Global Inquirer

Germany’s upcoming federal election to determine the successor to Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, marks a critical juncture in German foreign policy. An increasingly important foreign policy flashpoint is Germany’s relationship with China – especially in the context of Germany’s 5G rollout. In this episode, we walk you through the impact of Merkel’s chancellorship on German-Chinese relations...

What happens when large groups of retail investors are able to congregate through the internet to control the direction of a stock price? In this episode, we investigate the formation and purpose of online discussion forums and the ways they have been able to impact the stock market. Specifically, we dive into the subreddit r/wallstreetbets as it is known for its lively discussions about high-risk...

Billions of dollars go to foreign aid every year, but what happens when aid is mishandled, misused, or misallocated? Host Emma Ross and Executive Producer Sarah Rocca sit down with guest Daniel Altman, the former USAID Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, to discuss fraud within foreign aid assistance and the systems in place to prevent it. They examine particularly fascinating case stu...

(Disinformation, Russian) What is the effect of fake news on public health in the context of a pandemic? This episode explores the nature of fake news itself and its history and examines the proliferation of COVID-19 fake news in Eastern Europe. These stories are causing widespread vaccine skepticism, threatening public health in countries such as Ukraine and the Czech Republic. This episode asks...

Although Kyrgyzstan rarely makes the front page of the news, this Central-Asian nation has a fascinating history. From 1991, when Kyrgyzstan became independent from the Soviet Union to the present day in 2021, three of their democratically-elected presidents have been unseated by protesters and civil unrest. In this episode, we dive into Kyrgyzstan’s complex history of electoral politics, and whet...

As COVID-19 has ravaged the world, some countries have responded better than others. New Zealand and Germany have outperformed nations like the United States and Great Britain, and many attribute this success to the leadership of women like Jacinda Ardern and Angela Merkel. In this episode, four of our researchers take on a psychological question with political implications: do women lead in a way...

As students departed Charlottesville given the University's decision to send everyone home in late March, 2020, a proportion of out-of-state students would journey back to their homes in California, Oregon, and Washington. To many, the University's decision to suspend class is the novel coronavirus' first distinct intrusion into daily life. These students traveling back to the West Coast would hav...

What’s the difference between data privacy and protection? Season 8's premiere episode takes a deep dive into exploring this question with expert interviews addressing how your data is used in the emerging personal information economy, the implications of national data sovereignty measures, and why Uber and TikTok are the subject of data privacy concerns. Host: Emma Ross Researchers: Elisabeth Tam...

In short, our world is occupied with the coronavirus. New stories from experts come out every day talking about the ever-growing death toll, testing availability issues, and economic downturn. However, we have not heard much about the perspectives from college students around the world who have had to leave their campuses (or as UVA students call ours, "Grounds"). In our final episode of the seaso...

This episode explores how Indigenous people around the world engage with their respective governments to reclaim their land and resist the legacies of oppression that have disadvantaged their communities over the generations. Tune in to third-year Global Development Studies Major Roma Chitko to hear more. Host: Emma Ross Researcher: Roma Chitko Producer: Christian F. Jung The Global Inquirer is a...

(Humanity, Democracy, long standing Hindu-Muslim amity in Kashmir) Kashmir has been a geopolitically tense region for about a quarter of a century now. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the region, and there continue to be regular skirmishes between soldiers of the two countries there. Moreover, the conflict has led to thousands of deaths and many alleged human rights violations. In t...

As climate change threatens ecologies and challenges policy makers worldwide, Russia finds itself in a unique place. Already, powerful and bizarre effects of climate change are impacting regions in Siberia, sparking cultural changes and threatening to destabilize ways of life. How does Putin’s administration view climate change? What stands in the way of meaningful policy? Listen in to Russian Stu...

Shadowy foreign governments, a powerless Federal Reserve, and a clandestine currency market controlled only by the world's most elite international bankers. This is the story of the Eurodollar: a financial term as mysterious as the saga behind it. What began as a popular method for foreign countries and corporations to subvert US law grew into a secretive system for international banks to lend mon...

