Trending Globally: Politics and Policy

Fiona Hill became a household name in 2019, as a witness during President Trump’s first impeachment hearing. But before all that, she was an intelligence analyst specializing in Russia and Europe for Presidents Obama and Bush. And she watched closely as economic stagnation and inequality in Russia fueled populism and authoritarianism.  As her new book explains, a similar trajectory has been p...

This past November, Daniel Ortega was reelected as president of Nicaragua. He ensured his victory by imprisoning his political opponents and launching the largest crackdown on political dissent in the country in decades. This was just the most recent step in his multi-decade effort to transform Nicaragua from a budding democracy into an authoritarian regime.  What can’t be forgotten is that j...

In this episode you’ll hear from Ieva Jusionyte, an anthropologist and associate professor of international security and anthropology at the Watson Institute. In addition to teaching and research, she also has a side job – as a licensed EMT.  In May 2015 she combined these two passions. She moved to Nogales, AZ, to study emergency responders on the US-Mexico border. For two years she studied...

Over the past few months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has built up a massive  military presence on Russia’s border with Ukraine.  As a result, pundits, politicians, and casual observers of the news have all been asking the same questions: would President Putin actually invade Ukraine? And if so, what would that mean for the rest of the world?  These are fair questions, of cours...

The B-2 Spirit, known as the ‘Stealth Bomber,’ is one of the most advanced aircrafts in the US military. It has a fuel efficiency of about 4.2 gallons per mile . (That’s not a typo; it’s less than one mile per gallon.) Burning a full tank of gas in a B-2 releases roughly 250 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s more than 50 times what the average car releases in an entire year...

It’s been 12 months since a mob of American citizens, driven by the false belief that the presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, attacked the US Capitol. The insurrectionists couldn’t overturn the election results, but they did make us question basic assumptions about the state of American democracy.   On this episode, host Sarah Baldwin ‘87 and producer Dan Richards ta...

In 1996, Keith Harper began to work on a lawsuit against the US government. It was a class action suit filed by Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Confederacy in Montana. She claimed something that many people had long known to be true, but that had never been directly addressed in the US legal system: the US government owed many, man y Native Americans a lot of money. Keith Harper - who is...

While there’s a lot to be thankful for this fall and winter (such as an effective Covid-19 vaccine) many Americans are still living in the middle of a crisis when it comes to housing. It’s one that’s been brewing for far longer than the pandemic -- and looks like it will outlast it, too.  Too many Americans live in unstable housing, or go for stretches of time without any home at all. It’s on...

On November 16, a $1 trillion infrastructure bill was signed into law by President Biden, marking the biggest investment in the country’s infrastructure in decades. At the same time, an even larger social spending bill sits in a state of limbo in Congress, with no resolution in sight.   What happens in the US Congress over the next few months should matter to everyone, not just the polit...

Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute and the founder of Kakenya’s Dream, a female empowerment and education non-profit based in the rural Masai Mara of Kenya.  Kakenya grew up in the Masai Mara, in a community where it was expected that women wouldn’t go to school beyond childhood. They’d be subject to early, arranged marriages, and worse.  Yet, incredibly, Kaken...

In the world of international affairs, there’s perhaps no concept more fundamental than human rights. Yet despite that, these rights seem to be under greater threat in more places than we’ve seen in a long time.  In order to understand how we might better promote human rights around the world, we at Trending Globally wanted to take a step back and explore the very concept of ‘human rights.’ S...

Remember when talking about the weather was boring? Not so anymore. Extreme weather events are becoming more common, and more extreme, with no sign of letting up.  On this episode Sarah Baldwin ’87 talks with homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem about what these changes mean for humans: Where should we live? How should we live? How should we think about our place on this planet?  Jul...

The past 18 months have been a strange time for art lovers. Museums and galleries have sat empty. Artistic communities have, like all of us, learned to live in isolation. At the same time, though, there’s been a revolution in how we think of public space in our cities and towns. Streets, parks, and even alleyways have turned into our storefronts, our classrooms, and our museums.  What do thes...

