This is the second part in our two-part series on global demining and disarmament efforts, and the Trump administration’s decision to suspend all US assistance and funding for these international campaigns. In this episode, Mark Williams speaks with political scientist and Nobel Laureate Matthew Breay Bolton regarding the US role in helping to address the problems posed by landmines and unexploded ordinance—problems that past US policy had sometimes helped create. Their conversation examines some of the ethical, political, and strategic implications of the US decision to cease supporting global demining efforts—such as the potential rise in civilian casualties, abdication of moral responsibility, and the broader strategic disadvantages this policy change (and a US withdrawal from global leadership more generally) seems likely to impose on the United States.

How could activists, academics, NGOs and others lead the world to a Nuclear Weapons Ban treaty in 2017, despite resistance from the world’s major nuclear powers? Why do states, militaries, and militias still use landmines in war zones, despite their proven inability to deter an opposing military—or even delay its assault for an extended time? How effective have global efforts to clear landmines from post-conflict societies been? What role has the United States played in helping to create—and address—the problems posed by landmines and unexploded ordinance? And could the Trump administration’s decision to suspect aid for global demining campaigns affect those operations as well as America’s global influence and strategic interests? This is the first of a two-part series in which 2017 Nobel Laureate Matthew Breay Bolton joins host Mark Williams to discuss these and other topics.

Dr. Matthew Breay Bolton is professor of political science and co-director of the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University, New York City. He is also affiliated with the Environmental Science and Studies department. Along with his wife, Emily Welty, Bolton was part of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) team awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. He has worked for more than 20 years with UN and NGO efforts addressing the humanitarian impact of landmines, cluster munitions, military robotics and the arms trade.

For more information on the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs at Middlebury College and the New Frontiers podcast series, visit our website.
New Frontiers is a higher education podcast series bringing scholarly research and expertise to bear on national, international, and global affairs.

Produced and edited by Margaret DeFoor and Mark Williams, director of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. Intro by Charlotte Tate, associate director of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs.

Music Credits
Forte by Kestra - Summer with Sound Album
Soul Zone by Kestra - Light Rising Album

In this episode of New Frontiers, Mark Williams sits down with political scientist Javier Corrales, to discuss his latest book—‘Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism’. Known for decades as one of the developing world’s most stable democracies, Venezuela’s slide toward autocracy began with Hugo Chávez’s rise to the presidency. In 1998 public displeasure with various economic, political, and social issues swept Chávez to power. Thereafter, power itself increasingly accrued to the presidency—at the expense of civil society elements, pluralism, and institutional checks and balances—to the point that Freedom House now ranks the Venezuelan political system led by current president Nicolás Maduro as “not free.” How did Venezuela transition from democracy to autocracy? What factors played the largest causal roles? And what lessons might Venezuela’s experience teach about democracy’s fragility elsewhere? This episode offers a deep dive into these topics.

Javier Corrales is Dwight W. Morrow 1895 professor of Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1996.

Corrales's research focuses on democratization, presidential powers, ruling parties, democratic backsliding, populism, political economy of development, oil and energy, the incumbent's advantage, foreign policies, and sexuality. He has published extensively on Latin America and the Caribbean.

For more information on the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs at Middlebury College and the New Frontiers podcast series, visit our website.
New Frontiers is a higher education podcast series bringing scholarly research and expertise to bear on national, international, and global affairs.

Produced and edited by Margaret DeFoor and Mark Williams, director of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. Intro by Charlotte Tate, associate director of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. Editing also by Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs intern, Mehr Sohal.

Music Credits
Forte by Kestra - Summer with Sound Album
Soul Zone by Kestra - Light Rising Album