Talking Policy

In the final episode of The State of the World, Talking Policy host Lindsay Morgan sits down with former California Governor Jerry Brown to discuss the challenges we face as a global community and pathways forward. This episode was recorded on January 9, 2024.

The State of the World is a special series on IGCC’s Talking Policy podcast that explores the biggest global challenges that will shape our future. The series is part of a suite of activities celebrating IGCC’s 40th anniversary. Since 1983, ⁠⁠IGCC⁠⁠ scholars from across the University of California and the UC-managed National Labs have used rigorous research, training, and policy engagement to improve policies and practices in ways that help reduce conflict and build a more peaceful world. To celebrate our 40th anniversary, we’ve created The State of the World, a Talking Policy miniseries featuring faculty from across the University of California on the biggest global challenges that will shape our future.

Archival audio used in this series is from NPR; the University of California, Irvine, audio recordings collection; Freesound.org; the Internet Archive; the Library of Congress; and the United States Government. Used with permission, where applicable. Any unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

Taiwanese voters go to the polls on January 13 to elect their next president. The election will determine the next phase of Taiwan's foreign policy. Both Beijing and Washington will be watching closely. 

In his fourth Dispatch from Taiwan, James Lee, IGCC affiliate and assistant research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taipei, shares insights into the election and results from a recent survey of Taiwanese citizens. This interview was recorded on November 16, 2023, and December 6, 2023.

The world is changing rapidly. A grinding war of attrition is being fought in Europe. Democracy and liberalism are being challenged around the globe. China is rising as an economic and technological superpower and competitor to the United States. Arms control is breaking down. And the climate crisis is threatening to exacerbate conflict, displacement, and inequality.

Since 1983, IGCC scholars from across the University of California and the UC-managed National Labs have used rigorous research, training, and policy engagement to improve policies and practices in ways that help reduce conflict, foster global cooperation, and build a more peaceful world.

To celebrate our 40th anniversary, we are creating a Talking Policy miniseries that will give listeners access to expert analysis—without the jargon. Simple, punchy interviews will help unpack these daunting questions and put things happening locally—whether in Los Angeles, Lagos, or Lausanne—into a broader context of what’s happening globally.

The series will explore threats to democracy, as well as democratic resilience; the global implications of China’s rise; nuclear weapons proliferation and how to limit their spread and use; and the security implications of climate change.

The United States has experienced striking changes in leadership in recent years. From Obama to Trump to Biden, Americans have elected presidents with vastly different political commitments and bases of support. Do such leadership changes lead to drastic changes in policy? A new book by Michaela Mattes and Ashley Leeds, Domestic Interests, Democracy, and Foreign Policy Change, suggests that democracies’ foreign policies are actually more stable than is generally assumed.

This interview was recorded on Sept. 29, 2023.

For the first time in its nuclear history, the United States faces two major power adversaries armed with nuclear weapons. China is rapidly expanding its nuclear forces, and in Russia, Putin announced in February that the country would be suspending its participation in New START, the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control pact. In the latest on Talking Policy, host Lindsay Morgan talks with Brad Roberts, director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and former Obama administration deputy assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, about what this means for the U.S. and the world. This interview was conducted on May 5, 2023.

In this series, The Short Read, host Lindsay Morgan shares analysis from Political Violence At A Glance, an award-winning online magazine sponsored by the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, which also sponsors the Talking Policy podcast. In this episode, she reads a piece by past IGCC dissertation fellow and Brown University postdoctoral fellow Mariana Carvalho titled, "Why Are There So Many Political Assassinations in Brazil?"

In this new series, The Short Read, host Lindsay Morgan shares analysis from Political Violence At A Glance, an award-winning online magazine sponsored by the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, which also sponsors the Talking Policy podcast. In this episode, she reads a piece by IGCC dissertation fellow and UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate Oren Samet and UC Berkeley Robson Professor of Political Science Susan Hyde titled, "Can Democracy Assistance Be Effective in the Age of Authoritarianism?"

