Tag Archives: Politics and Activism

Scholars’ Circle – Election by gerrymandering and a tribute to Professor Philip Zimbardo – October 27, 2024

October 27, 2024 host

First, we discuss gerrymandering and redistricting and what it means for the upcoming elections on First Tuesday of November 2024.

Christian Gross He’s professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California. He’s the academic director of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy. He’s the author of Congress in Black and White, Race and Representation in Washington at Home, and co-author of numerous pieces, including campaign finance transparency affects legislators election outcomes and behavior.
Jonathan Cervas he’s assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He’s the co-author of the forthcoming Partisan Gerrymandering Cases and State Supreme Courts in the 2020s redistricting Round and also has served in many roles as a consultant on redistricting, including the special master who drew the New York state and congressional maps for 2022.

Then, we pay tribute to Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the infamous Stanford experiments. He died at home in San Francisco on Oct. 14, 2024 he was 91 in San Francisco. This excerpt from his interview with Scholars’ Circle in Feb. of 2016. You can find his full interview here.

Philip Zimbardo was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University and *core faculty at Palo Alto University. He is the creator of the The Stanford Prison Experiment. He authored numerous publications including The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Psychology and Life, and The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence.

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Scholars’ Circle – Election issues of Tariff on imports and Childcare affecting Economy and Workforce – October 20, 2024

October 20, 2024 host

“the most beautiful word in the English language is tariff.” That is a direct quote from former President and current Republican candidate for President Donald Trump. On most issues that involve funding, when the former President is asked how he intends to pay for a proposal, his response is to increase tariffs. In 2018 the US initiated a round a tariffs and a trade war with China. And after his election in 2020, President Biden has left most of the tariffs in place and increased tariffs in other areas. So what are tariffs and what are their impact on the US economy? Who pays them? What is their effect on the one issue that most Americans use to define economic health—inflation. And what do the two candidates propose as the future of US tariff policy following the 2024 elections. [ dur: 38mins. ]

Iva Bozovic She is Associate Teaching Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. She is co-author of “Scaffolding: Using formal contracts to support informal relations in support of innovation.”
Lui Hebron, formerly of California State University and currently an academic coach at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. He is the editor of Asian Security in the Age of Globalization.

For many Americans, the cost of child care is a significant challenge to parents returning to the job market. And this has a particular importance to working women, who are traditionally expected to be the children’s primary care giver. According to the US Census Bureau child care prices for a single child ranged from $4,810 a year for school-age home-based care in small counties to $15,417 for infant center-based care in very large counties. When adjusted for inflation, this equals between $5,357 and $17,171 in 2022 dollars. These price ranges were equivalent to between 8% and 19.3% of median family income per child in paid care. And while the number is increasingly, only 13% of American corporations offer onsite child care. What can be done to control the cost of child care? What does this increased cost mean for women’s ability to work? And what should the US government do to increase access to child care across the nation? [ dur: 20mins. ]

Elizabeth Palley. She is Professor of Social Work at Adelphi University. She is co-author of In Our Hands, The Struggle for US Child Care Policy.

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Scholars’ Circle – Water issues and challenges faced by voters in 2024 US elections – October 13, 2024

October 13, 2024 host

As part of our ongoing series on the important issues that confront the US in the 2024 election we look at access to safe water and lessons learned from the Ellicott city floods.
Segment 1: 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.

Segment 2: Why did Ellicot 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: 24mins. ]

Dr. Ken Conca is the 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.

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Scholars’ Circle – Foreign Policy differences of candidates in 2024 Presidential elections – October 6, 2024

October 6, 2024 host

From now until November’s American election, we will cover issues that confront the nation and the world and on which we expect people will vote. For today’s show, we will explore the differences between Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee for President in their foreign policies. What are likely the different ways each candidate would address foreign policy issues if elected President. It was also said during the Cold War that “politics stop at water’s edge” in American foreign policy. But it is quite clear that, if that ever was true, it no longer is in 2024. SO we will discuss the differences.

