Social Science for Public Good

In this episode, we explore how the imagination is essential for building peace and transcending conflict. We also discuss more about how our morality is grounded in imagination. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. John Paul Lederach, Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.---Dr. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He is widely known for the development of culturally based approaches to conflict transformation; the design and implementation of integrative, strategic approaches to peacebuilding; and for carving a robust integration of the arts and social change. Over the course of his career, Lederach has garnered extensive experience working with non-governmental organizations, community-based initiatives impacted by cycles of violence, and national peace process design. He has worked extensively as a practitioner in conciliation processes in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast and Central Asia.Lederach is the author or editor of 30 books and manuals (translated into a dozen languages), and numerous academic articles and monographs on peace education, conflict transformation, international peacebuilding, and conciliation training. He has developed training materials and manuals available in Spanish on peace education, conflict transformation, and mediation, now used widely throughout Latin America.Lederach received his bachelor’s degree in history and peace studies from Bethel College and his doctorate of philosophy degree in sociology, with a concentration on social conflict, from the University of Colorado. He currently serves as Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.---While his full catalog of articles and books is well worth exploring, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic of imagination and peacebuilding:Lederach, J. P. (2005). The moral imagination : the art and soul of building peace (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.Lederach, J. P. (2008). Preparing For Peace Conflict Transformation Across Cultures . Syracuse Univ. Press.---The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠⁠⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠VT Publishing⁠⁠⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we explore the role of imagination in social movements and the ongoing fight for justice. We investigate both how the imagination helps us think of how the world might be better and identify the problems of the moment. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Michele Moody-Adams, Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University. --- Michele Moody-Adams is Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University, where she served as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education from 2009-2011. Before Columbia, she taught at Cornell University, where she was Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Director of the Program on Ethics and Public Life. She has also taught at Wellesley College, the University of Rochester, and Indiana University, where she served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education. She has published on equality and social justice, moral psychology and the virtues, moral objectivity and moral relativism, and the philosophical implications of gender and race. She is the author of Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination and Political Hope, published in 2022. She is also the author of a widely cited book on moral relativism, Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture and Philosophy, and a co-author on the multi-author work Against Happiness (May 2023). Her current work also includes articles on academic freedom, equal educational opportunity, democratic disagreement, and what constitutes an epistemically and morally defensible understanding of history. A special focus of her work on democracy is the connection between democracy and the civic art and architecture of remembrance. ---While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination and justice: Moody-Adams, M. (2022). Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination, and Political Hope. Columbia University Press. Moody-Adams, M. (2015). The enigma of forgiveness. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 49, 161-180. Moody-Adams, M. M. (2018). Democratic conflict and the political morality of compromise. Nomos, 59, 186-219. Moody-Adams, M. M. (2017). Moral progress and human agency. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20, 153-168. --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we focus on how our imaginations are essential to moral decision-making and help us evaluate the possible outcomes of our actions. As part of this, we also discuss the shortcomings of rigid moral systems and the necessity of maintaining humility. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Mark Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Emeritus at the University of Oregon. --- Dr. Mark L. Johnson is currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Emeritus. Johnson has authored numerous articles and book chapters on a broad range of topics including philosophy of language, metaphor theory, aesthetics, recent moral theory, ethical naturalism, philosophy and cognitive science, embodied cognition, philosophical psychology, and American pragmatist philosophy. Some of his notable publications include Mind in Nature: John Dewey, Cognitive Science, and a Naturalistic Philosophy for Living (MIT Press, 2023) and, with George Lakoff, of Metaphors We Live By (University of Chicago Press, [1980] 2003). Notably for our study of imagination are his books Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics (1993), and The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (1987). --- While his full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic of imagination: Johnson, M. (1993). Moral imagination : implications of cognitive science for ethics. University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Johnson, M. (2015). Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science. The University of Chicago Press. Copy citation to clipboard --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we look into how we can learn from intentionally guiding our imagination while also looking into how much of the imagination operates outside of our conscious control. We also continue to explore the limits of imagination and how it can be used for both good and ill. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Tamar Gendler, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. --- Dr. Tamar Szabó Gendler is Yale’s Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science. She holds a BA summa cum laude with Distinction in Humanities and in Mathematics-&-Philosophy from Yale University (1987) and a PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University (1996). After teaching at Syracuse and Cornell Universities for nearly a decade, she returned to Yale in 2006 as Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Cognitive Science Program. In 2009-10, supported by the Mellon Foundation’s New Directions program, she spent a year as a full-time student at Yale doing coursework in psychology, neuroscience, and statistics. In 2010, she was appointed Chair of the Yale philosophy department, becoming the first woman chair in the department’s two-century history. In 2013, she was appointed Deputy Provost for Humanities and Initiatives, a position she held until she assumed her current role in 2014. As FAS Dean, Gendler has focused on building excellence and collaboration within and across traditional disciplinary boundaries throughout the divisions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and across the university more broadly. Gendler’s academic research brings together the techniques of traditional Anglo-American philosophy with empirical work from psychology and other social sciences; her interests include the relation between imagination and belief, the contrast between rational and non-rational persuasion, and the role of habits in shaping behavior and judgment. Many of these issues are explored in her Open Yale course, Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature. She also has interests in education policy and practice, and worked for several years after she graduated from Yale as an education policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. Gendler is the author of Intuition, Imagination, and Philosophical Methodology (Oxford, 2013), Thought Experiments: On the Powers and Limits of Imaginary Cases (Routledge, 2000), and co-editor of The Elements of Philosophy (Oxford 2008), Perceptual Experience (Oxford, 2006), Conceivability and Possibility (Oxford 2002), and the Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology (Oxford 2016). ---While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination: Gendler, T. S. (2014). Thought experiment: On the powers and limits of imaginary cases. Routledge. Gendler, T. S. (2000). The puzzle of imaginative resistance. The Journal of Philosophy, 97(2), 55-81. Gendler, T. S., & Hawthorne, J. (Eds.). (2002). Conceivability and possibility. Clarendon Press. Liao, S. Y., & Gendler, T. (2019). Imagination. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: purple-planet.com

