Trending Globally: Politics and Policy Trending Globally: Politics & 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 Globally,” “Lots of the progress that we make on climate change is best done when the word climate is never mentioned at all.” 
Jeff is a political scientist and director of the Climate Solutions Lab at Watson. Leah is an associate professor of environmental politics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and she helped craft the climate-related provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. To understand the relationship between the science and politics of climate change in the U.S., you couldn’t ask for two better guests. 
As they explain, the bill’s name is just one example of how this legislation was shaped as much by the politics of a closely divided Senate as it was by the science of climate change and decarbonization. 
In this episode, Jeff and Leah talk with Dan Richards about the contents of the bill, what it took to get it passed and how it will contribute to the global effort to fight climate change. They also discuss the law’s political ramifications because, along with reshaping our electrical grid, the Inflation Reduction Act might very well also rearrange America’s political landscape.
Listen to Leah Stokes’ podcast “A Matter of Degrees”.
Explore the Climate Solutions Lab “Climate Opportunity Map”.
Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts.
Transcript coming soon to our website. 

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 levels typically associated with states that have broad-based social welfare programs. 
Dan Richards talks with Patrick Heller, professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Watson, about the surprising story of the Indian state of Kerala. Despite being a relatively low-income part of the world, Kerala has managed to foster social welfare programs in a way few countries in the world can match. And it does so while maintaining widespread participation in what Heller describes as “India’s noisy democracy.”
So how does Kerala do it, and what lessons can the rest of the world learn from its example? Listen to find out. 
Read Patrick Heller and Olle Törnquist’s recent article on Kerala. 
Learn more about Watson’s other podcasts. 

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 Narragansett Nation and the state’s Black communities in the 18th and 19th centuries. It’s a vivid example of how America’s history of anti-Black racism is deeply intertwined with the history of America’s indigenous communities. 
In the second half, Watson Senior Fellow Geri Augusto talks about a project she’s working on to uncover, preserve, and transmit the history of one of the Civil Rights movement’s most important and unique organizations – the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Geri is working with scholars and activists to bring this history to life and to find new, more inclusive ways to help people share their stories on their own terms. 
Explore the SNCC Legacy Project, and the SNCC Digital Gateway.  Learn more about the theory and practice of Critical Oral History. Read Mack Scott's recent article in the Providence Journal. Photo by Danny Lyon. Learn more about the image. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

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 episode, the second in our limited series on the theory, policies, and practice of conflict escalation, you’ll hear from two experts rethinking how nuclear threats are understood and modeled. 
Rose McDermott is a professor of International Affairs at the Watson Institute, and Reid Pauly is an assistant professor of Nuclear Security and Policy at Watson. Their paper “Decision-making Under Pressure: The Mechanisms and Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship” is the lead article in the current issue of International Security. In it, they reframe one of the most fundamental theories for understanding nuclear risks: nuclear “brinkmanship.” They highlight why conventional models of brinkmanship fail to fully explain how a nuclear crisis might unfold and explore what interventions are needed to prevent one from starting. 
Read Rose and Reid’s paper, “Decision-making Under Pressure: The Mechanisms and Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship.”Listen to the first episode in our limited series, “Escalation,” with Lyle Goldstein. Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

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 underserved rural communities? And what role do these communities play in what scholars and activists often call the “prison industrial complex”? 
What he found was a story that defied easy explanation. 
“After a week in Forest City…everything I had thought I'd known about why we build prisons was completely changed,” Eason described.  
His book about Forest City, Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation, explores the town’s politics, history, and culture to offer a nuanced picture of how prisons affect the communities that house them. In doing so, he unsettles many of the notions Americans have about the relationship between race, class, and mass incarceration. 
On this episode of Trending Globally, Eason explains what brought him to Forest City, what he found once he got there, and how it changed his view of the prison-industrial complex. Whether you see prisons as a necessary part of society or an institution in need of abolition, John’s work provides essential context for envisioning a more humane and just way forward for America’s carceral system. 
Learn more about and purchase Big House on the Prairie
Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts

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 Ukraine and Russia towards a negotiated settlement? What would such a settlement even look like? 
Meanwhile, new conflicts around the world continue to emerge, each with their own seemingly impossible questions. 
This is why we’re launching ‘Escalation,’ a new limited series from Trending Globally. Over the next few months, you’ll hear from experts about the history, philosophy, and even psychology of conflict escalation, and what can be done to reduce global conflicts going forward. 
Our first episode in the series features Lyle Goldstein, a visiting Professor at the Watson Institute and Director of Asia Engagement at the think-tank Defense Priorities. He’s an expert on the effects of great power conflict, and the theories that explain them. 
Professor Goldstein has been following the war in Ukraine closely through both Western and Russian media. He recently published a paper with Watson’s Costs of War Project looking at how, while there are no obvious paths out of this war, there are at least paths we should know to avoid. Host Dan Richards and Professor Goldstein explore the poor assumptions and misunderstandings that drive many ideas in this conflict, as well as what a better path forward might look like. 
Learn more about Professor Goldstein’s recent paper with the Costs of War Project. 
Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts.