Talking Policy

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.

From U.S.-China trade wars and the COVID-19 pandemic, to the mounting effects of climate change, global supply chains are under severe strain. In this episode of Talking Policy, Etel Solingen, a distinguished professor and the Thomas T. and Elizabeth C. Tierney chair in Peace and Conflict Studies at UC Irvine, weighs in on what’s at stake, and shares lessons from her new volume, Geopolitics, Supply Chains, and International Relations in East Asia.

For people impacted by war and displacement, what are the long-term mental and social consequences of trauma—and what can be done to help them? In the latest episode of Talking Policy, Lindsay Morgan interviews Biz Herman, a UC Berkeley doctoral student and IGCC alumna, who studies the psychological consequences of conflict. Biz shares insights from the recent Human Security, Violence, and Trauma (HSVT) conference; and reflects on the relationship between trauma and justice, how trauma from political violence is similar and different from other kinds of trauma, and the societal impacts of collective trauma, and what that means for peacebuilding.

Manipulation and deception have always been a part of politics. But misinformation and disinformation are flourishing in the digital age, with social media, and new technologies like artificial intelligence, making fake content easier to create and disseminate. In this interview, IGCC expert Jacob Shapiro, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and co-director of IGCC’s new research initiative on disinformation, talks about what disinformation is, who’s doing it and why, and what can be done about it.

Recent analysis suggests that democracy is on the decline globally. Why and where is this happening—and what can be done about it? Here, Stephan Haggard, the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at UC San Diego, talks about his new book with Robert Kaufman Backsliding: Democratic Regress in The Contemporary World, and the role that polarization, quiescent legislatures, and incrementalism play in democracy’s decline—and what to do about it.

Nuclear war may at times seem the stuff of a bygone era. But with Iran and North Korea growing their nuclear weapons programs, a rapid acceleration in China, and a flagging U.S. arsenal—nuclear weapons are back on policymakers’ radars. Here, Brad Roberts, director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and an affiliated researcher at IGCC, analyzes the challenges ahead for the Biden administration—both to contain growing threats and modernize the U.S. enterprise.

With the Biden administration promising to rebuild global alliances, how will the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), one of the longest—and arguably most successful—alliances adapt to a rapidly changing world? In this edition of IGCC Conversations, Heidi Hardt, associate professor of political science at UC Irvine and expert in transatlantic security, talks about her book, NATO’s Lessons in Crisis, and the emerging challenges facing the alliance.

With the US drawing down forces in a number of global hot zones, and the Biden administration promising a break from Trump-era disengagement, Eli Berman, IGCC research director for international security studies and professor of economics at UC San Diego, revisits his book Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence Through Local Agents.