Network for Responsible Public Policy

We Need to Talk: Affective Polarization and Discussion
2023-11-02 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
In the talk, Professor Levendusky discusses the origins of affective polarization, the tendency of Democrats and Republicans to dislike and distrust one another. He will share strategies he has tested in his research for reducing this animosity, centered on discussion.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sgLVnKuvQeidjKyIOac0iw
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, November 2, 2022

Matthew Levendusky is professor of Political Science, as well as the Stephen and Mary Baran Chair in the Institutions of Democracy at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. He also holds a secondary (courtesy) appointment at the Annenberg School for Communication. He was previously the Penny and Robert A. Fox Director of the Fels Institute of Government (2018-2023), Distinguished Fellow in the Institutions of Democracy at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (2017-2019), as well as graduate group chairperson (2013-2018), associate professor (2013-2018), and assistant professor of Political Science at Penn (2007-2013), as well as a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University (2006-2007). He obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2006 and his BA (with highest honors) from The Pennsylvania State University in 2001. Since 2014, he has served as a decision desk analyst for NBC News.

Kristina Becvar, the guest host, is the Executive Director of the Bridge Alliance. Her professional journey has been nothing short of transformative. From a legal, operational, and change management background, she followed her curiosity to explore the world of data analytics and research methods, opening up new career paths for herself. Kristina is deeply engaged in nonviolence advocacy, particularly for those affected by war and conflict in conflict zones and international security. Her experiences as the spouse of a disabled combat veteran have contributed to her desire to bring about positive change in this field. During her M.S. pursuit, Kristina delved deep into her passion as a Human Security Lab project manager, supervising research on topics like nuclear taboos, Ukrainian conscription law, and post-U.S. withdrawal civilian voices in Afghanistan.

What Are Human Rights Anyway?
2023-10-19 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Human rights go beyond traditional American concepts of civil liberties.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in the wake of World War II without dissent, included all kinds of rights – civil and political rights (like the right to free speech and a fair trial), social and economic rights (like the right to food, shelter, and education) and, critically, a right for all people to be treated with dignity – a concept traceable to the French value of fraternité.
At a time when civil liberties in many places around the world–and even here at home–are under siege, could this more expansive vision of our ideals help us to promote freedom, peace, and community?
The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a good time to look at what this widely praised document actually says, why its framers thought that all of its values are inextricably interconnected, and America’s track record of implementation of those values.”

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Dd2YiF0TTkyOqZjJpreWHA
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:
Susan Herman is the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. Like Ginsburg, she served as General Counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. In October 2008, Herman was elected as the seventh President of the ACLU, a position she held until stepping down in January 2021. She teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure, and seminars including Terrorism and Civil Liberties, Law and Literature, COVID-19 and the Constitution, and Current Issues in Constitutional Law.
Herman has written and spoken widely in the areas of Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure. Her publications include several books as well as articles in law reviews, periodicals, and online venues. Her book, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy (Oxford University Press 2011; paperback edition 2014), was awarded the Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. She has discussed constitutional law issues on radio, including a variety of NPR shows; on television, including programs on CNN, CSPAN, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS; and has been a frequent speaker at conferences and events organized by schools, universities, and law schools; by groups ranging from the Federal Judicial Center to the U.S. Army War College to Wikimania; and at international conferences like Web Summit and Collision.
Elisa Massimino is Visiting Professor of Law and Executive Director of Georgetown’s Human Rights Institute. She also serves as a non-resident senior fellow in national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress.
Massimino joined the Georgetown faculty in 2019 as the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. Before coming to Georgetown, Massimino was a senior fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, Massimino spent 27 years—the last decade as president and CEO—at Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations.
Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. She has testified before Congress dozens of times; writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals; appears regularly in major media outlets; and speaks to audiences around the country. During her leadership at Human Rights First, the influential Washington publication The Hill consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the country; Washingtonian magazine has repeatedly named her one of D.C.’s most influential people in foreign policy.

Penny M. Venetis, host/moderator, is a Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law and the Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise Scholar at Rutgers Law School, where she is the founder and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic. Her scholarship focuses on the interplay between U.S. constitutional law and international human rights law. Professor Venetis has litigated cutting-edge issues in state and federal courts throughout the U.S., as well as in international tribunals. Her lawsuits have covered issues of first impression in the areas of: freedom of speech, voting rights, equal protection, rape and sexual abuse, human trafficking, the Alien Tort Statue, and immigrants’ rights. Her 1995 Jama lawsuit led to the first federal court decision to find that international human rights law can be applied in damages actions for abuses committed in the U.S. Her challenge of felony disenfranchisement (state laws that disenfranchise over 5 million U.S. citizens simply because they have felony convictions) is currently being heard by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Professor Venetis was instrumental in drafting and helping to pass FOSTA/SESTA (federal anti-human trafficking legislation), and in introducing “sextortion” into the criminal codes of over 25 states to protect the public, particularly children, from online sexual predators. Professor Venetis has testified before many legislative bodies around the U.S. Her work has been covered widely by the media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Politico.

Event Co-sponsors:

Civil Liberties: The Next Hundred Years
2023-10-13 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Brookly Law School or Zoom, 250 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, NY, 11201, United States
About the Discussion
Please join us for a celebration of Advanced Introduction to US Civil Liberties (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023), the most recent publication by Susan N. Herman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, and of Professor Herman’s 40-year career at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), including serving as President from 2008 to 2021.
The panel includes an all-star roster of civil libertarians, including Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, UC Berkeley School of Law; Ellis Cose, acclaimed author and journalist; Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, ACLU; and Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita, New York Law School and former President, ACLU, in a discussion of the future of civil liberties, with the past and present described in the book as prologue. This event will be held both in person and virtually on Zoom.
Please use the RSVP link below to register to attend this event in person at Brooklyn Law School or virtually on Zoom. Virtual attendees will receive the Zoom link shortly before the event.
https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1286/18/interior-wide.aspx?sid=1286&gid=1&pgid=3571&cid=5000

More Information
For general inquiries regarding this event, please get in touch with the Brooklyn Law School Office of Events at events@brooklaw.edu or (718) 780-0321.
Requests for a reasonable accommodation, based on a disability, to attend this event should be made to Louise Cohen, Director of Equal Opportunity and Title IX Coordinator, at louise.cohen@brooklaw.edu. Please make your request at least 10 days before the event. We will do our best to address accommodation requests made after the 10 days.
Co-sponsored by the ACLU and presented in collaboration with the Network for Responsible Public Policy (NFRPP).

State of the 2024 Elections: Context and Predictions from Academe
2023-09-21 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
This discussion will focus on the 2024 elections and the presidential campaign in process, highlighting the most important aspects of the race and putting the contest in a scholarly perspective. Manza and Herbst will bring their broad knowledge of American political and public opinion to the analysis of the campaign, going beyond the polls and media reports. Where are we with regard to political discourse, culture, and the future of the presidency, and how can we, as citizens, assess our role in these fraught times?

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OqGFIXEHQ4-5gG-3Im13qg
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:

Susan Herbst is University Professor of Political Science and President Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Herbst is a scholar of public opinion, media, and American politics and is the author of five books and many articles in these areas. Along with Lawrence R. Jacobs, Adam J. Berinsky, and Frances Lee, she edits the University of Chicago Press Studies in American Politics. Her most recent book, A Troubled Birth: The 1930s and American Public Opinion, was recently published by the University of Chicago Press. Before coming to UCONN, Herbst was a faculty and administrator at Northwestern University, Temple University, and Georgia Tech.

Jeff Manza is Professor of Sociology and the chair of the Department of Sociology at New York University. He received his BA and PhD from the University of California – Berkeley. Before coming to NYU in 2006, he taught at Penn State (1996-98) and Northwestern (1998-2006). His teaching and research interests lay at the intersection of inequality, political sociology, and public policy. His research examines how different types of social identities and inequalities influence political processes such as voting, partisanship, and public opinion (at both the macro and micro level).

