Written by Elisa Garbil – 01.09.2025 The Alaska summit, convened between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, was presented as a breakthrough moment of diplomacy, a supposed glimpse of how peace might be brokered after years of brutal war in Ukraine. Yet the event revealed less about genuine pathways to stability than about how both leaders envision a…
Coordinated and Produced by Elisa Garbil Today Dominic Bowen hosts David Dunn back on the podcast. They discuss the recent Alaskan Summit and its global implications. Find out more about the symbolic wins for Putin, and which ones they are exactly. The American unpreparedness and what its implications are, what the result is for Ukraine, how the EU decided to…
Coordinated and Produced by Elisa Garbil Dominic Bowen hosts Stefan Wolff back on the podcast to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war. They dive into the current state of the war, how Trump’s ultimatum affects diplomatic tensions and whether this will actually change anything. Moreover they discuss Russia’s hybrid warfare and the challenges these bring to peace talks….
Written by Elisa Garbil – 04.08.2025 Diplomacy Without Traction As the Russia–Ukraine war enters its fourth summer, the balance between diplomacy and devastation has become increasingly precarious. While representatives from both sides have returned to negotiation tables in Istanbul and Doha, the intensifying violence across Ukrainian cities and the internal strains within Ukraine’s own institutions suggest that…
Dr. Aaron Winter (BA Hons. York; MA Warwick, DPhil Sussex) is Senior Lecturer in Sociology (Race and Anti-Racism), Deputy Doctoral Director and Director of the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) at Lancaster University. He previously taught at the Universities of Brighton, Sussex, Abertay and East London. His research is on the…
Written by Elisa Garbil – 22.05.2025 In recent years, right-wing extremism has evolved from fringe ideology into a persistent force that influences public discourse, political behaviour, and even policy. The transition from the margins to the mainstream hasn’t happened by accident. It’s the result of a complex interplay between online radicalisation, conspiracy thinking, and the…
Coordinated and Produced by Elisa Garbil Today we are cutting through the noise to tackle one of the most urgent and uncomfortable realities of our time: how hate has gone mainstream. From anonymous forums to prime-time politics, far-right extremism is no longer a fringe threat — it’s a digital, cultural, and political force shaping our democracies. Dominic…
Paul Hockenos is a Berlin-based writer and political analyst who has been working in Germany and across Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. He is the prize-winning author of five books on European politics and culture, and was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. His work appears in The Nation, Foreign Policy, Foreign…
This week on The International Risk Podcast, Dominic Bowen welcomes Paul Hockenos to discuss the outcome of the latest German elections, analyzing the distribution of seats and the implications of the AfD’s growing presence as part of the political mainstream. Beyond domestic politics, we will examine Germany’s evolving role within Europe and on the global…
Author: Camila Mateos Betancourt Germany held its elections in late February, resulting in a victory for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its leader, Friedrich Merz, who is set to become the next chancellor. The CDU/CSU alliance secured 28.5% of the vote, reclaiming leadership. However, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) made significant gains, securing…
