The Fletcher Forum Podcast

The civil war in Sierra Leone ended more than two decades ago, but that's no reason for Theresa Betancourt and Moses Zombo to turn their eyes away. In this episode, we speak about their decades of work in Sierra Leone and their most recent book, Shadows into Light: A Generation of Former Child Soldiers Comes of Age , where they present findings from tracking more than 500 former child soldiers ove...

KP and Katherine sit down with Climate Policy Lab scholars - Bethany Tietjen, Hengrui Liu and Nora Hampl to discuss the upcoming Symposium themed "Mind The Gaps: Climate Policy Integration and Implementation" happening September 18 and 19 on campus! REGISTER HERE: https://www.climatepolicylab.org/symposium  

Michael Caster, Head of Global China Programme at ARTICLE 19, joins the podcast to discuss the growth of Chinese norms in digital governance and cybersecurity.  Check out Article 19! :  ARTICLE 19 - Defending freedom of expression and information. Report on Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics: cybersecurity-with-chinese-characteristics.pdf Report on the Digital Silk Road: China: The rise of...

Bhaskar Chakravorti is the Dean of Global Business at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the founding executive director of Fletcher's Institute for Business in the Global Context, where he established and chairs the Digital Planet research program. His recent book Defeating Disinformation (co-edited with Joel Trachtman) was published by Cambridge University Press in Ja...

Today, Marlene is joined by Emily Prey (F20), a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. Her research focuses on women and children in crisis and conflict situations. She most recently co-authored a report on Children Born of War (CBOW). In this episode, we explore what CBOW entails, how countries can handle the trauma of victims, and why this phenomenon has a...

In our final installment of the 50th edition miniseries, the Forum traveled to India to interview one of the Fletcher Forum's founding editors: Dr. Shashi Tharoor. Dr. Tharoor, along with Dr. Jeff Sheehan and Fred Smith, were three of the core founding members of the Forum. Dr. Tharoor joins us to reminisce on his time at Fletcher and the founding history of the Journal. Edit: This interview was r...

For our third episode, the Forum sits down with Dean Gallagher to discuss the role of the Forum at Fletcher and the administration's forthcoming strategic plan. As the Forum has evolved, Fletcher has evolved with it, and we discuss the Forum's role in thought leadership as Fletcher embarks on a new journey under new leadership. 

Alex is joined by Maria Selde, Colin Steele, and Pulkit Aggrwal, three of the five members of the 2017/2018 Forum Executive Board who founded the Podcast, for an informal conversation recollecting on the start of the podcast, the state of Fletcher during Donald Trump's first election, and perhaps a bit of encouragement in challenging times.  The third episode in our Forum 50 Series. 

Fletcher historians rejioice! We're joined this episode by Lee E. Dirks Professor Emeritus of Diplomatic History, Alan Henrikson. Professor Henrikson was named (he would say volun-told) the first faculty advisor to the Fletcher Forum, and he remains on our Board of Advisors today in 2025. Professor Henrikson joins us to revive some of the long-untold history of the Forum, as well as to discuss his...

In this episode of the Fletcher Forum Podcast , host KP sits down with Professor Nigel Purvis - veteran climate diplomat and CEO of Climate Advisers, to explore the future of global climate action. From the early days of the Kyoto Protocol to the road ahead for COP-30 in Brazil, Professor Purvis shares insights on the shifting role of the U.S., the rise of non-state actors, and lessons from decade...

In this episode of The Fletcher Forum Podcast, we dive into the key takeaways from COP-16 in Cali, Colombia with biodiversity governance expert Professor Charles C. Chester. From the groundbreaking Cali Fund to the challenges of aligning global biodiversity strategies, we explore the biggest hits and misses of the conference. We break down the most pressing issues in biodiversity financing, indige...

Following up on our episode last week, we're in conversation with Dr. Bridget Conley, the Research Director at the World Peace Foundation. Dr. Conley currently works on analyzing the impacts of mass incarceration in the US and has also recently released a podcast series titled Disrupting Peace, an investigation of how peace begins and ends which highlights her and others' body of work analyzing wh...

