Best Young Fabian Society Podcasts (2024)

1
Plastic not-so-fantastic: how to reduce packaging waste 1:02:05

5h ago1:02:05

1:02:05

Some of you may have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of the Pacific Ocean roughly 1.6 million square kilometres in size that contains between 45 000 to 129 000 metrics tonnes of plastic waste, mostly in the form of microplastics – fingernail sized or smaller bits of the material. The patch has increased 10-fold in size each decade…

1
How machine learning is going to affect your life 1:02:57

21d ago1:02:57

1:02:57

This podcast strives to bring forward new insights and innovative frameworks for understanding the world of the 21st century. Few things underscore just how radically different things are today from the 20th century than recent advances in artificial intelligence, where an AI ‘copilot’ on your smartphone can now perform myriad tasks for you in a fe…

1
What's hot in sports science? 58:17

2M ago58:17

58:17

James Steele is Associate Professor of Sport and Exercise Science at Solent University. He has extensive research and consultancy experience working with elite athletes across a range of sports, the general population across the lifespan, and both those who are healthy and diseased. He was a member of the Expert Working Group revising the CMO Physi…

1
How to do urban regeneration right 56:27

3M ago56:27

56:27

Regular host Dr Mark Fabian is joined by episode guest Dr Stefania Fiorentino, senior teaching associate in planning, growth, and urban regeneration at Cambridge university’s department of land economy. Dr Fiorentino’s research is at the intersection of urban planning and local economic development, specifically how to innovate with respect to the …

1
Culture, Morality, and Economics in Reef Management by Local Communities 55:13

4M ago55:13

55:13

Regular host Dr Mark Fabian is joined by Dr Jacqui Lau, senior lecturer and discovery early career fellow (DECRA) at James Cook University in Australia. Jacqui is an environmental scientist employing interdisciplinary perspectives and mixed methods to understand how coastal communities in the pacific islands and Australia respond to climate change …

1
Copaganda - How reality TV shows about police affect criminal justice reform 58:37

6M ago58:37

58:37

‘Copaganda’ is the name given to media that seeks to portray the police in a favourable, often distorted light. This includes fictional shows like Law and Order, CSI: Crime Scene Investigations, and Miami Vice, as well as reality-TV style shows that follow policy officers around as they go about their business. Emma Rackstraw’s research investigate…

1
How can we get more action on climate change? 1:01:20

7M ago1:01:20

1:01:20

Climate change is the biggest existential threat facing humanity. So why aren’t we doing more about it? This week’s guest is Dr Antonio Valentim, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Yale’s MacMillan Centre. His research seeks to answer two main questions 1) when and why do voters change their opinions and behaviours with respect to cli…

1
Labour For A New Democracy 26:43

8M ago26:43

26:43

In this episode of the podcast, host Will Barber Taylor speaks to Joe Sousek and Laura Parker from Labour For A New Democracy about what L4ND is, why change is needed to the electoral system, why the 2011 AV Referendum failed and the Labour Party's changing attitude to PR. For more information about Labour For A New Democracy, check out their websi…

1
Shadow Cabinet Reshuffle with Lauren Davison and Cathleen Clarke 21:42

8M ago21:42

21:42

In this episode of the podcast host Will Barber Taylor is joined in two separate interviews on the topic of the Shadow Cabinet Reshuffle by two veteran podcasters and Young Fabians - Lauren Davison, who is currently running for the Young Fabians Executive and Cathleen Clarke of the Left Whingers Podcast.…

1
How to achieve democratic consolidation in Africa 1:03:16

8M ago1:03:16

1:03:16

While Kim Jong Un might disagreed, democracy is widely regarded as a universal value – it is a system of political organisation that enshrines the right to self-determination. Recent centuries have seen a wave of democratisation relative to historical trends, with democracies replacing dictatorships and other autocratic forms of governance in natio…

1
Measuring the Human 1:11:24

9M ago1:11:24

1:11:24

One way to think about what makes *social* science distinct is that it is trying to study subjects, not objects. Subjects have feelings, opinions, and values, which are often hard to observe and even harder to measure. Subjects’ behaviour is also often endogenous to being studied. For example, the ‘shy conservative’ phenomenon refers to the observa…

1
Can we make the world a 'better' place with behavioural economics? 1:03:33

9M ago1:03:33

1:03:33

Regular host Dr Mark Fabian from the University of Warwick is joined by Dr Malte Dold, assistant professor of economics at Pomona College. Malte is one of the most prominent scholars in the field of behavioural welfare economics, which sits at the intersection of economics, philosophy, and psychology. You might have heard of behavioural economics, …

