Last Tuesday was election day in the United States, and for these midterms, I am reminded that the President’s party typically loses seats. But this year, burdened with very low approval ratings and dissatisfaction with President Trump, the Republicans were routed. The Democrats won both houses with very comfortable majorities, exceeding even the most optimistic predictions for the party. How unprecedented is this Democratic victory? What led to these historic gains? What does it mean for the last two years of the Trump Presidency? [ dur:58mins. ]

Seth C. McKee is Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma State University. He is the author of The Dynamics of Southern Politics: Causes and Consequences and coauthor of Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South: The Untold Story with MV Hood.
Jan Leighley is Professor of Political Science at American University. She is the co-author of, Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality and Turnout in the United States,Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Mass Media and Politics: A Social Science Perspective.
Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office and his latest book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight For Democracy. He hosts the podcast This is Democracy.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, Elections, Governance / Law, 2026 elections, US

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Brazil’s Presidential Election – November 1, 2026

November 1, 2026 host

South America has seen a wave of right wing Presidential candidates wining elections in recent years. From Javier Millei in Argentina to Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia and Jose Antonio Kast in Chile, the region has turned sharply to the right.

This past month, Brazil held its Presidential election in the latest test of the right in the region. Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of the nation’s previous right wing President, Jair Bolsonaro, won the first round of voting but fell short of the 50% required to win. Then something rather unexpected happened. Incumbent President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva rallied and won in the second round. He has been elected to his fourth term as President.

Brazil is the largest nation in South America. It is the largest economy in the region and the 11th largest in the world. Additionally, it is home to the vast majority of the Amazon rainforest. Therefore, the impact of Lula’s surprise victory is quite significant. On today’s show we will discuss the election and consider what Lula’s victory means for the future of Brazilian politics. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Dr Mariana Borges is Lecturer in Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. She is author of Political clientelism in democracies and co-author of Weapons of clients: why do voters support bad patrons? Ethnographic evidence from rural Brazil.
Fernando Bizarro is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Boston College as well as Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University’s Jackson School of International Affairs. He is the co-author of Free public transit and voter turnout and The Fates Of Third-Wave Democracies.
Erica Resende is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Security Studies at the Brazilian National War College in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the co-author of The Role of Military Thinking in Bolsonaro’s Populist Foreign Policy. She is also co-editor Defending Memory in Global Politics: Mnemonical insecurity and Crisis, along with Dovile Budrtye and Doug Becker.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, Elections, Governance / Law, Presidential, Brazil

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Street Protests in France, India, US and its Effects on Authorities and Allies – October 25, 2026

October 26, 2026 host

What motivates big protest movements like the ones occurring in France, India, and the “No Kings” demonstrations in the U.S.? Are there common demands? Have generational shifts led to more protests?

When mass protests and large demonstrations break out, governments have responded with counter campaigns or violence to delegitimize protesters. What happens when governments counter movements? What constitutes a successful protest movement? [ dur: 58mins. ]

David S. Meyer is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Planning, Policy, and Design at UC Irvine. He is the author of The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America and co-editor of The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement. His blog is Politics Outdoors.
Michael T. Heaney is Lecturer in Politics and Research Methods at the University of Glasgow. He is a co-author with Fabio Rojas of the book Party in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11 (Cambridge University Press, 2015). With Melody Shemtov and Marco Roldán he is creator, producer, and writer of a documentary film, The Activists: War, Peace, and Politics in the Streets (Bullfrog Films, 2017).
Jeremy Pressman is Professor of Political Science at University of Connecticut. He co-founded the Crowd Counting Consortium, an event counting project that has tallied and made publicly available data on all manner of protests in the United States since 2017. He is the author of the book The sword is not enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the limits of military force (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2020). Pressman questions the over-reliance on military force and highlights the negative military and political consequences such as greater insecurity, Warring Friends: Alliance Restraint in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008) and co-author with Geoffrey Kemp, Point of No Return: The Deadly Struggle for Middle East Peace (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997).

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, France, India, US, protests

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – LA Mayoral Race; Author Interview on “Smuggler: Drugs, Gangs and Refugees at America’s Northern Border” – October 18, 2026

October 19, 2026 host

The midterms are fast approaching and here in Los Angeles where we record our show, the city braces for a much anticipated mayoral race. Incumbent Karen Bass, who initially expected to glide into re-election, is facing off with city councilwoman Nithya Raman, who narrowly defeated reality show participant Spencer Pratt in a contentious primary. While the polls show Raman leading, the vast number of undecided voters have left the race for leadership in America’s second largest city up in the air. We will discuss the mayoral race, with its non-partisan primary process, the different coalitions in a city famous for quickly shifting political sands, and the issues being raised in the race. [ dur: 24mins. ]

Isaac Hale is Assistant Professor of Politics at Occidental College. He is co-author of “Interest Group Influence on Preferences for New Voting Rights Legislation in a Polarized Environment” and “Resentment & Democratic Politics: The Role of Racial Resentment in Motivating Electoral Participation.”
Mike Bonin is Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State Los Angeles. He is the host of the podcast What’s Next Los Angeles, and a former Los Angeles City Council member.

