The Bombs America Left Behind, with Erin Lin
Today on Scope Conditions: when the bombs don’t go off, the war isn't over. We tend to think of peace as beginning when the bombs stop falling. But as our guest today shows us, this is only half the s...
6 Maj 1h 6min
When Unequal Places Invest, with Alice Xu
Today on the podcast, why are more unequal neighborhoods sometimes better at promoting the collective good? A world of high inequality is, in many ways, a world in which the fortunes of the rich are d...
23 Feb 1h 25min
Rules of Law, with Egor Lazarev
Political analysts are thinking a lot these days about the rule of law: where it comes from, what sustains it, how it can break down. Those are hard enough questions in themselves. And, yet — they sim...
17 Juni 20251h 20min
Violence as Campaign Strategy, with Niloufer Siddiqui
When we think of weak democracies around the world, we often think of their inability to maintain a monopoly on violence because of challenges outside the state – like militias, rebel groups, criminal...
20 Feb 20251h 14min
How Criminal Governance Undermines Elections, with Jessie Trudeau
In democracies all around the world, criminal organizations are involved in electoral politics. Notable examples include the Sicilian mafia and Pablo Escobar's drug cartel in Colombia. We sometimes th...
20 Sep 20241h 18min
What College Dorms can teach us about Culture, with Joan Ricart-Huguet
Today on Scope Conditions: college dorms shed light on where group culture comes from and how it molds us. At Harry Potter’s alma mater, each new student is assigned to a House that aligns with their ...
22 Juli 20241h 18min
Statecraft as Stagecraft, with Iza (Yue) Ding
Most governments around the world – whether democracies or autocracies – face at least some pressure to respond to citizen concerns on some social problems. But the issues that capture public attentio...
27 Jan 20241h 16min
