New Frontiers is the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs’ podcast series. Hosted by Mark Williams, RCGA director and Russell J. Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics, it offers a deeper view into global areas through one-on-one discussions with Middlebury College faculty and others.
New Frontiers topics—from big tech, environmental conservation, global security, and political economy, to culture, literature, religion, and changing work patterns—have global or international dimensions.
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Co-author of “The Age of Authoritarian Abundance” (Oct. 2026, Journal of Democracy) Sebnem Gumuscu is an expert on transitions from democratic to authoritarian rule. In this episode of “New Frontiers” she explains how this transition occurs, the typical pattern that democratic dismantling assumes in many countries, and how America’s own democratic backsliding conforms to and differs from other notable cases.
| by Stephen Herzog
In this episode, Rohatyn Center director Mark Williams speaks with Dr. Stephen Herzog, Professor of the Practice at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, about renewed fears of nuclear accidents and war—and how strategies meant to prevent them can sometimes make matters worse. Drawing on his co-edited book, Atomic Backfires, Herzog explains why nuclear anxieties have resurfaced decades after the Cold War and how policies such as sanctions, treaties, export controls, nonproliferation incentives, and military strikes can unintentionally deepen nuclear risks.
| by Jason Blazakis
In this episode, Mark Williams speaks with counter-terrorist expert Jason Blazakis, founding director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism about how individuals or groups can wind up on a US government Terrorist List. They discuss the stringent procedures followed to ensure this designation—and the penalties it entails—are justified. They also reflect on how recent changes in those procedures by the Trump administration can lead to their misuse and abuse.
| by with Allison Jacobel
In this episode, Rohatyn Center director Mark Williams talks with climate scientist Allison Jacobel about how researchers reconstruct the Earth’s climate history without a “time machine,” why the oceans and seafloor hold richer continuous climate records than land, and what understanding the past can tell us about contemporary climate change and our climate future.
What are some of the common critiques that American populist politicians—on the Left and the Right—lodge against Big Tech? How valid are their critiques? In this episode political scientist Gary Winslett discusses his newest book project—“Big Tech and Its Populist Critics”—which examines populist critiques of Big Tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google. While Right-wing populists criticize Big Tech for suppressing “free speech”— and Left-wing populists target economic concerns and these firms’ monopolistic practices—Winslett explores these issues, questions the validity of populist critiques from both political sides, and advocates for a “dynamist” approach to public policy that promotes risk-taking, innovation, and a positive outlook towards technological progress.
In this episode of New Frontiers, environmental scientist Mez Baker-Médard discusses her new book Feminist Conservation: Politics and Power in Madagascar’s Marine Commons. Drawing on two decades of research, the book explores how global conservation programs in Madagascar often marginalize local communities (especially women) by excluding them from traditional fishing areas. Employing the concept of feminist conservation—which emphasizes local knowledge, equity, and justice in environmental decision-making—she critiques the “top-down” conservation model typically favored by international environmental organizations, and urges an approach to conservation that incorporates local worldviews, resists enclosure, and addresses structural causes of environmental degradation such as global trade and climate change.
In this episode, Mark Williams sits down with Cathy Burke - author, leadership expert, change maker. She’s the author of several books and her latest, Today I Saw a Revolution, tells us the story of a transformative grassroots movement in Bangladesh. At the core of this book is Dr. Badiul Majumdar, a man who became central to ending hunger in Bangladesh and whose life work, Cathy writes, and here I’ll quote, “is one of the most remarkable untold stories in the global fight against hunger and inequality.”
In this episode—the second of a two-part series on global demining and disarmament efforts—Mark Williams speaks with political scientist and Nobel Laureate Matthew Breay Bolton regarding the US role in addressing the problems posed by landmines and unexploded ordinance, problems that past US policy had sometimes helped create.
Weapons created for war can inflict devastating harm on civilians long after a given conflict ends. In part one of this two-part series, Nobel Laureate (2017) Matthew Breay Bolton explains why it is vital to address the problems civilians face from landmines, unexploded ordinance, and other munitions; how that is (or isn’t) being done; and the role the United States has played in global de-mining efforts, including the Trump administration’s decision to suspend all aid to these campaigns.
