NATO’s military strength and unswerving trans-Atlantic solidarity enabled it to contain and ultimately defeat the Soviet Union. But with Vladimir Putin’s Russia resurgent, and eager to restore some of its past glory, people speak of a new “Cold War”. But this one is very different from the first. It is being fought out on the internet; through propaganda; and by shadowy, deniable operations. It is not the kind of struggle that plays to the Alliance’s traditional strengths. Worse still, NATO – currently marking its seventieth anniversary - is more divided than ever; its member states having very different priorities. President Trump has added additional strains, raising a question-mark over Washington’s fundamental commitment to its European partners. So can NATO hold together and adapt to the new challenges it faces or will it sink into a less relevant old age?
Producer: Stuart Hughes
Editor: Jasper Corbett
The uses and misuses of history in politics
Barely a day passes when an MP doesn’t reach for an historical analogy to help explain contemporary events. But to what extent do the Battle of Agincourt and World War II really help us better understand what’s happening now? Edward Stourton asks if there is a danger that some politicians might have misunderstood some of the best known moments in Britain’s history?
Guests:
Professor David Abulafia (Emeritus, University of Cambridge)
Professor Anne Curry (Emeritus, University of Southampton)
Professor Neil Gregor (University of Southampton)
Professor Ruth Harris (University of Oxford)
Professor Andrew Knapp (Emeritus, University of Reading)
Professor Andrew Roberts (Visiting, King’s College London)
Professor Robert Tombs (University of Cambridge)
Producer: Ben Cooper
Editor: Jasper Corbett
Can I Change Your Mind?
There’s a widespread belief that there’s no point talking to people you disagree with because they will never change their minds. Everyone is too polarized and attempts to discuss will merely result in greater polarization. But the history of the world is defined by changes of mind –that’s how progress (or even regress) is made: shifts in political, cultural, scientific beliefs and paradigms. So how do we ever change our minds about something? What are the perspectives that foster constructive discussion and what conditions destroy it?
Margaret Heffernan talks to international academics at the forefront of research into new forms of democratic discourse, to journalists involved in facilitating national conversations and to members of the public who seized the opportunity to talk to a stranger with opposing political views:
Eileen Carroll, QC Hon, Principal Mediator and Co-founder, Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution
Jon Connor-Lyons, participant, Britain Talks
James S. Fishkin, Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication and Director, Centre for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
Danielle Lawson, Post Doctoral Research Scholar, North Carolina State University
Ada Pratt, participant, Britain Talks
Mariano Sigman. Associate Professor, Torcuato Di Tella University, Buenos Aires
Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School
Jochen Wegner, Editor, Zeit Online
Ros Wynne-Jones, columnist, Daily Mirror
Presenter: Margaret Heffernan
Producer: Sheila Cook
Editor: Jasper Corbett
State Aid: Brexit, Bailouts and Corporate Bonanzas
When the steelworks at Redcar went bust in 2015 the government said it couldn’t bail out the company that ran the plant because of the EU’s state aid rules, which regulate how much money the government can give to businesses and industry. 1700 jobs were lost in the North East of England, which has the highest unemployment rate in the UK. Voices on the left and right say the state aid rules are holding Britain back from supporting its industry. Are they right? Does Brexit give Britain the chance to take back control of how it manages its industrial policy? Or do the state aid rules protect taxpayers from governments handing out large subsidies to big corporations? In this edition of Analysis, James Ball, global editor of the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, explores the EU’s state aid rules, how they affect our livelihoods, and what might happen if the UK decides to stop playing by the rules after Brexit.
Producer: Xavier Zapata
Editor: Jasper Corbett
Interviewees:
Brian Dennis, former Labour Councillor
Mariana Mazzucato , Professor of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, author of the Entrepreneurial State and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
Usha Haley, the W. Frank Barton Distinguished Chair in International Business at Wichita State University
Nicole Robins, head of the state aid unit at Oxera
Corri Hess , reporter for Wisconsin Public Radio
Kenneth Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at The University of Missouri, St Louis
George Peretz QC, Barrister at Monckton Chambers and co-chair of the UK State Aid Law Association
Nicholas Crafts, Professor of Economic Historian at Sussex University
The New Censorship
Democracy flourishes where information is free flowing and abundant, so the logic goes.
In the West the choice of information is limitless in a marketplace of ideas. While authoritarian regimes censor by constricting the flow of information.
But even in the West a new pattern of control is emerging. And this free flow of information, rather than liberate us, is used to crowd out dissent and subvert the marketplace of ideas.
Peter Pomerantsev examines how the assumptions that underpinned many of the struggles for rights and freedoms in the last century - between citizens armed with truth and information and regimes with their censors and secret police - have been turned upside down.
Producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Jasper Corbett