The Good Fight

Janice Gross Stein, a conflict management scholar and founding director at the Munk School, discusses the limits of rational-choice thinking in politics. She explores why cooperation and norms often beat pure calculation. Short, vivid conversations cover nuclear strategy, trust in leaders, communication failures during COVID, and practical ways to build resilient coalitions.

Chang Che, a China and Japan reporter; Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an Indian political theorist; and Bethany Allen, a China investigations journalist. They explore Japan’s surprising election and youth appeal. They debate China’s coercion tactics, tech and soft power rise. They probe India’s technological limits and the shifting dynamics of Asian stability.

Jacob Savage, a writer and former aspiring screenwriter, discusses how diversity initiatives reshaped hiring in academia and Hollywood. He traces the roots of the shift, explains why younger white men were most affected, and examines the political and generational fallout. They also explore prospects for institutional course-correction and restoring disciplinary pluralism.

Daniel Diermeier, chancellor of Vanderbilt and former University of Chicago provost, reflects on leadership, university governance, and public trust. He discusses how elite schools became targets, the rise of a professional-managerial class, the shift from regional to national campuses, and practical steps to rebuild civic connection and free-speech norms.

C. Thi Nguyen, philosophy professor and author studying games and metrics. He explores how metrics travel and strip nuance, when numbers help or harm institutions, the trade-offs between legibility and richness, how scoring shapes desire (including in rock climbing), and why we should rethink which games and measures we choose to play.

Jung Chang, bestselling author and historian known for Wild Swans, reflects on China through personal and family stories. She discusses how intimate narratives reveal broader history. Conversations cover enduring mistrust in family life, traditions like foot binding, the rise of communism and its betrayals, and why many young Chinese now reject marriage and romantic ties.

Ruud Koopmans, Research Director at WZB and professor of migration research, studies migration, integration, and public policy. He discusses cultural distance and value gaps, contrasts selective versus non-discretionary migration systems, examines how welfare states shape incentives and labor participation, and compares language learning on the job versus formal courses.

Martin Wolf, FT Associate Editor and chief economics commentator, provides sharp, authoritative perspective. He discusses Kevin Warsh and what a politicized Fed could mean. He weighs whether Trump’s economic ambitions are revolutionary. He explores why markets remain strong, how tariffs and populism reshape institutions, and the broad economic implications of AI.

Atul Gawande, American surgeon, public health researcher, and writer, reflects on systems that improve care. He talks about how simple checklists transform operating rooms, the power of team communication and coaching to raise performance, and the challenges of public health, aid, and institutional trust in confronting mortality.

Gašper Beguš, an Associate Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkeley who studies interpretable AI and interdisciplinary language science. He explores whether whale songs and trained animals show language-like features. He discusses cultural transmission, recursion, and what AI reveals about language learning. Short, provocative takes on how humans and machines acquire communicative systems.