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Private Military Corporations have become a growing element of the warfighting landscape. States have historically had a monopoly on the use of military force. But private corporations challenge this monopoly. How much do they increase the lethality and likelihood of war? How much can private corporations be regulated? And what are the challenges to regulation? We explore the political, military, legal, and socioeconomic implications of private military corporations. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Ori Swed is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Texas Tech University. He is the editor of The Sociology of Privatized Security with Thomas Crosby. He is the author of “The Afghanistan War’s Legacy: The Reimagining of the Outsourcing of War and Security” and “No Accounting for Bad Contracting: Private Military and Security Contracts and Ineffective Regulation in Conflict Areas“
Sorcha MacLeod is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen and member of the United Nations Working Group on the use of Mercenaries. She is the author of Certifying Private Security Companies: Effectively Ensuring the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights?, Defining private security accountability and Regulating human rights in the context of outsourcing military logistics and armed security.
Christopher Kinsey is Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. He is the author of International Law and the Control of Mercenaries and Private Military Companies, Turning war into business: Private security companies and commercial opportunism and the book Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies
Anna Leander is Professor and Chair of the International Relations and Political Science Department at the Geneva Graduate Institute. She is the author of The Power to Construct International Security: On the Significance of Private Military Companies and Militarization matters: rhetorical resonances and market militarism. She is co-editor of Handbook of Private Military-Security Companies with Rita Abrahamsen.

This interview was recorded in July 2023.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Safe drinking water delivery in US ; Floods and aftermath in Ellicott City, Maryland – July 20, 2025

July 22, 2025 host

Although Access to safe drinking water is a human right, millions of people in the United States do no have access to safe water. Lead in the pipes is the most well-known cause but there are many others. What can be done to fix the nation’s water delivery systems? What have we learned from the Flint case? [ dur: 34mins. ]

Newsha Ajami is Chief Development Officer for Research at the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She is the co-author of Building water resilience in the face of cascading wildfire risks and Infrastructure and the Digital Economy: Reinventing Our Role in the Design, Financing, and Governance of Essential Services for Society.
Benjamin J. Pauli is Associate Professor of Social Science at the Department of Liberal Arts at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. He is the author of Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis.

photo of flooding of the main street in Ellicott City, Maryland. Tile shown, After the Floods - The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City by Ken Conca.

Segment 2: Why did Ellicott City flood not once, but twice in 22 months (July 2016, May 2018)? How can “once in a thousand years’ rainfalls happen so close to one another? How do cities respond to extreme weather? We speak with Ken Conca author of After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City.[ dur: 22mins. ]

Dr. Ken Conca is Professor of environment, development, & health at American University. He is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy and his recent book After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City.

Music clip by Sam Cooke – Change is going to come

Poetry by Rachel Dillon – Dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem

This show was originally published Oct. 2023

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interview – Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land ; Mining the Ocean Floor – July 13, 2025

July 18, 2025 host

The search for a safe haven for Jewish people in the early 20th Century led some Zionists to land on Galveston, Texas as a potential homeland for Jewish refugees.

Collage of jewish people in search of homeland

What was the Galveston Movement and what happened to it? We interviews the author of a new book MELTING POINT: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land. [ dur: 35mins. ]

Rachel Cockerell is a writer and historian.

Then, the search for minerals is leading some corporations to begin mining the ocean floor but scientists warn that this could devastate fragile ecosystems that will have repercussions that we still don’t understand. What is going on in the deep sea? What precautions should be taken to prevent devastating fragile ecosystems? [ dur: 23 mins. ]

Craig Smith is Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawai’i.
Verena Tunnicliffe is a marine biologist at the University of Victoria in Canada where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Deep Ocean Research.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Supreme Court decisions: Federal Injunctions and Religious belief exemption from public school curriculum – July 6, 2025

July 18, 2025 host

The US Supreme Court has decided numerous cases and announced their opinions in the past week. On today’s show we explore two cases.

The Court declared an end to national injunctions in a case involving birthright citizenship. [ dur: 28mins. ]

Erwin Chemerinsky is the Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His many publications include, most recently, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights, and The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State (with Howard Gillman).

Parents can remove their children from any class they deem in opposition to their religious beliefs. [ dur: 30mins. ]

Caroline Mala Corbin is Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law. She is the author of Regulating LGBTQ Speech in the Classroom and New Judicial Federalism and the Establishment Clause: Classroom Ten Commandments as a Case Study in State Constitutional Protection

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Scholars’ Circle – Aging & wars ; Peaceful use of nuclear power – June 29, 2025

July 2, 2025 host

Does the aging world 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. ]

Mark L. Haas is the 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 – Israel and Iran War – June 22, 2025

June 25, 2025 host

We look at the history of conflict and outcome in the past to understand the attacks between Israel and Iran to control Nuclear capabilities of Iran. What is the humanitarian and political impact of this war? On both Iran and on Israel. What is the impact on the region? Is this war legal, based on the laws of war? Principle of JUS AD BELLUM. And how would American intervention on behalf of Israel escalate the war, and complicate the war. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Note: This recording was made before US bombing of Iran’s Nuclear Facility on June 22, 2025.

