State legislatures have traditionally controlled districting, with a decentralization of process and decision-making as to how they are drawn. And in recent years, technology has enabled a more complex system of gerrymandering that can challenge the principles of democracy. Indeed it could produce outcomes where the party with fewer votes has control of the democratic institution. How much have voting districts have been gerrymandered and how might it affect the upcoming elections? [ dur: 26mins. ]

• Christian Grose is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He is the co-author of The Worst Partisan Gerrymanders in U.S. State Legislatures, A New Form of Gerrymandering Using CVAP? and Independent Redistricting Commissions Increase Voter Perceptions of Fairness
• Seth C. McKee is a Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma State University. He is the author of The Intersection of Redistricting, Race, and Participation , Political Conditions and the Electoral Effects of Redistricting and Redistricting does little to change which party people vote for, which can make partisan gerrymanders more effective.

Alaska’s recent special election produced a rare win for a Democrat, rather than a Republican for the state’s congressional seat. How much of it had to do with the voting process known as ranked-choice voting? Rank choice voting is meant to produce majoritarian outcomes in elections with multiple candidates. How exactly does this process work? And what are its implications for democracy? [ dur: 32mins. ]

• Rich Barton is Assistant Professor at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and Research Fellow at Unite America. He is the author of How Challenges In Primaries Shift The Policy Agenda Of Political Parties and The primary threat: How the surge of ideological challengers is exacerbating partisan polarization.
• Joseph Z. Coll is Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics at Sewanee: The University of the South. He is the author of Demographic Disparities Using Ranked-Choice Voting? Ranking Difficulty, Under-Voting, and the 2020 Democratic Primary and the co-author of Ranked Choice Voting and Youth Voter Turnout: The Roles of Campaign Civility and Candidate Contact.
• Todd Donovan is Professor of Political Science at Western Washington University. He is the author of Changing How America Votes and Self reported understanding of ranked choice voting and co-author of Self‐Reported Understanding of Ranked‐Choice Voting

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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We explore the civil war in Libya. Why did it break out and why does it persist? What are possible solutions?  Host: Doug Becker. [ dur: 30mins. ]

• Haala Hweio is Adjunct Instructor of Political Science at Rosary College of Arts and Sciences at Dominican University. She is the author of Tribes in Libya: From Social Organization to Political Power, The Libyan Revolution and Women’s Participation in Politics and Media and The Muslim Brotherhood: Libya as the Last Resort for the Continued Existence of the Global Movement
• Alan J Kuperman is Associate Professor of Public Affairs and is founding coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at The University of Texas Austin, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. He is the author of Constitutions and Conflict Management in Africa: Preventing Civil War Through Institutional Design (National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century), Did the R2P foster violence in Libya? and “Obama’s Libya Debacle“

Beyond ending war what does it take to make a lasting quality peace?  Host: Maria Armoudian. [ dur: 28mins. ]

Recorded November 22, 2015.

• Peter Wallensteen is Research Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at Joan B Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Quality Peace: Peacebuilding, Victory and World Order, Understanding Conflict Resolution: Peace, War, and the Global System and editor of the volume International Sanctions: Between Wars and Words.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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Protests across Central Asia have rocked the nations of the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The states’ violent suppression of these movements have killed hundreds and undermined human rights protections. We explore the roots of these conflicts and what these violent crackdown mean for human rights, democracy, transparency and peace in the region. [ dur: 31mins. ]

• Steve Swerdlow, esq. is Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights in the Department of Political and International Relations at the University of Southern California. A human rights lawyer and expert on the former Soviet region, Swerdlow was Senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, heading the organization’s work on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and founding its Kyrgyzstan field office. He is the author of Uzbekistan’s Religious and Political Prisoners and Uzbekistan’s Ethnic Minorities: Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind.
• Suzanne Levi-Sanchez is Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. She is the author of The Afghan-Central Asia Borderlands: The State and Local Leaders, Bridging State and Civil Society: Informal Organizations in Tajik/Afghan Badakhshan, and The assassination that shook the Pamir Mountains to the core.

We interview Maria Armoudian who has authored a book on international human rights and the role that lawyers have played at advancing cases against human rights abusers. [ dur: 27mins. ]

• Maria Armoudian is a lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She is the author of the books Reporting from the Danger Zone: Frontline Journalists, Their Jobs and an Increasingly Perilous Future, Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World, and her most recent Lawyers Beyond Borders : Advancing International Human Rights Through Local Laws and Courts . Maria is a host and anchor of the Scholars’ Circle.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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In honor of Labor Day weekend, we explore the state of labor in the United States and we take stock in the impact of Union organization in America. We consider some of the high profile labor cases, such as Union organization at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, and Trader Joe’s.

