Carnegie Council Podcasts

Katherine Akey is researching "gueules cassées," soldiers who suffered facially disfiguring injuries on WWI battlefields, focusing on those who were treated at the American Hospital in Paris. Though many of their stories have been lost, haunting photographs of these servicemen remain. Akey's research will delve into complicated questions about caring for the wounded, the ethics of war photography,...

Populist leader President Duterte has killed thousands in his "war on drugs," idolizes Putin, and openly uses fake news and excessive nationalism to consolidate his power. And it's working: he has an 82 percent popularity rating right now. What happened to the nation's liberal democratic heritage? Author and historian Lisandro Claudio discusses the situation and how he is using Youtube videos, art...

"Indonesian civil societies and academics are very good at collecting cases of discrimination," says Sandra Hamid, author of "Normalizing Intolerance." "But what we don't have is the ethnography of the everyday life of discrimination, things that are not necessarily discrimination with a capital D; this is like your daily experience." Today we see myriad examples of the gradual normalization of be...

Some unpleasant truths for liberals, from William Galston: The rise of anti-pluralist populist movements is caused by a combination of economic factors and migration; we need to take these concerns seriously, instead of feeling morally superior. In the U.S., this will require reintegrating our economy so that small towns and rural areas thrive again; breaking through government gridlock; and purgi...

Are there differences in political, social, and economic attitudes among Indonesians--and Indonesian Muslims in particular--based on their levels of religious piety? Intriguingly, Tom Pepinsky and his fellow researchers found that the answer is no; piety is not the deciding factor. Pepinsky also examines Indonesia's approach toward minority rights, which he defines as tolerance for group rights bu...

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy discusses China's complicated relationship with environmentalism. In this excerpt, Economy tells Stephanie Sy how Chinese leadership's approach toward climate change has evolved in the last few decades.

Today we can accurately measure happiness and we know much more about its causes, says Professor Layard. It turns out that getting richer is often not enough for real happiness. So now, instead of just looking at GDP, many policymakers around the world are focusing on how to raise the level of people's satisfaction with their lives, including their mental and physical health, for example.

Automation is causing the greatest shift in human history and will put millions of Americans out of work, says entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang. His solution? Put human values before GDP and provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month, funded by a 10 percent value-added tax (VAT). This is not a government program, he argues, but a dividend given to we, the people, wh...

Europe is going through deep structural changes, says Andrew Michta of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He argues that it may become "a "Europe of clusters," where countries even within the EU will align themselves differently depending on their economic or security interests. In any case, these shifts are largely driven by internal factors such as the migration crisis,...

If you wish to understand the depth and breadth of the geographical, historical, technological, and political forces that are shaping our world, there is no better guide than Robert Kaplan. Using Marco Polo's journey as "a geographical framing device for Eurasia today," he examines China's ambitious One Belt One Road project, dissecting China's imperial dream and its multiple, under-reported objec...

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, International Rescue Committee president David Miliband discusses the moral tragedy of the refugee crisis and what the West needs to do. In this excerpt, Miliband brings up the moral, strategic, and historic reasons for caring about the world's 65 million refugees.

Professional diplomats are made not born, says Nicholas Kralev of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy. It's not enough to be a people person: training is needed in specific skills. Sadly, many Americans don't realize how diplomats' successes or failures can affect their own security and prosperity. Even U.S. presidents often don't appreciate the Foreign Service. And under Trump, State...

"Despite the vibrancy of civil society, political and economic power continues to be in the hands of very few people in the Philippines. In fact, there are statistics that would say that if you want to make one important policy decision, you only have to talk to about 40 people because that is where power is concentrated." Joy Aceron, of G-Watch talks politics, press freedom, and civil society in...

Before Nuremberg--indeed, long before the end of the war--there was the United Nations War Crimes Commission, a little-known agency which assisted national governments in putting on trial thousands of Axis war criminals in Europe and Asia. Why do we know so little about it? "With the onset of the Cold War and the repression of civil rights in America, this whole Commission was shut down," says Dan...

Anthropologist Sopranzetti's new book discusses the surprising role of motorcycle taxi drivers in a recent coup in Thailand, and their important place in everyday Thai life. In this fascinating interview, he also looks at the bigger picture: "there is a larger trend in East Asia of a certain Chinese model of authoritarianism that is not outside the rule of law, but in fact uses the rule of law to...

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, British philosopher A. C. Grayling discusses the crisis of democracy in the U.S. and UK and how we can fix it. In this excerpt, Grayling talks about some unfortunate traditions in British politics that are especially corrosive to the system of representative democracy.

We have made tremendous progress, but there's still a long way to go, says Melanne Verveer, head of Georgetown's Institute for Women, Peace and Security and former ambassador-at-large for global women's issues. She looks forward to the day when "women's issues" are no longer seen as marginal, but as a mainstream component of peace and prosperity.

"The United States today is starting to display destructive political dynamics much more typically associated with developing countries: ethno-nationalist movements, the erosion of trust in our institutions and electoral outcomes, and above all, the transformation of democracy into an engine of zero-sum political tribalism."

The maximum penalty for blasphemy in Pakistan is death, and public protest is not allowed. Indonesia is nowhere near as bad as this--yet. "Indonesia is now going down the Pakistan route," says Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch. "There are more and more political manipulations using the blasphemy law, and there are more and more discriminatory regulations against minorities in Indonesia."

Rich and poor, we're all dependent on the global financial system and it can be a force for good, says human rights law professor David Kinley, but the incentive structures within banking encourage people to behave unethically. In other words, "finance does not attract cheats, it creates them." How can we change this? We have to start with education, says Kinley.

Next time on Global Ethics Forum, Climate Museum founder Miranda Massie discusses the need for all Americans to take an interest in the environment. In this excerpt, Massie tells journalist Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson how her previous career prepared her for environmental activism and alerted her to the social costs of global warming.

Can tyranny happen here? asks historian Timothy Snyder. His chilling answer is, "it can happen, it happens to people like us, and it is happening now." How can we fight back? Snyder offers 20 lessons; the first is the most important, as if we fail in this one it will be too late for the others: "Don't obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given." Have the courage to take...

Satyagraha, one of Gandhi's most influential teachings, stresses "passive resistance" in the face of injustice. Qunnipiac's Gadkar-Wilcox saw a powerful example of this in regards to a debate in India over sanitary napkins and she also sees it as Florida high school students push legislators for stricter gun control. Why is this tactic or "disposition" so effective?

Today, many feel paralyzed by the constant stream of bad news. Yet as Gregg Easterbrook shows, statistics on crime, poverty, and longevity prove that things are actually getting better, both in the United States and most of the world. So why do we see the world in such a negative light? Is it a coincidence that this trend started in 2004, the same year that Facebook was created?

What are the real facts about fake news? Brendan Nyhan is co-author of an important new study on fake news consumption during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. He discovered that a staggering one in four Americans visited a fake news site in the month before the election. But what was the actual agenda for most of these sites and what effect did they have on voters? His findings may surprise yo...