Event Co-sponsors:

Climate Change Solutions with Bill McKibben
2023-07-11 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Most understand the climate is changing before our eyes. Implementing solutions has been slowly occurring, but much more needs to be accomplished. Join Bill McKibben for an in-depth discussion on the opportunities, priorities, and diverse solutions to address the challenges of carbon emission and climate change. Find out what each of us can do to make a difference.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KhSMFuBjRCuTyV4aox1vuA
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:
Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, and his latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.

Daniel L. Sosland, the moderator, is the President of Acadia Center. For over 25 years, Dan has been working in the field of climate and clean energy solutions. His major focus has been as president and co-founder of Acadia Center, a non-profit research and advocacy organization acting at the state, regional, and community levels to advance climate and clean energy solutions in the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada. One of the first such organizations created in the U.S. to address climate solutions, Acadia Center, has won awards from U.S. EPA, the American Council for an Energy Efficiency Economy and others for its groundbreaking work on climate pathways, energy efficiency and transforming government to be responsive to climate and equity and is ranked in the top 1% of non-profits evaluated by Charity Navigator. Prior to Acadia Center, Dan’s work focused on energy efficiency and forest and watershed protection. Dan was given the Maine Forever Award by Gov. Angus King and the Exemplary Public Service Award from Cornell Law School. He began his career at a major law firm in New York City and holds a JD with honors from Cornell Law School and a BA from Brown University. He is a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Climate Action Network.

Event Co-sponsors:

Great Power Competition and the Middle East
2023-06-15 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
A new collaboration between China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia has emerged, confronting the US and the global community. What does such a collaboration actually mean for US foreign policy, competition with China, relationship with Saudi Arabia, and long-time challenging issues with Iran? What does this mean for democracy in the US and elsewhere? There are many questions, and it might be too early to determine the nature of this collaboration, but our expert team will get us thinking.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E09WBbu2Sya3AMOPzP_9KQ
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:
F. Gregory Gause, III, joined the Bush School in 2014 as the head of the Department of International Affairs, serving until 2022 in that capacity, and holds the John H. Lindsey ’44 Chair. He was previously at the University of Vermont, where he was professor of political science from 1995 to 2014 and, from 2010 to 2013, chair of its Department of Political Science. He served as director of the University’s Middle East Studies Program from 1998 to 2008. He was a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Doha Center from 2012-2015. Dr. Gause received his PhD in political science from Harvard University (1987) and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo (1982-83) and at Middlebury College (1984). Dr. Gause’s research focuses on the international politics of the Middle East, with a particular interest in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. He has published three books, the most recent of which is The International Relations of the Persian Gulf (Cambridge University Press, 2010). His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Middle East Journal, and The National Interest, as well as in other journals and edited volumes. He has testified on Persian Gulf issues before the Committee on International Relations of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Andrew Scobell is the Distinguished Fellow for China at the United States Institute of Peace and Adjunct Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Prior to joining USIP, he spent eleven years as Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. During 2021 he held the Donald Bren Chair in Non-Western Strategic Thought in the Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University. Earlier he served on the faculty of Texas A&M University (2007-2010) and at the U.S. Army War College (1999-2007). Scobell’s publications include: Crossroads of Competition: China, Russia and the United States in the Middle East (RAND 2022); China-Russia Cooperation: Determining Factors, Future Trajectories, Implications for the United States (RAND 2021); China in the Middle East: The Wary Dragon (RAND 2016). Scobell earned a doctorate in Political Science from Columbia University. He was born and raised in Hong Kong.
Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, and the Director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll. He is also Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including Cornell University, the Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. He has also been active in the foreign policy arena. He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama. He is the author and editor of numerous books. His best-selling book, The Stakes: America and the Middle East, was selected by Foreign Affairs as one of the top five books on the Middle East in 2003. His most recent book is a co-edited with contributions volume, The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine? which was published in March 2023 with Cornell University Press. He has one forthcoming books: Peace Derailed: Obama, Trump, Biden, and the Decline of Diplomacy on Israel/Palestine, 2011-2022 (co-authored). Telhami was selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York along with the New York Times as one of the “Great Immigrants” for 2013. In 2022, he was listed by the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the “Most Influential People on Foreign Affairs.” He is also a recipient of the University of Maryland’s Honors College Outstanding Faculty Award, The University of Maryland Distinguished Service Award, and the University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award.
Gideon Rose, the moderator, is the Mary and David Boies Distinguished Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously Editor of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2021. He served as Associate Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 under the Clinton Administration. His most recent articles in Foreign Affairs are “Why the War in Ukraine Won’t Go Nuclear”, and “The Irony of Ukraine.”

Event Co-sponsors:

Protecting the freedom to vote from election disinformation and anti-voter legislation
2023-05-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Democracy in the balance: Election and voter issues remain grave concerns. Trevor Potter and Hayden Johnson will explore peak pandemic voter access expansion policies, the rise of the “election denier,” as well as election manipulation efforts and post-2020 efforts to roll back voter access. Potter and Johnson will provide the CLC response.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f57vOao6RwCLJAQLT2SoNA
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:

Trevor Potter is the president of the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), an organization dedicated to advancing democracy through law. A Republican former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Trevor was general counsel to John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns and an adviser to the drafters of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The American Bar Association Journal has described Trevor as “hands-down one of the top lawyers in the country on the delicate intersection of politics, law, and money.” Trevor has appeared widely in national broadcast and print media. To many, Trevor is perhaps best known for his recurring appearances on The Colbert Report as the lawyer for Stephen Colbert’s super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, during the 2012 election.

Hayden Johnson is an attorney on litigation and policy projects across CLC’s programs. Highlights from his CLC work include litigating disputes during the 2020 election, contributing to the development of the Electoral Count Reform Act, confronting voter intimidation, and advocating against gerrymandering.

Kevin Johnson, the moderator, is the Executive Director of Election Reformers Network, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to modernizing U.S. democratic institutions threatened by polarization. Kevin leads ERN’s programs in impartial election administration, independent redistricting, and voting rules. Mr. Johnson is also a member of the Carter Center’s Election Expert Study Team, which supports Carter Center programs in the U.S.
Mr. Johnson’s election reform experience includes seven years overseas with the National Democratic Institute, ten years on the Board of Common Cause Massachusetts, and advisory positions with American Promise, Rank the Vote, and Voter Choice Massachusetts.
Mr. Johnson has authored more than two dozen election-related opinion pieces in outlets including The Washington Post, The Hill, Governing, and The Daily Beast, along with longer reports on topics such as partisan election administration and gerrymandering. Mr. Johnson has an MBA from Wharton and a BA from Yale.

Event Co-sponsors:

Ukraine Update III
2023-04-20 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
As Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on, one wonders what to anticipate. Will the Coalition hold over time? Will Russia be held accountable for crimes? Can a small country succeed in its passion for independence and quest for democracy? How will peace be achieved? What is the likely future of Ukraine and Russia? What could be the impact on the global community? These are a few of the questions on our minds. You have your own questions. Our distinguished experts will help to unpack and understand the complexities and challenges of this war in its current phase and what to anticipate going forward.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3Gz3jRObSzCio2wM_9kj-A
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

Speakers:
Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy. He received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.I.A. from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy, focusing on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia. He also edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Oxana Shevel is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and current Vice President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) and the American Association of Ukrainian Studies (AAUS). Her work explores nation-building and identity politics in the post-Soviet region. Her book, Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011), won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies prize for best book in the fields of Ukrainian history, politics, language, literature, and culture. Her recent work has focused on the sources of citizenship policies in the post-Communist states, comparative memory politics, and religious politics in Ukraine. With Maria Popova, she is currently writing a book on the root causes of the Russo-Ukrainian war, entitled Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States, scheduled to be released in late 2023. Dr. Shevel holds a PhD in Government from Harvard University.

Gideon Rose, the moderator, is the Mary and David Boies Distinguished Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously Editor of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2021. He served as Associate Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 under the Clinton Administration. His most recent articles in Foreign Affairs are “Why the War in Ukraine Won’t Go Nuclear”, and “The Irony of Ukraine.”

