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Scholars’ Circle – The Death Penalty: A Case of Cruel and Unnecessary Punishment by the State – October 11, 2026

October 12, 2026 host

On September 30, 2026, the state of Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1996. The state failed to execute her, and her case is not the first failed execution in the state. The subsequent reporting of how the execution was carried out and the pain and suffering that Ms. Pike experienced has raised several issues that we will attempt to explore on today’s show. These include whether the method of execution is a violation of the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment and whether the execution violated the Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory. Most importantly, the case of Ms. Pike raises the general human rights issue of capital punishment. So, on today’s show, we will explore the issues around the method of execution known as lethal injection. We will consider the general human rights questions of capital punishment, and we will try to understand what’s next, not just for Christa Pike, but for the future of capital punishment in the country. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College. He is the author of Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution and the forthcoming book Life After Death: Surviving Execution.
Sandra Babcock is Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide at Cornell Law School. “The Lethal Consequences of Gender Bias in the Application of the Death Penalty,” 45 Amicus Journal 4 and co-author of Defending Women and Transgender Persons Facing Extreme Sentences: A Practical Guide, with Nathalie Greenfield, Gabriela Markolovic, and Jessica Sutton.
Frank R. Baumgartner is Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence and Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty.
Jenny-Brooke Condon is Professor of Law in the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School. She directs the Equal Justice Clinic. She is the author of When Cruelty is the Point: Constitutional Restraints and Remedies for Family Separation and Denialism and the Death Penalty.

Politics and Activism, Human Rights, Prison, Courts, Punishment, Death Penalty, Capital Crimes

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – We Explore the Future of Warfare – October 4, 2026

October 5, 2026 host

Ever since Russia attacked Ukraine, there have been predictions that the normative order against aggressive war was under threat. Then the US and Israel attacked Iran. Numerous scholars have predicted this would encourage China to attack Taiwan. The normative restrictions on war are loosening and the US is distracted and hence not able to help defend Taiwan. But two clear developments challenge this prediction. Russia, after 4 full years of war, is not likely to win this war anytime soon. And the US, despite the President’s continual assertions that it has won the war, clearly has not. Technology such as drone warfare might be a reason. Defensive tactics could be another. So on today’s show, we will explore the future of warfare in light of the Russian and American wars and their current lack of success. [ dur: 1h18m ]

Yvonne Chiu is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and serves on the board of directors for the International Society for Military Ethics. She is the author of “Strategic Ambiguity Out of Balance: Updating an Outdated Taiwan Policy” in The Strategy Bridge.
David McCourt, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Dragon Defined: How Washington, Canberra, and London Reimagined China.
Ricardo A. Crespo is Associate Professor of Political Science and the chair of the Political Economy Department at Grossmont College. He is the author of “Currency Warfare and Cyberwarfare” in Comparative Politics, and “Currency Warfare and Just War” in the Journal of Military Ethics.
Robert Williams Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University. He is the author of Seeking Security in an Insecure World, with Dan Caldwell.

We are live in front of an audience at the International Studies Association’s West Regional meetings in Pasadena, California.

Politics and Activism, Governance / Law, War / Weapons, Diplomacy, Militarism, Russia, Ukraine, United States, China, Iran

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Exploring Privacy as it Affects Security, Society and Democracy – September 27, 2026

September 29, 2026 host

Is the age of privacy over? We spend the hour on technology, spying and privacy, exploring how privacy, and the lack of it, affects security, democracy and society. What exactly is at stake when we lose our privacy? [ dur: 58 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Information Science at Cornell Tech. She is the author of Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, and co-author of Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest and Values at Play in Digital Games.
Michael Patrick Lynch is Professor of Philosophy & Director of the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data, True to LIfe: Why Truth Matters and In Praise of Reason.
Bruce Schneier is Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He is the author of 14 books including the New York Times best-seller Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World, and The Electronic Privacy Papers: Documents on the Battle for Privacy in the Age of Surveillance. His blog is “Schneier on Security.”
Joshua A.T. Fairfield is William Donald Bain Family Professor of Law at Washington and Lee School of Law. He is the author of Owned: Property, Privacy and the New Digital Serfdom, Privacy as a Public Good , and Smart Contracts, Bitcoin Bots, and Consumer Protection.

Politics and Activism, Science / Technology, Privacy, Social Sciences

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Scholars’ Circle – Author interview on “Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census” – September 20, 2026

September 21, 2026 host

Data drives politics. But politics drive data. That is to say, we make political decisions based on data, often selected from mountains of available information.

collage of census questions with title of the book Data Are Made, Not Found by Danah Boyd

But how we gather data is an inherently political decision. And nowhere is this more clear than when the US collects the information about its population. Every ten years the Constitution mandates that the government conduct a census. And this process is complicated and inherently political. That is the message of our guest today, Danah Boyd is the author of a new book, Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census. . [ dur:58mins. ]

Danah Boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University, where she works on topics at the intersection of technology and society. She is also the founder of the research institute Data & Society and the author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens.