"Yeh jo des tera" is Hindi for "This country of yours." One India caught between two choices; to support or reject a controversial piece of legislation. You may have heard of the Indian citizenship act, but what is it really? Does it discriminate against Muslims or provide a helpful path to citizenship for minorities? Tune into the Global Inquirer’s discussion with researchers Garrett Scocos and R...

On January 3, 2020 — three days before the first reporting of a mysterious viral pneumonia appeared in the New York Times — the United States assassinated Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Host Emma Ross and Researcher Ari Ghasemian discuss the man, the myth, and the drone strike. How can we situate recent events in terms of the rhetoric and history of American of foreign policy? Host: Emma Ross Re...

Facing discrimination, mass beatings, rape, and torture in their native country of Myanmar, the Rohingya people have fled to nearby Bangladesh, where the crisis has created the largest refugee camp in the world. In this week’s episode, we unpack the contrasting narratives of the Myanmar government and UN officials in regard to the treatment of the Rohingya. The multitude of actors, security issues...

UVA's premier undergraduate research podcast, The Global Inquirer, hosts a special discussion about the significance of tax havens and the Panama Papers with Ruth Mason of UVA's School of Law and tax historian Joseph Thorndike. In 2016, the release of the Panama Papers provided an unprecedented look at the lengths some of the world’s wealthiest citizens go to avoid taxes and hoard their funds. Str...

As most of us learned in school, the Cold War was described as an intense battle between good and evil. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, how do our policymakers socialized during this time apply Cold War lessons in dealing with Russia? In today's episode, we look at justifications for past fears, and parallels to modern day actions to find out just how much the Cold War has impacted the present...

Protest movements are often branded as unified fronts against injustice— but what happens when we unpack that assumption? This week on the Global Inquirer, we compare the protests in Hong Kong and France’s Yellow Vest protests in order to draw important parallels. We compare the government response in these cases and explore what the reality of a protest movement entails. Host: Emma Ross Researche...

From climate change to impeachment, the traditional news media has a lot on its plate and hasn't been able to highlight the small victories that have been unfolding over the past year. To give you a break from your regularly scheduled Doom and Gloom, we have decided to focus on some of the good things happening in the world today. To kick off your 2020, we asked several of our researchers to go ou...

This week, executive producer Emi Lockwood investigates the recent Argentine presidential elections. The incumbent Mauricio Macri lost to Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (no relation) who ran as vice president. With a 57 billion IMF loan looming over the country, what does Cristina’s return to power mean for the future of Argentina? Host: Balthazar Merrin Researcher: Emi Lockw...

This week on the Global Inquirer, we take a look at the modern implications of mandatory military service and how the service affects these countries as a whole. We look at the reasons for why countries chose to draft their own citizens and how their cultures are later impacted. Additionally, we discuss the distinctions between mandatory services in different countries, and then dive into what thi...

President Trump, Mike Pompeo, and Rudy Giuliani love to hate the current Iranian regime. Now, it seems they’ve settled on even more dangerous alternative: the MEK. Researcher Ari Ghasemian takes us through this group’s journey from terrorist organization to the forefront of US foreign policy. Host: Balthazar Merrin Researcher: Ari Ghasemian Producer: Andy Carluccio The Global Inquirer is a product...

Democracy has always been the solution of the western world, but is it the best option for Latin America? Researcher Sarah Rocca looks at protests in Puerto Rico and the dictatorship in Venezuela to answer this question. With information from the Concordia International Conference and global news, this episode looks at how democracy is affecting real lives, and if there is a better answer. Host: B...

The West cheers and hails protests in Russia with the hope that the people will one day overcome Putin. But as researchers Katya Sankow and Anna Von Spakovsky explain, promoting protests are not as pro-democratic as we’d hope. It was in fact the Bolshevik Revolution through protests that created the Soviet Union. Mass demonstrations have a deep history in Russia, so the question is what will Putin...