If You Were In Charge

Feminist economist Naila Kabeer joins Sanam and Kavita to ask why we still measure success in GDP and what we could build if we counted care, peace and the planet. A clear-eyed, hopeful conversation about Beyond GDP, the absurd cost of the war in Iran for future generations, and the everyday agency that changes the world. Welcome to If You Were In Charge the radical leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities with Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas. On this episode before we get to the interview, Sanam and Kavita pick up the threads Naila weaves through the conversation. They look at the $20 trillion annual cost of war, the way the care economy quietly runs on immigrant women, and the Iranian paradox where 65% of university professors are women inside a theocracy. A vivid reminder of why we need new ways to measure what's actually working in our societies. We then welcome in Naila who explains how GDP was invented in wartime to count what could be sold, and what it has always quietly excluded: the unpaid work that holds families together, the rivers and forests that hold up the planet, and a system now monopolised by a handful of oligarchs. She unpacks the staggering price tag of war nearly $20 trillion a year, around 11.6% of global GDP and asks what we could build instead if we counted care, peace, human capabilities, and the rights of the living world. We also hear about her new book “Renegotiating Patriarchy: Gender, Agency and the Bangladesh Paradox” — a study of how ordinary women, in some of the most oppressive circumstances, have changed their societies not through revolution but through everyday persistence. “Despair is a luxury for the well-off. I do not think we can afford to despair.” If You Were In Charge is a podcast about people, power and possibilities, brought to you by ICAN subscribe to our newsletter! An ADA Podcasts Naila Kabeer Links. LSE faculty page: https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/people/naila-kabeer Naila's personal site (books, articles, talks): https://nailakabeer.net/ Renegotiating Patriarchy — free open-access download (LSE Press, 2024): https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.rpg UN High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP — members: https://www.un.org/en/beyondGDP/members IAFFE Feminist Economics Podcast (Kavita mentions this at the end): https://www.iaffe.org/feminist-economics-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Italian peace activist Raffaella Bolini was on the streets of the 80s peace movement against the Euromissiles. Forty years later, she's back, pushing back on a Europe planning to spend €6.8 trillion on armaments over the next decade. In conversation with Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas, she makes the case for common security, the politics of care, and a multipolar Europe of intersectional regions. The only winning move, she argues, is not to play. Sanam and Kavita open the episode with the latest flotilla to be intercepted on the way to Gaza, the unfolding war in Iran, and the absurdity of trillions being spent on defence at the expense of future generations, while everything from healthcare to social services goes without. But not without hope. They also remember the remarkable legacy of Cora and Peter Weiss, whose memorial was held this month, two activists at the forefront of the peace and justice movement for their entire lifetimes. If You Were In Charge is a podcast about people, power and possibilities, brought to you by ICAN subscribe to the ICAN Newsletter! An ADA Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What beliefs make people willing to commit violence, and what could change their minds? In this episode, we explore what makes individuals vulnerable to white supremacist beliefs, what it means when extremism becomes mainstream, the surprising permeability of these groups, and how to talk to people in your life who express racist ideology. Peter Simi is a professor of Sociology at Chapman University, and an expert on extremist groups and violence in the US. Among his many publications, he is co-author of American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate, and Out of Hiding: Extremist White Supremacy and How It Can be Stopped. Find out more about Peter at: https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/pete-simi.aspx. Sara Winegar Budge holds a doctorate in Psychology and is a licensed psychologist in Oregon. She is the Director of US Programs at Moonshot, which builds technology to identify and disrupt organized crime, child sexual exploitation, and trafficking, among other forms of abuse and violence. Her clinical work focuses on individuals who are or have been involved in violent extremism. Find out more at https://moonshotteam.com/ In this episode, we talk about Stephen Tyrone Johns, Bridget's former colleague from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum who was killed by a white supremacist. You can learn more about him, and contribute to a fund in his name, here: https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/in-memoriam/stephen-tyrone-johns-1969-2009. Disrupting Peace is a production of The World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Kaelen Song. Show artwork by Simon Fung. This season was partially funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Special thanks to Lisa Avery and Alex de Waal, and the Tufts Digital Design Studio team. Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at @worldpeacefdtn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iran ceasefire deadline approaches as memes war takes over the internet

with Farhana Yamin, Reetta Toivanen & Rana Dajani