Politics and Activism, Democracy, Civil Servants, Policy making, US

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Scholars’ Circle – Canada US relations, Trade war – September 13, 2026

September 13, 2026 host

The United States and Canada share the longest undefended border in the world. We record this show on September 11 and I am reminded of Canada’s strong alliance with the US, allowing American flights to land as the skies closed and showing remarkable generosity to the passengers that day. But recently, the US has shown antagonism and even animosity to its ally to the North. Ranging from a President threatening the annexation of the nation (and making it the 51st state) to placing rather high rates of tariffs on many Canadian goods, the relationship between the two nations are strained. On today’s show, we will explore the history, the current state, and the potential future relationship between Canada and the US. And we will focus the discussion on the view from north of the border. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Mark Paradis is Professor of Political Science at Champlain College Saint-Lambert. He is coauthor of “Thawing Rivalries and Fading Friendships: An Experimental Approach to Rapprochement and Alienation.” and, with another of our guests, co-editor of Game Changer – The Impact of 9/11 on North American Security.
Marc O’Reilly is Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg University. He is the author of Unexceptional: America’s Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941-2007 and co-editor of the Handbook on Canadian Foreign Policy, along with our last guest, Patrick James.
Patrick James is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at USC. Alongside the publications with Mark Paradis and Marc O’Reilly, he is the author of Canada and Conflict and co-editor of Canadian Studies in the New Millenium.

Economics, Politics and Activism, Diplomacy, Canada, United States, Trade Wars

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Glacier Collapse, Flooding, Climate Change – September 7, 2026

September 6, 2026 host

On August 26, 2026, massive floods swept through Nepal and Tibet. As of this recording on September 3, over 1,200 people are reported killed and as many as 4,200 are still missing. A landslide reported to be an equivalent 5.2 earthquake hit the Nepal/China border in the Himalayan Mountains as a trigger of the flood. And it appears that the flooding was caused by a massive glacier collapse. So on today’s show, we will explore glacial collapse and their causes. And we will explore whether this disaster should be seen as a warning and signal of future environmental risk of catastrophe. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Umesh Haritashya is Director of the Sustainability Program and Professor of Earth, Environment and Sustainability at the University of Dayton, Ohio. He is the co-author of “Modeling lake outburst and downstream hazard assessment of the Lower Barun glacial lake, Nepal Himalaya”.
Mathias Vuille is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany, SUNY. He is the co-author of “Rapid decline of snow and ice in the tropical Andes-Impacts, uncertainties and challenges ahead.”
Bethan Davies is Professor of Glaciology in the Department of Geography at Newcastle University. She is the co-author of “Glacier changes in Langtang Catchment, Central Nepalese Himalaya from the Little Ice Age (∼1815 CE) to 2023 CE.”

Environment, Politics and Activism, Science / Technology, Climate Change, Himalaya Mountains, Nepal, China

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Drone warfare and Author interview : The Crime of Aggression and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – August 30, 2026

August 31, 2026 host

The 21st century, and in particular the last five years, have seen a significant increase in the use of drones in warfare. Unmanned weapons, often cheaper than many of the more complicated and advanced weapons used by major powers like the US and Russia, seem to be aiding defenders and making the battlefield more even. What can these drones do? Do they make wars more likely to break out? Or do they improve the defenders abilities and hence serve as cautionary tale against aggression? And how do they change the battlefield? [ dur: 30mins. ]

Ori Swed is Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas Tech University. He is Director of the Peace, War & Social Conflict Laboratory. He is the co-author of “Emulating underdogs: Tactical drones in the Russia-Ukraine war” And “The Empirical Determinants of Violent Nonstate Actor Drone Adoption“
Roberto J. González is a professor of anthropology at San Jose State University. He is the author of The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future (2022)
Hugh Gusterson is Professor of Anthropology and Public Policy at the University of British Colombia. He is the author of Drone: Remote Control Warfare and with Professor Gonzalez the co-editor of Militarization: A Reader.

In response to the devastation of World War I, world leaders lead by France and the US negotiated the Kellogg-Briand Pact. This outlawed aggressive war and outlined the crime of aggression. It was the legal foundation for one of the crimes prosecuted at Nuremberg and Tokyo following World War II. And the UN Charter, specifically Article 2 (4), not only outlaws aggressive war but even threatening aggressive war. But the definition of aggressive war has been a legal and political challenge for the last 100 years. Perhaps no current scholar has been more committed, more influential, and more productive on this specific issue than our current guest. [ dur: 28mins. ]

Book cover with title - The Crime of Aggression and Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

Jennifer Trahan has a new book on this precise issue. In The Crime of Aggression and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, she uses this very current and incredibly important case to demonstrate the historical development of this crime and the need to harmonize its definition and to prosecute its violation.