Robert Williams, The Social Sciences Divisional Dean and Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University. He is the author of Seeking Security in an Insecure World, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), with Dan Caldwell and “Jus Post Bellum: Justice in the Aftermath of War“.
Janicke-Stramer-Smith is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Weber State University. She is the author of Socio-economic factors and political mobilization in the Maghreb: Lessons from the Arab Spring and The Language of War: George W. Bush’s Discursive Practices in Securitizing the ‘Western Value System.’.
Brent Steele, Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah. He is the author of Race, Religion and the Echoes of Status Insecurity in US foreign policy and Restraint in International Politics.

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Scholars’ Circle – Unleashing of Cyber-attacks that kill ; Green washing techniques we should know – September 22, 2024

September 23, 2024 host

Cyber operations and cyber threats have become a greater fear in world politics and everyday life. But just how much of a threat are they? And how have they changed the way nations interact and conduct diplomacy? Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 26mins. ]

Brandon Valeriano is Assistant Professor at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University.
He is the co-author of Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Character of Cyber Power and Coercion and Cyber War versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the International System.

Then, greenwashing culture. How journalism, the entertainment industry and museums impact our environment. Hosted by Maria Armoudian. [ dur: 30mins. ]

Toby Miller is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division at the University of California, Riverside and Director of the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London. He is the author and editor of over 40 books. His numerous publications include, Greenwashing Culture, Greenwashing Sports, The Routledge Companion to Global Cultural Policy (co-editor), and The Sage Companion to Television Studies (co-editor).

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Scholars’ Circle – Ways to Stop violence among Kids ; Addressing generational traumas experienced by children – September 15, 2024

September 15, 2024 host

School shootings have sadly become a part of American life over the last two decades. From the 2000–01 to 2021–22 school years, there were 1,375 school shootings at public and private elementary and secondary schools, resulting in 515 deaths and 1,161 injuries. What are the causes of all of this violence? What are the best ways to address this epidemic of violence, and stop these shootings? How effective can citing parents as liable and even bring charges against them when children shoot other children. [ dur: 34mins. ]

Ron Avi Astor holds the Marjorie Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He is the co-author of Bullying, School Violence and Climate in Evolving Context and An eighteen‑year longitudinal examination of school victimization and weapon use in California secondary schools.

Mass shootings in the Unites States are unprecedented in advanced industrial democracies. We explore the psychological impact of these shootings on the survivors and witnesses, with a particular attention to the children who experience this trauma. What are effective actions to confront the traumas experienced by the children who survive school shootings? Overwhelming the response of mass shootings is to “do something.” But what should we as a society and as an electorate do in response to these mass shootings? [ dur: 24mins. ].

This is an excerpt from our June, 2022 interview, listen to the complete interview visit the post here.

Karla Vermeulen is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health and an Associate Professor of Psychology at SUNY New Paltz.She is the author of Generation Disaster: Coming of Age Post-9/11 and co-editor of Disaster Mental Health Case Studies: Lessons Learned from Counseling in Chaos.
Robin Gurwitch is a Professor in the Duke University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and is Senior Advisor for the Terrorism and Disaster Program of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. She is the co-author of Children in Disasters and Trauma-Directed Interaction (TDI): An Adaptation to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Families with a History of Trauma. Resource – National Child Traumatic Stress Network – Talking to children about shooting.
Heather Littleton is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado, at Colorado Springs, and Research Director at the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience. She is the co-author of “PTSD near and far: Symptom networks from two to 12 months after the Virginia Tech campus shootings.” And “Can people benefit from acute stress? Social support, psychological improvement, and resilience after the Virginia Tech campus shootings” as well as numerous publications on sexual violence and the trauma of the LGBTQI+ community.

More resources are available at:

https://www.newpaltz.edu/idmh/

https://www.nctsn.org/resources/talking-children-about-shooting

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Scholars’ Circle – Refugees right to return in international law ; Effects of earth’s magnetism on birds, whales, bees and turtles – September 8, 2024

September 9, 2024 host

States have legal requirements to receive refugees and can return them after a conflict ends. But does this mean there is a right of return? What are the conditions of the right of return? Is it conditional on the provision of security for the state to which they are returning? [ dur: 40mins. ]

Susan Akram is Clinical Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. She directs Boston University Laws International Human Rights Clinic. Her published works include International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: a Rights-Based Approach to Middle East Peace, “A Comparative Perspective on Safe Third and First Country of Asylum Policies in the United Kingdom and North America: Legal Norms, Principles and Lessons Learned” and Palestinian Refugees.

