Tag Archives: Politics and Activism

In April, war broke out in Sudan. How much is the war driven by a power battle between two generals and how much is it embedded in the relationship between Khartoum and marginalized areas of the nation? We explore the recent events, the political and military context of the war, and the prospects for a resolution.[ dur: 31mins. ]

Kon K. Madut is Part-time Professor of Political Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Why did governance and institutional establishments fail in Sudan and South Sudan? and Ethnic Mobilization, Armaments, and South Sudan’s Quest for Sustainable Peace.

Then, scholars note that the world is waging fewer wars, but that the wars that are waged are more brutal and intractable.[ dur: 27mins. ]

This segment was recorded 2013, hosted by Maria Armoudian.

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.

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Scholars’ Circle – Israel’s democratic challenge – April 23, 2023

April 24, 2023 host

Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to give Israel’s Parliament the ability to overturn high court decisions has been met with widespread protests. What are the stakes of these protests? What’s the democratic and political future for Israel? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Mira Sucharov is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Carlton University. She is the author of The International Self: Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and co-editor (with Aaron J. Hahn Tapper) of Social Justice and Israel/Palestine: Foundational & Contemporary Debates.
Liron Levy, is assistant Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is the author of King Bibi, the personification of democratic values in the 2019 2021 election cycle recently published in the book, the election in Israel 2019 to 2021.

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Scholars’ Circle – French protests explained – April 16, 2023

April 17, 2023 host

Amid mass Protests that have rocked France, the country’s constitutional council have approved President Macron’s move to raise the retirement age to 64. What does all of this mean for French politics, and for the future of unions in French politics and the workplace? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Martin A. Schain is Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at New York University. He is the author of The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain and the United States: A Comparative Study, and co-author and editor of Comparative Federalism: The US and EU in Comparative Perspective and Shadows Over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Europe.
Patrick Chamorel is Senior Resident Scholar and a lecturer at the Stanford Center in Washington. He is the author of France’s Vanishing Center and The French Presidential Election: Can Macron Stay Ahead of the Pack?
Herrick Chapman is Professor Emeritus of History. He is the author of A Century of Organized Labor in France: A Union Movement for the Twenty-First Century? co-edited with Mark Kesselman and Martin Schain and France’s Long Reconstruction: In Search of the Modern Republic.

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Scholars’ Circle – Addressing justice after mass atrocities – April 9, 2023

April 8, 2023 host

After mass atrocities and crimes against humanity, how can societies reconcile? How is justice performed and how should we recognize these crimes? And what of the clash between international interests and local needs when dealing with the punishment and acknowledgment of atrocities? Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Elazar Barkan is Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and Director of Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He is founding Director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR) in The Hague. He is the author of Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices and co-author of Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation.
Mark Drumbl is Professor at Washington and Lee University, School of Law, and Director of the University’s Transnational Law Institute. He is the author of Reimagining Child Soldiers In International Law and Policy and Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law.
Jeremy Sarkin is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law and member of CEDIS at Nova University Law School in Lisbon, Portugal. He is the author of The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions, Reparations for Colonial Genocides and co-editor of Africa’s Role and Contribution to International Criminal Justice.

This interview was recorded on April 18, 2021.

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Scholars’ Circle – Women protest in Iran, a persistent struggle – April 2, 2023

April 2, 2023 host

After the murder of Mahsa Amini by morality police Iran has seen protests, demonstrations, and an ongoing resistance movement against its regime. What best explains the origins and persistence of this movement? What has influenced Iran’s resistant movement? We will explore the status of women and the history of women’s rights movement in Iran. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Also, Iran has a substantial number of diaspora around the world. They help frame the issues that are occurring inside its borders. What is the interaction between Iranians abroad and Iranians in Iran and the resistance movement going on right now in the nation?

Persis Karim is the Neda Nobari Chair of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Comparative and World Literature department at SF State. She is the author of Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora.
Nayereh Tohidi is Professor Emerita in the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the author of Women’s Rights and Feminist Movements in Iran.

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Scholars’ Circle – The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War , book author interview – March 26, 2023

March 26, 2023 host

The expansion of the vote to women throughout the 20th Century has had an impact on the discourses and politics of war and peace. What is the relationship between women voting, electing women leaders, and women-lead groups in civil society on the issue of war and peace?
Does the expansion of the vote to women lead to the election of women as leaders? And are these leaders more committed to peace than their male counterparts? We explore a new book, The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War..[ dur: 58mins. ]

Book cover of The Suffragist Peace, classic painting with woman in center against war and suffering

Joslyn Barnhart is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California Santa Barbara. She is also senior research scientist at Deep Mine in London. She is the author of The consequences of humiliation, anger, and status, threats in international politics
Robert F. Trager is a Professor in the political science department at the University of California, Los Angeles. He’s the author of a forthcoming book Diplomacy Communication and the Origins of International Order

Together they have authored The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War.