1
In All Our Footsteps with Tom Breen 34:16

9M ago34:16

34:16

In this episode of the podcast Will Barber Taylor is joined by Dr Tom Breen of Oxford Brookes University to discuss In All Our Footsteps, a research project that Tom is working on that aims to capture and record the various footpaths and other forms of rights of way that exist across the UK. They discuss Labour's contribution to rights of way acces…

1
Navigating decolonisation, religion, and gender in Zimbabwe 1:00:21

10M ago1:00:21

1:00:21

Raffaella Taylor-Seymour is an anthropologist and Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University. Her work examines religious transformations in the context of struggles over gender, sexuality, and the environment in contemporary Zimbabwe. This is a context in which colonization violentl…

1
The new contours of global inequality 1:02:10

10M ago1:02:10

1:02:10

Inequality is a perennial subject of politics, a foundational element of economic welfare analysis, and one of the central subjects of sociology. In this episode, Dr Marco Ranaldi from University College London joins regular host Dr Mark Fabian from the University of Warwick to discuss what's new in inequality research. A central topic is Ranaldi's…

1
The Renters (Reform) Bill with Conor O'Shea 22:44

11M ago22:44

22:44

In this episode of the podcast Will Barber Taylor, Chair of the Yorkshire and Humber Young Fabians and new host of the podcast, speaks to Conor O'Shea, the Policy and Public Affairs Manager at Generation Rent about the forthcoming Renters (Reform) Bill, an important piece of legislation that is set to change the rights of renters in England. They a…

1
How to achieve workplace wellbeing under capitalism 1:37:24

1y ago1:37:24

1:37:24

Workplace wellbeing kicked off in Silicon valley with ping pong tables, bean bags, and on 'campus' Michellin star restaurants. With Google, Facebook, Amazon et al. raking in the dollars, it wasn't long before other companies were exploring the theme themselves. Some of the outcomes seem sinister: employers encouraging you to see the firm as your fa…

1
No more Panama papers - combatting illicit finance 1:01:08

1y ago1:01:08

1:01:08

Have you heard of the Panama papers? A giant leak of 11.5 million legal and financial documents exposing a vast system of secretive offshore companies enabling corruption, tax avoidance, and other forms of wrongdoing? Well that system and how to clean it up is what this episode is about. Regular host Dr Mark Fabian is joined by Dr Matthew Colin, Se…

1
Spring Statement 24:50

1y ago24:50

24:50

In this week's episode, we are joined by Young Fabians Economy and Finance Network members to discuss the Spring Statement. Featuring: Connor Escudero Lauma Kalns-Timans Michael O'Connor Paul SpenceBy Young Fabian Society

1
'Woke' isn't a mind virus; it's generational change 1:05:42

1y ago1:05:42

1:05:42

Before there was the COVID-19 virus there was the 'Woke' mind virus, or at least that's how some reactionary commentators in the US refer to a cluster of strongly progressive cultural tropes, including emphasising racial and gender identity, prioritising equality of outcomes over equality of treatment, and being mindful of language that can be pote…

1
How does societal context affect human psychology? 37:42

1y ago37:42

37:42

One of the oldest and most famous questions in the social sciences is the debate over nature vs nurture in determining characteristics of the individual. Transcending this focus on the micro is a new field within social-psychology sometimes called social-ecological psychology, which explores how psychology brings about societal conditions and vice …

1
Dr. Jeevun Sandher 41:46

1+ y ago41:46

41:46

This week, we are joined by economist, political scientist, and academic, Dr. Jeevun Sandher, whose work and research focus on the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality in the UK. In this episode, we spoke to Jeevun about his research and asked him to set out his priorities for how to tackle this country's growing inequality. We also di…

1
Young European Socialists 58:32

1+ y ago58:32

58:32

In this week’s episode, we are joined by bureau members from our sister parties within the Young European Socialists (YES) to celebrate The Young Fabians being a full member for a year! We discussed exactly what YES is and how you can get involved, the impact of Brexit on the UK and the rest of the EU and how this relates to the importance of colla…

1
Oveturning of Roe v. Wade 1:09:03

2y ago1:09:03

1:09:03

On 24th June the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the legal right to abortion across the US which had been upheld since 1973. In this episode, we are joined by Young Fabians members Zahra Lahrie, Charlotte Kelly, Nicki Adeleke, Cecilia Jastrzembska and Amy Dwyer for a discussion about the history of Roe v. Wade, the legal protections th…

1
How to revive left behind places 1:01:43

2y ago1:01:43

1:01:43

Recent political cycles across the OECD have seen the ‘revenge of places that don’t matter’. These ‘left behind places’, where economic prosperity has withered and culture decayed, have made their misery known electorally. The economic consequences, notably assaults on trade and globalism, and the human misery obvious in things like deaths of despa…

