The Ballpark Podcast

Contributor(s): Dr Theresa Squatrito, Rohan Mukherjee, Agnes Yu, Farsan Ghassim, Tim Murithi | The US-led international order is under strain from without and within. Authoritarian powers such as Russia and China are challenging the core tenets of global cooperation and conflict management. Rising states of the Global South like India, Brazil, and South Africa demand reformed multilateralism in the institutions of global governance, and the US and its Western allies face a domestic surge of right-wing populism that seeks to reverse the eighty-year-old open and interdependent system of international relations. At stake is democracy, a core tenet of American political life and foreign policy. To discuss and consider these issues, in May 2025, the LSE Phelan US Centre held the conference: International relations and Democracy in a Multipolar World. The conference brought together scholars and experts to examine how important these democratic discourses and practices are in the broader context of challenges to th

Contributor(s): Bhamati Viswanathan, Chris Gilson | Many institutions are now using artificial intelligence (AI) models as tools to think about solutions to a variety of challenges, from the everyday to the global. At the same time, many commentators have expressed concerns about AI and its effects on society, the economy and democracy. In the first episode of The Ballpark’s miniseries on AI and the US, we explore the implications of AI for intellectual property. The rise of AI tools has been fuelled by the scraping of online resources as training data for the large language models that power them. This has important implications for how we think about intellectual property and the rights of those who created this training data. To find out more, in May 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Bhamati Viswanathan of New England Law Boston. Dr Viswanathan is an expert in the areas of copyright law, intellectual property, innovation and creativity law, and on cultural property and appropriation. This episo

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Michael Latner | In February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Michael Latner, Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University and Director of Research on Democratic Reform at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. They discussed the recent history of voting rights and the state of democracy in America in 2025. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed. Further reading and resources Keena, A., Latner, M., McGann, A.J.M. and Smith, C.A. (2021). Gerrymandering the States. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108995849 The Guinier Project at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute - https://charleshamiltonhouston.org/events/guinier-project-roundtable/

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, John Minnich | In March 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to John Minnich, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at LSE about why semiconductors are so important in the global economy, and why the US is willing to go to what Dr Minnich terms, economic war, over them. They also discussed how the semiconductor trade is framed as a national security issue in the US and China, and how President Trump may approach the ‘chip-war’ in coming months.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   Further reading and resources   Ling S. Chen and Miles M. Evers, "'Wars without Gun Smoke': Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft," International Security 48, no. 2 (Fall 2023): 164–204. Disaggregating China, Inc. by Yeling Tan (2024) | Cornell University Press - https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501759635/disaggregating-china-inc/ 11 November 2024 - China’s evolving approach to economic security with Professor

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Mukulika Banerjee | Description: In February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to spoke to Mukulika Banerjee, Professor in LSE’s Department of Anthropology. They spoke about using anthropology to better study politics, how the US might be turning into what she terms a “checklist democracy” and how seeing the US from an outside point of view might help Americans to understand their own politics better. Professor Mukulika Banerjee was inaugural director of the LSE South Asia Centre. Her books include Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India, Why India Votes?, The Pathan Unarmed and The Sari (with Daniel Miller); and the series Exploring the Political in South Asia. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   Further reading and resources Donald Trump’s election victory shows how the US is becoming a ‘checklist’ democracy – LSE USAPP blog – 6 November 2024 - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2024/11/06/donald-trumps-election-vict

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Nicola Leveringhaus | The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has brought the spectre of potential nuclear conflict back into the public consciousness for the first time in decades. But what’s behind the potential for nuclear conflict and what issues are at stake for nuclear powers other than the US and Russia, like China? To discuss these and other questions on the current state of global nuclear tensions and development, in March 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Nicola Leveringhaus of King's College London. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   Further reading and resources Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security by Fiona S. Cunningham (Princeton University Press, 2025) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691261027/under-the-nuclear-shadow The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon by Ankit Panda (Wiley, 2025) - https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/The+New+Nuclear+Age%3A+At+the+Precipice+of+Armagedd

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Rachel Blum | Donald Trump’s links to the right, including the far right and the alt-right date back to least to his 2016 presidential campaign and continued through his first term and then into his 2024 election campaign where Trump faced accusations of being an authoritarian populist. To discuss Donald Trump’s links to the far right, in February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Rachel Blum of the University of Oklahoma. They also discussed Dr Blum’s research on party factions and their impact on contemporary US politics, and the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which limits the number of times someone can be elected as President of the United States to two terms. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   Further reading and resources   How the Tea Party Captured the GOP: Insurgent Factions in American Politics by Rachel M. Blum (The University of Chicago Press, 2020) - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo48408420.html Cooperat

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Minxin Pei | President Trump has made his feelings about US competition with China plain; one of the early acts of his second presidential term has been to place tariffs on Chinese imports. China has since responded with its own tariffs on certain US goods and restrictions on the import of important minerals.   To talk about US-China relations with the return of Donald Trump, in February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Minxin Pei, the Tom and Margot Pritzker '72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. They also spoke about China’s surveillance state and the concept of preventative repression, and how China might respond to US escalation on trade.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   Further reading and resources The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism (Princeton University Press, December 2025) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691223339/the-broken-china-dream?

