Uncommon Decency

Timothy Garton Ash, the British historian and columnist, wrote in The Guardian's op-ed page three days after America's 2016 election secured Donald Trump the White House that the phrase “leader of the free world” is usually applied to the US president, "and rarely without irony”. Garton Ash was tempted to say, at that time, “that the leader of the free world is now Angela Merkel”. This should be a familiar trope to our listeners, whom by the way we've subjected to an unusually long wait since our last episode. Those who have stuck with us—through long hiatuses and prolific bouts of production—will remember that our third guest on the show, back in early October 2020, was John Kampfner. Merkel had one year left in office then, but the veteran British correspondent reflected already on her legacy. The Anglosphere, with its Brexit-cum-Trump dual schock of right-wing populism in 2016, had been losing its cachet for facts, expertise and statesmanly maturity. The German model, instead—and Angela Merkel's leadership of it specifically—offered the liberal West a different way: a model of competent management but also a mystic of anti-populism, a disposition towards consensus even at the risk of appearing aloof. This dilemma surfaces repeatedly in today's episode, with which we resume our activities. Is Merkelism style or substance? The former Empress of Europe was often hailed as a stalwart of liberal values. But why not focus on her methods, now that scorching challenges to her worldview are back in force since Trump's re-election? What does it say about the West that we're in desperate need of liberal heroes when, what we do have—or used to have in Merkel—is excellent pragmatists? Our conversation naturally touches on the former Chancellor's geopolitical legacy since the Ukraine war, but also China and the economy. It is timed with the release of her memoir, Freedom (1954-2021). We are delighted to have with us two distinguished journalists, Guy Chazan of the Financial Times and Tom Nuttall of The Economist. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by email at undecencypod@gmail.com. Consider supporting the show through Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod), although this time the full episode will be available to all listeners.

"The Treaty includes no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe, nothing to make the defeated Central Empires into good neighbours, nothing to stabilise the new States of Europe." This damning critique of one of history's best-known peace treaties by a little-known UK Treasury official keeps shaping popular understandings of the accord's legacy. John Maynard Keynes published The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) during the Paris Peace Conference, painting its chief outcome, the Treaty of Versailles, as not just flawed, but a harbinger of yet more conflict. The Carthaginian peace terms imposed on Germany, Keynes argued, augured revenge. But is this the full story? Were the treaty's consequences as dire as Keynes suggested, or has the economist's indictment, seemingly prophetic in retrospective terms, overshadowed key dynamics that played out during negotiations, but are now forgotten? To delve into this complex history, we are joined by two distinguished guests: historian Margaret MacMillan, the author of Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (2001), and veteran French diplomat and former guest on the podcast Gérard Araud, who is very familiar with the intricacies of such international negotiations and the author of Nous Étions Seuls (2023), a history of French diplomacy between both world wars. The episode explores the treaty's immediate and longer-term consequences, how it aimed to reshape Europe, and why it remains one of the most misunderstood agreements in modern history. Did the treaty plant the seeds of World War II, or has its popular critique left out some important context? As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by email at undecencypod@gmail.com. Consider supporting the show through Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod) to get access to the full episode, where we dive deeper into the intricate details of Versailles and its repercussions. Bibliography: The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), by John Maynard Keynes. Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (2001), by Margaret MacMillan. Nous étions seuls: une histoire diplomatique de la France 1919-1939 (2023), by Gérard Araud.

What France has just lived through can only be described by the words of Vladimir Lenin: “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. In just a month, the country's political landscape was upended by Emmanuel Macron's shock decision to dissolve the National Assembly after his party, Ensemble, trailed behind the right-populist Rassemblement National by seventeen points in elections to the European Parliament on June 9th. In the week that followed, the left managed to unite once again, as in the 1930s Front Populaire, despite having spent the European race trading barbs. The Gaullist centre-right imploded, with Éric Ciotti, the leader of Les Républicains, calling on his party's candidates to either support or be supported by Le Pen's, while most of the bigwigs opposing him in-house attempted to remove him, usurp the Twitter account from his faction—and shut him off the party's headquarters. In the midst of that chaos, Macron's very own allies were gobsmacked by a decision that could have eradicated not just the government's ability to rule, but their own parliamentary standing. Yet while the campaign was marked by the possibility of a Rassemblement National government led by the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, the party has been met by a barrage of tactical voting against its candidates in Sunday's runoff. Whereas it stunningly surpassed the one-third (33%) mark in the first round, its parliamentary group, after the biasing effect of local a non-proportional voting system, will be of 143 MPs, up from 89 but far lower than initially forecasted. This legislative snap race leaves Parliament in an unruly state, with three roughly equal blocs: the left, the centrists and the nationalists—none of them especially keen to make compromises. So what happened, and where do we go from here? This week, we ask Mij Rahman (Eurasia Group) and François Hublet (Groupe d'Études Géopolitiques) to walk us through the French chaos. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod) to get access to the full episode, where we talk in further detail about the drivers of the ever-increasing Le Pen vote.

Welcome to another Decency Deep Dive. This week we tackle the forthcoming European Parliament (EP) elections on June 9, widely expected to deliver a significantly more right-wing supranational legislature. Russia's ongoing efforts to intrude into the news cycle, public debate and imaginary of Western societies are on the agenda, too, as we address its recent efforts at disinformation and lobbying. Finally, as Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez ups the ante of its effort to smear the country's press, its judges and the entire opposition, we ponder where goes Spain next. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“I think it is obvious that NATO's expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the alliance itself, or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?” That was Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. This speech encapsulates Putin's long-simmering critique of the West and his framing of NATO's expansion as a form of provocation. It is often pointed to, today, as the beginning of Putin's foreign policy that led to the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Some in the West, most notably Tucker Carlson, have swallowed this argument hook, line and sinker—and continue to repeat it today.  In this week's episode, we spoke to Michael C. Kimmage, Chair of the History Department at Catholic University of America (CUA) and author of Collisions (2024), a new book with Oxford University Press that documents the build-up to all-out war between Russia and Ukraine. In his book, and in our discussion today, Kimmage takes us through the key moments that led to the invasion of February 2022. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. We're also continuing our giveaway of the "How to Win Brexit" board game to our patreons, so sign up today for a chance to win one. Thank you, and we hope you enjoy this episode! Bibliography: Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability (2024): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/collisions-9780197751794?cc=us&lang=en&.

“Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants”. Samuel Butler wrote those words in the mid-19th century in his essay Darwin Among the Machines (1863). The somewhat satirical essay calls for the total destruction of all machines to save humanity from inevitable subservience to them. Starting with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, science fiction writing often fixes upon the fear that machines will surpass us, replace us, and even enslave us. Terminator, Mass Effect, The Matrix, and Blade Runner all deal with this existential fear. Now that AI has arrived in a mass use format through ChatGPT and Gemini, lawmakers around the globe are rushing to regulate this technology to prevent abuse while still enabling innovation. The EU has jumped out ahead in trying to regulate artificial intelligence and is hoping that its regulatory power will help set global standards for AI use; but will it? To discuss this complex and serious topic, we invited Ian Bremmer, Founder and President of the Eurasia Group, and Anu Bradford Professor of Law at Columbia University and author of The Brussels Effect (2020), and Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology (2023). This episode was made available in full length for all listeners but if you'd like to get the full length version of other episodes, you can join our Patreon for as little as 5 EUR a month. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. Thank you and we hope you enjoy this episode. Bibliography: The Brussels Effect (2020): https://academic.oup.com/book/36491. Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technologies (2023): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/digital-empires-9780197649268. The Age of Spiritual Machines (1863): https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780140282023. Dune (1965): https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Frank-Herbert/dp/0441172717.

"You didn't pay? You're delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them—Russia—to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay!" In February, former—and possibly future—US President Donald J. Trump launched a spine-chilling injunction to America's allies in the sheer style of a New York City mob boss. If you'd like to enjoy the blessings of NATO membership, pay up or face the consequences. Trump's comments constitute a significant break with settled policy precedent. America has provided a powerful “security umbrella” to most of Europe since at least 1948, but this could well be under threat from America First 2.0. This week, we cared to explore if Europe would be able to hold on its own two feet without American backing. How strong are the Europeans without the Americans, and has the old continent upped its military-industrial capacity since the Ukraine war? We are joined by Shashank Joshi, defense editor at The Economist, and Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director at the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique and recently the author of Pax Atomica (2024). As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon to get access to the full episode where we talk in further detail about nuclear policy: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod. And here's something special for you this week: do you love the intersection of strategy and diplomacy? Do you think you could have secured a better Brexit deal for the UK? Well, "How to Win Brexit" is the brilliant board game that allows you to relitigate the wars over Britain's departure from the EU and roleplay as the French President or the British Prime Minister. Whether you're a political enthusiast, a board game fanatic, or both, this game should be up your alley. Great news for our patrons: we will be distributing two sets over the next two weeks, so if you're on the fence, you might want to join us now!

China might be the world's factory, but America remains the earth's cultural hegemon. And perhaps its greatest export of the last decade has been “wokeism” or “wokeness”. Once inhabiting the fringiest recesses of American academia, the past decade has seen the global dissemination of concepts like "cultural appropriation", "systemic racism", "critical race theory", "intersectionality"—and they haven't spared Europe. Thus, our aim this week is to take the time to define wokeism, explore the concept from its roots in critical theory to its manifestations in contemporary discourse, dissect the complex tapestry of its adjacent theoretical constructs, and explore how it has sparked explosive conversations on both sides of the Atlantic. We are joined by Yascha Mounk, a German intellectual, founder of Persuasion Magazine, and the author of numerous books including his latest, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (2023). On the other side of the line, we are joined by Pierre Valentin. He is—as some of you might have guessed—François' brother, but most importantly, the author of Comprendre la Révolution Woke (2023), another effort towards "Understanding the Woke Revolution". As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod) to get access to the full episode, where we talk in further detail about France and “le wokisme”, wondering whether we have reached “peak woke".

"You didn't pay? You're delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them—Russia—to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay!" In February, former—and possibly future—US President Donald J. Trump launched a spine-chilling injunction to America's allies in the sheer style of a New York City mob boss. If you'd like to enjoy the blessings of NATO membership, pay up or face the consequences. Trump's comments constitute a significant break with settled policy precedent. America has provided a powerful “security umbrella” to most of Europe since at least 1948, but this could well be under threat from America First 2.0. This week, we cared to explore if Europe would be able to hold on its own two feet without American backing. How strong are the Europeans without the Americans, and has the old continent upped its military-industrial capacity since the Ukraine war? We are joined by Shashank Joshi, defense editor at The Economist, and Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director at the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique and recently the author of Pax Atomica (2024). As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon to get access to the full episode where we talk in further detail about nuclear policy: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod. And here's something special for you this week: do you love the intersection of strategy and diplomacy? Do you think you could have secured a better Brexit deal for the UK? Well, "How to Win Brexit" is the brilliant board game that allows you to relitigate the wars over Britain's departure from the EU and roleplay as the French President or the British Prime Minister! Whether you're a political enthusiast, a board game fanatic, or both, this game should be up your alley. Great news for our patrons: we will be distributing two sets over the next two weeks, so if you're on the fence, you might want to join us now!

China might be the world's factory, but America remains the earth's cultural hegemon. And perhaps its greatest export of the last decade has been “wokeism” or “wokeness”. Once inhabiting the fringiest recesses of American academia, the past decade has seen the dissemination of concepts like "cultural appropriation", "systemic racism", "critical race theory", "intersectionality"—globally, including in Europe. Thus, our aim this week is to take the time to define wokeism, explore the concept from its roots in critical theory to its manifestations in contemporary discourse, dissect the complex tapestry of its adjacent theoretical constructs, and explore how it has sparked explosive conversations on both sides of the Atlantic. We are joined by Yascha Mounk, a German intellectual, founder of Persuasion Magazine, and the author of numerous books including his latest, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (2023). On the other side of the line, we are joined by Pierre Valentin. He is—as some of you might have guessed—François' brother, but most importantly, the author of Comprendre la Révolution Woke (2023), another effort towards "Understanding the Woke Revolution". As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod) to get access to the full episode, where we talk in further detail about France and “le wokisme”, wondering whether we have reached “peak woke". Bibliography: The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (2023). Comprendre la Révolution Woke (2023).