1
The future of the factory 1:05:16

2y ago1:05:16

1:05:16

What is the future of the factory in economic development? That is the subject of a forthcoming book by this episode’s guest, Dr Jostein Hauge from the University of Cambridge. Numerous scholars, Harvard’s Dani Rodrik arguably most prominent among them, have noted that industrialisation among contemporary developing countries is more muted than it …

1
What animals can teach us about consciousness 1:04:26

2y ago1:04:26

1:04:26

Mark is joined by Heather Browning from the London School of Economics and Walter Veit from the University of Sydney who their ideas regarding the nature of consciousness, what we can learn about consciousness from animal studies, and the implications for animal welfare. Should we think of consciousness as some special property unique to human mind…

1
The peculiarities of public health in Africa 57:08

2y ago57:08

57:08

The advancement of health care is one of the hallmarks of development and a central objective of not for profit, public, and private organisations, especially in the developing countries of Africa. Wiktoria Tafesse is an early career researcher working on a range of topics at the University of York’s Centre for Health Economics. She joins ePODstemo…

1
How we can boost sustainability, equality, and health by reducing food waste 57:16

2y ago57:16

57:16

Through most of human history, we needed more food, cheaper food, and easier to access food, so we built economic systems that could deliver mountains of the stuff. Now that was a noble effort at the time, but we didn’t think much about waste, and so huge quantities of food today ends up in landfill where it turns to greenhouse gases, or rots on th…

1
What even is empathy? 1:01:23

2y ago1:01:23

1:01:23

Regular ePODstemology host Dr Mark Fabian is joined by philosopher of science Dr Riana Betzler from Washington University in St Louis to discuss the nature and study of empathy. In popular culture, empathy is one of these haloed qualities that we generally perceive as good and desirable. Yet in recent years some psychologists, notably Paul Bloom at…

1
The Spring Statement 35:19

2y ago35:19

35:19

In this episode, the Economy and Finance Network respond to the Chancellor's Spring Statement that was announced last month. In the face of rising energy bills, a cost of living crisis and families facing the worst financial damage since records began, does this mini-budget go far enough to address the damage and alleviate the squeeze that househol…

1
Machine learning and the acceleration of discovery 58:34

2y ago58:34

58:34

ePODstemology is about popularising the genuinely new ways of thinking emerging from the pathbreaking research of young scholars. There are few fields that represent this agenda more than machine learning, a branch of computer science and statistics that promises to dramatically accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, crack open hard questions…

1
Political science needs to get real about fake news 51:30

2y ago51:30

51:30

The biggest change in electoral politics in the last decade is without a doubt the advent of social media. The Cambridge Analytica scandal in Brexit, Russian bots in the EU, the zone that Steve Bannon suggests political parties flood with shit, it’s all happening on our favourite doom-scrolling apps. How is political science getting to grips with t…

1
The big issues in macroeconomics 1:02:07

2y ago1:02:07

1:02:07

What are the big questions in macroeconomics right now? Well there’s the unprecedented assault on Russia’s financial architecture, that’s quite topical. We usually study how to avoid financial crises, not how to start them. How do a tank a central bank? Just a few weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the big news was the return of inflation. A…

1
#BreakTheBias - Women with Disabilities 44:00

2y ago44:00

44:00

To mark International Women's Day, Rhiannon, Rosie and Sharne from the Disability Advocacy Group had a conversation about their experiences and the issues faced by women with disabilities; within healthcare, the education system, in politics, throughout the pandemic and many other areas of society. This year's theme for International Women's Day is…

1
The secular benefits of religious practices 1:09:15

2y ago1:09:15

1:09:15

How does science, the quintessential secular enterprise, study religion? What can we learn about religion by applying the tools of scientific method, and what can religion teach secularists about how to build thriving societies? In this episode, social psychologist Dr Kitty O'Lone from Cambridge University's Woolf Institute joins ePODstemology host…

1
Social technologies of care for unlearning capitalism 1:00:26

2y ago1:00:26

1:00:26

Artist, feminist economist and activist Cassie Thornton joins ePODstemology host Mark Fabian to discuss her recent project The Hologram, a social technology for creating peer to peer care networks and unlearning capitalism. Inspired by the community health clinics of post-GFC Greece, The Hologram seeks to cultivate our capacity for caring about oth…

1
Everything you've ever wanted to know about migration policy 1:05:07

2+ y ago1:05:07

1:05:07

Long before Donald Trump referred to Mexican migrants as 'bad hombres', migration was a perennially hot topic in economic and social policy. Some of the endlessly debated question in this space include: do migrants hurt the labour market prospects of locals by taking away jobs and depressing wages? Or do they instead create more opportunities by br…

