What is the future of time and space in democracy? It's now widely accepted that Chinese politicians are advantaged by the lack of the short time horizons that come with electoral cycles. And all the discussion of immigration raises issues of borders in politics. Professor Jan Zielonka of Oxford University has been thinking about these matters and you can he ... Show More
May 21
Erica Bornstein, "A Revolution of Rules: The Regulatory Reform of India's Nonprofit Sector" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Erica Bornstein, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon (and Divisional Associate Dean), has a new book that delves into the regulatory reforms within the nonprofit sector in India. These reforms transpired over more than a decade, and Bornstein spent extended time ... Show More
41m 55s
May 13
Photis Lysandrou, "Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It" (Policy Press, 2025)
In a world shaken by crises, why does the dollar continue to dominate? In Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It (Policy Press, 2025) Photis Lysandrou explores the interaction between global instability and the enduring strength of the dollar. D ... Show More
54m 13s
May 13
Chiara Libiseller, "Reconceptualizing War: The Rise and Fall of Fashionable Concepts in Strategic Studies" (Oxford UP, 2026)
The field of Strategic Studies, which studies the use and threat of force for political purposes, has seen the repeated rise of concepts to dominate discourses and research agendas, only to eventually fall to the margins again. What explains this cyclical pattern? What are the co ... Show More
51m 38s
Feb 2024
The Future of the Future: A Discussion with Jonathan White
"An air of finality pervades today’s world." That is the opening sentence of Jonathan White’s book In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea (Profile, 2024). What role, the book asks, has the idea of "the future" played in past politics? What role does it play in contempora ... Show More
41m 56s
Dec 2023
The Future of Predictions: A Discussion with Christopher E. Mason
Predictive algorithms are changing the world – that is the claim of Christopher E. Mason who has co-authored (with Igor Tulchinsky) the book The Age of Prediction: Algorithms, AI, and the Shifting Shadows of Risk (MIT Press, 2023). Listen to him in conversation with Owen Bennett ... Show More
32m 18s
Jun 2020
Leticia Bode et al., "Words That Matter: How the News and Social Media Shaped the 2016 Presidential Campaign" (Brookings, 2020)
Words That Matter: How the News and Social Media Shaped the 2016 Presidential Campaign (Brookings Institution Press, 2020) comes out of a broader collaboration between social scientists at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, Gallup, Inc.
This collaboration, which i ... Show More
1h 1m
May 2024
Ian Johnson, "Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Even as most contemporary states look to history in order to legitimize their existence in some way or other, the past – and narrations of it – hold particular weight in China. This is not a new phenomenon, for which pasts to elevate and which to suppress has long been a concern ... Show More
1h 6m
Jan 2023
M. R. Sharan, "Last Among Equals: Power, Caste and Politics in Bihar's Villages" (Westland, 2021)
M. R. Sharan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, studying questions centred around development economics and political economy. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University in 2020 and was previously at the Delhi School of Economics and Hansraj College. His no ... Show More
44m 32s