The Big Picture

The Big Picture

On the Big Picture podcast, Belabbes Benkredda explores the world’s most consequential questions – with some of the smartest people trying to answer them.

Episodes

  1. 10/19/2022

    The End of the End of History? Grand Strategy with Emma Sky

    Emma Sky, OBE is the founding director of Yale’s International Leadership Center. She teaches Grand Strategy, Great Power Competition, and Middle East Politics at the Jackson School of Global Affairs and runs Yale World Fellows – the university’s signature fellowship for mid-career leaders from around the world. She is a best-selling author of two books. When the Cold War ended, Francis Fukuyama famously asked if we were witnessing the “end of history”: Liberal democracy had prevailed against communism in the global competition of political systems that shaped the decades since World War 2. The bipolar world order gave way to a unipolar world, with America as the only global superpower. In 2022, when Putin started his war of aggression against Ukraine, many therefore asked: Are we witnessing “the end of the end of history”? In this wide-ranging conversation with Emma Sky, we unpack some of these concepts and attempt to trace a world history of the past 30 years. We start by reviewing the inspiring Yale World Fellows 20-year reunion, which took place from 14-16 October, 2022. About half of all World Fellows came to New Haven to connect, celebrate, and discuss the great challenges facing the world in the 21st century. We then discuss key world events of the past three decades – the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, 9/11, the Iraq War, the 2007/2008 financial crisis, the Arab Spring, Brexit, the election of Donald Trump – and attempt to define the place of the war against Ukraine in this broader historical picture. Today’s episode of the Big Picture was produced by Wissal Zebda and Ryan McEvoy. It was made possible with the support of the Yale World Fellows program at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Our theme music was composed by Ravi Krishnaswami at COPILOT Music. For updates on future episodes, you can follow me on Twitter (@abulavinia). Thank you so much for tuning in!

    58 min
  2. 05/06/2020

    Why should you be worried about ICU beds in Somalia?

    When an entire country can’t do social distancing, when thought leaders tell citizens COVID is a hoax, when a healthcare system can’t even handle a day-to-day basics – what does a national response to COVID look like? And how is it possible that countries across much of the world are completely unprepared for this crisis? What international systems are in place to fight global pandemics, and why are they failing now? For answers to these and other questions, join me as I explore the impact of COVID in the Global South with two extraordinary guests. Benjamin Mason Meier has dedicated his life to thinking and writing about the intersection of public health and global justice. He is an Associate Professor of Global Health Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A prolific scholar, he is the author of Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (2018), available on Amazon. His forthcoming text will be published in June 2020 by Oxford University Press: “Foundations of Global Health and Human Rights”. You can follow him on Twitter, where he is @benjaminMmeier. My second guest, Dr. Deqo Mohamed, is an OB-GYN and the founder of the Hagarla Institute, a public health initiative in Somalia. She’s been recognized globally for her work and holds an honorary doctorate from Chatham University. For over a decade, she ran an IDP camp of over 90,000 people outside Mogadishu. Prior to that, she worked with Doctors Without Borders during Somalia’s measles outbreak. Today, she is once again bringing her intelligence, strategic thinking, human compassion, and resourcefulness to help her country brace itself for the ravages of disease – this time, COVID-19. Her Twitter handle is @dwaqaf. The Big Picture is made possible with the support of Yale Law School’s Gruber Program on Global Justice and Women’s Rights. My producers for this episode were Tasnim Idriss and Ryan McEvoy; Allison Rabkin Golden contributed research. Our theme music was composed by Ravi Krishnaswami at COPILOT Music. For updates on future episodes of the Big Picture, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

    39 min
4.5
out of 5
13 Ratings

About

On the Big Picture podcast, Belabbes Benkredda explores the world’s most consequential questions – with some of the smartest people trying to answer them.

More From Yale University