Nivruti Rai is country head of Intel India and was recognized by Fortune India as one of the top 20 Most Powerful Women in Business in that country. She joins host Judith Kelley to discuss women in business and how private business and government can intersect, especially when it comes to a U.S.-based company and a country that is growing as rapidly as India.
Jason DeParle is a reporter for the New York Times and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He was just a young reporter when he moved to the slums of Manila and lived with a local family. He has followed that family for three decades. The resulting book is remarkable; it provides an intimate yet sweeping perspective on migration.
Medicaid is one of the largest social welfare programs in the United States. With over 70 million people enrolled, it covers 20 percent of the US population.
Though the program is federal, it’s implemented by the state and some states offer generous benefits while others do not. Professor Jamila Michener argues these disparities are actually having an effect on democratic citizenship. Her research shows that when Medicaid expands, more people vote, and when it contracts (or there’s a narrower scope of benefits) then people are less likely to vote.
Jamila Michener is an assistant professor at Cornell University. Her book is Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
The number of college students across the nation who voted in the midterms doubled between 2014 and 2018. At Duke University, the voting rate was even higher – it jumped 114 percent. We explore how that jump happened and what specific strategies other colleges could use to increase their own student voting rates.
Guests: BJ Rudell, Associate Director of POLIS, the Center for Political Leadership, Innovation and Service at Duke University and Lindsay Morgenstein, student voting drive organizer.
In 2009, President Obama launched an initiative designed to use a community outreach approach to counter violent extremism. Ten years later, Professor David Schanzer, Director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security has analyzed the policy, and he says it was deeply flawed, but there are lessons to be learned.
With recent scientific reports on the effects of climate change, climate strikes around the world and big companies like Amazon promising action, climate change is a topic that is important to research and understand. We discuss climate-related policy ideas with Billy Pizer, an expert in climate change policy, law and legislation.
Billy Pizer is Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy and senior associate dean in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
New research shows forest fires are actually more harmful than we've previously thought. It's not just about the impact they may have on the environment or on the economy, but also on human health, especially unborn children.
Guest: Subhrendu Pattanayak, Oak Foundation Environmental and Energy Policy Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University
Jacob Bachmeier serves in Montana’s House of Representatives. He was just 18 when he was elected. A classmate was his campaign manager. At the time of his election, he was the youngest state lawmaker in the country.
Guest host: Gunther Peck of Duke University’s Hart Leadership Program
Note:
Policy 360 will return to our regular biweekly schedule in September.
China is investing heavily in coal around the world, even going so far as to build the coal sector from scratch, in a variety of developing countries. Coal plants are either being planned or constructed in 14 countries that currently have no coal power to speak of. Plants are also being planned for 19 other countries, and those new coal plants would more than double each country’s existing coal-fired capacity. Guest, Jackson Ewing, of Duke University's Nicholas Institute of Environmental Policy Solutions, explains.
In a new intergovernmental report, scientists say a million species of plants and animals could go extinct due to climate change, many within our lifetimes. Duke University Professor Alexander Pfaff contributed to the report. He's here to talk about history, and the five hurdles that have tripped policymakers and advocates up in the past when it comes to reversing environmental loss.
Show Notes:
Read the op-ed Alexander Pfaff wrote for The Hill
Music: Open Flames by Blue Dot Sessions / Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution
A Duke University interdisciplinary student team has spent the past academic year trying to get a better understanding of the barriers to energy investment in rural Zambia.
The team looked at policy issues, assessed customers' willingness to pay, and even created a geospatial application so potential investors can easily look at variables in each region before deciding to invest.
Research shows that working-class people almost never become politicians, but Carmen Castillo is both a hotel housekeeper and a three-term Providence Rhode Island City Council member. Yet when Carmen first began to work as a housekeeper, the only English words she knew were "yes" and "no." How did she do it?
Carmen Castillo is featured in the documentary film Councilwoman.
Professor Nick Carnes' book is The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office.
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Image: Melissa Carrico
Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions / Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
The massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand was announced online and streamed live on Facebook. Afterwards, copies of the video were uploaded to YouTube at a rate of one per second.
Phil Napoli is an expert in media regulation and policy. He has provided expert testimony to the U.S. Senate, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission among other government entities. He joins host Judith Kelley to discuss potential government regulation of social media platforms.
Subscribe to the Policy 360 podcast: www.policy360.org/
Read a transcript: sites.duke.edu/policy360/2019/04…ate-social-media/
Music: Vittoro by Blue Dot Sessions freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/ Licensed under Creative Commons: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
Political satire isn't new, it's been with us throughout history, even Shakespeare's works were packed with political commentary. Lately Political News itself seems more like entertainment television. So how do you make fun of something that already seems like a joke?Our next guest says, it's a blessing and a curse to be a Trump era comedian. Zhubin Parang is a producer for the Daily Show with Trevor Noah having previously served as the head writer for three years. He even majored in political science and sociology at Vanderbilt University. He attended Georgetown law school, he was a corporate lawyer before he was hired by the Daily Show.