Welcome to another Decency Deep Dive. This week we tackle various topics on the heels of the Munich Security Conference, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the world to re-anchor security at the heart of global politics. Ukraine's defense pacts with France and Germany are on the agenda, as is Donald J. Trump's earth-shattering remark that he wouldn't budge the moment Russia were to move in against a NATO ally with a chronic record of underspending on defense. Finally, the unleashing of Israel's ground invasion around Rafah prompts us to think about the longer-term prospects for peace in the Middle East. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.” Former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's advice seems to have resonated with an entire generation of German leaders in the 21st century, from the Social-Democrat Gerhard Schroder to the CDU's Angela Merkel. For years, Germany built its economic ties with Russia, but also simultaneously its dependence on Vladimir Putin's increasingly authoritarian and militaristic regime. A German illusion that crashed somewhere in the fields of Ukraine in February 2022. But Germany is not the only European heavyweight to have indulged itself with these Russian illusions. Across the Rhine, several French presidents, of all political stripes, have also attempted to build ties with Russia in the name of France's strategic interests. With mixed results at best. Today we try to understand these Franco-German illusions and their consequences. We are joined by Guy Chazan, Berlin bureau chief at the Financial Times, and Sylvie Kauffmann, columnist for Le Monde and author of Les Aveuglés (2023), a brilliant book on today's topic!  As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on the platform of your choice and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon to get access to the full episode where we talk in further detail about France and the vindication of Polish fears: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

In 1789, members of the newly-created National Assembly in Paris split between those for whom the king should retain an absolute veto, sitting to the Assembly President's right, and those who thought he shouldn't, sitting to his left. The primordial version of our structuring political cleavage was born: the party of order vs. the party of progress. This left-right divide has served as the founding metaphor of modern European politics. More than two centuries later, many are penning the obituary of that division. In 2017, the election of Emmanuel Macron against Marine le Pen seemed to usher a new cleavage, loosely defined as open vs. closed by some, nationalist vs. globalist or liberal vs. authoritarian by others. But is the left-right divide of yore buried just yet? Today we take stock of the evolving morphology of political fractures and map the main cleavages dividing European politics. With us this week: Francois Hublet, of Le Grand Continent, and the University of Manchester's Rob Ford, co-author of Brexitland (2020) and Senior Fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) network. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon, where you can access the full episode including an extra section where our guests discuss the forthcoming EU elections: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Every new year seems to heighten the impression that History is accelerating, and this may well not be new. The novelty lies in the fact that with every passing year, that impression seems to root itself in firmer ground. This is not just about the Ukraine conflict, which will turn two years old in February, and seems to have trapped the European Union (EU) in a quandary of indecision between scrapping its end-of-history pieties to decisively win the war, or protracting its limited military aid to continue its controlled damage on Russia, at the risk of eternalizing the quagmire. History is accelerating in the Middle East too, where Israel's offensive against a genocidal terrorist group risks turning the accusation of genocide against it, while the threat of regional escalation has become palpable in Yemen, where the Iranian-backed Houthis threaten to disrupt sea trade. To welcome 2024, this week we take one of our deep dives into the stories that we believe will shape the year's European news cycle, such as the EU parliamentary race in June and the attendant rise of the national-populist right, elections in other latitudes, and how Europe will tackle the normalization of global conflict. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

In a daring move, we kicked off March 2021 quoting none other than Francis Fukuyama, titling our episode "Getting to Holland" as a twist on Fukuyama's famous cliché of “Getting to Denmark”. The episode came in the heels of Mark Rutte's re-election as Dutch Prime Minister, which seemed like an apparent vindication of the Fukuyaman ideal of Northern Europe as the endpoint of political development. Not only had the country championed rule of law and the welfare state, but Rutte's liberal-centrist politics of moderation seemed to stand on a thick layer of consensus that other European nations lacked. But fast forward to November 2023, and the Dutch political scene takes a dramatic turn with Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) seizing victory a month ago. Join us this week as we unravel the beliefs driving Wilders, from welfare chauvinism to skepticism of Islam, and explore the implications for the upcoming EU parliamentary elections in June next year. Our esteemed guests, Caroline de Gruyter and Professor Ewald Engelen, bring their expertise to bear in delving deep into the dynamics reshaping Dutch politics. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Dive into the conundrums and riddles of Spanish politics with our latest riveting episode. Picture this: a high-stakes election, an unexpected coalition, and a political landscape teetering on the edge of ungovernability. In a plot twist that kept the nation on edge, the anticipated "right-wing tsunami" fell short, leaving the ruling socialists hanging by a thread. As the political chess game unfolds, alliances shift, and the spotlight turns to a liberal-separatist party holding the key to the caretaking Prime Minister's second mandate. The drama reaches its climax with an unprecedented deal, an amnesty broadly deemed unconstitutional, and a nation grappling with heightened polarization. Joining us are two seasoned Spain-watchers, Michael Reid and William Chislett, to unravel the twists and turns with insider perspectives garnered throughout decades covering post-Francoist Spain. Our podcast, while now on a slower release schedule, aims to deliver each episode with impact, allowing listeners to savor the intrigue. Don't miss out on the unraveling of Spain's constitutional compact and the gripping insights into a modern European country in flux. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

On October 15, Poles were called to the polls—no pun intended. The ruling Law & Justice party—or PiS in its Polish acronym—came first with a plurality of ballots and parliamentary seats, but fell short of a majority. As a result, after eight years of rule, PM Mateusz Morawiecki's party will likely be replaced by a large and disparate coalition that ranges from the far-left to the right-of-center, helmed by former PM Donald Tusk of Civic Platform. Today we will cover the race's aftermath and its implications for Europe. Are Poland's positions on Ukraine and NATO as immutable as they seem? Is the country about to mend fences with the EU, and unfreeze the approximately €100 billion in post-Covid recovery funds currently withheld by Brussels over concerns about so-called “democratic backsliding”? More importantly, will Tusk's agenda be undermined by holdouts from the previous government across the civil service and state-controlled corporations? To unpack the meaning of Poland's result, we are honored to have with us the consultant and veteran commentator of all things Polish Marek Matrazek back with us this week, along with Warsaw-based Belgian historian David Engels. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on whatever platform you use and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod) to get access to the full episode where we talk more about the future of EU-Polish relations. We also wanted to take a moment to apologise for launching this new season belatedly. All three of us have all been dealing with personal and professional challenges, and we wanted to take the time out to ensure we returned when truly ready. We will flesh out what we have in store very soon! Enjoy the episode!