Event Co-sponsors:

Understanding Fiscal Policies, Debt, and Entitlements
2023-03-16 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
We are overwhelmed with diverse perspectives and approaches to fiscal policies that can be confusing. Are we in a fiscal crisis over debt, entitlements, and the federal budget? Such a complex issue, focusing on debt/debt ceiling and entitlements, will be unpacked by NFRPP’s two distinguished economists with different perspectives and solutions. Presentations will be followed by a discussion with NYTimes’ Peter Coy and your questions.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E62T586YQmSke9Rp3p4_aQ
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, March 16, 2023

Speakers:
Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management and heads the Global Economics and Management group. He is on leave from the position of senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In 2007-08 he was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Dr. Johnson holds a BA from the University of Oxford, an MA from the University of Manchester, and a PhD. in economics from MIT. Dr. Simon’s latest book Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream, written with Jon Gruber, explains how to create millions of good new jobs and make money work for us through public investment in research and development. This proposal has attracted bipartisan support.
Randall Wray is a Senior Scholar and Professor of Economics at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and is currently the 2022-23 Mark and Melodye Teppola Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Willamette University. He previously was a Professor at the University of Missouri and the University of Denver and has been a visiting professor in Rome, Bergamo, Paris, Brno, Nankai, Campinas, Bogota, and Mexico City. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Bologna, Italy, in 1986-87 and 1994-95, and at the University of Talin, Estonia, in 2016 . Dr. Wray holds a BA from the University of the Pacific and an MA and Ph.D. from Washington University, St. Louis, where he was a student of Hyman Minsky. He is one of the developers of Modern Money Theory–an approach that focuses on how money really works in a sovereign nation like the USA. Dr. Wray will discuss his recent book, Making Money Work For Us.
Discussant/Moderator:
Peter Coy, our moderator, writes about economics, business, and finance for Opinion in the NYT. Prior to writing for the TIMES, he was the Economics Editor at Bloomberg Business Week. Coy is an alum of Cornell University.

Event Co-sponsors:

Antisemitism and Its Impacts
2023-02-16 19:30 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Antisemitism has again reared its ugliness. Jews have experienced antisemitism throughout history on a spectrum from everyday slights to genocide. Today, old misconceptions are propelled by social media and controversies over Israel. A small minority, Jews have been an easy target and scapegoat for provoking anger and hatred by those motivated for power and influence. Plagued through history’s continuation of myths about Jews, how do we come to understand that scapegoating others ultimately undermines democracy? What would be a road map to change?

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sQGcHZJFSR2wNSLh9W1Yqg
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, February 16, 2023

Speakers:
Dr. Kurt Braddock is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at American University, where he is also a faculty fellow at the Center for Media and Social Impact. Dr. Braddock’s research focuses on understanding the psychological effects of extremist communication, as well as how those effects can be undermined to prevent violence. His work has been published in several security and communication journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Communication Monographs, and New Media and Society. He has also appeared as a commentator on issues related to terrorism and violent extremism on CNN, NBC News, Politico, Vox, and others. Dr. Braddock’s first book, Weaponized Words: The Strategic Use of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. He advises several national and international organizations, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of State, the UK Home Office, Public Safety Canada, and the UN Office for Counter Terrorism.

Cathy Buerger is the Director of Research at the Dangerous Speech Project. She studies the relationship between speech and intergroup violence as well as civil society responses to dangerous and hateful speech online. She has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, where she remains a Research Affiliate of the university’s Economic and Social Rights Research Group. She is also the Managing Editor of the Journal of Human Rights.

Dr. Jeffrey Herbst has been president of American Jewish University since July 2018. He was previously president and CEO of the Newseum and the Newseum Institute in Washington, DC. From 2010 to 2015, he was president of Colgate University. Before that, he served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio. For 18 years, he taught at Princeton University, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in 1983. Herbst earned a doctorate in 1987 from Yale. He is the author of the award-winning “States and Power in Africa” and many other books and articles. He has also published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other papers across the world. He has received two Fulbright Scholarships and a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

Roger Berkowitz, discussant/moderator, is Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and Professor of Politics, Philosophy, and Human Rights at Bard College. Professor Berkowitz authored The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition (Harvard, 2005; Fordham, 2010; Chinese Law Press, 2011). Berkowitz is editor of The Perils of Invention: Lying, Technology, and the Human Condition (forthcoming 2020) and co-editor of Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics (2009), The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis (2012) and Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Hannah Arendt’s Denktagebuch (2017). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The American Interest, Bookforum, The Forward, The Paris Review Online, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and many other publications. Berkowitz edits HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center and the weekly newsletter Amor Mundi. He is the winner of the 2019 Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought given by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Bremen, Germany.

Event Co-sponsors:

The Supreme Court and Originalism
2023-01-19 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Throughout US history, judges, scholars, and citizens have argued about how to go about interpreting the US Constitution. The current Supreme Court has embraced a methodology called “originalism” or “original public meaning.” But what exactly is “originalism”? What is its backstory? How does it differ from other approaches to interpretation? Are there good arguments for and against it? How does the Court’s focus on this one methodology shape its decisions and affect our lives? Three distinguished authorities will help us understand originalism and its discontents.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uXBiWcBCRb-Klm_onMC-DA
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday January 19, 2023

Speakers:
Perry Dane is a Professor of Law at the Rutgers Law School. He was previously on the faculty of the Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to William J. Brennan, Jr., Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
His academic interests include Constitutional Law and Theory, Conflict of Laws, Religion and the Law, legal pluralism, the jurisprudence of Jewish law, the law of marriage, and interfaith dialogue. In 2011, Professor Dane received the Inaugural Dean’s Award for Scholarly Excellence at the Rutgers School of Law – Camden. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

Susan Herman is the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. Like Ginsburg, she served as General Counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. In October 2008, Herman was elected as the seventh President of the ACLU, a position she held until stepping down in January 2021. She teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure, and seminars including Terrorism and Civil Liberties, Law and Literature, COVID-19 and the Constitution, and Current Issues in Constitutional Law.
Herman has written and spoken widely in the areas of Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure. Her publications include several books as well as articles in law reviews, periodicals, and online venues. Her book, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy (Oxford University Press 2011; paperback edition 2014), was awarded the Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. She has discussed constitutional law issues on radio, including a variety of NPR shows; on television, including programs on CNN, CSPAN, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS; and has been a frequent speaker at conferences and events organized by schools, universities, and law schools; by groups ranging from the Federal Judicial Center to the U.S. Army War College to Wikimania; and at international conferences like Web Summit and Collision.

Jack Rakove is the emeritus William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Law at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1980. He was educated at Haverford College, where he earned a B.A. in History in 1968, the University of Edinburgh, and Harvard, where he received his Ph.D. in History in 1975. He is the author of eight books, including Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in History, the 1997 Faunces Tavern Museum Book Award, and the 1998 Society of the Cincinnati Book Prize; Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America, which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize; and Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion. He is currently at work on The Ticklish Experiment: A Political History of the Constitution, 1789-2024.

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Ukraine: What's Changed?
2022-10-20 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Much has evolved in Ukraine since our program in May. While much has changed, much has not changed. Russia continues to be a wild card, but Ukraine has surprised experts with its successes and determination. Where is this going, and how likely will this end? Shevel, Frye, and Rose are experts on Ukraine, and we will learn a lot about this challenging situation, its global impact, and the future.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QuLEgwTtTwiRpw62L3gt4g
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on October 20, 2022

Speakers:
Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy. He received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.I.A. from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy, focusing on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia. He also edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Oxana Shevel is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University where her research and teaching focuses on Ukraine and the post-Soviet region. Her current research projects examine the sources of citizenship policies in the post-Communist states and religious politics in Ukraine. Her research interests also include comparative memory politics and the politics of nationalism and nation-building. She is the author of the award-winning Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011), which examines how the politics of national identity and strategies of the UNHCR shape refugee admission policies in the post-Communist region. Shevel’s research appeared in a variety of journals, including Comparative Politics, Current History, East European Politics and Societies, Europe-Asia Studies, Geopolitics, Nationality Papers, Post-Soviet Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Slavic Review, and in edited volumes. She is a member of PONARS Eurasia scholarly network, a country expert on Ukraine for Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT), and an associate of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. She currently serves as President of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS) and Vice President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN).