In this new series, The Short Read, host Lindsay Morgan shares analysis from Political Violence At A Glance, an award-winning online magazine sponsored by the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, which also sponsors the Talking Policy podcast. In this episode, she reads a piece by IGCC dissertation fellow and UC Los Angeles Ph.D. candidate Kevin Gatter titled, "That's Not Really A Thing Anymore: Why Calls for Secession Come and Go."

Tensions between the U.S. and China, and between China and Taiwan, continue to simmer. In our third Dispatch from Taipei, Talking Policy host Lindsay Morgan talks with James Lee and what Taiwanese people think about U.S. policy towards Taiwan. James is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and an affiliated researcher at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. This interview was conducted on January 24, 2023. 

Though COVID-19 failed to feature prominently (or at all) in the U.S. midterms, the aftershocks of the pandemic are still influencing politics in the U.S. and beyond. To help us consider the impact of public health emergencies on democracy, in this Talking Policy episode, host Lindsay Morgan talks with George Rutherford, an infectious disease specialist and professor of epidemiology at UC San Francisco, and Kim Yi Dionne, a political scientist at UC Riverside who studies health, politics, and public opinion. This interview was recorded on Nov. 3, 2022. 

In our second dispatch from Taipei, Taiwan expert James Lee talks about his recent article in Global Asia, “The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis is Here,” why a Chinese invasion is unlikely, and what a Republican sweep in the U.S. midterms would mean for U.S.-China-Taiwan relations. This interview was recorded on November 2, 2022. 

In Talking Policy’s Dispatches from Taiwan series, host Lindsay Morgan talks with Taiwan expert James Lee about what the mood is like in Taipei amidst rising tensions with China; whether a war is likely; and what might be Xi Jinping’s endgame. James is based at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taipei, and is a research affiliate with the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (a Talking Policy sponsor).

Today’s increasingly potent rivalry between the U.S. and China spans many domains, but is particularly acute in the techno-security sphere. Will China overtake the U.S. and become the dominant global techno-security power? If so, when? In this interview, Talking Policy host Lindsay Morgan talks with leading China expert, Tai Ming Cheung, about China’s progress in the techno-security space, how Beijing’s moves are driving changes in the defense posture of the U.S., and what might happen if China succeeds in overtaking the U.S. Cheung, a long-time analyst of Chinese and East Asian defense and national security affairs and author of Innovate to Dominate, The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State, is the director of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and a professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego.

China is the world's second largest economy and has become a technological powerhouse. But this year, the economy of China's main rival, the U.S., is forecast to grow at a faster rate than China's for the first time since 1976. Is China's economy at a crossroad? In this interview, Barry Naughton, one of the world's most highly respected economists working on China, says that increased government intervention is bad for China’s long-term interests and for the world, and answers questions about what role the private sector will play in China’s economy going forward, whether China is looking for a new economic model (and if so, what is it?), and whether talk of decoupling from the United States a real possibility or just bluster.

Barry Naughton co-leads IGCC research on China's science, technology, innovation, and industrial policy and is an economist at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Innovations like artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, cyber technologies, and even new capabilities in space have the potential to change the way countries fight during war time, and how they compete during peace time. But having new technologies available is one thing. Effectively using them is another. In this interview, IGCC fellow Shira Eini Pindyck explains why militaries that are gender inclusive are better at adopting and using innovations.

In this episode of Talking Policy, IGCC Postdoctoral Research Associate and Taiwan expert James Lee is interviewed by guest host and IGCC affiliate Patrick Hulme about whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will embolden China in Taiwan—or not.

How is the war in Ukraine impacting African countries? In the latest Talking Policy episode, Lindsay Morgan talks with Prince Paa-Kwesi Heto, a doctoral candidate at UC Irvine and Ghanaian political economist, about food price increases, the risk of debt distress, and Western calls for African countries to “get off the fence” and condemn Russia.