“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Romans, I seem to see "the Tiber foaming with blood". That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror across the Atlantic but which is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century.” That was Enoch Powell, the Tory MP who delivered his infamous “Rivers of Blood" speech on April 20th 1968. On the same day that Powell offered his apocalyptic vision of a Britain that opened its doors to immigrants, the FBI added James Earl Ray to its list of ten most wanted fugitives. Why? Two weeks prior, James Earl Ray had assassinated Dr. King in Memphis. On his death's eve, Dr. King had given a speech posthumously referred to as the “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech. Addressing the crowd, Dr. King said: “In the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed.” For Dr. King the progress of colored persons was vital to human progress. For Powell, it was the end. Dr. King's influence has far exceeded that of Powell's, and the world is better off for it, but in the UK we don't learn about the debate over the Race Relations Act. We don't learn about Powell being sacked by Ted Heath from the shadow cabinet because of his speech. We don't learn about Paul Stephenson and the bus boycott in Bristol, but we do learn about the bus boycott in Birmingham Alabama.  As in other areas of public life, the UK takes its lead on race relations and the study of civil rights, from the US. This was exemplified in June 2020, when in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, people across Britain and the world took to the streets to protest racism. In London, protesters marched in Parliament Square, and in Bristol, they pulled down the statue of Edward Colston and tossed it into the river, mirroring similar actions in the US where confederate statues had been toppled. This spurred a series of debates and actions across the UK about racism in Britain. For one of our guests, this is exactly the problem. Tomiwa Owolade is a writer and critic whose latest book, This Is Not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter (2023) argues that we should consider race from a British perspective, not an American one. Our second guest is Dr. Remi Adekoya, a lecturer at York University and author of two books, Biracial Britain (2021), and It's Not About Whiteness, It's About Wealth (2023). This week you can help us a lot by filling out this short survey. This is your chance to tell us what you like about the pod and what you'd like to see improved. Help us make the pod the best it can be: https://forms.gle/Mu5uqUHD5R7bwvSA7. We will pick one random respondent and award them 6 months of Patreon access for free. This is also our last episode of the season, we will be back in September for a new season of Uncommon Decency but if you're a Patreon you will get access to some deep dives that we will produce over the summer. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Welcome to another Decency Deep Dive. This week we tackle three thorny topics. Non-subscribers will hear us lay out the ongoing coalitional dynamics on the Spanish right in the wake of last month's regional and local races, as well as the looming migration crisis knocking on the EU's door. Yet only Patreon subscribers will get to hear the sauciest part of the episode: a debate on whether the much-discussed Ukrainian counter-offensive will be all it's hyped up to be. This week you can help us a lot by filling out this short survey. This is your chance to tell us what you like about the pod and what you'd like to see improved. Help us make the pod the best it can be: https://forms.gle/Mu5uqUHD5R7bwvSA7 As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

We are extremely lucky this week to host Ben Judah, Director of the Atlantic Council's Transform Europe Initiative, but most importantly for our purposes, the author of the recently published This is Europe (2023), a travelogue of sorts that compiles short stories from all around the continent in an attempt to capture the spirit of being European. It's a special episode for many reasons. Firstly, because Uncommon Decency is a podcast that focuses a lot on the big politics of our continent and the great moments in European history. In contrast, this book is a supremely personal approach to what Europe is today, with interviews of extraordinary characters from across the continent which shed light on all the joys and hardships of life in Europe. So this is not your typical Uncommon Decency podcast. Secondly, because when we imagined what this podcast would look like in June 2020 we listed some names we would love to have on. We are happy to report that we've crossed many of these names, including Benjamin Haddad, Luuk van Middelaar and the historian Christopher Clark, for example. The last of the Mohicans on that list was Ben Judah, whose thinking about Europe is both one of the most creative but also one of the best informed. So we are proud to say that, 92 episodes later, Ben finally is with us for a conversation on what is Europe, Macron, immigration and technology. Enjoy! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was re-elected as President of Turkey in a run-off on May 14th this year, all but assuring him a spot as one of the world's longest-serving leaders (he will have served 25 years altogether after this historic third term). His election victory cements Erdoğan's status as modern Turkey's preeminent leader alongside—and perhaps even surpassing—Kemal Ataturk. But what does another Erdogan term actually mean in terms of domestic policy and Turkey's role in regional and global affairs? To find out, we spoke to Professor Birol Baskan, non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI), and Dr. Judd King, sernior adjunct lecturer at American University's Department of Philosophy and Religion, who joined us live from Turkey. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

It's debating season again at Uncommon Decency. This week we are chatting about Zelensky's rock star world tour, unpacking the Greek center-right's triumph and weighing the Conservatives' (low) chances for a similar performance in the UK. Join us for our second Decency Deep Dive! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“Soon there will only be five kings left: the king of spades, of clubs, of hearts, of diamonds, and the king of England”. King Farouk of Egypt was off in his prediction, but the permanency of the British monarchy has recently come under heightened scrutiny. The threat of independence from Britain's constituent kingdoms, accelerated by Brexit, means that this could well be the Last King of Britain we see. Across the seas, Commonwealth members are expected to hold referenda on removing the British monarch as their head of state, something that many had only retained out of respect for the longevity of Elizabeth II. This is the challenge the latest person to sit on the Stone of Scone faces. Charles III has waited a long time to be King, but his reign could mark the end of one of Britain's most enduring institutions. The monarchy is but one of many constitutional institutions, and this week we also looked at the history of Parliament and its struggles with the Crown over the centuries, as well as the constitutional legacies of seminal figures in British history such as Oliver Cromwell. To explore this vast topic, we sat down with Sir Peter Riddell, a former journalist with the Financial Times and Times of London, and an Honorary Professor of History at University College London, where he works with the school's Constitution Unit. We also covered recent constitutional crises stemming from the premiership of Boris Johnson and whether these exposed or validated the role of a monarch. Finally, our patreons will be able to hear an extended conversation on various constitutional reforms that have been floated in recent years, including by the commission led by Gordon Brown. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

In the mid-1990s, the mayor of Istanbul was quoted saying: “democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off”. That mayor is now president and his critics fear he believes Turkey has reached its democratic destination. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rise to power, his consolidation of it, and his ability to shape world events makes him one of the 21st century's extraordinary leaders. But he is currently at risk of losing his re-election battle as rampant inflation and the mishandling of rescue efforts following an earthquake and its aftershocks wrecked the south of the country. Now we're faced with the question of whether one of the longest-serving autocrats in Europe's neighborhood could lose in the forthcoming election. This week we recorded the first of a two part episode on Turkey. This edition covers Erdogan's rise to power, his ideology, the clash between Kemalists and Islamists and finally (for our Patreons only) a discussion of what could happen when Turks vote this week. Our guests for this deep dive into Turkey and its mercurial president are Birol Baskan, a professor at Georgetown University and non-resident scholar at The Middle East Institute. Professor Baskan has published a number of books including The Nation or the Ummah: Islamism and Turkish Foreign Policy (2021). We also welcomed back Ryan Gingeras, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the author of six books, and his most recent work The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire (2023) is available to purchase now and linked in the show notes. The views he expresses here are not those of the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