Gideon Rose, the moderator, is the Mary and David Boies Distinguished Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously Editor of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2021. He served as Associate Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 under the Clinton Administration. His most recent articles in Foreign Relations are “Why the War in Ukraine Won’t Go Nuclear”, and “The Irony of Ukraine.”

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Reviving Democracy
2022-10-13 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
A Message from Christopher Beem about the upcoming October 13th program:
Americans are frustrated and deeply concerned about the condition of our democracy. Our divisions are so deep and complete that we don’t see how they can be overcome; we are not sure how our democracy can survive. A poll released in June by Yahoo News/YouGov finds that a majority of Americans–55% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans –believe it is “likely” that the United States will “cease to be a democracy in the future.” A survey conducted just last month by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program found that half (50.1%) of all Americans agreed that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States.”
So what do we do about this? Most of us are limited in our political power. We are not rich, we don’t have a high-profile media platform, and nobody cares what we think. But that does not mean we have no role to play in this perilous time. We can recommit to the virtues that make democracy work and commend others when they do the same.
In the book, The Seven Democratic Virtues, I lay out the seven virtues we need right now, which can help combat polarization and improve our democratic culture.
This idea ought to be empowering. At least, I mean it that way. At the least, committing to democratic virtue is a meaningful alternative to despair. And, if enough of us undertake that effort, it is still possible that we can step back from the brink and thereby improve the prospects for democratic reform.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HN-JCrF7S22zAiArruwIGg
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, October 13th, 2022

Christopher Beem is Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State. He is also an Associate Research Professor of Political Science and Affiliate Faculty in the Rock Ethics Institute. He came to Penn State in 2015 after holding positions in philanthropy and non-profit social services. He is the author or co-editor of six books, including The Necessity of Politics, Democratic Humility: Reinhold Niebuhr, Neuroscience and America’s Political Crisis, and The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy. Beem is a cohost of the Democracy Works podcast and a frequent contributor to The Conversation. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Pam Fessler, the moderator, was an editor and correspondent at NPR News for more than 28 years. As a correspondent on the National Desk, she covered voting issues, poverty, and philanthropy. For much of her time at NPR, Fessler reported on elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She did countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter laws to Russian hacking attempts and the impact of misinformation. Fessler also covered homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reported on efforts by non-profit groups, the government, and others to reduce poverty and how those programs worked. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.

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SPEAKING RATIONALLY WITH STEVEN PINKER
2022-09-28 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Although Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker enjoyed teaching his students about the interesting puzzles that cause humans to behave irrationally, he realized that as interesting as those puzzles were, they did not explain some of the deeper and more destructive tendencies at work today. “Why do people believe that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring out of a pizzeria or that jet contrails are mind-altering drugs dispersed by a secret government program?” How is it possible, he asks, that a species could develop a Covid 19 vaccine in less than a year while at the same time producing so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theories? “We face deadly threats to our health, our democracy, and the livability of our planet … yet among our most fierce problems today is convincing people to accept the solutions when we do find them.”
On September 28th, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Pinker will join the Network for Responsible Public Policy (NFRPP) to discuss his latest book “Rationality: What it is, Why it seems scarce, Why it matters.” His book and presentation contain his unique blend of scientific rigor, thoughtful analysis, and humor (including an excellent sample of Jewish humor) to explain why humans behave the way they do and what we can do to enable ourselves to make better choices, both as individuals and as a society. The book, recently issued in paperback, is available from Amazon, other booksellers, or a local bookstore or library near you. Please consider reading Pinker’s book. You will be able to discuss your questions with him at the Zoom event. This is a rare opportunity to engage Steven Pinker himself.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SCgechx1SW22_lsfaYQZVw
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on September 28, 2022

Speaker:
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He was Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for the New York Times, the Guardian, and other publications. His twelfth book, published in 2021, is called Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.

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Polarization Past and Present: What’s Changed? What’s Possible?
2022-08-25 19:30 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
A successful Democracy is messy. People are diverse in countless ways and have individual, cultural, and group identities and points of view. That people came together through most of US history to bridge differences has been America’s achievement since its independence. Today seems different. Americans are deeply divided, despite sharing common hopes. What, then, is at the root of our current divide manifesting itself in life and death issues (Covid) and even an Insurrection? Is American democracy at the abyss? Can we bridge again to restore and foster Democracy, as messy as it may be?
Susan Herbst and Marc Heatherington, two distinguished experts on this topic, will help us understand where we are and how we can begin the bridging process.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cUdufLpkTJWJ3hIYy3DaXQ
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on August 25, 2022

Speakers:

Marc Hetherington is the Raymond H. Dawson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Marc is a leading scholar internationally, with his work on what commentators call right-wing populism particularly central to politics in both the U.S. and Europe these days. Having spent the last decade or so identifying the causes and consequences of polarization, he is now working on approaches to public opinion that might bring Republicans and Democrats closer together. He is the author of three major books: Why Washington Won’t Work: Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis (with Thomas J. Rudolph, University of Chicago Press, 2015, winner of the Alexander George Award from the International Society of Political Psychology, 2016); Authoritarianism and Polarization in America (with Jonathan D. Weiler, Cambridge University Press. 2009, winner of the Philip Converse Award from the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association, 2016); and Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism. (Princeton University Press, 2005).

Susan Herbst stepped down as President of the University of Connecticut on July 1, 2019, and returned to the faculty. She teaches at the Stamford campus, where she is a University Professor of Political Science and President Emeritus. Before her appointment to the presidency, Herbst served as Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer of the University System of Georgia, where she led 15 university presidents and oversaw the academic missions for all 35 public universities in Georgia. Before coming to Georgia, Herbst was Provost and Executive Vice President at The University at Albany (SUNY) and also served as Officer in Charge (acting president) of the school from 2006 to 2007. She previously served as the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University.

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The U.S. Economy
2022-07-21 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
The economy is in the news constantly. Unemployment is at the lowest rate in decades, yet, inflation is rearing its ugly head and the Fed has stepped in to increase rates. How did we get to this point? What should be anticipated? Should we be alarmed? Is there a consensus on sensible solutions? In other words, what’s the story?

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OJFsXMyrSvOPfNF6aqIE_Q
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on July 21, 2022

Speakers:
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a columnist at the New York Post. She writes on urban economics and finance. Gelinas is a CFA charterholder and the author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington (2011).
Gelinas has published analysis and opinion pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. Before coming to City Journal, she was a business journalist for Thomson Financial, where she covered the international syndicated-loan and private-debt markets. Gelinas holds a B.A. in English literature from Tulane University.

William D. Cohan, a former senior Wall Street M&A investment banker for 17 years at Lazard Frères & Co., Merrill Lynch, and JPMorganChase, is the New York Times bestselling author of three non-fiction narratives about Wall Street: Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World; House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street; and, The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co., the winner of the 2007 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. His new book, to be published in November 2022, is titled Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon. It is about the astounding rise and precipitous fall of the General Electric Company, once the world’s most valuable and respected company.
A former longtime special correspondent at Vanity Fair, he is a founding partner of Puck, a daily digital news and opinion publication. His focus at Puck is on Wall Street and the business world, writ large. He is a former columnist for the DealBook section of the New York Times. He also writes for The Financial Times, The New York Times, Air Mail, Barron’s, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, The Atlantic, Town & Country, The Nation, Fortune, The Hollywood Reporter, and Politico, among other publications.

Peter Coy, the moderator, is an economics writer for the New York Times Opinion section. He moved to the Times in July 2021 after nearly 32 years at BusinessWeek and Bloomberg Businessweek.

