Solidarity and the City

Dipali Mukhopadhyay (Columbia University) describes her journey between New York City, Kabul and back to NYC again in the early weeks of the pandemic, what similarities she found between the two cities, and how the pandemic solidarity spilled over into the anti-racism protests in the summer. 

Presidents, Peace talks, and a Pandemic

Omar Sharifi, the director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies in Kabul, describes how Kabul faced a constitutional crisis, a public health  emergency, and delicate peace talks all at once in spring 2020. The pandemic also led to widespread economic hardship in the city, which was confronted by residents who organised food aid for…

Made You Look

While the world has its attention fixated on the prospects of a vaccine, other health crises lie waiting in the wings. So, on this week’s show we dump the Political Scientists and go in search of Pharmacist Jason Bower. We find him holed up, Skywalker style, on a farm in Shropshire, UK. Jason tells us…

Crisis to Crisis

5 June 2020 – As the United States lurches its way through the COVID-19 pandemic, protests against racial injustice have emerged to reshape the political landscape even further. This week we speak Shana Gadarian and Tom Pepinsky, two scholars who live and breathe crisis, about how party affiliation now determines whether people wear masks or…

Dear Permanently Temporary Workers, Go Home!

25 May 2020 – What do Kangaroos and Sex buddies have in common? Almost nothing, but find the answer to that question that and a whole lot more about Australia’s troubled COVID-19 response towards migrant workers on this week’s episode. As Sanushka Mudaliar reveals, Australia may have flattened the curve on covid but it faces…

Shining Light on the Hill

18 May 2020 – South Korea has been held up as the leading example of how to respond to COVID-19. Yet, recent flare-ups in night clubs have reminded us all that we’re in for a long period of suppress-release-repeat. We check in with our former colleague, Sijeong Lim to hear about how the LGBTQ community…

Its not the 30 pesos, its the 30 years

May 1 2020 – How do you enforce a lockdown when nobody trusts the government? That’s the dilemma confronting the COVID-19 response in Chile, where the government entered the crisis with historically low approval ratings after introducing a 30 peso rate hike on public transport in the Spring. Abbey and Darshan chat with Carla Alberti…

Quaran ‘Strongly Requests’ You Stay Home

    April 24 2020 – In countries like the Netherlands, stereotypes of ‘authoritarian’ and ‘obedient’ Asian societies have been used to explain why Europeans need more ‘liberal’ responses to COVID-19. In this podcast Kyohei Yamada helps us untangle some of these ideas, detailing Japan’s peculiarly non-intrusive measures, and pointing to the unique historical and…

Sunshine in the Abyss: COVID-19 Shakes International Politics

3 April 2020 – Francesca Grandi & Antonio Barroso – This week Abbey introduces us to two of her pals from London. Francesca has her fingers on the pulse of the UN response to COVID-19 and Antonio is a risk analyst guiding governments and businesses on how to address uncertainty in a time of ‘assumptions…