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Western democracies have seen a resurgence in far-right populist movements. Alongside disaffection with mainstream political parties, there has been agitation against immigration and multiculturalism. How are we to make sense of these developments? What do they mean for race relations? And what implications do they have for our democratic future?

Tim Soutphommasane is Race Discrimination Commissioner and commenced his five-year appointment on 20 August 2013. Prior to joining the Australian Human Rights Commission, he was a political philosopher and held posts at the University of Sydney and Monash University. His thinking on multiculturalism, national identity and patriotism has been influential in shaping debates in Australia and Britain.

Sydney Democracy Network

Festival of Democracy | Populism, Race and Democracy

Your privacy isn't safe even when you shop offline. Retailers are tracking your behavior and evaluating your value as a customer in physical stores. Privacy expert and author Joseph Turow discusses the ways they are doing this and what you can do to protect your privacy.

Yale University

How Retailers Strip Your Privacy

As Tanzania attempts to get healthcare to all corners of the country, The Elders – an independent group of global leaders co-founded by Nelson Mandela and working together for peace and human rights – paid an official visit to the country.

They were in Tanzania to offer help and advice to the government in preparation for what they hope will be a set of reforms culminating in universal healthcare.

In this month’s Global development podcast, Lucy Lamble visits Tanzania to explore efforts to bolster the country’s health coverage. She is joined by Graça Machel, human rights advocate, former minister and elder; Mary Robinson, former Irish president, UN high commissioner for human rights and elder; and Robert Yates, project director of the Universal Health Coverage Policy Forum at London’s Chatham House.

Presented by Lucy Lamble; produced by Gabriela Jones

Global dev podcast

'Without health, people have nothing': Tanzania seeks a political salve - podcast

It’s the 21st century, 100 years since Australian women were lucky enough to get the vote, and we’ve arrived at the age of Pussyriot and Pussyhats. How did women get here? What does this augur for the future of feminism as a world-wide phenomenon, now drawing a new generation of activists, in some cases connecting them with earlier feminist waves?

What is the impact of events in the US in particular for a standard of feminist politics everywhere? In an age when all social movements have a global scope, a panel of feminist academics with specific areas of geopolitical expertise on the US, UK, Russia, and Australia, come together to discuss these questions.

Speakers:
- Professor Glenda Sluga, P, ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor of International History, FAHA, the University of Sydney
- Dr Philippa Hetherington, University College London (UCL)
- Associate Professor Laura J Shepherd, , UNSW Sydney
- Anna Hush, University of Sydney student

Held as part of Sydney Ideas, The Thinker's Guide to the 21st century series on 23 August 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/thinkers_guide_21st_century_2017.shtml

Sydney Ideas

Feminism in the Age of Populism

Is history always written by the victors? Panelists Ruth Dudley Edwards, Kehinde Andrews, Maximilian Sternberg and Yesim Yaprak Yildiz will discuss how history is used to advance nationalist and colonialist ideas and how different sides can fervently believe different versions of the same events. Their contributions will cover decolonisation, Irish history, torturers’ confessions in Turkey and how architectural heritage is used and abused in Jerusalem.

REWRITING HISTORY

Francis Wade is the author of Myanmar's Enemy Within, the book that debuted just 10 days before violence erupted in the Rakhine state against the Rohingya population. We discuss the political factors that led up to the outbreak as well as the history of the country which makes it much more vulnerable to this kind of ethnic violence.

Setting the Stage for Genocide: The Background of the Rohingya Crisis

Lucy Delap: lessons from the suffrage movement for today's feminist activists

Medicare for All, universal healthcare - we have all heard these terms during debates on healthcare. Many times they have been used to refer to the same thing; a plan where Americans would/could get their insurance from a single government plan. But what does it mean and how does it affect you? To help us understand the issue better, we will be speaking with Dr Mark Schlesinger, Professor of Health Policy at Yale and Dr Brad Richards, Assistant Professor of General Medicine at Yale.

Public Health Decoded - Medicare for All

Whether it's about the risks of eating burnt toast or changes in sexual habits, numbers get used to give weight to a media story. But statistics are frequently abused, with exaggerations and misunderstandings disguised by the illusion of hard facts. Professor David Spiegelhalter shows how to identify the naughty numbers and the shabby stats, and how some basic mathematics can take apart scare stories.

David Spiegelhalter is Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk and Fellow of Churchill College at Cambridge University, and as Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, he works to improve the way in which risk and statistical evidence are taught and discussed in society. He gives many presentations to schools and others, advises organisations on risk communication, and is a regular commentator on risk issues. He presented the BBC4 documentaries ‘Tails you Win: the Science of Chance’ and the award-winning ‘Climate Change by Numbers’. He was elected FRS in 2005, awarded an OBE in 2006, and was knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics. For 2017-2018 he is President of the Royal Statistical Society. In 2011 he came 7th in an episode of Winter Wipeout.

David Spiegelhalter - How To Spot Dodgy Data In The News

Research Horizons Public Talk

As AI systems are widely deployed in real-world settings, it is critical for us to understand the mechanisms by which they take decisions. Dr Adrian Weller discusses how processes are being developed to ensure AI systems are transparent, reliable and trustworthy.

Liz learns...

Grace Bennett 2