America’s Vulnerable Elections
2022-06-16 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
In this session, we will take a look at the challenges facing our elections, particularly at the structures the country has used for many generations that in an era of hyperpartisanship have become sources of national vulnerability.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jwSemGonSoy__00d4ZS0PQ
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on June 16, 2022

Speakers:
Edward B Foley holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at The Ohio State University, where he also directs its election law program. He is a contributing opinion columnist for the Washington Post, and for the 2020 election season, he served as an NBC News election law analyst.
His most current book, Presidential Elections and Majority Rule (Oxford University Press, 2020), excavates the long-forgotten philosophical premises of how the Electoral College is supposed to work, as revised by the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and then uses this historical analysis to provide a feasible basis for reform of state laws that would enable the Electoral College to operate according to majority-rule objectives it was designed to achieve.
His book Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2016) was named Finalist for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History and listed as one of 100 “must-read books about law and social justice”.
As a Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Project on Election Administration, Foley drafted Principles of Law: Non-Precinct Voting and Resolution of Ballot-Counting Disputes, which provides nonpartisan guidance for the resolution of election disputes. He has also co-authored Election Law and Litigation: The Judicial Regulation of Politics (Wolters Kluwer 2014).
Foley clerked for Chief Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Harry Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. He has also served as State Solicitor in the office of Ohio’s Attorney General, where he was responsible for the state’s appellate and constitutional litigation.

Lawrence R. Jacobs is McKnight Presidential Chair in Public Affairs, the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies, and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance in the Hubert H. Humphrey School and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. The Center is a preeminent hub for political and policy analysis in the Midwest.
Jacobs has published 16 books and edited volumes and dozens of articles on elections, legislative and presidential politics, elections and public opinion, and a range of public policies. His most recent books include Fed Power: How Finance Wins (with Desmond King, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), Health Care Reform and American Politics, 3rd edition (with Theda Skocpol, Oxford University Press, 2015), Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (with James Druckman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
In an April edition of The Hill, Jacobs published an opinion entitled “For More Democracy, We Need Fewer Elections,” and, later the same month, in an opinion in the Washington Post Jacobs described why he believes that “Instead of boosting democracy, primary elections are undermining it.”

Kevin Johnson is co-founder and executive director of Election Reformers Network (ERN). Kevin leads ERN’s research and advocacy programs focused on impartial election administration, independent redistricting, ranked-choice voting, and electoral college reform. Kevin has more than 20 years of experience in election reform, including seven years overseas with the National Democratic Institute and ten years on the Board of Common Cause Massachusetts.
Kevin is also a member of the Election Expert Study Team of The Carter Center, assisting the Center’s U.S. Elections Program. Kevin serves on advisory bodies of American Promise, Fairvote, and Rank The Vote.
Kevin co-authored the first comprehensive study of secretary of state conflict of interest and pioneered the top-two proportional approach to electoral college reform and the nominating commission approach to the secretary of state selection. He has published two dozen op-eds on a wide range of reform topics in media outlets including The Washington Post, Governing, Commonwealth Magazine, and The Daily Beast.
At the National Democratic Institute, Mr. Johnson directed election observations in the West Bank and Gaza, Indonesia, and several countries in Africa, and organized advisory consultations for constitution drafters in new democracies, among other programs.

Pam Fessler, the moderator, was an editor and correspondent at NPR News for more than 28 years. As a correspondent on the National Desk, she covered voting issues, poverty, and philanthropy. For much of her time at NPR, Fessler reported on elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She did countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter laws to Russian hacking attempts and the impact of misinformation. Fessler also covered homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reported on efforts by non-profit groups, the government, and others to reduce poverty and how those programs worked. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.

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Understanding the War In Ukraine
2022-05-19 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
In the wake of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s fate has become tightly linked to the future of democracy and a liberal world order. How did Ukraine become a champion for democracy? What are the prospects for an end to the war? What is driving policy in Moscow and Kyiv? Our experts will discuss how things got to this point, what we know so far, and what might happen next.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DHnmo7wnRkOJhb2x4vqCDw
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on May 19, 2022

Speakers:
Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy. He received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.I.A. from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy, focusing on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia. He also edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Oxana Shevel is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University where her research and teaching focuses on Ukraine and the post-Soviet region. Her current research projects examine the sources of citizenship policies in the post-Communist states and religious politics in Ukraine. Her research interests also include comparative memory politics and the politics of nationalism and nation-building. She is the author of the award-winning Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011), which examines how the politics of national identity and strategies of the UNHCR shape refugee admission policies in the post-Communist region. Shevel’s research appeared in a variety of journals, including Comparative Politics, Current History, East European Politics and Societies, Europe-Asia Studies, Geopolitics, Nationality Papers, Post-Soviet Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Slavic Review, and in edited volumes. She is a member of PONARS Eurasia scholarly network, a country expert on Ukraine for Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT), and an associate of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. She currently serves as President of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS) and Vice President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN).

Gideon Rose, the moderator, is the Mary and David Boies Distinguished Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously Editor of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2021. He served as Associate Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 under the Clinton Administration. His most recent articles in Foreign Relations are “Why the War in Ukraine Won’t Go Nuclear”, and “The Irony of Ukraine.”

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Bridging America’s Divisions. Can Americans come Together?
2021-12-09 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Polarization is tearing Americans apart. Can it be fixed? The leaders of these organizations are working in different ways to build bridges of understanding. How is this done? How is this working? Let’s find out!

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tfwEz_ZaSjezfBU_n7EpKw
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, December 9, 2021

Joan Blades is a co-founder of LivingRoomConversations.org an open-source effort to build respectful caring connections across ideological, cultural, and party lines while embracing our core shared values. When we care about each other we work to find ways to meet each other’s core needs. She is also a co-founder of MomsRising.org and MoveOn.org. She is a co-author of The Custom-Fit Workplace, winner of a Nautilus book award in 2011, and The Motherhood Manifesto, which won the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize in 2007. A mediator (attorney) by training and inclination, she is a nature lover, artist, and true believer in the power of citizens. We can honor the dignity of all individuals and seek understanding even as we hold differing beliefs.
John Gable is co-founder and CEO of AllSides.com and AllSidesForSchools.org. AllSides provides balanced news, media bias ratings, and opportunities for civil conversation across divides to help people better understand the world — and each other. Using technology, patented systems and a diverse team, AllSides curates perspectives across the political spectrum to provide more balanced coverage of today’s news and issues, earning more monthly views than long-established mid-tier national outlets like the Christian Science Monitor, Jacobin, and the American Spectator. AllSides also provides technology and services to companies, schools, researchers, and nonprofit organizations, helping them provide more balanced information and bridge divides. AllSides’ team and its founders span the political spectrum. John started his professional career working in Republican politics in the 1980s for Bush, McConnell, and the Republican National Committee. Over 25 years ago, he switched to the technology sector, where he led the product management team for Netscape Navigator, sold a technology start-up, and held executive and management positions with Check Point Software and Microsoft.
Pearce Godwin is the founder of Listen First Project and the #ListenFirst Coalition of 350+ organizations bringing Americans together across differences. He catalyzes the movement to heal America by building relationships and bridging divides, transforming division and contempt into connection and understanding. Pearce manages large-scale, collective campaigns and strategies such as the annual National Week of Conversation to engage as many Americans as possible in this hopeful mission and fuel the heroic work of Coalition partners. Pearce’s work has been recognized by all the major television and print news outlets, including interviews on Fox News and MSNBC, as he writes regularly for USA TODAY. The #ListenFirst hashtag has reached more than 50 million people.
Mónica Guzmán is a bridge-builder, journalist, and entrepreneur who lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. She’s director of digital and storytelling at Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America; host of live interview series at Crosscut; and cofounder of the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she researched how journalists can rethink their roles to better meet the needs of a participatory public. She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties’ Dungeons & Dragons campaign. A Mexican immigrant, Latina, and dual US/Mexico citizen, she lives in Seattle with her husband and two kids and is the proud liberal daughter of conservative parents.
Timothy Noah, the moderator, is a staff writer for the New Republic and maintains the Substack newsletter Backbencher. This is Noah’s third tour of duty at the New Republic. He began his journalism career there in 1980 as a summer intern and later staff writer; came back in 2011 to write the “TRB” column; then returned in 2021. In between, Noah was a Washington-based reporter for the Wall Street Journal, an assistant managing editor for U.S. News & World Report, a congressional correspondent for Newsweek, an editor on the New York Times op-ed page, an editor of the Washington Monthly (to which he’s also returned from time to time), and labor policy editor for Politico. Noah has written for a variety of other national publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Time, and the New York Review of Books, and he’s contributed frequent broadcast commentaries to CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s Day To Day. He received the 2011 Hillman Prize for a 10-part Slate series on income inequality in the U.S. that he subsequently expanded into his 2012 book, The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis And What We Can Do About It. Noah was also, in 2010, a National Magazine Award finalist for his Slate coverage of Obamacare. Noah edited two anthologies of the writings of his late first wife, Marjorie Williams: the New York Times best-seller The Woman At The Washington Zoo (2005), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and Reputation (2008). A 1980 graduate of Harvard College, Noah lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Sarah McNamer, a professor of English and Medieval Studies at Georgetown University, and (depending on the time of year) up to four of their mostly-grown children and stepchildren.