How do birds, bees, whales and turtles use the earths magnetic field to guide their behavior? [ dur: 18mins. ]

Andres Vidal Gadea is Professor of Molecular Neuroethology at Illinois State University. He is the co-author of Magnetosensitive neurons mediate geomagnetic orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans and Factors that influence magnetic orientation in C. elegans. JCPA.

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

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Scholars’ Circle – Right of Self-Determination ; Civil War politics examined- September 1, 2024

September 1, 2024 host

Kamala Harris declared that the Palestinians must live in dignity, security and self determination. But what is the right of self determination? How has it been practiced legally and practically throughout history? And does self determination mean independence? [dur: 30mins.]

Hurst Hannum is Professor of International Law Emeritus at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is the author of, Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights, Rethinking self-determination and Rescuing Human Rights: A Radically Moderate Approach.

While the US Civil War ended slavery, it didn’t end the political issues that caused the war. What exactly happened in the immediate aftermath of the war?

Book Cover of Civil War by Other Means has an red X on the title of the book

The political divide in the US from the Civil War persists today. We discuss the history of the period and its impact on contemporary politics with Jeremi Suri author of the book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight For Democracy . [ dur: 28 mins. ]

Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the co-author of “Problems with President Records are Not Just About Trump” with Kenneth Osgood. He is also the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office. He is the host of the podcast This is Democracy.

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Scholars’ Circle – Bangladesh students revolt that ousted its president – August 25, 2024

August 25, 2024 host

What led to the overthrow of Bangladesh’s leader Sheikh Hasina? Were they political, economic, or social reasons? Or the promises of what advocates are calling a “second wave of independence”?
What does the new Bangladeshi government need to build upon this political moment? What can the government do to successfully democratize and economically develop the nation? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Ali Riaz is Distinguished Professor at the Department of Politics and Government at Illinois State University. He is the author of Pathways of Autocratization – The tumultuous journey of Bangladesh politics.
Mathilde Maitrot Senior Lecturer, Department of Social & Policy Sciences Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath. She is the co-author of an article Discipline, development and duress: the art of winning an election in Bangladesh.

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Scholars’ Circle – Reforming Supreme Court of United States ; How proxy wars are dominating international relations – August 18, 2024

August 18, 2024 host

With the upcoming election Democrats have proposal to reform Supreme Court with term limits, ethics oversight and many more. Our panel look at how and why people are concerned over the influence peddling related to recent decisions. Hosted by Maria Armoudian. [ dur: 35mins. ]

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).
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.

Why do states choose to use third parties to intervene in other nation’s civil wars and political conflicts? On today’s show we interview Andrew Mumford on the legality, efficacy, and implications of the waging of proxy warfare. Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 21 mins. ].

This interview was recorded in February 2020.

Andrew Mumford is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at The University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author about Proxy Warfare Counterinsurgency Wars and the Anglo-American Alliance.

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Tag Archives: Politics and Activism

Scholars’ Circle – Election issues of Tariff on imports and Childcare affecting Economy and Workforce – October 20, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Water issues and challenges faced by voters in 2024 US elections – October 13, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Foreign Policy differences of candidates in 2024 Presidential elections – October 6, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Unleashing of Cyber-attacks that kill ; Green washing techniques we should know – September 22, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Ways to Stop violence among Kids ; Addressing generational traumas experienced by children – September 15, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Refugees right to return in international law ; Effects of earth’s magnetism on birds, whales, bees and turtles – September 8, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Right of Self-Determination ; Civil War politics examined- September 1, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Bangladesh students revolt that ousted its president – August 25, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Reforming Supreme Court of United States ; How proxy wars are dominating international relations – August 18, 2024

By Maria Armoudian