First, how emigration could lead to greater democratization in the world. [dur: 11 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

• Margaret Peters is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. She is the author of Trading Barriers: Immigration and the Remaking of Globalization, and the co-author of the research paper Restraining the Huddled Masses: Migration Policy and Autocratic Survival.

Then, today’s panel hosted by Professor Doug Becker, International Studies at University of Southern California (USC), lays the foundations of public diplomacy, its techniques, and its effectiveness. It then examines the role of new technologies in the digital age and how it poses new challenges and opportunities. [ dur: 45 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

• Daniel Aguirre Azócar is Assistant Professor at Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago, Chile. He is the author of the book chapters Propaganda and Populist Communication in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela (forthcoming in the SAGE Handbook of Propaganda) and Public Diplomacy in Latin America: An Emerging Field of Practice? (forthcoming in the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy, 2nd Edition).
• Nicholas J. Cull is Professor of Public Diplomacy and is the founding director of the Master of Public Diplomacy program at USC. He is the author of many books including The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989, The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency: American Public Diplomacy, 1989-2001, and his latest Public Diplomacy: Foundations for the Global Engagement in the Digital Age.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Following the US drone strike killing General Suleiman in Iraq, Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner. As tensions rose, international concerns over security as well as legality rose as well. And in Iran, protests against the government’s response to the attack on the airliner arose and have been intensifying. On today’s show, we will examine both the international and the local responses to the tensions and the military strikes that have led to this crisis. [ dur: 31 mins ]

• Nader Hashemi is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and Associate Professor in Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies and the co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and Iran’s Struggle for Democracy.
• Asli Ü. Bâli is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. She is the co-editor of Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy and author of the research paper Negotiating Non-Proliferation: International Law and Delegation in the Iranian Nuclear Crisis.
• Nayereh Tohidi is Director of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and Professor and former Chair of the Department of Gender & Women Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the co-editor and contributor to Globalization, Gender and Religion: The Politics of Women’s Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts and Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity within Unity.

What is the relationship between climate change and wildfires? The intensity and breadth of the wildfires in Australia has drawn attention to the effects of climate change and the need for a greater commitment to countering the globe’s increasing tensions. We explore the scientific and political linkages between these fires and climate change. [ dur: 27mins. ]

• Wenju Cai is Director of the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR) and a Chief Research Scientist and Office of the Chief Executive Science Leader at CSIRO. He is a contributor to The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. He is the co-author of Granger causal predictors for maximum rainfall in Australia.
• LeRoy Westerling is Co-Director of the Center for Climate Communication at the University of California, Merced. He is the co-author of Greater Temperature and Precipitation Extremes Intensify Western U.S. Droughts, Wildfire Severity, and Sierra Nevada Tree Mortality.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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International laws of war and executing targeted assassination by states. We discuss what is a threat and which international laws apply. Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

• Mark Drumbl is a Professor at Washington and Lee University, School of Law and the Director of the University’s Transnational Law Institute. He is the author of numerous books including the award winning , Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, and Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy .
• Hannah Garry is a Professor of law at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic. She specializes in international human rights law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law, USC
• Hamoud Salhi is a Professor of Political Science and Middle East, and Associate Dean of the College of Social and Natural Sciences at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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We re-broadcast an interview with William Greider based on his book Come Home America. He passed away on December 25 2019. Greider was a journalist and author of seven books including Secrets of a Temple on the Federal Reserve Bank.

• William Greider an author, journalist. He is the author of Come Home America: Redeeming Promise.

Then, how successful is the UN in achieving its sustainable development goals for poverty reduction, economic development, environmental protection, and political empowerment? This interview hosted by Doug Becker.

• Pamela Chasek, Professor of Political Science at Manhattan College. Among many publications, she is the author of Earth Negotiations: Analyzing thirty years of environmental diplomacy.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, why do people seem to know so little about politics? And what does that mean for democracy? We speak with Arthur Lupia author of Uninformed: Why People Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It.[ dur: 27 mins. ]

• Arthur Lupia is the Hal R. Varian Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and Chair of National Research Council’s Roundtable on the Application of Behavioral and Social Science. He is the co-author of The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know?, Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality, and the author of his latest book Uninformed: Why People Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It.

