Best Ucpn Podcasts (2024)

1
Is There A Place For Natural Law In Today's World? 43:14

1h ago43:14

43:14

We've all heard about different kinds of laws...but there is a higher order law that often gets overlooked—it's called Natural Law. The idea behind Natural Law is that all humans are born with an innate understanding of what's right and what's wrong, and that laws should be based on morality. In today's world, where there is no shortage of internat…

1
Raj Chetty's Surprising New Insights On How Children Succeed 51:17

2h ago51:17

51:17

Is race a more consequential determinant of social mobility than class? How and under what circumstances do Americans move up the economic ladder? For years, Harvard economist Raj Chetty has leveraged big data to answer these questions. In his recent paper, Chetty and his team show that Black millennials born to low-income parents have more quickly…

1
Does Election Timing Matter For Turnout And Policy Outcomes? 42:33

17m ago42:33

42:33

We talk about it every election cycle…how can we get higher voter turnout? As part of the Center for Effective Government’s primer series focusing on the scholarship covering the pros and cons of different government reforms, University of Chicago Policy Professor Christopher Berry examined whether changing the timing of elections can result in hig…

1
The End of Google As We Know It? 51:12

8d ago51:12

51:12

This week we're taking a quick summer break, but in the meantime, we wanted to re-share a special episode that is relevant in the news again. With the recent federal court ruling that Google engaged in illegal monopolization of internet searches, we thought it would be a great opportunity to share our episode with lawyer Dina Srinivasan. She's an e…

1
Do Committees Lead To Better-Informed Legislative Voting? 37:46

6d ago37:46

37:46

In a recent paper by Washington University political scientist Michael Olson, he documents a very strange phenomenon. It seems that when legislators join committees, they’re voting record becomes less aligned with their constituents’ political preferences. The question is…why? Could it be that being on a committee means they’re just better informed…

1
Dani Rodrik on the New Economics of Industrial Policy 45:04

22d ago45:04

45:04

Harvard professor of international political economy Dani Rodrik has long been skeptical of what he calls "hyperglobalization," or an advanced level of interconnectedness between countries and their economies. He first introduced his theory of the "globalization trilemma" in the late 1990s, which states that no country can simultaneously support de…

1
Do Presidents Have As Much Power As We Think? 45:20

20d ago45:20

45:20

Since Biden’s debate performance, America’s political elite have been engaged in a debate. How much does a President really matter for effective government? If his administration seems to work fine, how much of an affect can a President have? At the same time, we important Supreme Court decisions that seem to be giving more power to Presidents whic…

1
The Economic Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood, with Jonathan Haidt 48:47

26d ago48:47

48:47

In one of this year's bestselling books, "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness," New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that today's childhoods spent under the influence of smartphones and overprotective parenting has led to the reported explosion in cases of tee…

1
Do City Services Move Faster for Affluent and White Neighborhoods? 47:19

2M ago47:19

47:19

Have you ever made a 311 call? This is a service provided by many cities that allows citizens to call in things like potholes, graffiti, fallen trees, ect. There is an assumption that many people have that requests made by white and more affluent neighborhoods probably get responded to faster. But is that accurate? In a recent paper, “Unequal Respo…

1
Immigration in America: Data and Myths, Revisited With Leah Boustan 36:06

1M ago36:06

36:06

If democracy is a social contract, why don’t we allow everybody who is willing to sign it? Why don’t we have open borders for immigration? In their book "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success," Princeton University’s Leah Boustan and Stanford University’s Ran Abramitzky provide insights from big data to explore how immigratio…

1
How To "Get Out The Vote" 42:02

2M ago42:02

42:02

Hello Not Another Politics Podcast listeners. We’re taking some much needed time off as the school year comes to a close; but with the elections right around the corner we still wanted to share some incredibly relevant and important political science research. Every Presidential election, we talk about “getting out the vote”. But what really works …

1
Can Law Govern War? Gaza, Israel and Beyond 48:02

2M ago48:02

48:02

When it comes to discussion about the conflict in Gaza, there is an endless parade of commentators on both sides telling us what is right or wrong, legitimate or illegal, a crime or a justified attack, but in all that debate and discussion the actual international laws of war often get pushed to the sidelines. We’re planning to do a series of episo…