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Democracy in the Balance? The Polarized Politics of Political-Economic Reform
2021-11-18 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
At a moment of political division and policy uncertainty, many believe American democracy is in serious danger. Inequality, polarization, the stoking of anger, the exploitation of weaknesses in our political system – all are threatening the representative government we once took for granted. We cannot go backward, so how do we move forward to assure that the years of struggle that led to our democracy were not in vain? Let’s get some answers from our distinguished experts.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_POicakF6RqiIYb36WdPa6w
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, November 18, 2021

Jacob Hacker is Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University and the author or co-author of numerous academic and popular articles and more than a half-dozen books, including the 2010 New York Times bestseller Winner-Take-All Politics. His latest book, written with Paul Pierson, is Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he received the Robert Ball Award of the National Academy of Social Science in 2020 and was inducted into the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2021.

Roger Berkowitz, the moderator, is Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and Professor of Politics, Philosophy, and Human Rights at Bard College. Professor Berkowitz authored The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition (Harvard, 2005; Fordham, 2010; Chinese Law Press, 2011). Berkowitz is editor of The Perils of Invention: Lying, Technology, and the Human Condition (forthcoming 2020) and co-editor of Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics (2009), The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis (2012) and Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Hannah Arendt’s Denktagebuch (2017). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The American Interest, Bookforum, The Forward, The Paris Review Online, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and many other publications. Berkowitz edits HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center and the weekly newsletter Amor Mundi. He is the winner of the 2019 Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought given by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Bremen, Germany.

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Revolution, Inflation, Inequality and Climate Catastrophe: Who Said the Lockdown Was Boring?
2021-10-21 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
The policy response to Covid19 was swift and extraordinary and has some people worried about inflation. Our speakers will discuss how policymakers can support the economy without running it too hot, all while addressing longer-term problems that grow ever more urgent, like climate change and inequality.

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This event is from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm EST on Thursday, October 21, 2021

Mark Blyth is the William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He holds a joint appointment in the department of political science.
Blyth’s research spans two main areas. The first focuses on the political power of economic ideas as seen in his books Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002) and Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (New York: Oxford University Press 2015).
The second area of Blyth’s research concerns the political economy of the rich democracies as seen in his 2015 book The Future of the Euro (New York: Oxford University Press 2015), Angrynomics (New York: Columbia University Press 2020), and in his forthcoming book on the politics of economic growth (with Lucio Bacarro and Jonas Pontusson) The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation (Oxford University Press 2022).
He has over 40 published peer-reviewed journal articles in places such as the European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies, The Review of International Political Economy, The Journal of Evolutionary Economics, World Politics, The American Political Science Review, and New Political Economy.
Blyth is a regular contributor to the journal of the Council for Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs and has appeared multiple times on NPR, BBC, and Bloomberg. Blyth contributes to several Podcasts.

Megan Greene is a Global Economist and Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, where she is teaching and writing a book on the drivers of income and wealth inequality and how to address them. She is also the Dame DeAnne Julius Senior Academy Fellow in International Economics at Chatham House in London.
Ms. Greene writes a regular column in the Financial Times on global macroeconomics and appears regularly on TV and radio outlets such as Bloomberg, CNBC, NPR, and BBC. She also serves on the Committee for a Regenerative Response to Covid19 and is a board member of NAEC (New Approaches to Economic Challenges) at the OECD, the National Association for Business Economists (NABE), the Parliamentary Budget Office in Ireland, Rebuilding Macroeconomics and Econofact. In addition, Megan is an Affiliate of the Rhodes Center Brown University, a Non-Resident Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She regularly advises governments and central banks in the US, UK, eurozone, and Japan.
Megan was previously Global Chief Economist at John Hancock/Manulife Asset Management, founder and Chief Economist at Maverick Intelligence, head of European Economics at Roubini Global Economics, and the euro crisis expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Peter Coy, the moderator, is an economics writer for the New York Times Opinion section. He moved to the Times in July 2021 after nearly 32 years at BusinessWeek and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Event Co-sponsors:

Infrastructure: past, present, and future
2021-09-23 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Infrastructure has been the bedrock to America’s development, progress, and dreams. Roads to highways, dams, bridges, electric grids, railways and then airports and now internet and more. Can we learn from history, assess current needs, understand the economics and have a vision for our future?

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This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, September 23, 2021

Dean Baker is a senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Utah. His most recent book was Rigged: How the Rules of Globalization and the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School, specializing in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change. Her strategic and practical insights guide leaders worldwide through teaching, writing, and direct consultation to major corporations, governments, and start-up ventures. She co-founded the Harvard University-wide Advanced Leadership Initiative, guiding its planning from 2005 to its launch in 2008 and serving as Founding Chair and Director from 2008-2018 as it became a growing international model for a new stage of higher education preparing successful top leaders to apply their skills to national and global challenges. Author or co-author of 20 books, her latest book, Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time, has won a number of accolades.
Laurie A. Schintler is an Associate Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, where she also serves as Director of Data and Technology Research Initiatives in the Center for Regional Analysis. Her research and teaching interests include big data, emerging technology, ethics, public policy, critical infrastructure, transportation, and regional science. In these areas, she has several peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and technical reports, including the following edited volumes: New Advances in Transportation and Telecommunications Modeling: Cross-Atlantic Perspectives, Big Data for Regional Science, and the Encyclopedia of Big Data. She is a co-recipient of a patent for “System and method for analyzing the structure of logical networks” (USPTO: 20100306372, July 2010) and co-founded the geo-spatial intelligence company Fortiusone (Geoiq). Dr. Schintler received her Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
Lee Vinsel is an associate professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech and a co-founder of The Maintainers, a global, interdisciplinary research network focused on maintenance, repair, infrastructure, and the mundane work that keeps our world going. He is the author of Moving Violations, a history of automobile regulation in the United States, and co-author with Andy Russell of The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work that Matters Most. His work has appeared or been covered in the New York Times, Guardian, Atlantic, Le Monde, and many other outlets around the world.

Peter Coy, the moderator, is an economics writer for the New York Times Opinion section. He moved to the Times in July 2021 after nearly 32 years at BusinessWeek and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Event Co-sponsors:

For the People Act (HR.1/S.1) Unpacked
2021-07-22 19:30 - 2021-07-23 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
The FPA has received enormous media attention. The partisan battles have been well covered. Most Americans favor fair and just voting rights and laws. Most want voting to be accessible and simplified. Most want money influence on our campaigns and elected representatives eliminated or at least moderated. This NFRPP event will cover the issues in detail and offer a way to move this needle in the direction of a flourishing democracy.

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This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on July 22, 2021

Speakers:
Daniel I. Weiner serves as deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Election Reform Program, where he helps to lead the Center’s work on money in politics, election security, government ethics, and other democracy and rule of law issues. He is the author or co-author of several nationally-recognized reports, and also writes and comments regularly for media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, MSNBC, and NPR. He has provided policy advice and drafting assistance to lawmakers in Washington and across the country, and delivered testimony and briefings to Congress, state legislatures, and federal and state agencies.
Weiner previously served as senior counsel to Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub at the Federal Election Commission, including during her term as chair of the Commission in 2013. In this role, Weiner assisted with managing the agency and advised the commissioner on a broad array of issues under the First Amendment, federal campaign finance law, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Before his service at the FEC, Weiner practiced law in the Washington, D.C. office of Jenner & Block, LLP. At Jenner, Weiner litigated cases at the trial and appellate levels, counseled a wide variety of regulatory clients, and maintained an active pro bono practice focused on LGBTQ+ rights.
Weiner received his JD from Harvard Law School. He clerked for the Honorable Diana E. Murphy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude with honors from Brown University, with a degree in history. Outside of his work at the Brennan Center, Weiner presides over attorney discipline cases as chairman of a standing hearing committee for the District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility.

