Scope Conditions Podcast

Alan Jacobs and Yang-Yang Zhou
  • 5.0 (31)
  • GOVERNMENT
Scope Conditions Podcast

A podcast showcasing cutting-edge research in comparative politics.

  1. Violence as Campaign Strategy, with Niloufer Siddiqui

    3 DAYS AGO

    Violence as Campaign Strategy, with Niloufer Siddiqui

    When we think of weak democracies around the world, we often think of their inability to maintain a monopoly on violence because of challenges outside the state – like militias, rebel groups, criminal gangs, and other external, violent organizations. But sometimes it’s actors deeply intertwined with the state – like political parties – who are engaging in the violence. Sometimes, the call is coming from inside the house. Our guest today, Niloufer Siddiqui, an Associate Professor of Political ...

    1h 14m
  2. How Criminal Governance Undermines Elections, with Jessie Trudeau

    09/20/2024

    How Criminal Governance Undermines Elections, with Jessie Trudeau

    In democracies all around the world, criminal organizations are involved in electoral politics. Notable examples include the Sicilian mafia and Pablo Escobar's drug cartel in Colombia. We sometimes think of these criminal groups as having politicians in their pockets or as directing politicians to do their bidding at the barrel of a gun. But our guest today, Jessie Trudeau, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, h...

    1h 18m
  3. What College Dorms can teach us about Culture, with Joan Ricart-Huguet

    07/22/2024

    What College Dorms can teach us about Culture, with Joan Ricart-Huguet

    Today on Scope Conditions: college dorms shed light on where group culture comes from and how it molds us. At Harry Potter’s alma mater, each new student is assigned to a House that aligns with their true character. The mystical Sorting Hat takes the courageous ones and sorts them into House Gryffindor, while the studious know-it-alls go to Ravenclaw. The Sorting Hat may be fiction, but it’s actually a lot like life. Much of the social world works this way: whether by assignment or by self-se...

    1h 19m
  4. Statecraft as Stagecraft, with Iza (Yue) Ding

    01/27/2024

    Statecraft as Stagecraft, with Iza (Yue) Ding

    Most governments around the world – whether democracies or autocracies – face at least some pressure to respond to citizen concerns on some social problems. But the issues that capture public attention — the ones on which states have incentives to be responsive – aren’t always the issues on which bureaucracies, agents of the state, have the ability to solve problems. What do these public agencies do when citizens’ demands don’t line up with either the supply of state capacity or the incentive...

    1h 16m
  5. How the UN Keeps Peace Among Neighbors, with William G. Nomikos

    10/01/2023

    How the UN Keeps Peace Among Neighbors, with William G. Nomikos

    Today on Scope Conditions, what’s the secret to successful peacekeeping? We often think of civil conflict as being driven by organized, armed groups – like rebel militias and state armies. But as our guest today reminds us, a leading cause of conflict around the world is communal violence – fights that break out between civilians over land, cattle, water, and other scarce resources. When the United Nations sends peacekeepers in to manage a conflict, one of their most important jobs is d...

    1h 15m
  6. Race-Based Coalitions in Three Chinatowns, with Jae Yeon Kim

    06/14/2023

    Race-Based Coalitions in Three Chinatowns, with Jae Yeon Kim

    Today on Scope Conditions: when is racial status a unifying force in politics? Shared experiences of prejudice and discrimination can sometimes help create shared political identities within and across racial minority groups and strong incentives for collective mobilization. But as our guest today points out, neither race nor racial-minority status maps neatly onto patterns of political coalition-building. Consider, for instance, the lack of an enduring political alliance between African-Amer...

    59 min
  7. Can We Immunize Against Misinformation? with Sumitra Badrinathan

    02/27/2023

    Can We Immunize Against Misinformation? with Sumitra Badrinathan

    Today on Scope Conditions, can we teach voters how to tell truth from lies? Around the world, governments and political parties wield misinformation as a powerful political weapon – a weapon that is massively amplified by social media. A large and growing literature has investigated how misinformation spreads and ways of combating it – from corrections and warning-labels to educational programs designed to inoculate citizens against untruths. Yet most of what we know about misinformation and...

    1h 17m
  8. Trial and Terror, with Fiona Feiang Shen-Bayh

    11/28/2022

    Trial and Terror, with Fiona Feiang Shen-Bayh

    Today on Scope Conditions: why the judge’s gavel is sometimes mightier than the sword. Political trials – or show trials – are a well-known mode of repression in authoritarian settings. We often think of a show trial as a sham version of the real thing: the autocrat affords his enemy a semblance of due process to give off the appearance of fairness, even though in reality, the fix is in. On this view, the show trial helps to legitimize arbitrary rule. Our guest today, Dr. Fiona Shen-Bayh, a...

    1h 16m
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About

A podcast showcasing cutting-edge research in comparative politics.

Information

  • Creator
    Alan Jacobs and Yang-Yang Zhou
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    34
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Scope Conditions Podcast
  • Show Website
    Scope Conditions Podcast

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