1
Joseph Stiglitz's Vision of a New Progressive Capitalism 49:28

2M ago49:28

49:28

In the last 60 years, few economists have contributed more to exposing the failures of capitalism than Joseph Stiglitz. Formerly the chief economist of the World Bank and chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work showing that the possibility of having …

1
How Powerful Are October Surprises? 36:25

2M ago36:25

36:25

Hello Not Another Politics Podcast listeners. We’re taking some much needed time off as the school year comes to a close; but with the elections right around the corner we still wanted to share some incredibly relevant and important political science research. This week we’re resharing an episode all about October Surprises that has some counter in…

1
Capitalism-Was: What Happened to the American Dream? With David Leonhardt 48:21

2M ago48:21

48:21

Is the famed American Dream still attainable for the immigrants and working class of today? What made America the land of opportunity — and if it isn't the same anymore, what happened to it? Joining co-hosts Bethany and Luigi to discuss these questions is David Leonhardt, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "Ours Was the Shining Future.…

1
Does The Public View The Supreme Court As Legitimate In A Post-Dobbs World ? 43:43

3M ago43:43

43:43

The Supreme Court is supposed to be our non-political branch of government, making decisions solely on the constitutional soundness of laws. But in recent years it appears as though the Court has taken a shift to the right, most notably in the Dobbs decision in 2022. Which raises a question: does the public still the view the Court as legitimate? T…

1
The Money Behind Ultra-Processed Foods, with Marion Nestle 47:55

3M ago47:55

47:55

Critics of the food industry allege that it relentlessly pursues profits at the expense of public health. They claim that food companies "ultra-process" products with salt, sugar, fats, and artificial additives, employ advanced marketing tactics to manipulate and hook consumers, and are ultimately responsible for a global epidemic of health ailment…

1
How Good Are We At Spotting Fake News? 48:26

3M ago48:26

48:26

If the media is to be believed, the US public has a tenuous at best grasp on accurate political news. They’re either consuming disinformation and fake news on social media or following biasedly inaccurate news outlets. Either journalistic truth is as good as dead or we’re living in separate informational universes. But is this too alarmist, could t…

1
The Economics of Student Protests 35:01

3M ago35:01

35:01

Over the last few weeks, university politics has captured headlines as students across the country occupy sections of their campuses and demand that their schools divest from Israel in protest of its contentious war in Gaza. Last week for Compact Magazine, Luigi and Nobel Laureate Oliver Hart stressed that one lesson from these protests is that uni…

1
Is Gender Apartheid A Thing? 49:05

4M ago49:05

49:05

The word apartheid gets used in many different contexts to indicate the severity of crimes across the globe. But its use is controversial because the word has a very specific definition in international law. Even more controversial is the concept of expanding the term to include gender. If there is one place on earth where it could be argued that a…

1
Is Partisan Animosity Directed At Fellow Citizens Or Elites? 39:10

3M ago39:10

39:10

There is a fact of our political discourse so agreed upon that nobody thinks to question it: affective polarization…democrats and republicans disliking each other...has been getting worse, much worse. But what if that belief is actually based on polls measuring the wrong thing? That’s the argument made by Northwestern Political Scientist James Druc…

1
Is Private Credit In The Public Interest? with Jim Grant 48:59

4M ago48:59

48:59

The meteoric rise of private credit over the last decade has raised concerns among banks about unfair competition and among regulators about risks to financial stability. Historically, regulated banks have provided most of the credit that finances businesses in the United States. However, since the 2008 financial crisis, banks have restricted their…

1
Should Policy Match Voters' Preferences? 42:55

4M ago42:55

42:55

How do we know if our democracy is healthy? For political scientist, the answer often comes down to things we can measure like responsiveness to voter’s wishes. But is that really the right thing to measure? There are two camps in this debate. The empiricists want to focus on what and how we can measure things like the health of our democracy, ofte…

