In the 1970s in Nicaragua, left-wing rebels, calling themselves the Sandinista National Liberation Front, fought to overthrow their country’s dictator.  It worked. The Sandinistas led a coalition that took over the government in July 1979, in what became known as the Sandinista Revolution.  However, within a few years, the Sandinistas faced a violent backlash, which pushed the country into a state of unrest that lasted for almost a decade.  This period of violence, from roughly 1982-1988, was known as the Contra War. To many Americans, it’s often associated with the Cold War and ..read more

The last decade has seen the growth of two political movements that appear diametrically opposed: the Black Lives Matter movement and the rise of Donald Trump.  But as our guest on this episode explains, these two movements are linked, and can only be understood together.  On this episode, Dan Richards talks with political scientist Juliet Hooker about how these movements are just the most recent evolution of two of the most powerful forces in American politics — what she describes as “Black grief” and “white grievance.”  Hooker’s new book, “Black Grief/White Grievance: The Poli ..read more

We’ve got a lot of exciting new Trending Globally episodes coming up in the next few weeks and months, but this week we’re sharing an episode of another podcast from the Watson Institute: Mark and Carrie.  The show is hosted by political economist Mark Blyth and political scientist Carrie Nordlund. On each episode, they discuss, debate and, occasionally, make fun of the biggest headlines of the day. The conversations are always thought-provoking and informative, and while the topics are sometimes somber, the show is not.  On this episode, they discuss some of the factors shaping the ..read more

February 24, 2024, marks two years since the beginning of the War in Ukraine.  In the war’s first year, Russia’s assault on Ukraine shook the West, while Ukraine's defense of the territory captivated the world.  While no less deadly or consequential, the war's second year has looked very different. The war has become a stalemate on the battlefield, altering the politics in Kyiv, the Kremlin, and among their respective allies. Neither country’s leaders appear to be looking for a way out of the war anytime soon, and the prospect of peace in Ukraine seems as far away as it’s been at any ..read more

In the United States, inequality along the lines of race in education is such a persistent issue that it often fails to make headlines. COVID-19 brought it back to the front of the nation’s consciousness as evidence mounted that nonwhite students were experiencing roughly twice as much learning loss as their white counterparts.  Yet, as our guest on this episode explains, if history is any guide, more attention to the issue doesn’t necessarily mean better outcomes for nonwhite and poor students. There’s a long history of well-financed, elite (largely white) institutions investing time and ..read more

Backlash is hardly a new political force — since America’s founding, change has often been driven by citizens mobilizing in opposition to policies, programs, or social movements.  But recently, as our guest on this episode explains, backlash movements have come to dominate our politics in unprecedented ways. He argues that to build a more stable and healthy politics, we need to better understand how these forces work.  Why do certain policies, movements, or individual politicians incite powerful backlash movements while others don't? And why — whether we’re talking about immigration ..read more

Trending Globally will be back with all new episodes soon, but in the meantime we’re rereleasing some of our favorite episodes from 2023. We hope you enjoy – and have a great start to 2024! *** The beginning of 2023 saw a disturbing 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 (ori ..read more

“Trending Globally” will be back with all new episodes soon, but in the meantime, we’re rereleasing a few of our favorite episodes from 2023. We hope you enjoy — and have a great start to 2024! *** In 2007, Watson Professor John Eason moved with his family from Chicago to Forest City, Arkansas. At the time Eason was getting his Ph.D. 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 underse ..read more

This December marks four years since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. On this episode of Trending Globally, Dan Richards speaks with two experts from the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health about the ways our society’s approach to public health has changed since 2019.  They discuss how we should be thinking about COVID-19 in our daily lives, the unexpected ways international conflicts have changed conversations around pandemic preparedness, and what the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 can teach us about how societies learn from disasters. Guest ..read more

On this episode, political economist and Watson professor Mark Blyth talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir Angus Deaton about his new book, “Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality.”  You may not know Angus Deaton by name, but you probably know a phrase he helped to make famous: “deaths of despair.” In 2015, Deaton and his wife and research partner Anne Case published a paper that revealed something startling: an increase in mortality rates among white middle-aged men and women in the 2000s and 2010s in the United States.  Deaton and Case a ..read more