersey in northern England is no stranger to pollution flowing into its waters. Now it's got a new problem: monitoring shows the amount of forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, entering the Mersey catchment area is among some of the highest in the world. In this episode we speak to water scientist Patrick Byrne...

Back in the 1980s, when Shimon Sakaguchi was a young researcher in immunology, he found it difficult to get his research funded. Now, his pioneering work which explains how our immune system knows when and what to attack, has won him a Nobel prize. Sakaguchi, along with American researchers Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, were jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel prize in physiology or medicin...

As Donald Trump gives oxygen to unproven theories about what might be behind a recent rise in autism cases, experts repeatedly point to the changing nature of how autism is diagnosed and viewed. A key moment in the history of autism diagnosis was the publication in 1994 of a new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It's a reference book of psychiatri...

Donald Trump is not letting up pressure on the US Federal Reserve. He's taken efforts to fire one of its governors, all the way up to the US Supreme Court. Trump's clash with the Fed echoes pressure that Richard Nixon put on the central bank in the 1970s to lower interest rates. In this episode, Cristina Bodea , professor of political science at Michigan State University, why that moment – and the...

With France, the UK, Australia and Canada expected to recognise an independent Palestinian state at UN General Assembly in New York, what are the origins of the state they plan to recognise? In this episode, Palestinian-American historian Maha Nassar from the University of Arizona describes the events leading up to the original declaration of Palestinian independence in 1988, including the comprom...

Police in Australia are continuing a huge manhunt in the mountains for Dezi Freeman, a man accused of killing two police officers and injuring a third in late August. Freeman identifies as a sovereign citizen, someone who believes they aren't subject to the law. In this episode we speak to criminologist Keiran Hardy from Griffith University about the origins of the sovereign citizen movement...

As China invited world leaders to a vast military parade marking the end of the second world war on September 3, President Xi Jinping said China is "never intimidated by bullies" and would "stand by the right side of history". In a coded message about China's territorial ambitions over Taiwan, Xi added that "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation was unstoppable". China and Taiwan both claim...

If you’ve ever experienced a state of creative flow, perhaps when writing, playing music, or even gardening, you’ll know that it feels like everything just clicks into place. But what is actually happening inside the brain? This week, we're re-running an episode first published in June 2024 featuring neuroscientist John Kounios at Drexel University in the US. He scanned the brains of jazz musician...

AI is transforming the world around us, offering increased productivity and promising to tackle difficult problems like global warming. But behind the scenes, its environmental costs are mounting. From massive energy use to vast quantities of water required to cool data centres, AI’s footprint is growing fast. So, in an age of water scarcity and climate crisis, can we justify this technological bo...

Scientists can get animals to do the strangest things. They’ve taught goldfish to drive cars, primates to perform calculations with Arabic numerals and giraffes to do statistical reasoning. But what’s the point? In this episode, biologist Scarlett Howard from Monash University in Australia – who has taught bees to tell the difference between odd and even numbers – def...

Countries around the world are meeting in Geneva in August to negotiate a global plastics treaty aimed at curbing plastic pollution. The last round of negotiations failed last November after oil-producing countries refused to sign up to a clause calling for the world to reduce its production of plastics.   But how did the world become hooked on plastic in the first place? This week, we'r...

Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch, alongside the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones and others, for libel after the Journal published an article alleging that Trump once wrote a “bawdy” birthday letter to the convicted sex offender, the late Jeffrey Epstein. Trump is seeking US$10 billion in damages. Trump and Murdoch have a transactional friendship that goes back decades. Despite past...

Israel has never officially confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons and has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Instead, even as evidence has emerged about its nuclear capabilities, Israel has maintained a policy of nuclear ambiguity. The origins of this opacity lie in a secret deal forged in a one-on-one meeting between Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, and the...

The majority of the world’s rechargeable batteries are now made using lithium-ion. Most rely on a combination of different rare earth metals such as cobalt or nickel for their electrodes. But around the world, teams of researchers are looking for alternative – and more sustainable – materials to build the batteries of the future. In this episode, we speak to four battery experts who are testing a...