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Shiping Tang | In the past decade, many commentators have increasingly spoken of growing competition between the United States and China in areas like trade, industrial policy, but also on foreign policy and global influence more generally.   To discuss these issues and how the social sciences can learn from evolutionary thinking, in January 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Shiping Tang of Fudan University. The conversation ranged over how Professor Tang’s early career as a biologist has informed his thinking about social science issues, whether we should talk about the US and China being in competition at all, and how democracies promote growth.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   Further reading and resources The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development by Shiping Tang (Princeton University Press, 2022) Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, New Edition by Gary King, Robert O. Keohane,

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Douglas Fuller | In December 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke Dr Douglas Fuller, Associate Professor in the Department of International Economics, Government and Business at Copenhagen Business School.   They spoke about how the Chinese high-tech and semiconductor chip industry has evolved and the recent history and effectiveness of US chip controls towards China. They also discuss how the US has achieved a multilateral consensus for the implementation of chip controls, and whether these are likely to remain in place in the new administration of Donald Trump.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Michael Mastanduno, Dr Jennifer Lind | In October 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Michael Mastanduno, Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, and Dr Jennifer Lind, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.   They spoke about US export controls against China and about their history and effectiveness   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson, Luke Digweed and Anderson Tan.   Further reading  Lind, J. (2024). Back to Bipolarity: How China’s Rise Transformed the Balance of Power. International Security, [online] 49(2), pp.7–55. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00494  Lind, J. Half-Vicious: China's Rise, Authoritarian Adaptation, and the Balance of Power (forthcoming, Cornell University Press)‌

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Kishore Mahbubani | In November 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. From 1971 until 2004 he was a diplomat with the Singapore Foreign Service. He served as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN from 1984-1989 and then from 1998 to 2004 and as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. He was appointed the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2004.   They spoke about the evolving relationships between Asian countries and the United States, the India-China relationship, and the role of Southeast Asia within the greater context of US-China relations.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.   Further reading Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (Hachette, 2020) - https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kishore-mahbubani/has-china-won/9781541768123/?lens=publicaffairs

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Yeling Tan | In October 2024 the LSE Phelan US Centre spoke to Yeling Tan, Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. They spoke about how China understands economic security and its evolving economic strategy, and how public attitudes in China towards international trade influence the country’s trade policy. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan. Further reading• Global economic influence and domestic regime support: evidence from China. (2023). Review of International Political Economy. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108…90.2024.2402817   

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Lawrence Lessig | In October 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to spoke to Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. Cited by The New Yorker as “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the internet era”, Professor Lessig now focuses on “institutional corruption”, especially as that affects democracy. He is the author of many books, including They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution, and most recently, How to Steal a Presidential Election.   They spoke about how AI and the media can affect the legitimacy and conduct of elections, how policymakers have attempted to govern and control the use of AI and about how citizens’ assemblies could be a way to protect democracy against AI’s influence.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.   Further reading and resources Podcast and video of the 8 October 2024

Contributor(s): Professor Fawaz Gerges, Chris Gilson | In October 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Fawaz Gerges, Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE, and holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies. They spoke about his new book, “What Really Went Wrong: The West and the failure of democracy in the Middle East”. We also discussed the history of US involvement in the region, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan. Further reading What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East – Yale University Press, 2024 - https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300259575/what-really-went-wrong/ Review of What Really Went Wrong at LSE Review of Books - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2024/09/24/what-really-went-wrong-the-west-and-the-failure-of-democracy-in-the-middle-east-fawaz-gerges/

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Nick Lewis | In September 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Nick Lewis, a PhD student in LSE’s Department of Government and a recipient of a Phelan US Centre PhD Summer Research Grant in 2022. Nick’s research looks at how social media creates bias in democratic deliberation. They spoke about how Facebook discourages people from taking part in discussions via what’s called the “spiral of silence”. They also discussed the importance of social media in the 2024 presidential election. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Dr. Peter Harris | In September 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Peter Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University about his new book, Why America Can’t Retrench (And How It Might) which looks at the US’ dominant role in the world, how it got there and the factors preventing global restraint. They discuss the idea of America’s ‘primacist’ approach to international affairs and the role of domestic politics and systems in preventing a change to America’s role in the world. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Evelyn Ong, Callum Cleasby | In August 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Evelyne Ong, an undergraduate research assistant with the Phelan US Centre for the 2023-24 academic year.   They discuss her work with Visiting Professor Jeffrey Legro, on the project, ‘The Nuclear Revolution and Great Power Competition’. They also talked about her experience taking part in the Phelan US Centre’s undergraduate research assistantship programme.   This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson | In 2024, the Phelan US Centre ran an essay competition for master’s students with the prompt, ““How should the United States work to shape the future of capitalism in this age of insecurity?”. We speak to the author of the winning essay, David Millman, and the runners-up, Yazmin Baptiste and Manickam Valliappan. We discuss their essays, the competition, what it’s like for students to engage with a wider audience, and the opportunity they had to present their essays in the UK parliament to MPs and the British-American Parliamentary Group. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Nathan Lane | In July 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Nathan Lane, Associate Professor in Economics at Oxford University, about industrial policy in the United States and its history, including recent policies from the Biden administration like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. They also discussed how US industrial policy might change depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election. This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.