Chatham House podcast specials

The Contentious politics since the 'Arab Spring' project seeks to challenge the current prevalent narrative of a failed 2010/2011 series of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. The project does this by interrogating the events in the Arab region since 2010 in a critical light, and by introducing a more nuanced analytical lens to understanding the evolution of change in the region and i...

The Contentious politics since the 'Arab Spring'  project seeks to challenge the current prevalent narrative of a failed 2010/2011 series of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. The project does this by interrogating the events in the Arab region since 2010 in a critical light, and by introducing a more nuanced analytical lens to understanding the evolution of change in the region and...

The Contentious politics since the 'Arab Spring' project seeks to challenge the current prevalent narrative of a failed 2010/2011 series of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. The project does this by interrogating the events in the Arab region since 2010 in a critical light, and by introducing a more nuanced analytical lens to understanding the evolution of change in the region and i...

As the Philippines are set to elect a new president and vice president on May 9, Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte appear to be heading for victory at the polls. To better understand how the son of a past dictator and the daughter of the current president are set to win the presidential ticket, Mariana speaks to Philip Bowring about the role of family dynasties in national politics....

How reliant is the EU on Russian oil? What would an all-out ban on Russian oil look like? Which countries would be most affected? Does this offer an opportunity for renewable energy? Clips used: Bloomberg News Host: Ned Sedgwick  Guests:   Helene von Bismark ,   Neil Quilliam ,   Antony Froggatt Producer: Anouk Millet from Earshot Strategies

Russia has faced an unprecedented level of sanctions by the West covering the government itself, financial institutions, oligarchs associated with the Kremlin, and much more. But are these sanctions working? Can they really change anything on the ground in Ukraine? Clips used: - DW News - C-Span Credits: Host: Ned Sedgwick Guests: Creon Butler , Christine McDaniel , Bill Browder Producer: Anouk Mi...

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we have seen an exponential increase in food prices around the world. In this second episode of our mini-series War in Ukraine , we're trying to understand how and why a war in one part of the world risks causing famines in distant parts of the globe, and what can happen when people go hungry. Read Chatham House's latest research paper on the war's impact on foo...

The war in Ukraine has caused the largest refugee crisis in Europe since WW2. In this first episode of our new War in Ukraine mini-series, we're looking at what Ukrainians face when crossing the border, whether enough is being done to protect them, and the impact on the real lives behind the numbers. Guest-host Ned Sedgwick speaks to Joung-Ah Ghedini-Williams (UNHCR), Emily Venturi (Chatham House)...

To mark the 100th anniversary of International Affairs , the journal of Chatham House, a new series of six archive collections will explore the past, present and future of current affairs issues. Each collection will be accompanied by an episode in this mini-series, where we explore what the research tells us about policy-making today.   This episode is all about war and conflict. Krisztina Csorte...

A year on from the publication of the UK's Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy , Chatham House Director Dr Robin Niblett shares his assessment of how Boris Johnson's government has implemented its vision of Global Britain.  Read the Chatham House research paper: Global Britain in a divided world: Testing the ambitions of the Integrated Review Credits: Speaker: Ro...

Protracted conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, Horn of Africa and parts of Asia, although usually arising from intra-state disputes, rarely remain contained within national borders. Through the XCEPT project, supported with UK Aid from the UK government, Chatham House explores the informal supply chains and economies that develop across borders during times of war.  In this episode, XCE...

What has been going on in UK foreign policy over the last century, and how have leading thinkers approached it? To mark the 100 th anniversary of International Affairs , the journal of Chatham House, a new series of six archive collections will explore the past, present and future of current affairs issues. Each collection will be accompanied by an episode in this mini-series, where we consider wh...

The idea of feminist foreign policy has entered the political mainstream in recent years, but does adoption by governments risk diluting the more radical dimensions of its agenda? To mark International Women's Day, Mariana is joined by Marissa Conway, co-founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, to discuss the trajectory of FFP.  Then Ben speaks with former UK Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fl...

As a site of enormous economic and military potential, space is the latest domain to be drawn into the strategic competition between Earth's great powers. In this episode, Ben is joined by Asia-Pacific Programme Senior Research Fellow Yu Jie, who explains the development of China's space policy, and why we should be worried about US-China relations in orbit.  Then Yusuf Hassan and Ani Martirossian...

The murder of George Floyd in 2020 and subsequent global escalation of Black Lives Matter movements highlighted the racial inequalities that exist in the United States and beyond. In the United Kingdom and many other former colonial states these movements have come to reflect upon the ongoing legacies of empire in modern society. Today, colonial history has become a weapon in the culture wars, wit...

This week, Undercurrents is joined by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to explore a new report on the humanitarian crises that require global attention in 2022. A record number of people across the world are in need of humanitarian assistance. 20 countries which are home to 10% of the global population account for 89% of global humanitarian need, driven by a wide range of factors including...

On 6 January 2021, a large crowd supporting the defeated President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol. The violence which ensued resulted in the deaths of at least seven people, and caused shockwaves around the world. In this episode Ben is joined by Gabriella Cook-Francis, the Leland Foundation Association of Marshall Scholars Transatlantic Academy Fellow in the US & Americas Programme at Chatha...

The twin crises of COVID-19 and climate change have exposed weaknesses in the institutions and diplomatic relationships designed to support global governance. In a new series of articles for Chatham House, author and journalist John Kampfner has been exploring how competition between the United States and China has exacerbated these faultlines. In his final piece, John assesses the relative soft p...

Piccadilly Circus is one of the best-known landmarks in London, but the site has undergone significant change in the past 100 years. How has this affected the lives and livelihoods of local people?  For this bonus episode of Undercurrents, the team explore the history of Piccadilly Circus with help from the Chatham House SNF CoLab. The CoLab is a project which aims to share our ideas in experiment...

As the new omicron variant spreads across the globe, and vaccine distribution continues to reveal inequities between the global North and South, Mariana catches up with Rob Yates (Director of the Global Health Programme at Chatham House) to find out where things stand going into 2022.  Then, Ben is joined by Leonard Schuette (a PhD candidate from the University of Maastricht), whose recent article...

Transatlantic Tech Talks is a three part mini-series on the Undercurrents podcast feed, produced with the support of Microsoft, which explores the state of international cooperation on digital governance between Europe, the UK and USA. As technological innovation accelerates, and new digital tools and business models arise, governments are working to develop a framework of regulations to safeguard...

Transatlantic Tech Talks is a three part mini-series on the Undercurrents podcast feed, produced with the support of Microsoft, which explores the state of international cooperation on digital governance between the United States, the UK and Europe. As technological innovation accelerates, and new digital tools and business models arise, governments are working to develop a framework of regulation...

Transatlantic Tech Talks is a three part mini-series on the Undercurrents podcast feed, produced with the support of Microsoft, which explores the state of international cooperation on digital governance between the United States, the UK and Europe. As technological innovation accelerates, and new digital tools and business models arise, governments are working to develop a framework of regulation...

Since its publication in 1944, many Americans have described Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma as a defining text on US race relations. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation, Myrdal's research explored the socio-economic conditions experienced by much of the black population in the United States, and proposed policies which would encourage assimilation of those communities into white America. But w...

As the dust settles from COP26, the 2021 UN climate summit, Ben is joined by Anna Aberg to discuss the key outcomes and insights from the conference. They consider the progress made on mitigation, adaptation, climate finance and the so-called 'Paris rulebook', and look ahead to what the agenda could look like in a year's time at COP27.  Then Mariana interviews journalist and author James Griffiths...