Ervand Abrahamian is Professor Emeritus at City University of New York. He is the author of A History of Modern Iran and Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Christian Henderson is Professor of International Law in the School of Law, Politics, and Sociology at the University of Sussex. He’s the author of U.S. And UK Military Strikes in Yemen and the Use Adbellum and The Use of Force in International Law.
Hamoud Salhi is Professor of Political Science at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He is commentator for Arabic media.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – ICE and Militarization on the streets of Los Angeles – June 15, 2025

June 16, 2025 host

President Trump has ordered federalization of the California National Guard and deployed them to Los Angeles. He also has deployed active Marines in the city. Does this violate the law? What is the law of posse comitatus? What is its history? And will mass protests help preserve democracy? The law of Posse Comitatus needs reform to prevent abuse? In today’s political environment, is this even possible? [ dur: 58mins. ]

David S. Meyer is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Planning, Policy, and Design at UC Irvine. He is the author of The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America and co-editor of The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement. His blog is Politics Outdoors.
Gautham Rao is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the American University Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Federal “Posse Comitatus” Doctrine: Slavery, Compulsion, and Statecraft in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America.

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Scholars’ Circle – Pope Leo & Augustinian thought – June 8, 2025

June 8, 2025 host

What will it mean for Catholicism and the world to have the first Augustinian Pope? What were the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, who inspires the Order of Augustine? And what are Pope Leo’s theological views for the Church and beyond as the Church confronts a world with poverty, violence, and war? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Sarah Stewart-Kroeker, is the Associate Professor of Early Christian Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary; Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine’s Thought, and Sacrifice in Environmental Ethics and theology
John Doody is the Clinical Professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. He’s the co-author of at least 12 books on Augustine, and one of those is entitled Augustine and social justice.

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Scholars’ Circle – Author interview of the book – Can Deliberation Cure the Ills of Democracy? ; Remembering Ngugi wa Thiongo author of Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature – June 1, 2025

June 3, 2025 host

We interview Professor James S. Fishkin author of the recently published book – Can Deliberation Cure the Ills of Democracy? . Then we remember Ngugi wa Thiongo , scholar of language and author many books such as Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986).

Discussion with Professor Fishkin on his book Can Deliberation Cure the Ills of Democracy?. He shares his experience in conducting deliberative polling 150+ times around the world. Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

James S. Fishkin he holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University. He is the Professor of both communication and of political science at Stanford University and a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogly Institute for International Studies and the director of the Deliberative democracy lab. His work focuses on a concept We’ll get into, uh, called deliberative polling.

Interview with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o hosted by Prof. David Lloyd. This is an excerpt from the original recording from October 2021 ( show link ). In this excerpt Professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o recalls his thoughts on theory of Globalectics and how it affects thoughts of decolonizing the mind. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine. Among his many writings are Decolonising the Mind, Globalectics and his memoir Detained recently recast as Wrestling with the Devil. His most recent novel is Murogi wa Kagogo, published in English as Wizard of the Crow. His rendering of the Gikuyu epic, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi, appeared in 2019. He has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes.

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Scholars’ Circle – Emolument Clause & Trump Qatar gifts ; The harm of microplastics – May 25, 2025

May 27, 2025 host

What exactly is an emolument? Is the airplane gift from Qatar to President Trump an emolument? Is it evidence of corruption? Has the Supreme Court continued to enable corruption? Our guests interpret the Emolument Clauses in the U.S. Constitution. [ dur: 26mins. ]

Clark D. Cunningham is Lee Byrd’s Chair in Law and Ethics at Georgia State University College of Law. He is the author of Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of Emoluments. In the Constitution, and has co-authored several amicus briefs on the Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of “Emolument” in the Constitution.”Emolument” in the Constitution.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is the Professor of Law at Stetson Law School. She’s the author of The Stakes of the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corruption Rulings in the Age of Trump. And the very recent publication, Corporatocracy how to protect democracy from dark money And corrupt politicians.

From the arctic to the depths of the oceans, microplastics are wreaking havoc, posing health threats to human health, animal life & the ecosystems on which we all rely. How did we get here and what can we do? [ dur: 26mins. ]

Samantha Ladewig is Research Fellow at University of Auckland, NZ. She is the co-author of Benthic ecosystem function responses to plasticizer content in polyester and PVC .
Nathalie Gontard is Research Director at INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment). She is the author of Recognizing the long-term impacts of plastic particles for preventing distortion in decision-making.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Category Archives: Blog

Scholars’ Circle – Private Military Corporations and State responsibilities – July 27, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Safe drinking water delivery in US ; Floods and aftermath in Ellicott City, Maryland – July 20, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interview – Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land ; Mining the Ocean Floor – July 13, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Supreme Court decisions: Federal Injunctions and Religious belief exemption from public school curriculum – July 6, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Aging & wars ; Peaceful use of nuclear power – June 29, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Israel and Iran War – June 22, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – ICE and Militarization on the streets of Los Angeles – June 15, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Pope Leo & Augustinian thought – June 8, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Author interview of the book – Can Deliberation Cure the Ills of Democracy? ; Remembering Ngugi wa Thiongo author of Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature – June 1, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Emolument Clause & Trump Qatar gifts ; The harm of microplastics – May 25, 2025

By Maria Armoudian