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Scholars’ Circle – History of American grand strategy – March 19, 2023

March 19, 2023 host

Grand Strategy defines the broad goals of nations or even groups. American Grand Strategy is best understood historically, as an amalgam of influences and interests. Is American grand strategy a reaction to events and domestic interests, or is it derived more strategically based on the American place in the world? And what does the history of American grand strategy tell us about its current goals? We speak with three of the authors of Rethinking American Grand Strategy. Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

Christopher McKnight Nichols is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University. He is the author of Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age. He is also co-author of the opinion articles “‘Grand strategy’ has a bad rep. To fix it, get beyond hard power and traditional statecraft”, in the Los Angeles Times, and “America’s traditions pose an obstacle to preventing future pandemics”, in the Washington Post.
Beverly Gage is Brady-Johnson Professor of Grand Strategy and Professor of History & American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror and a forthcoming biography on J. Edgar Hoover.
Kate Epstein is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Camden. She is the author of Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain.

All of our guests are contributors to the book we are discussing today Rethinking American Grand Strategy. Christopher McKnight Nichols is also co-editor of the book together with Elizabeth Borgwardt and Andrew Preston.
Recorded June 2021.

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Scholars’ Circle – Humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh from blockade at Lachin Corridor – March 12, 2023

March 13, 2023 host

The deteriorating humanitarian condition in the Armenian-majority breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Lachin corridor, the only road that connects the region to the outside world, has been blocked by a military campaign limiting food and other essential supplies and trapping 120,000 people.

We explore the legal, political and military implications of this campaign.How are international actors responding to this campaign? What role is Turkey, Russia, and the United States playing in the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Richard Giragosian is the Founding Director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), an independent “think tank” located in Yerevan, Armenia. He is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe’s Natolin Campus and Senior Expert at Yerevan State University’s Center for European Studies (CES). He is the author of the book chapter Small States and Large Costs of Regional Fracture: The Case of Armenia
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.

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Scholars’ Circle – Samuel Ringgold Ward: A life of Struggle, a biography – March 5, 2023

March 5, 2023 host

The history of anti-slavery activism is a rich and important period in American history. But there are so many stories that still have yet to be written. Samuel Ward is one of those activists; an important figure in the African-American activist community working against slavery and racism, whose story is largely lost. Our guest R. J. M. Blackett is addressing this need to tell Ward’s story in a new book, Samuel Ringgold Ward: A life of Struggle. [ dur: 58mins. ]

R. J. M. Blackett is Andrew Jackson Professor of History emeritus at Vanderbilt University. His previous books are The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery and Making Freedom: The Underground Railroad and the Politics of Slavery.

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Scholars’ Circle – Turkey earthquake, disaster relief politics and humanitarian laws – Feb. 19, 2023

February 18, 2023 host

A massive earthquakes has rocked Turkey and Syria and killed thousands of people. The disaster response to this earthquake has faced challenges, including governance of the relief efforts and legal requirements under international law. We explore the relief efforts in light of scholarship on best practices and legal obligations. Who is responsible for security in the disaster zone? How much are local actors prioritized versus those who have come to the region to provide relief? And what happens when the security capacity of the affected state is so devastated by the disaster itself? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Andrea de Guttry is Professor of International Law at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA) in Pisa, Italy. He is the author of Foreign fighters under international law and International Disaster Response Law.
Branda Nowell is Professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at NC State University. She is the author of Public Management in an Era of the Unprecedented: Dominant Institutional Logics as a Barrier to Organizational Sensemaking and The Structure of Effective Governance of Disaster Response Networks: Insights >From the Field.
Nukhet Sandal is Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University. She is the author of Religious populist parties, nationalism, and strategies of competition: the case of the AK Party in Turkey and Religious Leaders and Conflict Transformation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies.

Earthquake Relief Organizations:

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Tag Archives: Politics and Activism

Scholars’ Circle – Sudan’s war between it’s Generals ; Wars in perspective – May 7, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Israel’s democratic challenge – April 23, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – French protests explained – April 16, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Addressing justice after mass atrocities – April 9, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Women protest in Iran, a persistent struggle – April 2, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War , book author interview – March 26, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – History of American grand strategy – March 19, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh from blockade at Lachin Corridor – March 12, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Samuel Ringgold Ward: A life of Struggle, a biography – March 5, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Turkey earthquake, disaster relief politics and humanitarian laws – Feb. 19, 2023

By Maria Armoudian