1
An honest guide to wellbeing 1:23:55

2+ y ago1:23:55

1:23:55

The ePODstemology Christmas Special! Popular guest, Bayesian Bae, and all round great person Rachel Meager from the LSE returns to ePODstemology to sit in the host's chair and interview regular host Mark Fabian from Cambridge University. The topic is all things wellbeing. The philosophy of it, the psychology of it, the economics and public policy o…

1
Why we need participatory governance in Infrastructure 55:43

2+ y ago55:43

55:43

Infrastructure is the skeleton upon which the economy is built. Energy, water, sewerage and other utilities provide the fuel and take away the waste; roads, bridges, railways, ports, and broadband cables facilitate the movement of goods that is the essence of commerce; and town halls, leisure centres, parks are the sites on which the public sphere …

1
The nature, causes, and consequences of the far right 56:55

2+ y ago56:55

56:55

Believed dead and buried after World War 2, the far right has risen like a zombie from the ashes of deindustrialising towns to once again plague the polities of the trans-Atlantic region. The electoral success of Trump and Brexit made the ‘elites’ pay attention, but it’s only recently that we’ve come to understand enough about what happened in 2016…

1
Towards a 21st Century Curriculum 50:19

2+ y ago50:19

50:19

This week's episode is all about the upcoming Education Network pamphlet, titled 'Towards a 21st Century Curriculum'. I was joined by Amy Dwyer, chair of the network and co-ordinator of the pamphlet, who gave us a bit of background behind the project; how it came about and what its aims are, as well as discussing her own piece for the pamphlet on c…

1
What's the difference between 'prejudice' and statistical discrimination? 1:03:32

2+ y ago1:03:32

1:03:32

What is the difference between merely 'statistical' discrimination and prejudice? How can we disentangle these things in social sciences research, and should we? How can researchers get away from a focus on the individual in discrimination research to better understand how institutions, culture, and macro-history cause both statistical and prejudic…

1
The history of industrial policy for development 1:01:43

2+ y ago1:01:43

1:01:43

Whether it's build back better, levelling up, or the climate transition, industrial policy is back in the news. Everyone wants to restructure their economies for geopolitical, equality, green, or good old fashion efficiency reasons, but how to do it? Nathan Lane from Oxford University joins host Mark Fabian from Cambridge University to discuss. Ind…

1
Judicial Review with George Peretz QC 39:13

2+ y ago39:13

39:13

In this week's episode, we are joined by George Peretz QC to talk all about judicial review; What is it? Why does it matter? And why should we be concerned about the Conservative Government's attempt to reform it? Read George's piece from the Fabian Review here Speakers: Thomas Fawns - https://twitter.com/thomasfawns George Peretz QC - https://twit…

1
What social science can learn from biology 1:05:18

2+ y ago1:05:18

1:05:18

What can social scientists learn from biology? A great deal, according to guest Reuben Finigan of the London School of Economics. The burgeoning field of sociobiology provides mind-blowing insights into sociological phenomena like cooperation, common pool resource management, corruption and rent seeking behaviour, how market actors try to deceive r…

1
Dealing with Losers from the Climate Transition 1:01:54

2+ y ago1:01:54

1:01:54

'Creative destruction' is an inevitable and desirable part of ongoing economic activity, but it does have losers. In particular, the employees of firms that go bust and obsolete industries that disappear. In normal times, these workers will find employment elsewhere or in emerging industries, especially if they are able to retrain easily. But in ti…

1
Economics and Statistics. Also why you should be Bayesian. 1:05:42

3y ago1:05:42

1:05:42

This episode is all about statistics in social science. It's one for all the new armchair epidemiologists out there, especially if COVID has got you thinking about how we can make "evidence-based policy". Statistics cheerleader Rachel Meager, who is Assistant Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Politics Science, joins host …

1
Why passive data farming is good, actually 1:01:37

3y ago1:01:37

1:01:37

What are the potentials and pitfalls of the new data economy and associated efforts at data governance? Tech entrepreneur, digital marketer, and academic researcher Sam Gilbert joins ePODstemology host Dr Mark Fabian of Cambridge University to discuss how we can achieve "Good Data". Sam explains the commercial, scientific, and social value of data,…

1
Meaning in life according to science 1:04:03

3y ago1:04:03

1:04:03

The psychological science of happiness, well-being, and meaning in life has progressed rapidly in recent decades but it's insights are only just starting to penetrate the public discourse. Here to help is Frank Martela, a psychologist from Aalto University in Finland, the world's happiest country according to the World Happiness Report. Frank and h…

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Young Fabian Society Podcasts

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