Photo of Smuggler Inn at the US-Canada border. Authors are Reece Jones and Greg Boos

When we discuss borders in the US, we usually turn our attention to the southern border with Mexico. However, the US shares the world’s longest border in the world with Canada, and the narratives surrounding this border are essential to understanding not only the relationship between the two nations, but the individual stories of the people living on it. On today’s show we will turn our attention to the northwestern most point in the lower 48: Blaine, Washington. We will learn the story of Bob Boule and his role in smuggling and policing the US-Canadian border. [ dur: 34mins. ]

Reece Jones is Professor of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. He, along with his co-author Greg Boos, has written a new book detailing the story of Bob Boule entitled Smuggler: Drugs, Gangs and Refugees at America’s Northern Border. This is one of four other award winning books on the border, entitled Nobody Is Protected on racial profiling in the US, White Borders, on the relationship between race and immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Trump era. Violent Borders takes readers on a journey to hot spots of global migration to make the case that borders are inherently violent. And Border Walls (2012, Zed) draws on interviews with people impacted by walls built by the United States, Israel, and India.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Economics, Politics and Activism, Society and Culture, Elections, Refugees, Canada, Borders, Los Angeles

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – The Death Penalty: A Case of Cruel and Unnecessary Punishment by the State – October 11, 2026

October 12, 2026 host

On September 30, 2026, the state of Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1996. The state failed to execute her, and her case is not the first failed execution in the state. The subsequent reporting of how the execution was carried out and the pain and suffering that Ms. Pike experienced has raised several issues that we will attempt to explore on today’s show. These include whether the method of execution is a violation of the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment and whether the execution violated the Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory. Most importantly, the case of Ms. Pike raises the general human rights issue of capital punishment. So, on today’s show, we will explore the issues around the method of execution known as lethal injection. We will consider the general human rights questions of capital punishment, and we will try to understand what’s next, not just for Christa Pike, but for the future of capital punishment in the country. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College. He is the author of Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution and the forthcoming book Life After Death: Surviving Execution.
Sandra Babcock is Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide at Cornell Law School. “The Lethal Consequences of Gender Bias in the Application of the Death Penalty,” 45 Amicus Journal 4 and co-author of Defending Women and Transgender Persons Facing Extreme Sentences: A Practical Guide, with Nathalie Greenfield, Gabriela Markolovic, and Jessica Sutton.
Frank R. Baumgartner is Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence and Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty.
Jenny-Brooke Condon is Professor of Law in the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School. She directs the Equal Justice Clinic. She is the author of When Cruelty is the Point: Constitutional Restraints and Remedies for Family Separation and Denialism and the Death Penalty.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, Human Rights, Prison, Courts, Punishment, Death Penalty, Capital Crimes

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – We Explore the Future of Warfare – October 4, 2026

October 5, 2026 host

Ever since Russia attacked Ukraine, there have been predictions that the normative order against aggressive war was under threat. Then the US and Israel attacked Iran. Numerous scholars have predicted this would encourage China to attack Taiwan. The normative restrictions on war are loosening and the US is distracted and hence not able to help defend Taiwan. But two clear developments challenge this prediction. Russia, after 4 full years of war, is not likely to win this war anytime soon. And the US, despite the President’s continual assertions that it has won the war, clearly has not. Technology such as drone warfare might be a reason. Defensive tactics could be another. So on today’s show, we will explore the future of warfare in light of the Russian and American wars and their current lack of success. [ dur: 1h18m ]

Yvonne Chiu is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and serves on the board of directors for the International Society for Military Ethics. She is the author of “Strategic Ambiguity Out of Balance: Updating an Outdated Taiwan Policy” in The Strategy Bridge.
David McCourt, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Dragon Defined: How Washington, Canberra, and London Reimagined China.
Ricardo A. Crespo is Associate Professor of Political Science and the chair of the Political Economy Department at Grossmont College. He is the author of “Currency Warfare and Cyberwarfare” in Comparative Politics, and “Currency Warfare and Just War” in the Journal of Military Ethics.
Robert Williams Professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University. He is the author of Seeking Security in an Insecure World, with Dan Caldwell.