Jennifer Trahan is a Clinical Professor and Director of the Concentration in International Law and Human Rights at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.

Politics and Activism, War / Weapons, drones, warfare, laws on war

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Scholars’ Circle – Wildfires Erupting Across Europe and North America – August 23, 2026

August 24, 2026 host

The world is on fire. While that seems alarmist, this summer has been the summer of fire. Wildfires have spread all around the world, with specific fires in Spain, France, Canada and the US seizing global headlines. While the summer in the northern hemisphere is typically wildfire season, this year seems to mark an increased intensity and occurrences of these fires. On today’s show we will explore what has been the cause of these fires. What environmental conditions have lead to the increased intensity of these fires? And what should be done both locally and globally to better manage wildfires? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Doug Specht is a Chartered Geographer, a Reader in Cultural Geography and Communication, and Head of the School of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster. He is the author of Mapping crisis: Participation, datafication and humanitarianism in the age of digital mapping and most recently in the Conversation There’s nothing ‘wild’ about most wildfires, humans start them and have made them more dangerous.
Daniel Swain is climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) and a research partner at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is the co-author of Anthropogenic warming has increased drought risk in California and Climate change is increasing the risk of a California megaflood. He is the author of the Weather West blog.

Environment, Politics and Activism, Climate Change, Environmental Activism, Wildfires

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Does Aging Population mean Decline of War ; Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy – Aug 16, 2026

August 17, 2026 host

Does the world’s aging population mean fewer wars in the future? What exactly is a geriatric peace?

book cover of the book the Geriatric Peace - population aging and the decline of war, blue cver with a white peace dove balanced on a walking stick

Our guest, Mark L. Haas, is the author of The Geriatric Peace: Population Aging and the Decline of War. [ dur: 30mins. Recorded June 2025 ]

Mark L. Haas is Duquesne Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He is the author of many books including The Clash of Ideologies: Middle Eastern Politics and American Security. His newest book is The Geriatric Peace – Population Aging and the Decline of War.

Then, we explore a new book on the peaceful uses of nuclear power: The Wretched Atom by Jacob Hamblin. [ dur: 28mins., recorded August 2021 ]

Jacob Hamblin is Professor of History at Oregon State University. His books include Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, Oceanographers and the Cold War, Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism and his latest The Wretched Atom: America’s Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology.

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Scholars’ Circle – Horn of Africa Famine Explained and UK Politics of the New Prime Minister – August 9, 2026

August 9, 2026 host

The Greater Horn of Africa, in Northeastern Africa, faces severe food insecurity. In Sudan 19 million-plus people are facing acute hunger, including 825,000 children under five who are expected to suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition in 2026. In addition, 12-14 million people are experiencing severe food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. What are the root causes and immediate effects of this famine? How can the world help address food insecurity in the region? [ dur: 27mins. ]

Merry Fitzpatrick is Research Assistant Professor at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. She has more than 20 years of field experience in humanitarian response. She has worked with multiple humanitarian agencies, including the International Rescue Committee, GOAL Ireland, Food for the Hungry and World Concern. She is co-author of “Five levels of famine prevention: towards a framework for the twenty‐first century and beyond” and her latest, published in the Conversation, is “Conflict, climate, and disease form convergent crises in the Greater Horn of Africa”.

The United Kingdom has a new Prime Minister. He is the 7th Prime Minister in the last decade, a remarkable instability for the nation. Who is Andy Burnham? Why did he replace Kier Starmer? Why has the UK had such instability? Does Brexit play a role? Lastly, we explore Burnham’s leadership and its potential impacts on the future of the UK. [ dur: 31mins. ]

Patrick Diamond is Professor in Pubic Policy in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He is Chair of the think-tank Policy Network. He is the co-author of Warring Factions: Labour’s Civil Wars: How infighting has kept the Left from power (and what can be done about it) and author of The British Labour Party in Opposition and in Power 1979-2019: Forward March Halted?

Agriculture, Food and Nutrition, Governance / Law, War, United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Famine

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

All posts by host

Scholars’ Circle – The Death Penalty: A Case of Cruel and Unnecessary Punishment by the State – October 11, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – We Explore the Future of Warfare – October 4, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Author interview on “Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census” – September 20, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Canada US relations, Trade war – September 13, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Glacier Collapse, Flooding, Climate Change – September 7, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Drone warfare and Author interview : The Crime of Aggression and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – August 30, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Wildfires Erupting Across Europe and North America – August 23, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Does Aging Population mean Decline of War ; Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy – Aug 16, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Horn of Africa Famine Explained and UK Politics of the New Prime Minister – August 9, 2026

By Maria Armoudian