We also examine labor history and look at the role that race and gender have played in growing the labor movement.[ dur: 58mins. ]

• Lane Windham is Associate Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. She is the author of Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide, Strengthening workers’ right to organize is 50 years overdue and co-author of Explaining the erosion of private-sector unions.
• Jon Shelton is Associate Professor and Chair of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He is the author of Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order, and forthcoming in 2023, The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy.
• John Logan is Professor and Chair of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Crushing Unions, by Any Means Necessary: How Amazon’s Blistering Anti-Union Campaign Won in Bessemer, Alabama, Not Your Father’s Anti-Union Movement: Ten Key Facts About Starbucks’ Union Avoidance Law Firm, Littler Mendelson and The Movement to Eliminate Labor’s Political Voice (book chapter, 2014)

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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The United States just passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Much of it addresses climate change. Does it meet the challenge the planet faces on the changing climate? What renewable energy technologies will the US need to utilize to meet its climate goals? [ dur: 28mins. ]

• Mark Jacobson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. He is also the Co-Founder of The Solutions Project, 100.org, and the 100% Clean, Renewable Energy Movement. He is author of 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything and the forthcoming No Miracles Needed : How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air.

Scientists say we still have time to address climate change and we’ve made headway, but we still have a long way to go. We rebroadcast a conversation with renowned climate scientist Michael Mann recorded on September 25, 2016. [ dur: 30mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

• Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is the director of Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy and The New Climate War.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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Farming around the world, and in particular in the US, has increasingly become centralized as large factory farming. What are the environmental, social, and philosophical implications of this mode of agricultural production? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Factory farming carry significant challenges on environmental protection, on pricing and the centralization of wealth, and on social issues such as animal welfare and animal rights. We discuss agricultural policies and the environmental impacts including carbon emission, climate change and pollution.

• John Ikerd is author, speaker and leader in sustainability. He is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics from the University of Missouri. He is the author of the books Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense, Small Farms are Real Farms: Sustaining People Through Agriculture, Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture, and The Essentials of Economic Sustainability. Other publications –  Factory Farms–Things Everyone Should Know and Economic Realities of CAFOs.
• Kendra Coulter is Professor of Management and Organizational Studies at Huron University College and Fellow at Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the co-author of “Animal Protection: Organizational Constraints and Collaborative Opportunities,” author of Looking Forward to a Future Without Factory Farming, and Defending Animals: Inside the Front Lines of Animal Protection (forthcoming MIT Press, 2023)
• Gary L. Francione is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lincoln (UK). He is the author of Why Veganism Matters: The Moral Value of Animals, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? and Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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First, we continue our conversation with preeminent psychology scholar Ervin Staub. Last week we discussed how to build peaceful societies, particularly when some groups have been traumatized by violence, war or genocide. Erwin Staub’s latest book is The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil. This is part two of our discussion. [ dur: 33mins. ]

• Ervin Staub is a Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Founding Director of its ​Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence.

Then, what is race? How is it distinct from ethnicity? And what do they mean for politics and society? [ dur: 25mins. ]

• David Livingstone Smith is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why we Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War.
• Garrett Albert Duncan is Associate Professor of Education in Arts & Sciences. He also teaches African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His publications are listed here.

This show was recorded on June 2015

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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First, a look inside the arms trade and its effects on politics and society.[ dur: 33mins. ]

• Suzette Grillot is a Professor of International Studies at University of Oklahoma. She is the co-author of the book The International Arms Trade (with Rachel Stohl), Arms Control and the Environment (with Lakshman Guruswamy) and the co-editor of Understanding the Global Community (with Zach P. Messitte).

Then, we speak with Ervin Staub about his latest book, The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil: Inclusive Caring, Moral Courage, Altruism Born of Suffering, Active B​ystandership and ​H​e​r​oism. [ dur: 25 mins. ]

• Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology Emeritus and Founding Director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also the author of Psychology of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence and The psychology of good and evil: Why children, adults and groups help and harm others.

This recording is from June of 2015.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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Thomas Jefferson once declared that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was intended to build a wall of separation between the church and state. Have the recent Supreme Court rulings eroded this purpose? And what do these ruling mean for the role of religion and lawmaking in the larger society across the United States? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Samuel D. Brunson is Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is the author of God and the IRS: Accommodating Religious Practice in United States Tax Law and God Is My Roommate? Tax Exemptions for Parsonages Yesterday, Today, and (if Constitutional) Tomorrow.
• Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Increasingly Dangerous Variants of the “Most-Favored-Nation” Theory of Religious Liberty and The Supreme Court and the new religious aristocracy in the Hill.
• Micah Schwartzman is the director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy and the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law at University of Virginia. He is the co-author of Establishment Clause Appeasement, When Do Religious Accommodations Burden Others? and The Quiet Demise of the Separation of the Church and State.
• Caroline Mala Corbin is Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law. She is the author of Opportunistic Originalism and the Establishment Clause, The Supreme Court’s Facilitation of White Christian Nationalism and Justice Scalia, the Establishment Clause and Christian Privilege.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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The US Supreme Court just challenged tribal sovereignty in its ruling in Oklahoma v Castro-Huerta, which empowers the state much greater power to prosecute for alleged crimes in tribal lands. The legal implications are vast. We will explore the case and the future of tribal sovereignty in light of the Court’s drastic reversal of case precedent.

What does this case mean for the jurisdiction of the tribe on reservations and on child welfare under what’s called the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Robert J. Miller is Professor of Law at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He is Interim Chief Justice at Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of Appeals. He is the author of American Indian Sovereignty versus the United States (in Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies) and the forthcoming A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma. He is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe.
• Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví, is Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. She is the author of The Other American Law and The Supreme Court strikes again — this time at tribal sovereignty. She is tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo.
• Matthew L.M. Fletcher is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. He is the author of American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law and Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian-Hating. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

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