This fall marks the 20th year of American military engagement abroad following the events of 9/11. This year Trending Globally is teaming up with scholars at the Costs of War project to explore the effects of two decades of war. The Costs of War project is an interdisciplinary group of scholars who have stepped in where the government has often failed, working to measure the true financial, human,...

It’s been a summer of crisis in some of the world’s most fragile states.  At Trending Globally, we’ve found ourselves asking the same questions over and over lately -- are the world’s rich countries simply not doing enough to help fragile states around the world? Or are they helping, but in the wrong way?  On this episode guest host Dan Richards talks with Brian Atwood, a visiting fellow...

Before the pandemic, Watson economist Emily Oster was best known for her books Expecting Better and Cribsheet . They offered data-driven advice about pregnancy and raising young children, and they’ve become required reading for many young parents.  Her knack for synthesizing data into plain-language advice made her a natural fit for her next role: as one of the unofficial guiding voices behin...

Audrey Truschke is a scholar who has gotten in some very hot water lately. She’s regularly harassed on Twitter, she’s facing a lawsuit, and she’s received death threats. ‘What’s she an expert in?’ you might ask. Public health? Election law? Critical Race Theory? Nope. Ancient Sanskrit. On this episode we’re sharing part of a new podcast from Watson. It’s called ‘Sensing the Sacred’ and it’s hosted...

School is about more than just the subjects kids are supposed to learn, it’s an essential part of their social and emotional growth. This is something we all know, but sometimes take for granted. Or at least we did -- until last year. The Covid-19 pandemic made all too clear that educational success, mental health, and our environments are inextricably linked. And nowhere is this connection more a...

This is the epilogue in a special series from Trending Globally exploring the housing crisis in the United States, and in Rhode Island in particular. The crisis has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but as we showed in this series, it’s a problem that has been with us for much, much longer. On this episode, we introduce you to the Brown students and alumni who made this podcast possible t...

Between Covid-19 and America’s racial reckoning over that past 12 months, there’s never been a more important time to understand how race and racism affect both the reporting and the consumption of news in America. In the lead-up to Juneteenth, Watson held an event exploring these issues with some of the leading voices covering race today: New York Times reporter John Eligon and CNN Senior Corresp...

On this episode, we’re sharing one of our favorite conversations from another podcast produced by the Watson Institute: ‘The Rhodes Center Podcast,’ hosted by political economist Mark Blyth. Mark recently talked with economist and Brown professor John Friedman about 'Bidenomics': what it is, what it isn't, and what it can tell us about our precarious economic recovery. You can watch the video of J...

In the past 6 months (or maybe the last 5 years) Americans have been thinking about democracy and its fragility in entirely new ways. At the same time -- whether we’re talking about Poland, Turkey, or India -- it feels like democracy is on the edge around the world. But how big are these threats to democracy, actually? And how helpful is it to talk about all these different countries' experiences...

On this episode, Watson Economics Professor Glenn Loury talks with writer Thomas Chatterton Williams. Williams’s 2010 memoir ‘Losing My Cool: Love, Literature, and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd,’ combined cultural criticism with his own personal story of falling in (and out) of love with hip hop culture growing up. His 2019 book ‘Self Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race,’ continued...

In April, President Biden announced that the US will pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. On this episode Dan talks with Watson Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer about what this withdrawal might mean for Afghanistan -- and for the US. As Stephen makes clear, this news brings up questions about US foreign policy that are much bigger than any one conflict or country, and that...

After getting a master’s degree in public affairs at Watson, it’s common for folks to work in government, or with an NGO, or on a political campaign. Less common is what Anna Lenaker, from the Watson MPA class of 2020, did after graduating. She wrote a memoir. The book, titled ‘Able to Be Otherwise,’ tells the story of Anna’s turbulent childhood, growing up with a mother who suffered from overlapp...