LSE Podcasts

What’s it like to be criminalised for being gay? Homosexuality is illegal in just over a third of countries across the globe. Some nations, like Barbados, have recently repealed anti-gay laws, but others, like Uganda, have just introduced the death penalty. Joanna Bale talks to LSE’s Dr Ryan Centner about how Western gay men living in Dubai create covert communities where they can meet and sociali...

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In May 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Mohid Malik spoke to Pranab Bardhan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. In this Extra Inning podcast, they discussed the argument put forward in Professor Bardhan’s 2022 book, A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries. Their conversation explored the future of democratic gove...

This episode examines current trends in American politics in implementing policies to address climate change. Dr Bromley-Trujillo (Christopher Newport University) and environmental journalist Beth Gardiner (author of Choked Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution) discuss the impacts of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and whether a Green New-Deal could be possible in the future. This...

In December 2022, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Mark Selverstone, Associate Professor in Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Centre of Public Affairs, and chair of the Miller Center's Presidential Recordings programme, about his new book, The Kennedy Withdrawal Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam. They discussed the factors that sha...

In May 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson spoke to Brian Burgoon, Professor of International and Comparative Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, and Peter Trubowitz, Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Phelan US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, about their new book Geopolitics and Democracy, which...

This episode gives an overview of how climate change intersects with class in the United States and the rest of the world. Professor Rebecca Elliot (LSE Sociology) and Professor in Practice Swenja Surminski (LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change) discuss how climate change and climate related hazards disproportionately affect those from low-income backgrounds in the US and globally. Th...

In this episode we look at the different experiences of climate change in the United States from a racial perspective. We are joined by Centennial Professor Laura Pulido (LSE Department of Geography and Environment and Phelan US Centre) and Jeremy Williams (The Earthbound Report) to discuss how environmental racism manifests and how urban development has contributed to this problem. By discussing...

We live in turbulent times. Globalized challenges like climate change, pandemics, migration, and supply chain disruptions are rising in urgency. With these and other challenges in mind, in June 2023, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the LSE Phelan US Centre convened the Lloyd George Study Group on Global Governance. For this episode of the Ballpark, we asked each of the ten me...

In March 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Samuel Bazzi, Associate Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Economics at the University of California, San Diego about his new research on The Confederate Diaspora. They discussed how white migration from the early American South soon after the Civil War helped to diffuse and entrenc...

In March 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Professor Yasheng Huang, Epoch Foundation professor of global economics and management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management about his new book, The Rise and Fall of the EAST, which will be published by Yale University Press in August 2023. They also discussed Chinese technological development over the last three decades, an...

In March 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Professor Pinelopi Goldberg, Elihu Professor of Economics and Global Affairs and Affiliate of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University about her new book, The Unequal Effects of Globalization, which will be published by MIT Press in August 2023. They also discussed the rise of scepticism towards globalisation, the rol...

This episode examines the intersection between climate change and global security. Professor Neta Crawford (University of Oxford) and Sherri Goodman (Wilson Centre) discuss how the American military can be implicated in making climate change worse through either direct conflict, or by its own carbon footprint. They also discuss how climate change induced natural disasters contribute to destabilisa...

This podcast investigates how the knowledge surrounding Chinese investments in Africa is produced through Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). The SGR was one of Kenya’s most expensive infrastructure projects ($3.6 billion) and connects Mombasa to Nairobi. The project’s primary contractor was the China Road & Bridge Corporation (CRBC), and 90% of the initial financing was provided by the Chinese...

In this episode, we examine the interaction of climate change with migration. Through this lens, we explore America’s role in engaging with climate related forced movement in Latin America, and from Latin America to the US. Professor Sarah Bermeo (Duke University) and Professor Susana Beatriz Adamo (Columbia University) discuss the implications of climate change induced migration, including whethe...

What is the US’ role in the climate crisis, and can a climate change framework exist without addressing climate change reparations and the different experiences of climate change across the globe? In the first episode of Climate Change: America and the World, Professor Kathryn Hochstetler and Christopher Callahan discuss the experiences of climate change in the Global North and Global South. The d...

This month we’re re-running an episode from 2021 which asks, ‘What’s it like to be an animal?’ Since this episode was recorded the UK Animal Welfare Act 2022 has become law. This extends animal welfare protections to animals such as octopuses, lobsters and crabs - a direct result of the findings of LSE academic Dr Jonathan Birch – featured in this episode - that animals are sentient. They have the...

In February 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Mohid Malik spoke to Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations about his new book, Beijing's Global Media Offensive: China's Uneven Campaign To Influence Asia and the World. They also discussed the effectiveness of China’s efforts to expand its global media influence, from its pitfalls to successes. This Extra...

This episode of LSE iQ asks, ‘How can we make homes more affordable?’ We’ll hear how planning restrictions established in the 1700s are still preventing development on some of London’s most valuable land. Experts will set out why we can’t afford to not build on the greenbelts that circle some of our major cities. And an Executive Director will explain how his organisation is building homes that wi...

In January 2023, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Professor Susan Shirk, Research Professor and Chair of the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego about her new book, Overreach: How China Derailed its Peaceful Rise. They also discussed how China’s leadership in recent decades has influenced the country’s relationship with the United States, and the steps that both c...

In December 2022, the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Dr Tasseli McKay, National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at Duke University, about her new book, Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration. Their discussion covered mass incarceration in the US, the case for reparations, and principles of transiti...

By Sophie Borthwick, Jack Calland, Samantha Jelley and Morgan Peterson This podcast focuses on the Johannesburg-based Institute of Economic Justice (IEJ), a progressive socio-economic policy think tank established in 2018, which has become influential in the South African policy space. The hosts interview project Manager, Bandile Ngidi about the institute’s origins, approach, and relationships wit...

The UK government could soon be sending some asylum-seekers on a one-way flight to Rwanda as part of a controversial strategy to deter those crossing the English Channel on small boats. Joanna Bale talks to Dr Stuart Gordon, Sveto Muhammad Ishoq and Halima, an Afghan refugee living in a hotel, about what it’s like to flee your country and policy ideas to help resolve the situation. Research links:...

In May 2022, The Phelan US Centre’s Mohid Malik spoke to Professor Glenn Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University, on the role of identity politics in the United States. In their discussion, they situated Black American experience within the context of identity politics, and how this has done little to correct existing racial inequalit...

In November 2022, The Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson and Mohid Malik spoke to Professor Taylor Fravel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about China’s Belt and Road Initiative. They discussed the history and recent developments of the Belt and Road Initiative, the political implications of this project, and the US’ responses to it. This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson, Mohid M...