We are live in front of an audience at the International Studies Association’s West Regional meetings in Pasadena, California.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, Governance / Law, War / Weapons, Diplomacy, Militarism, Russia, Ukraine, United States, China, Iran

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Exploring Privacy as it Affects Security, Society and Democracy – September 27, 2026

September 29, 2026 host

Is the age of privacy over? We spend the hour on technology, spying and privacy, exploring how privacy, and the lack of it, affects security, democracy and society. What exactly is at stake when we lose our privacy? [ dur: 58 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Information Science at Cornell Tech. She is the author of Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, and co-author of Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest and Values at Play in Digital Games.
Michael Patrick Lynch is Professor of Philosophy & Director of the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data, True to LIfe: Why Truth Matters and In Praise of Reason.
Bruce Schneier is Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He is the author of 14 books including the New York Times best-seller Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World, and The Electronic Privacy Papers: Documents on the Battle for Privacy in the Age of Surveillance. His blog is “Schneier on Security.”
Joshua A.T. Fairfield is William Donald Bain Family Professor of Law at Washington and Lee School of Law. He is the author of Owned: Property, Privacy and the New Digital Serfdom, Privacy as a Public Good , and Smart Contracts, Bitcoin Bots, and Consumer Protection.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, Science / Technology, Privacy, Social Sciences

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Author interview on “Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census” – September 20, 2026

September 21, 2026 host

Data drives politics. But politics drive data. That is to say, we make political decisions based on data, often selected from mountains of available information.

collage of census questions with title of the book Data Are Made, Not Found by Danah Boyd

But how we gather data is an inherently political decision. And nowhere is this more clear than when the US collects the information about its population. Every ten years the Constitution mandates that the government conduct a census. And this process is complicated and inherently political. That is the message of our guest today, Danah Boyd is the author of a new book, Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census. . [ dur:58mins. ]

Danah Boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University, where she works on topics at the intersection of technology and society. She is also the founder of the research institute Data & Society and the author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, Democracy, Civil Servants, Policy making, US

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Canada US relations, Trade war – September 13, 2026

September 13, 2026 host

The United States and Canada share the longest undefended border in the world. We record this show on September 11 and I am reminded of Canada’s strong alliance with the US, allowing American flights to land as the skies closed and showing remarkable generosity to the passengers that day. But recently, the US has shown antagonism and even animosity to its ally to the North. Ranging from a President threatening the annexation of the nation (and making it the 51st state) to placing rather high rates of tariffs on many Canadian goods, the relationship between the two nations are strained. On today’s show, we will explore the history, the current state, and the potential future relationship between Canada and the US. And we will focus the discussion on the view from north of the border. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Mark Paradis is Professor of Political Science at Champlain College Saint-Lambert. He is coauthor of “Thawing Rivalries and Fading Friendships: An Experimental Approach to Rapprochement and Alienation.” and, with another of our guests, co-editor of Game Changer – The Impact of 9/11 on North American Security.
Marc O’Reilly is Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg University. He is the author of Unexceptional: America’s Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941-2007 and co-editor of the Handbook on Canadian Foreign Policy, along with our last guest, Patrick James.
Patrick James is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at USC. Alongside the publications with Mark Paradis and Marc O’Reilly, he is the author of Canada and Conflict and co-editor of Canadian Studies in the New Millenium.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Economics, Politics and Activism, Diplomacy, Canada, United States, Trade Wars

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Glacier Collapse, Flooding, Climate Change – September 7, 2026

September 6, 2026 host

On August 26, 2026, massive floods swept through Nepal and Tibet. As of this recording on September 3, over 1,200 people are reported killed and as many as 4,200 are still missing. A landslide reported to be an equivalent 5.2 earthquake hit the Nepal/China border in the Himalayan Mountains as a trigger of the flood. And it appears that the flooding was caused by a massive glacier collapse. So on today’s show, we will explore glacial collapse and their causes. And we will explore whether this disaster should be seen as a warning and signal of future environmental risk of catastrophe. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Umesh Haritashya is Director of the Sustainability Program and Professor of Earth, Environment and Sustainability at the University of Dayton, Ohio. He is the co-author of “Modeling lake outburst and downstream hazard assessment of the Lower Barun glacial lake, Nepal Himalaya”.
Mathias Vuille is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany, SUNY. He is the co-author of “Rapid decline of snow and ice in the tropical Andes-Impacts, uncertainties and challenges ahead.”
Bethan Davies is Professor of Glaciology in the Department of Geography at Newcastle University. She is the co-author of “Glacier changes in Langtang Catchment, Central Nepalese Himalaya from the Little Ice Age (∼1815 CE) to 2023 CE.”

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Environment, Politics and Activism, Science / Technology, Climate Change, Himalaya Mountains, Nepal, China

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – The 2026 Midterm Elections – November 8, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Brazil’s Presidential Election – November 1, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Street Protests in France, India, US and its Effects on Authorities and Allies – October 25, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – LA Mayoral Race; Author Interview on “Smuggler: Drugs, Gangs and Refugees at America’s Northern Border” – October 18, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – The Death Penalty: A Case of Cruel and Unnecessary Punishment by the State – October 11, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – We Explore the Future of Warfare – October 4, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Author interview on “Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census” – September 20, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Canada US relations, Trade war – September 13, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Glacier Collapse, Flooding, Climate Change – September 7, 2026

By Maria Armoudian