1
Ralph Nader's Capitalism 48:51

4M ago48:51

48:51

"The only true aging is the erosion of one's ideals," says Ralph Nader, the former third-party presidential candidate who just turned 90 after more than 60 years of consumer advocacy and fighting for small business in America. From influencing the transformative passage of car safety legislation to advancing numerous environmental protection and pu…

1
Are Too Many Political Appointments Harming Our Bureaucracy? 49:42

4M ago49:42

49:42

When it comes to our federal bureaucracy, there are two schools of thought. One says that an insulated group of career bureaucrats have created a deep state that corrupts the performance of government. The other says that our bureaucracy is dysfunctional because there is too much turnover or positions left vacant. Both rest on an underlying feature…

1
Is The Right to Read Under Threat? 40:01

5M ago40:01

40:01

In recent years, book bans have swept the nation. According to PEN America, more than 4,000 books have been banned in some capacity in public schools since July 2021. Books that discuss topics like racial justice or have characters that identify as LGBTQ+ are just some of the examples that have received widespread attention. While book bans are not…

1
The New Business Of News, with Ben Smith 49:54

5M ago49:54

49:54

Given the recent mass layoffs, acceleration of media consolidation, continued decline of local journalism, and rapid uptake of generative AI, the news industry—fundamental to institutional accountability in capitalist democracies—appears to be in deep crisis. Joining Bethany and Luigi to make the case that journalism can not only survive but thrive…

1
Should Judges Be Elected or Appointed? 49:53

5M ago49:53

49:53

There is a long running debate in political science: do we get better judges by letting the public vote in elections or by giving our leaders the power to appoint them? One side says that judges should be insulated from the influence of politics involved in elections, focusing entirely on the rule of law. The other side says that our judges should …

1
Poverty in America: Terrible Scourge or a Measurement Error? 48:17

5M ago48:17

48:17

Perhaps the biggest evidence that capitalism in America doesn’t work, at least not for everyone, is growing income inequality and the persistence of poverty. But what is the current state of poverty and inequality in the United States? Why do debates still persist about whether poverty has been eradicated? What do the numbers and official statistic…

1
Why Women Are Underrepresented in U.S. Politics 50:18

5M ago50:18

50:18

Despite making up roughly half of the U.S. population, women only make up about one-quarter of representatives and senators. And this trend is not just national—it holds true globally as well. What explains why women are underrepresented in politics? If women are just as likely to win elections as men do, then why are they less likely to run for of…

1
Do We Have The Right to Lie? 38:22

6M ago38:22

38:22

As kids, we all heard someone tell us that it's wrong to lie...but as we grew older, we realized that people lie all the time. Politicians, presidents, and even executives at corporations tell lies—big and small. As citizens, there are obvious exceptions where lying is wrong, for instance; perjury, lying on your employment application, or lying to …

1
When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything, with John Coates 49:30

6M ago49:30

49:30

In his recent book, "The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything," Harvard law professor John Coates sheds light on the secrecy, lack of public accountability, concentrated power, and the disproportionate influence of a select few institutions in our financial system. Coates joins Bethany and Luigi to dissect the pot…

1
What Makes A Legislator Effective? 44:10

6M ago44:10

44:10

When it comes to passing actual legislation, putting it forward and getting it all the way through the process, it can be difficult to measure exactly which legislators are effective. Not to mention which types of legislators tend to be more effective, moderates or extremists? And does majority-party membership increase effectives? In an innovative…

1
Is Short Selling Dead? With Jim Chanos 50:05

6M ago50:05

50:05

The Wall Street Journal wrote that “Wall Street's best-known bear is going into hibernation" after the legendary short seller Jim Chanos announced he would close his main hedge funds late last year, in part due to diminishing interest in stock picking. Short selling, which bets on drops in asset prices, wins when companies and governments fail and …

1
Do Conservatives Sabotage The Administrative State? 52:08

6M ago52:08

52:08

When we talk about the interpretation and ultimately implementation of policy we’re not talking about Congress so much as the Administrative State. But what happens when those who work in those agencies decide through their positions to not only sabotage a policy they’re meant to carry out, but perhaps the whole agency? In a recent paper titled “Ad…

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