It's debate season on Uncommon Decency. This week we evaluated President Macron's visit to China, and the premiership of Giorgia Meloni. As well as what stood out to us from the first part of this year. Enjoy! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“If only mine were the last drop of Spanish blood to be spilled in civil strife. God willing, may the Spanish people at peace, so replete with extraordinary virtue, at last find homeland, bread and justice”. Who among today's Spaniards could possibly disown this quote? The man who uttered in November 1936 shortly before being shot by firing squad, in whose tombstone the epitaph is inscribed, is José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The current left-wing government of Spain has different plans for his bodily remains. As part of its so-called law of democratic memory, approved last summer, Primo de Rivera will be disinterred this week from his tomb at what used to be called the Valley of the Fallen—renamed Valle de Cuelgamuros by the same bill—incinerated, and his ashes will be relocated to the San Isidro monastery in Madrid. So what does the government of Pedro Sánchez fault Primo de Rivera for? Although he ended his life on the aforecited conciliatory note—and even though he lived through only six months of the civil war from prison before being executed by the Second Republic, which viewed him as a threat—Primo de Rivera remains a standard-bearer of 20th century Spanish fascism, someone historians see as having laid the idealogical groundwork for Franco, who went on to rule for 40 years upon winning the Civil War. He is the latest target of a sweeping effort, unfolding since the previous socialist government in the late 2000s, to settle the scores of these tumultuous decades of Spain's history. These bills do various things. They rename streets and monuments. By setting up DNA banks, they enable families to trace, find and give a proper burial to Republican victims of Francoist repression buried in mass graves. And lastly, they reframe the way History is taught, depicting the Second Republic (1931-1939) as the unimpeachable defender of freedom and democracy against Franco's fascist villains. This week, we will navigate this treacherous topic by inquiring about Franco's exact place in Spain's public consciousness, exploring the demographics of this issue, and questioning whether Spain's history can be so neatly framed as a black-or-white story of good versus evil. We are joined by two distinguished hispanists. On one side of the line, Michael Reid, a longtime regular at The Economist and the author most recently of Spain: The Trials and Tribulations of a Modern European Country (2023), with Yale University Press. On the other side of the line we have with us Nigel Townson, a professor of History at Complutense University in Madrid. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“I was born in 1881 in the great and mighty empire of the Habsburg Monarchy, but you would look for it in vain on the map today; it has vanished without trace”. We begin with this quote from Stefan Zweig's memoir The World of Yesterday (1942) for two reasons. First, because it is a wonderful book that beautifully describes this powerful sense of loss—do give it a read. But more importantly, because in this episode we will challenge the idea that the Empire of the Habsburgs vanished “without trace”. In fact, its legacy remains incredibly alive in Central Europe specifically, and across Europe more generally. Some might see in the European Union (EU) an offspring of the buried liberal empire. So today we will explore what we owe to the Habsburgs and weave that parallel between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the EU. Joining us in this time capsule of an episode, we have Caroline de Gruyter, a German journalist of all things Brussels, and author of “Monde d'hier, monde de demain” which covers exactly today's topic—go give it a read if you want to dig in further. On the other side of the line we have former Talking Politics podcast star and Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, Helen Thompson. She recently published “Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century”, a top-rated account on the three crises rocking western democracies in the 2020s. As usual, the full conversation will be available only to our Patreon subscribers. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Is it a revolt? No sire, it's a revolution". While this famous exchange is attributed to Louis the XVIth and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, odds are that French President Macron has had similar conversations with his aides in the past few weeks. In an attempt to balance the books of France's pensions regime, Macron's party—Renaissance—filed a bill to increase the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. Without a formal majority in Parliament, he needed the support of the center right, but given the overwhelming opposition to the bill across the electorate, Macron decided to use a constitutional trump card to force through the bill without a vote. This triggered a no confidence vote which was only 9 votes short of toppling Macron's PM, Élisabeth Borne, and her government. In the meantime, millions have taken to the streets or went on strike to oppose the bill. While these have been largely peaceful, some have turned violent, with brutal street fights breaking out between police officers and antifa groups. This week, we try to take stock of this chaos with Nicholas Vinocur from POLITICO and Cole Strangler, a Paris-based freelancer. Bear in mind we won't be releasing an episode next week, and expect us to be back the week after that. Enjoy your Easter break! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

While the geographic center of the EU is apparently in a small Bavarian field, its political center is harder to pin down. Historically, it was probably somewhere between France and Germany, but with the war in Ukraine, this center has seemingly moved East. Warsaw was not too long ago under considerable pressure from Brussels over rule-of-law skirmishes. Now, Poland and Lithuania are reaping the political benefits of their unambiguous support to Ukraine and their long-established hawkish stance on Russia. In a sign of this evolution Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki last weekend was not afraid to lambast Germany for being “co-responsible for the mess on the energy market” and urged Berlin to step up its support for Kiev. We wanted to map this shift in European politics and stress-test whether this pivot is noise or substance. We are joined by Jana Puglierin, the head of European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Berlin and a returnee to the show. On the other side of the line, we are joined by Timothy Garton Ash, a historian of contemporary Europe who just published Homelands: A Personal History of Europe (2023), a part-memoir based on his decades of experience traveling across Europe. This week our Patreons will get to listen to Timothy and Jana mapping out the nuances of Central and Eastern European politics, between Poland and Hungary, or Romania and Bulgaria. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