Loing before the big power conflicts of the 2020s, many international relations theorists were focused on how to use international law as a framework for intervention to protect human rights and human dignity. From these thinkers emerged R2P, the Responsibility to Protect, which became a broad idea that was used to justify humanitarian interventions that theoretically and practically violated the...

In our latest podcast, the Fletcher Forum dives into the multifaceted world of DeepSeek the AI firm challenging Open AI. We're joined by Pf. Thomas Cao, an Assistant Professor of Technology Policy at Fletcher, to discuss its implications not just for technology, but also for geopolitics, privacy, and the ethical challenges surrounding AI. Join us as we unpack how this innovative technology is resh...

Chinese studies are a mainstay in all realms of international relations, especially in the United States. Today's guest, Dr. Daniel Green, offers his thoughts of how future US administrations could approach China as a strategic competitor in AI, security, and great power politics. He surveys these thoughts, and his contributions to a new book: Confronting China: U.S. Defense Policy in an Era of Gr...

In this episode, Natasha Zarine, co-founder of EcoSattva and a TEDx Boston speaker at MIT this year, shares how her groundbreaking work brought the Kham River back to life in India. Explore her innovative approach to blue-green infrastructure, community-driven solutions, and building climate resilience.    Tune in for an extraordinary story of transformation, determination, and impact.

Annie Levy and Rebecca Kelly are two of the Co-Chairs for Fletcher's 2024 Conference on Gender in International Affairs. CGIA 2024 exists to create a collaborative environment in which international systems, norms, and power structures can be challenged and reimagined through a gender and intersectional lens. CGIA recognizes that intersectional solutions that amplify a diverse range of voices are...

Pf. Joel Trachtman joins the Fletcher Forum Podcast to discuss his work on the Remaking Trade Project. The project aims to reimagine international trade policy for the 21st century and outline how it can contribute to a sustainable future. Pf. Trachtman is the Henry J. Baker Professor of Commercial Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and recently returned from a stint at the College o...

Dr. Vivek Mishra joins the Fletcher Forum Podcast to discuss the upcoming US Presidential Election. Dr. Mishra is the Deputy Director of the Observer Research Foundation's Strategic Studies Programme, where he writes on US elections and US-India relations. We discuss the election's key inflection points, as well as his perspective of Indian observers' impressions of the election.   

In this episode, we're in conversation with Ellie Johnson and Abdullah Alharoun, Chairperson and Content Chair of this year's Decolonising International Relations Conference, scheduled to take place on the 24th and 25th of October. We discuss the nature and importance of the decolonizing exercise, the role of the conference in bridging the gaps in contemporary narratives on IR and Fletcher's own c...

This week we're featuring a conversation with Maggie Adomako and Richard Geegbae, two of the three members of the 2024 Fletcher D-Prize winning Ongeza Zao Na Pato (OZP) team. OZP is bringing farmers beans and cow peas in Kenya to support a business-smart and environmentally sustainable transition. We even discuss Richard's new idea for how Fletcher students can help their classmates gain valuable...

Our inaugural 2024-2025 episode features members of Fletcher's Russia and Eurasia Program discussing the upcoming conference on Russian sanctions and the broader economic impacts of economic warfare resulting from the war in Ukraine. Arik Burakovsky, Assistant Director of the Russia Eurasia Program, Pavel Luzin, a fellow at the program, and Akshat Dhankher, a graduate assistant and second year MAL...

With South Africa's historic elections concluding on May 29th 2024, the ANC is facing its first coalition since its inception in 1994. Michael Walsh, visiting scholar at UC Berkeley and Senior Fellow at FPRI joins us to discuss his latest article, covering the South African elections and providing a systematic framework to understand political landscapes through evaluating internal party conflict...

Second year MALD, Julia Shufro, discusses the field of human security with international security professor, Rockford Weitz. Listen to their conversation about the role of protecting civilians in conflict, considering people when creating policy, and the nexus of human rights and human security.

As the world's largest democracy, India, wraps up its election cycle, the team speaks with Milan Vaishnav, a Senior Fellow and Director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Paul Staniland, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on the theme. We delve into questions around what makes Modi, the man to beat, what do the voter...