Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

Last year, the biggest piece of climate legislation in American history was signed into law. However, it wasn’t always touted as such; even its name - “The Inflation Reduction Act” – avoided the topic of climate. This puts it in a long line of federal climate legislation, according to climate policy experts Leah Stokes and Jeff Colgan.  As Jeff told Dan Richards in this episode of “Trending G...

If asked to think of parts of the world that have made impressive progress in social measures like literacy rates, life expectancy and infant mortality rates over the last century, you might first imagine a small, affluent country in Northern Europe or East Asia. But in this episode, we explore a place that achieves remarkable results on these and other measures without having the high income leve...

February is Black History Month, and in this episode of “Trending Globally,” you’ll hear from two scholars at Brown who are bringing to light overlooked aspects of the Black experience in America.  In the first half of the episode, Mack Scott, a visiting professor at Brown’s Center for Slavery and Justice, talks with Dan Richards about the complex relationship between Rhode Island’s Narragans...

January 24th, 2023 marked an unsettling milestone: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the ‘Doomsday Clock’ forward to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it’s been to ‘Doomsday’ since the clock was established in 1947.  But what would it take for a nuclear weapon to actually be used in the world today? And if one was used, how would the rest of the world respond?  In this episo...

In 2007, Watson Professor John Eason moved with his family from Chicago to Forest City, Arkansas. At the time Eason was getting his PhD at the University of Chicago, and he moved to Forest City to learn about America’s mass incarceration crisis from a perspective that’s often overlooked: that of the towns where America’s prisons are located.  What effect do prisons have in these often underse...

2022 is coming to a close, but one of the most consequential events of the last year continues unabated: the War in Ukraine. As we approach the one-year mark of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, experts and casual observers (not to mention countless Ukrainians and Russians) are all left wondering: how might this war end?  Should the US and NATO support Ukraine at all costs? Or should they push Uk...

We’ve got a lot of exciting new Trending Globally episodes coming up in the next few weeks and months, but this week we’re sharing an episode of another podcast from the Watson Institute: Mark and Carrie.   The show is hosted by political economist and Rhodes Center Director Mark Blyth, and political scientist Carrie Nordlund. On each episode they discuss, debate, add context to, and, occasio...

On October 30, 2022, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known by most simply as Lula – defeated Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election. On Lula's agenda: rebuild Brazil’s social safety net, restore the country’s democratic institutions, and advocate for the country's most marginalized citizens -- oh, and save the Amazon rainforest . He'll have to do all of that while navigating a divided...

This year’s US midterm elections were as consequential as any in recent history. But it’s not just the headline-grabbing national races for Congress that will reshape the country in the coming years. There were also thousands of state-level elections on Tuesday, the results of which will have huge implications for Americans on issues including gun control, reproductive rights, the pandemic respons...

On the morning of July 9, 2022, tens of thousands of Sri Lankans gathered in front of the country’s Presidential Palace. By the afternoon, they had overwhelmed the guards and entered the grounds. The country’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the property and ultimately, the country.  It was the culmination of a protest movement known as the ‘Aragalaya’ which had been growing for months am...

To mark the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, Trending Globally teamed up with the Watson Institute’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies to explore the breadth of ‘Hispanic Heritage’ in 2022.   In the first part of the show, Dan Richards talks with Dr. Pablo Rodriguez about how the growing Hispanic and Latinx population in the U.S. is changing the country’s electoral poli...

From the Watson Institute at Brown University, this is Trending Globally. I’m Dan Richards.  On September 13, 2022, a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini was detained by the country’s ‘morality police’ for improperly wearing her hijab.  Three days later, she was dead. Authorities claimed it was the result of a heart attack, but images of her in the hospital – bruised and bloodied – sug...

On Sunday, September 25, the far-right Brothers of Italy party won a commanding victory in Italy’s general election. They’ll be the leading party in the country’s right-wing governing coalition, and their leader, Giorgia Meloni, is likely to become prime minister.  In Italy’s last general election, in 2018, the Brothers of Italy received roughly 4% of the vote. This year, they received around...

In the fall of 2021, tens of thousands of Afghan citizens were evacuated out of Afghanistan as the Taliban re-took the country. Many of these people resettled in the United States, and many more will resettle here in the coming years.  Yet despite their growing numbers in America, and their unique relationship to the United States, there’s much we don’t know about their specific needs as refu...

High-profile unionization drives at companies like Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks have focused attention on organized labor in the US in a way unseen in half a century. The attention isn’t without merit: there were more successful union elections in 2022 than in any year since 2005, and public approval for organized labor is the highest it's been in over 50 years.  Yet despite these signs of a...

In March 2020, the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives of Pope Pius XII – also known as the Vatican’s ‘secret archives’ – were opened to scholars from around the world. Historian and Watson Professor David Kertzer was one of those scholars.  What he found there is helping to reframe the role that the Catholic Church – and its then leader, Pope Pius XII – played in World War II.   Pius XII’...

In 1973, the Supreme Court made abortion a constitutional right in its Roe v. Wade decision. This June, in a 6-to-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court undid that right.  The decision set off shockwaves across the country, and brought up questions not only about reproductive rights, but about the relationship between the Supreme Court and US politics at...

This past year, Trending Globally has been teaming up with the Costs of War Project to explore the effects of 20 years of America’s post-9/11 wars. Past episodes have explored America’s growing military presence around the world, the refugee crisis these wars have created, and the effects they’ve had on our planet and environment.  This episode takes a closer look at how these wars have chang...

For many politicians, policymakers, and voters, the 2016 election of Donald Trump was a shocking lesson in the massive role tech companies, like Facebook and Twitter, play in our politics.  Since then, their role has only gotten bigger. And as our guest on this episode of Trending Globally explains: that’s a huge problem for democracies around the world.  Frances Haugen worked as a produ...

Today, there are over 25 million people living as refugees around the world. Humanitarian crises in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, and countless other countries have led to this staggering figure. No matter the circumstance, it’s a human tragedy – one which we don't seem to have a plan for how to fix. Failing to provide new homes for refugees isn’t only bad for refugees, according to Watson economis...

Last August, the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, ending its longest-ever military engagement. For a moment, it seemed like the US might be entering a period defined more by its domestic agenda than its international entanglements.  But then, of course, Russia invaded Ukraine. The US is getting more involved by the day in this new conflict, and Americans are once again debating what r...

On this episode, Trending Globally was thrilled to welcome a special guest host: Glenn Loury, professor of economics at the Watson Institute. In addition to being a celebrated economist, Loury is also one of America’s most insightful and incisive thinkers on race and public policy.  His guest on this episode, Briahna Joy Gray, is a progressive writer and commentator, and former National Press...

This year, Earth Day marks the beginning of the ninth week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A geopolitical and military crisis that quickly transformed into an energy crisis, this conflict will have far-reaching repercussions for both humanity and our climate. On this episode, Sarah Baldwin ’87 and Dan Richards talk with experts on the politics, economics, and science of fossil fuel about the rela...

Over the past few years, America’s schools have become a battleground in our national politics. Debates about how we teach history and explore issues of race in school have become flashpoints at every level, from school boards to the Oval Office.  And there’s one phrase that’s become particularly attached to this tension: “critical race theory.”  Those three words have catapulted from th...

The war in Ukraine has upended what many of us thought we knew about the world today. Whether we’re thinking about Russia and Europe or China and Taiwan, it seems like the range of possible outcomes in conflicts around the world has expanded in unsettling ways.  In the midst of all this, Watson Senior Fellow Chas Freeman thinks there’s one key concept we’d all benefit from getting reacquainte...