On episode five of this show, the late Gyórgy Schópflin, then retired and in the twilight of his life, made a lucid observation about what, at bottom, set his native Hungary apart from his adoptive Great Britain. “Hungary has no post-colonial guilt”, intoned the retired academic and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP). Schöpflin meant this as a partial explanation—if not a justification—of the nationalist politics practiced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the subject of our episode that day. Not having colonized other territories, Orbán's dealings with other world leaders were, in Schópflin's view, a function of Hungary having fallen under the dominion of foreign powers throughout recent history, be it Austria or the Soviet Union. What did Schópflin mean about the UK, however? Simply put, that conversely things like the British public's toleration of high levels of immigration from former colonies or its support for high levels of development aid towards them are also, in their own way, a function of Britain's past as the ruler of a vast empire. In his latest book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2022), Oxford University ethicist Nigel Biggar hopes to inform a reassessment of Britain's colonial guilt, placing on a single moral ledger the calamities and abuses worthy of guilt and condemnation along with the achievements worthy of praise and celebration. The Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, Biggar is joined in this latest episode by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, a historian of Spanish colonialism and the William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Together, our two guests challenge one another to comparatively assess the historical and moral record of the Spanish and British empires. Enjoy! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." That is the peroration from possibly the greatest speech ever written, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The final words have been a rallying call for the voices of liberty and democracy not just in the US but across the world. However, those voices have been met with a growing chorus pushing back on the ideals of democratic governance. The debate over whether we are in a democratic recession has become a mainstay of modern political discourse, and world leaders are increasingly casting the world in manichean terms of democracies vs. autocracies. That is the context in which our guest this week, Martin Wolf, wrote his latest book. The Chief Economics Commentator for the Financial Times and one of the preeminent thought leaders in the West on economics and politics, Wolf is the author of a number of books, with his latest one, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (2023), covering all the most pertinent issues shaping the globe today. What is ailing democracy? What reforms are needed? What is the relationship between capitalism and democracy? These were just some of the questions that we covered during this episode. There is also a policy discussion for our Patreons including the merits of Starship Trooper's citizenship policy, and a discussion on changing voting laws away from one person one vote, not to ranked choice voting, but something far more interesting. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Since mid-December, a corruption scandal has been unfolding in Brussels that could soon begin rock the European Union's (EU) very foundations. Eva Kaili, a 44-year-old Member of the European Parliament (MEP), was detained by Belgian authorities along with three other suspects—including fellow MEP Marc Tarabella and Kaili's partner, an assistant to another MEP—for allegedly accepting large bribes from foreign government officials in exchange for whitewashing the image of those governments in Brussels. Qatar was frontline in the scandal, but so was Morocco, and more recently, even Mauritania. As this episode goes to press, no less than 1.5 million EUR in cash have been seized, much of which was lying around the house of Kaili's father, who is also ensnared. With the World Cup then about to take place in Qatar and amid widespread allegations of unsafe working conditions for migrant workers hired to build the facilities, Kaili and her fellow suspects had their work cut out for them. Now—the scandal's implications cannot be overstated. While the EU has long labored under critiques of its democratic legitimacy, the moral legitimacy of its leaders has largely gone unquestioned. That all changes now. To discuss the repercussions of this scandal, we have with us Frank Furedi, executive director of Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) Brussels and Thomas Fazi, a columnist at UnHerd and Compact. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“Exactly a year ago, I broadcast a message that contained the two things that remain most important now: that Russia had launched a full-scale war against us, and that we are strong. We are ready for anything. We will defeat anyone. Because we are Ukraine. We will never rest until the Russian murderers face the punishment they deserve. The punishment of the international tribunal. The judgement of God. Of our warriors. The verdict is clear. Nine years ago, the neighbor turned into our aggressor. A year ago, the aggressor turned executioner, looter and terrorist. We have no doubt that they will be held accountable. We have no doubt that we will win”. That was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski marking the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last week. To take stock of how profoundly this one-year war is changing our continent, we have decided, on this bonus episode, to reflect upon three unique angles of it: (1) the shifting tectonics of public opinion, (2) the enduring resilience of the transatlantic relationship and (3) the message the invasion sends to other authoritarian would-be aggressors like China. Enjoy the episode! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety". These words by American statesman Benjamin Franklin are often paraphrased into “those who sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither”. Franklin was talking about taxes, but don't worry—that's not what we're going to cover today. We're diving back into the world of espionage. This episode originally would have been combined with the one on Russia's security services, but we finally decided to keep them separate because we had so many interesting things to discuss with Dan Lomas. Dan is a senior lecturer in intelligence and security studies at Brunel University. This week, we asked him to comment on the role of intelligence agencies in democratic societies. We talked about the war on terror and how it affected the public's view of the security services, as well as the debate over Huawei and other forms of Chinese espionage. For those of you listening in February, we had a brief discussion about the infamous Chinese spy balloon and what it says about the country's security posture. For our Patreon subscribers, you will be able to hear Dan discuss the effects of surveillance capitalism on the security services and how the collection of personal data by companies is reshaping intelligence work. Naturally, any conversation on Western spies must include a debate over who is the best James Bond—subscribe to hear Dan's answer! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

«With your democratic laws we will colonize you, and with our koranic laws we will dominate you». This rather bellicose warning for Europeans came from a 2002 speech by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, one of the key intellectual leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). It's a great insight on what the MB is—a strictly religious and conservative reaction to modernity that was launched in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan El-Banna. It's also an insight into its modus operandi. The MB works in the shadows and builds its strength slowly through a complex maze of sister organisations to push its narrative and its pawns. Two decades after that speech, a series of controversies around EU institutions funding MB-adjacent organisations have highlighted the MB's influence in Europe. We tried to stay light on acronyms but we mention FEMYSO a few times: that's the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisation, which is one of these glossy organisations that get a lot of visibility in Brussels but that have strong ties with the MB's web of organisations. To cover this issue we have invited Florence Bergeaud Blackler, an anthropologist at the French CNRS who has been working on these issues for a while and just released in French «Le Frérisme et ses réseaux, l'enquête» (The Brotherhood and its networks, an investigation). On the other side of the line we have Tommaso Virgili, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the WZB Social Center in Berlin where he works on modernization movements within Islam in response to the challenge of fundamentalism. He co-authored in 2021 a report for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) on the MB in Europe entitled «Network of Networks, the MB in Europe». Before we move on, we're very happy to announce that we have partnered up with What's Up EU, the best newsletter out there to follow all the policy and political development in EU politics. Take for example all the conversation we had on this podcast on trade. What's Up EU will walk you through the inner workings of policymaking and all the horse-trading that goes behind it. It's trusted by hundreds of journalists, policymakers, diplomats all across the world and if you need—or want—to follow what happens in Brussels, then subscribing to What's Up EU is the best thing you can do, the link to subscribe is in the description. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"The Soviet State Security Service is more than a secret police organization, more than an intelligence and counter-intelligence organization. It is an instrument for subversion, manipulation and violence, for secret intervention in the affairs of other countries”. Those were the words of Allen Dulles, the long-time head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but they may just as well describe the security services of today's Russia. Welcome back to a new season of Uncommon Decency where this week, we are starting with a conversation about the Chekhist state that Russian President Vladimir Putin has created. Joining us for this episode was Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist who has been covering the security services and terrorism issues since 1999. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), and he has written a number of books on the Russian state including his most recent work, The Compatriots: The Russian Exiles Who Fought Against the Kremlin (2022). This episode covered a lot of ground and referenced a lot of groups so let's start by outlining some of the abbreviations and names you'll hear: KGV, SVR, FSB, GRU, Wagner Group. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