In the latest in the Talking Policy series on Ukraine, Asli Bali, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and expert in human rights law and comparative constitutional law, talks about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine and beyond, what obligations the international community has to protect civilians, and why ending the war should be the most important priority. A graduate of Williams College and the University of Cambridge, Yale Law School and Princeton University, Bali previously worked for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and currently serves as co-chair of the advisory board for the Middle East Division of Human Rights Watch. This interview was recorded on April 18, 2022.

In the latest in the Talking Policy series on Ukraine, Susan Hyde, a Professor of political science at UC Berkeley and IGCC researcher on the Future of Democracy initiative, talks about the relationship between the war in Ukraine and the global war for supremacy between democracy and autocracy. This interview was recorded on April 14, 2022.

In this interview, IGCC affiliate Patrick Hulme interviews Branislav Slantchev, a professor of political science at UC San Diego who studies military coercion, intrawar negotiations, the conduct of war, and how wars end. A native of Bulgaria, who previously lived in Ukraine, Slantchev offers candid thoughts on the limits of analysts’ predictions about war, the true cause of Putin’s aggression, and the futility of red lines. This interview was recorded on March 23, 2022.

In the latest from Talking Policy’s series on Ukraine, Lindsay Morgan talks with Jana Grittersova, an Associate Professor of political science and cooperating faculty in the Economics Department at UC Riverside, and Vinnie Aggarwal, Distinguished Professor and Alann P. Bedford Chair in Asian studies at UC Berkeley, about the economic implications of the war in Ukraine. Grittersova is a former central banker at the National Bank of Slovakia and worked as an economist at the European Commission in Brussels. Aggarwal specializes in the intersection between business and politics and the role of international economic and trade organizations.

In the latest from Talking Policy’s series on Ukraine, James Lee, an IGCC postdoctoral fellow and Taiwan expert, talks with IGCC director and UC San Diego professor Tai Ming Cheung about how Russia’s invasion of and campaign in Ukraine may impact Chinese military strategy; the implications of the war for Chinese-Russian relations; and how he thinks the academic and policy worlds need to shift amidst the latest global upheaval.

In the latest from Talking Policy’s series on Ukraine, Michael Nacht, who holds the Thomas and Allison Schneider chair in public policy at UC Berkeley and is a specialist in US national security policy, nuclear weapons, and regional security issues affecting Russia and China, shares candid thoughts on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin's strategy, and the risk of nuclear confrontation.

The war in Ukraine is challenging assumptions about the world among policymakers and ordinary citizens alike. To help listeners understand what is happening, what it means, and what might happen next, a new Talking Policy series will bring together experts from across the University of California to answer questions about the political, economic, security, and humanitarian implications of the Ukraine invasion. In this episode, IGCC’s Lindsay Morgan interviews Vice Admiral Charlie Martoglio about events unfolding in Ukraine and how they relate to growing great power rivalry between democracies and authoritarian regimes.

Concern is growing that disinformation, spreading at an unprecedented speed and scale, is causing grave damage in the U.S. and globally to everything from elections to vaccine uptake. But could the headlines be wrong? Do as many people believe in conspiracies as is generally assumed? In the latest Talking Policy episode, we talk with political scientists Molly Roberts and Seth Hill about why belief in conspiracy may be overblown.

On the anniversary of the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, many are asking whether increased political violence is in the United States’ future. In a new episode of the Talking Policy podcast, we talk with Barbara Walter about her new book, How Civil Wars Start, and about the factors that increase the likelihood that countries will turn to violence, and their growing presence in American life.

Multilateral international organizations are a key part of the rules-based global liberal order, facilitating global and regional cooperation, and shared notions of human rights, democracy, and capitalism. But the number and influence of regional international organizations (RIOs) with powerful authoritarian members is on the rise, helping to stall democratization and promote autocratic regimes. In this episode of Talking Policy, IGCC fellow Christina Cottiero charts the growth of authoritarian RIOs since the end of World War II and analyzes their pathways for influence, including through election monitoring, peacekeeping, and development assistance.