Edward B. Foley holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at The Ohio State University, where he also directs its election law program. He is a contributing opinion columnist for the Washington Post, and for the 2020 election season, he served as an NBC News election law analyst.
His most current book, Presidential Elections and Majority Rule (Oxford University Press, 2020), excavates the long-forgotten philosophical premises of how the Electoral College is supposed to work, as revised by the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and then uses this historical analysis to provide a feasible basis for reform of state laws that would enable the Electoral College to operate according to majority-rule objectives it was designed to achieve.
His book Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2016) was named Finalist for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History and listed as one of 100 “must-read books about law and social justice”.
As Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Project on Election Administration, Foley drafted Principles of Law: Non-Precinct Voting and Resolution of Ballot-Counting Disputes, which provides nonpartisan guidance for the resolution of election disputes. He has also co-authored Election Law and Litigation: The Judicial Regulation of Politics (Wolters Kluwer 2014).
During his fellowship at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Foley wrote Due Process, Fair Play and Excessive Partisanship: A New Principle of Judicial Review of Election Law, 84 U. Chicago Law Review 655-758 (2017), which was cited in briefs in Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone (the Supreme Court gerrymandering cases). In addition to his Washington Post opinion columns, his op-eds and other essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Politico, and Slate, among other publications, and he frequently writes online commentary on election law issues of public interest.
Foley clerked for Chief Judge Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Harry Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. He has also served as State Solicitor in the office of Ohio’s Attorney General, where he was responsible for the state’s appellate and constitutional litigation.
Professor Foley is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law and Yale College.

Event Co-sponsors:

News Media and the Politics of Truth
2021-06-24 19:30 - 2021-06-25 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
We face a misinformation crisis. Misinformation is at an all-time high and it’s crippling our democracy, interfering with our ability to talk with each other, to enact needed public policies, and to bridge our bitter partisan divide. And there’s no end in sight. The forces propelling misinformation – power, money, fame, and tribalism – are strong and enduring.
Misinformation is asymmetrical. On nearly every issue, it’s concentrated among those who identify with one or the other political party, most often the Republican Party. The result is that party loyalists are living in different worlds. Their views of reality are so at odds that they might as well be inhabiting different planets. The longstanding notion that we are one nation may not be sustainable.

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This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on June 24, 2021

Speakers:
Eric Alterman is Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. From 1995-2020, he was The Nation’s “Liberal Media” columnist and is now a contributing writer to the magazine and also to The American Prospect, where he writes the weekly “Altercation” newsletter. In the past, he has been a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress, the World Policy Institute and The Nation Institute, a columnist for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Forward, Moment, and the Sunday Express (London) and a contributed to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Le Monde Diplomatique, among other publications. He has also been named a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a Schusterman Foundation Fellow at Brandeis University, a Fellow of the Society of American Historians, and a member of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
Alterman is the national bestseller What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News, as well ten other books, including, most recently, Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie and Why Trump is Worse. Alterman is also a winner of the George Orwell Prize, the Stephen Crane Literary Award, and the Mirror Award for media criticism (twice), He holds a Ph.D. in US history from Stanford, an M.A. in international relations at Yale, and a B.A. from Cornell. He lives in Manhattan. He tweets at @eric_alterman and has an open Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/alterman.eric

Tom Patterson is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of the recently published books, Is the Republican Party Destroying Itself? and How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy. Earlier books include Out of Order, which examined the media’s political role and received the American Political Science Association’s Graber Award as the best book of the decade in political communication. A Minnesota native, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, where he studied after serving in the US Army Special Forces in Vietnam.

Robert Y. Shapiro, the moderator, is the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government and International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is currently the President of the Academy of Political Science and Editor of its journal, Political Science Quarterly. He specializes in American politics with research and teaching interests in public opinion, policymaking, political leadership, the mass media, and applications of statistical methods. He is co-author of The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (with Benjamin Page, University of Chicago Press, 1992) and Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (with Lawrence Jacobs, University of Chicago Press, 2000). His most recent books are The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media(edited with Lawrence R. Jacobs, Oxford University Press, 2011), Selling Fear: Counterterrorism, the Media, and Public Opinion (with Brigitte L. Nacos and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, University of Chicago Press, 2011, and Presidential Selection and Democracy (co-edited with Demetrios James Caraley, Academy of Political Science, 2019).

Event Co-sponsors:

Immigration: Myths/Realities and the Future
2021-06-17 19:30 - 2021-06-18 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Americans understand that we all are immigrants whether our ancestors arrived willingly for economic opportunity or sought refuge and asylum from persecution. Most of our families have stories about struggles as newcomers as well as the uplifting and positive stories of becoming successful Americans. Immigration today is still fraught with conflict and controversy. To arrive at the policies and reforms that work for both human and national interest requires an understanding of what is occurring with our current immigration challenges. Our distinguished experts will walk us through this difficult process.
Speakers:
Steven Hubbard, Ph.D. is a data scientist at the New American Economy where he conducts research and data visualization projects related to how immigration impacts our economy. Most recently, he was a Zolberg Fellow at The New School and International Rescue Committee where he conducted research on Syrian refugees living in Jordan. With a deep interest in photography, he recognizes the importance of visualization to communicate complex data problems and facilitate data driven decision making. Hubbard has over 20 years of experience in college teaching, research, and administration at New York University, The University of Iowa, and Hamline University.

Jennifer Hunt is Professor of Economics at Rutgers University. From 2013-2015, while on leave from Rutgers, she served first as Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, then as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Microeconomic Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Prior to joining Rutgers in 2011, she held positions at McGill University, the University of Montreal, and Yale University. Hunt is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London. Her current research focuses on the geographic diffusion of technology adoption, while past research has also encompassed immigration, wage inequality, unemployment, the science and engineering workforce, the transition from communism, crime and corruption. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard and her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, with a joint appointment in The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, he is the current president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and is a member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences and co-editor of the Annual Review of Sociology. Massey’s research focuses on international migration, race and housing, discrimination, education, urban poverty, stratification, and Latin America, especially Mexico. He is the author, most recently, of Brokered Boundaries: Constructing Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times, coauthored with Magaly Sanchez and Published by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Carlos Vargas-Ramos, the moderator, is the Center for Puerto Rican Studies’ Director for Public Policy, External and Media Relations, and Development. He is also an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, where he teaches on immigration, race and ethnicity, and urban politics. As a social scientist, he has worked on the impact of migration on Puerto Rican political behavior, political attitudes, and orientations, as well as on issues of racial identity. A political scientist by training, Dr. Vargas-Ramos is co-editor, along with Edwin Meléndez, of Puerto Ricans at the Dawn of the New Millennium, and author, among others of “The role of state actors in Puerto Rico’s long century of migration,” in Anke Birkenmaier, editor, Caribbean Migrations: The Legacies of Colonialism (2020), “Puerto Ricans: Citizens and Migrants— A Cautionary Tale,” which appeared in Identities: Global Studies in Identity and Power, 20(6): 665-688, (2013), and “Migrating race: migration and racial identification among Puerto Ricans,” was published in Ethnic and Racial Studies. 37(3): 383-404 (2014).

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This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on June 17, 2021

Event Co-sponsors:

JOBS: The Future of Jobs in America
2021-05-20 19:30 - 2021-05-21 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Much controversy and discussion are taking place about what the future job market will look like. Many Americans are anxious over the uncertainties and want to know. Can manufacturing return? Is innovation key to the future? What role will technology and artificial intelligence play? Where do education, government, and entrepreneurialism fit in? What about unions? What jobs will fade away and what is likely to replace them? How can we prepare for a viable prosperous job future?