It's that time of the year again—a time to look back on the year lapsed and make resolutions for the coming one. At episode 75, Uncommon Decency readies to enter its third calendar year—we launched in October 2020—with a potent mix of hope and derision. For the first time this year, we are greeting 2023 with a very special series of Uncommonly Decent awards and gifts. Who claims our “Brutus” award for betrayal of the year—Rishi Sunak, Giuseppe Conte or the Pakistani military? Who's our “Gorbachev” spectacular collapse of the year—Liz Truss, BoJo, Putin or the European Parliament? Who pulled the “De Gaulle” political comeback of the year—Leo Varadkar, Bibi Netanyahu, Anwar Ibrahim or Lula? Who wins the “how-do-you-still-have-a-job” award—Berlusconi, de Kirchner or Sergei Shoigu? To hear us bestow these funnily-titled awards, listen to this special bonus episode marking the new year—and make sure to tell us how you'd have voted by reaching out through the usual channels? As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

It was the opening shot of what the Wall Street Journal's (WSJ) editorial board fears may become a protracted climate trade war between the European Union (EU) and the United States. In a notorious departure from standard EU lip service to free trade, late last week French President Emmanuel Macron urged fellow European leaders anew to match the Biden administration's round of green subsidies pork-barrelled into the Inflation Reduction Act. Unhelpfully acronymized as IRA, that legislative package was signed into law in August. As part of it, the US Treasury will be offering tax breaks and other market-rigging subsidies to companies manufacturing electric vehicles in the US, which Macron fears will unfairly disadvantage their European competitors. Macron claims there should be greater joint efforts to accelerate the green transition. In this latest episode with The Economist's Charlemagne columnist, Stanley Pignal, and POLITICO's Barbara Moens, we inquire whether the EU was really as committed to free trade as its liberal cheerleaders claim in the first place, and whether this latest round of rhetorical animus may spark a real trade war between transatlantic allies. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Within our mandate, the European Central Bank (ECB) is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro, and believe me, it will be enough." By uttering those three words, Mario Draghi saved the Eurozone from collapsing, thereby ushering Europe's monetary policy into the 21st century. European fiscal policy, meanwhile, has not quite caught up. To this day, it still sticks with the treaty-enshrined limits to member-states' debt and deficit--the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)--albeit with varying degrees of fidelity. These days, the European Commission is proposing a new economic governance framework that would give member states greater flexibility on their spending plans and the Commission a larger role in the continent's policy. This week we spoke to Rebecca Christie—a fellow at Bruegel—to discuss the Commission's proposal and the broader sweep of European economic policy. Rebecca is the author of an intellectual history of the ESM and a columnist for BreakingViews. This conversation got quite wonky quickly, as we rattled through arguments on capital markets unions, deficit targeting, bond spreads, tackling inflation, and Alexander Hamilton. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"I think this administration—and President Biden personally—is very much attached to Europe, but when you look at the situation today, there is indeed a de-synchronization.” In an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, French President Emmanuel Macron highlighted the growing tension in the transatlantic relationship as the United States and Europe rift apart in a number of areas such as economics and energy. The EU has raised concerns that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a major package of legislation signed into law by President Biden earlier this year, will severely damage European industry through its use of subsidies and tax credits to promote manufacturing in the US. The dispute was at the core of discussions between the US and France during President Macron's state visit to the US last week. Another area of disconnect relates to the differing approaches the EU and the US take towards China. While the US views China as a threat, European countries have a more dovish approach, favoring cooperation to competition. This was underscored by the recent visits of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the former of whom recently declared in an essay for Foreign Affairs that the world is facing a "Zeitenwende"—the end of an era. Both visits were criticized by China hawks given their proximity to the party congress where President Xi was enshrined for another five years, becoming its most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. This week in a bonus episode, Jorge, Francois, and Julian discussed the fractious state of US-EU trade relations, as well as the diverging approaches to China. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

On May 7, 1999, five bombs rained down from U.S. jets on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, as part of NATO's air campaign to halt the deadly assault by the forces of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Nearly a quarter of a century later, China is transforming the site of its bombed former embassy into an expansive cultural center, set to be one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Once opened, the center will serve not only as a potent symbol of China's growing presence in the Werstern Balkans, but also of the potential kinship between the two regions, not least owing to the shared socialist past that Chinese diplomats often emphasize to advance those relations. In the long-run, some experts deem China's growing economic clout in Europe, primarily through the Western Balkans, a more consequential trend than Russia's invasion of Ukraine itself. To unpack just how deep China's influence on the region runs, we are joined this week by Damir Marusic of the Atlantic Council and Valbona Zeneli of the Marshall Center. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

In 1791, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted one of the world's most avant-garde constitutions, one establishing a progressive constitutional monarchy. And yet in 1795, the Commonwealth altogether disappeared, partitioned between Prussia, Austria and Russia. This contrast between the Commonwealth's seemingly advanced regime and its total collapse in four years has earned it the neglect of historians. Yet for nearly four centuries, it stayed a major actor in central European politics, controlling at its peak somewhere between a third and a fourth of the European landmass, with liberal political and religious rights for its time and vibrant intellectual, economic and cultural conditions. This week, we cover this fascinating history with two leading experts. Norman Davies is the Polish-Welsh honorary fellow at St Antony's College (Oxford). He's a professor Emeritus at UCL and the author of many books on Poland, including God's Playground: A History of Poland (1979). Adam Zamoyski—in his third appearance on the podcast—is the author of Poland: A History (2009). As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“I think people are going to be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won't do it.” With those words, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy sparked significant panic in European capitals, with foreign diplomats fearing that a Republican victory in the midterms would lead to diminished US support for Ukraine. Yet the red wave didn't materialize for McCarthy and the GOP. As we recorded this episode, the House had still not been called either way. Nevertheless, the election results do raise important questions for Europe as it thinks about how Congress, which is in charge of allocating funds for Ukraine, will approach the conflict under new leadership. In this bonus episode, Francois and Julian discussed the impact of the US midterms on Ukraine, as well as how France missed its moment to push for strategic autonomy in the aftermath of the Russian invasion. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Here is a double paradox: The European Union's (EU) set of founding principles—its telos, so to speak—are undergoing a two-track inversion. The block was initially designed to slide gently towards federalization whilst remaining a largely toothless actor on the world stage. And yet the opposite has happened: the EU has since grown into a powerful geopolitical player of its own that is internally at peace with the present deadlock of integration. Sometime between the eurozone crisis of the early 2010s and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the EU's entire architecture has been turned inside out. Scholars, journalists and analysts in Brussels and European capitals are still at pains to gauge the depth of this compete revolution. Stefan Auer of Hong Kong University may have lost some sleep over it. A former—and likely future—recipient of the prestigious Jean Monnet Chair for EU studies, he's as astute an observer as any of the block's institutional dynamics. He argues in his most recent book that, instead of seeking to transcend the laws of politics, the EU would be well advised to heed them. In this episode he sits down with us and Glyn Morgan, associate professor at Syracuse University's politics department. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

« Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.” When a fresh-faced Vladimir Putin made those comments back in 2000, Russia had only recently lost its Soviet Empire and endured a series of violent conflicts within the borders of the Federation, most notably in Chechnya. Just like the rest of Europe lost its colonies in the latter half of the 20th century, Russia was forced then to lose large chunks of its imperial Soviet possessions. But over the last two decades, Vladimir Putin nonetheless managed to maintain a strong influence network in his “near abroad,” making Russia a central actor in the politics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Yet the increasingly costly and unsuccessful “special military operation” in Ukraine considerably undermines Russia's might and clout. As a result, a series of border conflicts and uprisings sprang up in the former USSR, from the reheated conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan to the skirmishes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Our two guests this week are veteran Russian analysts. Angela Stent is a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings and professor emerita of government and foreign service at Georgetown. She's a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia and the author of Putin's World: Russia against the West and with the Rest (2019) and is about to be republished with an extra chapter on the war in Ukraine. Mark Galeotti is a political scientist specialized in Russian security affairs and the director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He is an Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He's also publishing later this week Putin's Wars, from Chechnya to Ukraine (2022) which should be another incredibly timely read. For our Patreon section, our two experts took an in-depth dive into the Russian Federation itself. War and the ramping up of conscription sparked some major tensions within ethnic minority groups which could upset the balance of power within the nominally federal Federation of Russia. We also had a conversation on Russian imperialism, modern Russian nationalism and whether Russia sees itself as a former colonial power. If you want to listen to this Patreon-exclusive conversation and get plenty of additional content, you can subscribe for as little as the price of a sandwich a month. On to the show! As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them.” With those words, Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed fears across the globe that Russia could employ nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine. As we edited this episode, Russia conducted its annual nuclear exercises, drills that had added resonance given the Kremlin's implied threats to use nuclear force in the conflict in Ukraine. But how likely is Putin to use nuclear weapons? And how would Russia use one in the war? To answer these questions and puncture some myths surrounding nuclear weapons and Russian nuclear doctrine, we spoke to Olga Oliker, Program Director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group, and Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French think tank. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

"Greece, look at history, go back in time; if you go too far, the price will be heavy. We only have one sentence for Greece, do not forget Izmir”.  After months of hostile aerial and naval encounters between Greek and Turkish armed forces, Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave this remarkable speech last September. By referring to the 1922 burning of the Greek Anatolian city of Izmir by the Turkish army, Erdogan's threat to Greece was crystal clear. It's a snapshot of a foreign policy decried as revanchist by its critics, and as logically assertive by its supporters, but one that from the outside can be hard to understand. How can this NATO member be at loggerheads with its Greek neighbor and trade diplomatic blows with European capitals while still technically applying for EU membership? We invited Ryan Gingeras, an expert of Turkish foreign policy, to take stock of this paradox. Is there such a thing as an Erdogan doctrine? Gingeras is a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and is an expert on Turkish, Balkan, and Middle East history. He is the author of six books, including the forthcoming The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire (to be released by Penguin in October 2022). The views he expresses here are not those of the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

The war in Ukraine keeps looming over Europe's geopolitical landscape, with sanctions, energy price caps, and weapons supplies dominating debates at EU Council meetings. Ukraine's recently successful counter-offensive warrants a check-in on the war itself, and what it means for the continent's geopolitical standing as old Europe fades in influence, and new Europe's voice grows louder. The UK, one of Ukraine's strongest supporters, elected a new Prime Minister and was plunged into economic crisis almost immediately. Why did Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng opt for their economic strategy? Can the Conservatives rebound before the next election? Or will Sir Keir Starmer become the first Labour PM since Gordon Brown? This week Francois Valentin and Julian Graham dove into these topics in-depth. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“Civil war politics ended a long time ago in our country, but today it ends in our parliament.” Thus welcomed Leo Varadkar—the former and future Irish Taoiseach—the new coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Ireland has been marked by division, between both the Republic's pro- and anti-treaty parties and the North and South on the island itself. Economic progress has brought with it a shift to more progressive values, and this has sparked unprecedented political change. What does this mean for the Emerald Isle, and what can Europe and the world learn from Ireland's success? This week, we spoke about the social and political changes facing Ireland with Daniel Mulhall and Jude Webber. The former is a former Irish Ambassador to the UK and US, and author of Ulysses: A Reader's Odyssey (2022), out this year. The latter is Dublin Correspondent for the Financial Times. And for our Patreon subscribers, a broader conversation on the prospect of Irish unification awaits. If you would like to hear that conversation, you can subscribe for just €5 a month. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

“To you, who have been born in Italy, God has allotted, as if favouring you specially, the best-defined country in Europe”. Thus wrote Giuseppe Mazzini in his landmark essay Duties of Country (1860). Mazzini believed that Italy was unified by geography and language, and that through unification, Italians would gain the power to improve their economic and social conditions. Today Italians remain united by language and geography, but they are dissatisfied and disillusioned with their politics. This weekend's election saw the lowest turnout of any Italian election in history. Fratelli d'Italia's Giorgia Meloni is poised to become the next Prime Minister and the first woman ever to hold that position. Centrists and social democrats spent the campaign warning of the dangers of a right-wing coalition, and accused Meloni of having fascist sympathies. This week, we spoke to Alessandra Bocchi, a freelance journalist, and Thomas Fazi, who writes for UnHerd, about what the Lega/Fratelli/Forza Italia coalition will do in government, the accusations of extremism levelled against Meloni, the future of the Italian left, and the legacy of Mario Draghi. For our Patreon subscribers, there is an extended conversation on Italy's relationship with the EU. We hope you enjoy this episode and decide to subscribe in order to access the full episode. As always, please rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions either on Twitter at @UnDecencyPod or by e-mail at undecencypod@gmail.com. And please consider supporting the show through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/undecencypod.

Your favorite euro-realist podcast is gearing up for a new season. In the meantime, here's a short State-of-the-Union primer where we take stock of what we have accomplished over the past 2 years and map out what we intend to achieve in the coming one. On the agenda: our new co-host Julian, our revamped Patreon system (a way to raise the required funds to finance our project whilst offering our Patreons some juicy extra content) and our first-ever Uncommonly Decent job posting. See you soon!