Finally, what is love? Is it emotional? Is it biological? Can it be summoned by rational decision and how does it play out in society? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

• Simon May is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Kings College London. He is the author of Love: A History and Nietzsche’s Ethics and his War on ‘Morality’​.​
• Bennett W. Helm is a Professor of Philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College. H​e is the author of​ Love, Friendship, and the Self: Intimacy, Identification, and the Social Nature of Persons and Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value.
• Dr. Robert Epstein is a Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He is currently working on a book called Making Love: How People Learn To Love, and How You Can Too, which is based on his research on how love emerges over time in arranged marriages. He is also the author of, Cognition, Creativity, and Behavior: Selected Essays.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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A study suggests that the powerful feel less empathy. Does it have implications for society? [ dur: 18mins. ]

• Michael Inzlicht is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He is co-author of Stereotype Threat: Theory, Process, and Application and co-author of the article Power Changes How the Brain Responds to Others

Then, while advances in neuroscience are making great leaps in understanding humanity, scholars and doctors disagree on what neuroscience does and does not tell us about what it means to be human. Are we our brains? Do we have free will? How far can neuroscience take us? [ dur: 40 mins. ]

• Dr. Sally Satel is lecturer at Yale University, a resident scholar at AEI and the staff psychiatrist at a methadone clinic. She is co-author of One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance and Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.
• Patricia S. Churchland is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. In 1991, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Her books include Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality, and Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Eastern Ukraine has been a site of conflict. Russophones in Ukraine, armed by Russia and joined by Russian nationals, launched a revolt to break from Kyiv. Following months of fighting, the area became a frozen conflict. Each week brings new casualties but little territory has changed hands. We spend the hour discussing the causes of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the impact of the internationalization of the war, and potential pathways to peace. Doug Becker hosts. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

• Robert English is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War and The Other Side: How Soviets and Americans Perceive Each Other.
• Oxana Shevel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science at Tufts University. She is the author of Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe and the book chapter Memory of the Past and Visions of the Future: Remembering the Soviet Era and its End in Ukraine.
• Dr. Tor Bukkvoll is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. His publications include, Tools of Future Wars – Russia is Entering the Precision-Strike Regime and Fighting on behalf of the state – the issue of pro-government militia autonomy in the Donbas war.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Why do sustainable business initiatives so often fail? What fundamental changes we need from societies and the economic system to stem a climate change induced collapsed? What economic systems might work on a planet with a finite capacity to sustain life? [ dur: 58 mins.]

• Christopher Wright is Professor of Organisational Studies, Discipline of Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney Business School.
• Daniel Nyberg is Professor of Management at Newcastle Business School and an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. Together they have co-authored Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations: Processes of Creative Self-destruction.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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We spend the hour on good food politics, the food revolution, and the movements to build equitable and sustainable food systems. First, we’re joined by Will Allen author of Good Food Revolution. [ dur: 25 mins. ]

• Will Allen is the author of Good Food Revolution and the founder of the non-profit Growing Power.

Then, our guests have studied the food system and what it means to have an equitable and sustainable system. What are the problems in the system and what are the solutions? [ dur: 33 mins. ]

• Saru Jayaraman is Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley . She is the co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) which has more than 18,000 worker members, 200 employer partners, and several thousand consumer members in a dozen states nationwide. She is the author of Behind the Kitchen Door and her latest Forked: A New Standard for American Dining.
• Raj Patel is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy – a New York Times and international best-seller – and his latest, co-written with Jason W. Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. He co-hosts the fortnightly food politics podcast The Secret Ingredient .

Raj Patel and Saru Jayaraman are contributors to The Nation magazine’s special issue, “The Future of Food: Setting the table for the next generation“.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Since March, 2014, Ukraine has been in the grips of a bloody civil war in the Eastern part of its country. Forces loyal to Kyiv fight forces loyal to Moscow, with international interference a primary feature of this conflict. How has the Trump Administration’s foreign policy complicated ongoing peace efforts in Ukraine? We examine the causes of this conflict. Hosted by Professor Doug Becker. [ dur: 27mins. ]

• Robert English is Associate Professor of International Relations, Slavic Languages and Literature and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War and The Other Side: How Soviets and Americans Perceive Each Other.

Then, scholars note that the world is waging fewer wars, but that the wars that are waged are more brutal and intractable.[ dur: 30mins. ]

• George A. Lopez is the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is the editor of The Sanctions Enterprise: Assessing a Quarter-Century of UN Action for Peace, Security and Human Rights.
• Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology at the University of Massettuces, Amherst. He is the author of The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others.
• Norrin M. Ripsman is Monroe J. Rathbone Professor in the International Relations Department at Lehigh University. He is the author of Peacemaking from Above, Peace from Below: States, Societies, and Peace Between Regional Rivals and the co-editor of The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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