Speakers:
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a columnist at the New York Post. She writes on urban economics and finance. Gelinas is a CFA charterholder and the author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington (2011).
Gelinas has published analysis and opinion pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. Before coming to City Journal, she was a business journalist for Thomson Financial, where she covered the international syndicated-loan and private-debt markets. Gelinas holds a B.A. in English literature from Tulane University.

Dr. Michael Mandel is chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington DC and senior fellow at the Wharton School (UPenn). He was chief economist at BusinessWeek prior to its purchase by Bloomberg.
With experience spanning policy, academics, and business, Dr. Mandel has helped lead the public conversation about the economic and business impact of technology for the past two decades. Mandel’s seminal analysis showing how eCommerce creates jobs and reduces inequality was featured by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Financial Times, among others.
Mandel argues that Americans suffer from too little innovation, rather than too much. More innovation, especially in “physical” industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare, will raise wages and create more good jobs. His current work focuses on the economic benefits of digital manufacturing; job creation by eCommerce and 5G; pharmaceutical pricing and innovation; and regulation of cross-border data flows. He spearheads PPI’s “Investment Heroes” annual report and tracks App Economy jobs around the world.
Mandel has written four books, including the optimistic Rational Exuberance. His economics textbook, Economics: The Basics, is in its fourth edition. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and taught at NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Peter Coy, moderator/discussant, is the economics editor for Bloomberg Businessweek and covers a wide range of economic issues. He also holds the position of senior writer.

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This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on May 20th, 2021

Event Co-sponsors:

Post 2020: The Future of Democracy
2021-04-15 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
The year 2020 will remain in the American conscience as the year of two major challenges: the COVID virus and the BIG Lie undermining voter confidence in the 2020 election results. Both were fraught with polarized thinking and positions. It is not partisan to declare that there was no voter fraud. Every election expert whether Republican or Democrat, plus the various Courts ruled the elections were properly conducted. What could be more clear? Yet, millions of Americans deny the results of the presidential election including some in Congress. What does this mean for the future of Democracy? Can America get back on track and what will it take?

Larry M. Bartels holds the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University. His scholarship and teaching focus broadly on American democracy, including public opinion, electoral politics, public policy, and political representation. His most recent books are Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (2nd ed.) and Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (with Christopher Achen). He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles and of occasional pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and other media outlets. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

Susan Herbst, discussant/moderator, is University Professor of Political Science and President Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. Herbst served as the 15th President of the University of Connecticut from 2011 to 2019, and returned to the faculty of Political Science in 2019. Prior to her appointment to the presidency, Herbst served as provost, dean and department chair at multiple universities across the nation. Born in New York City and raised in Peekskill, N.Y., she received her B.A. in Political Science from Duke University, and her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. Herbst joined Northwestern University as an assistant professor in 1989 and remained there until 2003. She is a scholar of public opinion, media, and American politics. Her new book, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press is A Troubled Birth: The 1930s and American Public Opinion.

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This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on April 15, 2021

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Free Speech: Testing the Limits of the First Amendment
2021-03-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
This timely program will address language as a weapon, hate speech, incitement, the internet, and how the first amendment is being tested.
Speakers:
Dr. Kurt Braddock is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at American University, where he is also a faculty fellow at the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab (PERIL). Dr. Braddock’s research investigates the intersection between language and political violence, with a particular focus on how extremist groups use persuasive techniques to recruit and radicalize vulnerable audiences. His work has been published in several top-tier communication and security journals, and his first book, Weaponized Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Dr. Braddock advises several national and international organizations, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of State, the U.K. Home Office, and the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.

Ronald K. Chen is a University Professor, Distinguished Professor of Law, and Judge Leonard I. Garth Scholar at Rutgers Law School. He was dean of the School of Law–Newark and the first co-dean of Rutgers Law School resident in Newark from 2013-2018. He is the former Public Advocate of New Jersey. He teaches first-year Contracts, Federal Courts, and litigates civil rights and civil liberties cases in the Constitutional Rights Clinic. Prof. Chen serves as a General Counsel and a member of the National Board of the ACLU.

Perry Dane, the Moderator, is a Professor of Law at the Rutgers Law School. He is a graduate of Yale College and the Yale Law School. Professor Dane was previously on the faculty of the Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to William J. Brennan, Jr., Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. His research and teaching interests include constitutional law, comparative constitutionalism, religion and the law, and legal pluralism. He is a frequent speaker on church-state questions and other current issues.

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The Electoral College: Is it time to replace it?
2021-02-18 19:30 - 2021-02-19 21:30 (America/New_York) | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through the Electoral College, an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Most Americans have long preferred a national popular vote, and Congress has attempted on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College. Several of these efforts—one as recently as 1970—came very close to winning approval. Yet this controversial system remains.

Dr. Kyle T. Kattelman received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri in 2013. He has been an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University since the Fall of 2015, having served previously as a Mizzou Advantage Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Missouri and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science & Public Administration at Mississippi State University. He teaches a wide variety of courses at Fairleigh Dickinson, including Terrorism, International Relations, Comparative Politics, and American Government. His main research interests concern national security, terrorism and counterterrorism, and coalition stability. Recent publications include work on the success of coalitions in the War on Terror and cooperation over participation in counterterrorist endeavors. He also researches in American politics and publishes work on the effects of state legislatures on interest group dynamics.
Alexander Keyssar is Stirling Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the author of numerous books, including Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? (released July 2020) and The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Beveridge Award from the American Historical Association for the best book in U.S. history. He has also taught at Duke University, MIT, and Brandeis University. He teaches courses at Harvard on American political institutions, the comparative history of democracies, and the value of historical thinking for policy makers.

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A Nation Divided and Polarized: Can We Discuss Solutions?
2021-01-21 19:30 - 2021-01-22 21:00 UTC | Webinar and Facebook Live Stream
A divided and polarized nation can be toxic to democracy. What has fostered the divide and can a bridge to civility and common ground be achieved? Join our distinguished experts for an important discussion that is critical to our nation’s future.

Laurel Harbridge-Yong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. in 2009 from Stanford University. Her research explores a range of questions surrounding partisan conflict and the difficulty of reaching bipartisan agreements and legislative compromises in American politics. Her research spans projects on the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, and the mass public. She is the author of two books – Is Bipartisanship Dead? Policy Agreement and Agenda-Setting in the House of Representatives (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Rejecting Compromise: Legislators’ Fear of Primary Voters (with Sarah Anderson and Daniel Butler, Cambridge University Press, 2020) – and numerous journal articles.

Will Friedman is a Senior Fellow at Public Agenda. He previously served as president of the organization from 2011 to 2020. Will joined Public Agenda in 1994, became Associate Director of Research in 1996, was the founding director of its public engagement department in 1997, established Public Agenda’s Center for Advances in Public Engagement (now the Yankelovich Center) in 2007. He is the author or co-author of Reframing Framing, Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Scope, Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Power, and, with the late Public Agenda co-founder Daniel Yankelovich, Toward Wiser Public Judgment. Will has been the driving force behind Public Agenda’s Hidden Common Ground Initiative, a research, journalism, public engagement, and storytelling enterprise that seeks to disrupt the narrative of a hopelessly divided America.

Míriam Juan-Torres is More in Common’s Global Senior Researcher. She conducts research on public opinion, polarisation, and the drivers of support for authoritarian populism by combining quantitative and qualitative methods with academic work from various social science disciplines.
A multidisciplinary researcher, Míriam has also worked as an Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has conducted field studies around the world. In West Africa, Míriam worked for UNHCR in Ghana with refugees in protracted situations and studied processes and mechanisms implemented to prevent electoral-related violence. In Colombia, Míriam worked for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on victims’ rights and legal cases opened against human rights activists and communal leaders.
Míriam is a licensed lawyer in Spain, where she worked in public law for the firm Baker & McKenzie. She holds a master’s degree in Global Affairs from Yale University and a Law degree from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Robert Shapiro, the moderator, is the President of the Academy of Political Science and Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

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