Zhubin has won multiple primetime Emmy awards for his work on the Daily Show. His trip to Duke was sponsored by POLIS, the center for Political Leadership, Innovation and Service, as well as the Dewitt Wallace Center for Media andDemocracy, the Sanford School and the Graduate Student Association of Iranians at Duke.
Subscribe to the Policy 360 podcast: www.policy360.org/
Read the transcript here: sites.duke.edu/policy360/files/2…bin-Parang-1.docx
Image: Melissa Carrico
Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/ Licensed under Creative Commons: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
We came across a great podcast produced by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. It's called Trending Globally [watson.brown.edu/news/trending-globally]. The weekly podcast features insight on today's critical global challenges. So today on Policy 360: a special episode from Trending Globally.
The episode features Sam Wilkin, an economist, political risk consultant, and fellow at the Watson Institute [watson.brown.edu/people/visiting/wilkin]. In 2015 Sam started to work on a book about the history of populist movements around the world. At the time people weren’t too interested in what he was saying. Then Donald Trump was elected President, and people became very interested. His book History Repeating: Why Populists Rise and Government’s Fall [profilebooks.com/history-repeating.html], came out in March of 2018.
Madeleine Albright served as the 64th U.S. Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton. In this episode of the Policy 360 podcast, she joins Sanford School of Public Policy Dean Judith Kelley to discuss the rise of fascism around the world, concerns about President Trump, the fragility of democracy and the messages hidden in her jewelry.
Transcript: https://sites.duke.edu/policy360/2019/03/04/ep-87-madeleine-albright/
Music: Vittoro by Blue Dot Sessions freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/ Creative Commons License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the One Belt, One Road Initiative. The massive infrastructure project aims to link countries along the old Silk Road routes with Europe. China has spent close to $150 billion a year in the 68 countries that are taking part.
Such a large undertaking has immense implications for the environment. Duke University faculty member Alexander Pfaff has been detailing the potential environmental risks of the BRI and considering alternatives that would avoid environmental damage while still allowing for improved infrastructure.
Subscribe to the Policy 360 podcast: www.policy360.org/
Read a transcript: sites.duke.edu/policy360/2019/02…-road-initiative/
Image: Duke University
Music: Open Flames by Blue Dot Sessions freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/ (Creative Commons License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ )
Venezuela is in the midst of a catastrophic economic crisis. According to Forbes, Venezuela’s yearly annual inflation reached 80,000% in 2018, up from 2,400% the year before.
The hyperinflation was so intense that officials revalued the currency at a rate of 100,000 to 1 – and even after that, the exchange rate with the US dollar is still nearly 3,300 to 1. People are spending hundreds of dollars on basic necessities and many still go hungry.
And now on top of this economic hardship, two men are both claiming to have the right to be President.
Patrick Duddy has plenty of experience with the divisiveness of Venezuelan politics, and with the concerns of the people. He previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela and is currently the Director of Duke University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Subscribe to the Policy 360 podcast: www.policy360.org/
Read the CompleteTranscript (Link to come)
Image: Melissa Carrico
Music: Vittoro by Blue Dot Sessions/Creative Commons License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
With college basketball season in full swing and March Madness close approaching, the attention of the sports world is centered around student athletes. Yet despite the press brought to universities by these sports, they are rarely mentioned in the mission statement or acknowledged to be as influential as they are. On this episode of Policy 360, Charles Clotfelter discusses the tremendous impact college athletics has on students, alumni, and beyond, for better or for worse, as well as what can be done to reform how schools treat the business of sports as a core part of their identity. Charles Clotfelter is a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy and author of the book Big-Time Sports in American Universities. (Cambridge University Press).
In 1995, John Koskinen was deputy director of the federal Office of Management and Budget. President President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was tussling with a Republican Congress over a variety of issues. Soon the government was in the midst of its first major shutdown.
Koskinen joins Sanford School of Public Policy Dean Judith Kelley to discuss lessons from that shutdown. They also talk about accomplishments and challenges Koskinen faced during his career spanning 11 different public leadership positions in the public and private sectors.
Music: Blue Dot Sessions/Creative Commons
Rich countries have a variety of reasons to give money to poorer countries. In this episode of Policy 360, Sarah Bermeo discusses what the U.S. foreign aid policy strategy is today, how it has changed over the years, and what that means for peace and security. Sarah Blodgett Bermeo is an associate professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy and author of the book Targeted Development: Industrialized Country Strategy in a Globalizing World.