Epicenter
von Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University
- unregelmäßigErscheinungsrhythmus
- 45 mintypische Länge
- 2. Sept.letzte Folge
Epicenter is produced by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.
Wrapping our minds around profound global issues can be daunting. Where does one begin to unpack responsibility for climate change or human rights? How does one account for social inequalities or the endurance of repressive regimes?
In our Epicenter podcast, we bring together scholars and experienced practitioners from different disciplines to guide us through pressing global topics, to boil down the issues, to explain the research and give valuable context. The goal is to give listeners a deeper understanding of a topic to expand their everyday thinking about the world inside and outside their own borders.
Folgen
Beyond Paris: Building a Practical Climate Coalition (with Arathi Rao, Dustin Tingley, and Catherine Wolfram)
Aluminum, steel, and concrete are some of the most carbon-intensive industries, and many countries already have a tax on them. But not the United States. That fact hasn’t stopped the social scientists in the Weatherhead Research Cluster on
One Thousand Years of Capitalism (with Sven Beckert)
Sven Beckert, a history professor at Harvard, has written an epic book about the history of capitalism over roughly a millennium: it’s called Capitalism: A Global History (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541160/capitalism-by-sven-b
Life After War (with Melani Cammett, Dženana Šabić Hamidović, Cathal McManus)
When a war ends, the work of mending a society begins. Groups who were sworn enemies for decades, even generations, must find ways to live together in peace. The process of reconciliation takes a long time, and involves all levels of societ
Exploring Commodity Frontiers (with Sven Beckert, Myles Lennon, Angélica Márquez-Osuna, and Rachel Steely)
Released January 14, 2025 / We don’t think about commodities very much. They’re all around us: cotton, sugar, oil, gas, chickens, cattle, and so many other things we take for granted. But a closer look at the history of commodities tells a
Rare Films from Socialist Yugoslavia (with Damir Kapidžić, Denisa Sarajlic, and Nace Zavrl)
One room. One locked-down camera. One roll of film. A group of famous directors from the 1960s took the challenge: they would make a short film with these parameters plus one more—their dialogue must include the sentence “I Miss Sonia Henie
Migrants Bring Opportunity to Boston and Beyond (with Jacqueline Bhabha, Monique Nguyen, and Maggie Sullivan)
Massachusetts has long been a welcoming state to immigrants and migrant families. In the summer of 2023, its one-of-a-kind “right to shelter” law was put to the test when emergency shelters reached capacity. It was called a humanitarian cri
Social Technology for Aging Societies (with Arthur Kleinman, Hong-Tu Chen, Ann Forsyth, and Fawwaz Habbal)
People aged sixty-five and older make up the fastest growing population around the world, posing unique challenges to societies. A Harvard initiative called Social Technology for Global Aging Research (https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/hstga)
Who Can Stop a Dictator? Resistance to the War in Ukraine (with Sasha de Vogel, Serhii Plokhy, and Alexandra Vacroux)
When the Wagner mercenary group staged a near coup in Moscow in June, it was seen as the greatest challenge to Vladimir Putin’s regime in decades. Though it didn’t come to fruition, it nevertheless exposed some of the fissures in Putin’s ir
Can Erdogan be Unseated? (with Ahmet Akbiyik, Andrew O’Donohue, and SZ)
The presidential election in Turkey this spring is shaping up to be the most consequential in decades. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for twenty years, is facing the staunchest opposition in his career in the form of an unpre
What Is Holding Up the Transition to Green Energy? (with Dustin Tingley, Jeff Colgan, and Aleksandra Conevska)
Green technology has come a long way, to the extent that it can, in theory, be scaled up to solve the world’s energy problems. If this is true, then why does the US lag so far behind in transitioning away from fossil fuels? This episode add
The Politics of Sports (with Susie Petruccelli, Justin Morrow, and Isabel Jijón)
There’s a shadow over World Cup Soccer this year, and it’s become impossible to separate the sports from the politics. Host country Qatar gained notoriety for bribes, exploitation of workers, and antigay laws. In this episode, a group of at
Lebanon in Free Fall (with Melani Cammett, Carmen Geha, Nate George, and Lana Salman)
Lebanon has been called many different things: a gem of the Middle East, a failed state, a geopolitical Gordian knot (or nightmare). Its financial system has recently collapsed, people cannot find basic services, and residents are still rec
Negotiating with Terrorists Part 2 (with Annette Idler, Jytte Klausen, and Fredrik Logevall)
Pulling out of Afghanistan was the top foreign policy event of 2021. Perhaps overlooked in the collective relief to be done with this twenty-year war is the fact that the US had to negotiate with terrorists to get there. In fact, it ceded a
Negotiating with Terrorists Part 1 (with Annette Idler, Jytte Klausen, and Fredrik Logevall)
Pulling out of Afghanistan was the top foreign policy event of 2021. Perhaps overlooked in the collective relief to be done with this twenty-year war is the fact that the US had to negotiate with terrorists to get there. In fact, it ceded a
The Blurry Lines of Belonging (with Talia Shiff, Anna Skarpelis, and Elke Winter)
We think of citizenship as a binary category: you’re either a citizen or you’re not. But the levels of membership can be complex. Refugees and asylum seekers often find that the criteria for acceptance change, as states devise rationales to
COVID-19 and Climate Change Part 2 (with Alicia Harley, Rob Paarlberg, and Troy Vettese)
COVID-19 radically reduced global productivity, but isn’t that just what we need to combat climate change? Is there such a thing as a silver lining in this pandemic? In Episode 5, we continue the conversation about the relationship between
COVID-19 and Climate Change Part 1 (with Alicia Harley, Rob Paarlberg, and Troy Vettese)
COVID-19 forced radical change on the world, but isn’t that just what we need to combat climate change? The simple concepts of how we use land and how we eat may very well determine the future of our species—and our planet. Three Weatherhea
Pandemic Stress (with Vikram Patel, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, and Giuseppe Raviola)
Whether or not you’ve been exposed to the virus, the COVID-19 pandemic impacts everyone’s sense of well-being. Three scholars in the field of global mental health look at the various ways loss, fear, anxiety—and on top of it, a massive glob
Brexited! (with Jeffry Frieden and Christina Davis)
It was a momentous day for the UK. The United Kingdom finally exited the European Union on January 31, 2020. So what happens next, and should we care? Our guests both demystify Brexit and explain the purpose of the European Union in ways yo
Inequality in the US and Europe (with Michèle Lamont, Peter A. Hall, and Paul Pierson)
Despite the decline in global poverty rates over the past five or six decades, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow ever wider, especially in the industrialized West. Three scholars—Michèle Lamont, Peter A. Hall, and Paul