As we embark on our exploration of the imagination, we start by exploring just how we should conceptualize and talk about this phenomenon. We also begin to think through just how useful the imagination is. Our guest scholar this episode is Dr. Anna Abraham, E. Paul Torrance Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia and the Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, who guides us through these first steps on our journey. --- Dr. Anna Abraham studies the psychological and neurophysiological basis of creativity and other aspects of the human imagination. Her educational and professional training has been within the disciplines of psychology and neuroscience, and she has worked across a diverse range of academic institutions and departments the world over, all of which have informed her multidisciplinary focus. She is the Founding Editor of the Cambridge Elements in Creativity and Imagination, an innovative academic short book series from Cambridge University Press. Within the Department of Educational Psychology, Professor Abraham serves as a primary faculty member in the Gifted & Creative Education program and as an affiliated faculty member in the Applied Cognition & Development program and the School Psychology program. She advises graduate students across all these three programs. She also collaborates on research projects with faculty and students in the Quantitative Methodology program. Professor Abraham also directs the CREATIVITY & IMAGINATION LAB at UGA. Prospective students and collaborators can find information on current studies and opportunities within the detailed lab webpage. --- While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination: Abraham, A., & Bubic, A. (2015). Semantic memory as the root of imagination. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 325–325. Abraham, A. (2020). The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination. Cambridge University Press. Abraham, A. (2024). The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths. MIT Press. --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

In this special bonus episode, we seek to bring together the subjects of our first two arcs, trust and power, and look at how they might concretely manifest in the bid to create social change. We are guided through this discussion by Dr. Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Susskind shares how both trust and power play out in his work to build collaborative problem-solving processes and how he approaches both concepts. --- Dr. Lawrence Susskind is the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning and his research interests focus on the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution, the practice of public engagement in local decision-making, cybersecurity for critical urban infrastructure, entrepreneurial negotiation, global environmental treaty-making, the resolution of science-intensive policy disputes, renewable energy policy, water equity in older American cities, climate change adaptation, socially-responsible real estate development and the land claims of Indigenous Peoples. Professor Susskind is the author or co-author of twenty books including, most recently, Environmental Problem-Solving (Anthem), Managing Climate Risks in Coastal Communities: Strategies for Engagement, Readiness and Adaptation (Anthem), the second edition of Environmental Diplomacy (Oxford Press), Good for You, Great for Me (Public Affairs Press), Water Diplomacy (Resources for the Future), Built to Win (Harvard Business School Publishing), Multiparty Negotiation (Sage), Breaking Robert's Rules (Oxford), The Consensus Building Handbook (Sage), and Dealing with An Angry Public (Free Press). Professor Susskind is Director of the MIT Science Impact Collaborative (scienceimpact.mit.edu). He is Founder of the Consensus Building Institute, a Cambridge-based not-for-profit company that provides mediation services in complex resource management disputes around the world. He also was one of the Co-founders of the interuniversity Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he now directs the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, serves as Vice Chair for Instruction, and leads PON’s Master Classes in Negotiation. He is the recipient of ACSP’s prestigious Educator of the Year Award and recipient of MIT’s Award for Digital Instruction. MIT Administration recently named Professor Susskind as MIT's representative to the New America Foundation's Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN). --- While Dr. Susskind's CV is beyond extensive, these pieces might help the reader understand how he grapples with trust and power: Susskind, L., & Field, P. (1996). Dealing with an angry public: The mutual gains approach to resolving disputes. Simon and Schuster. Susskind, L. E., McKearnen, S., & Thomas-Lamar, J. (1999). The consensus building handbook: A comprehensive guide to reaching agreement. Sage publications. Susskind, L. E., & Ali, S. H. (2014). Environmental diplomacy: Negotiating more effective global agreements. Oxford University Press. --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

We continue to explore the concept of power by asking how neoliberalism might be both informing our understanding of power and changing how it manifests. Combining a number of insights from previous guests, we wade into the myriad ways power manifests in our neoliberal world and why we need to consider the many different kinds of power both distinctly and collectively. We were honored to be led in this conversation by Dr. Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor, School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. --- Dr. Wendy Brown is a political theorist who works across the history of political thought, political economy, Continental philosophy, cultural theory, and critical legal theory. Brown investigates the subterranean powers shaping contemporary Euroatlantic polities, with particular attention to the political identities, subjectivities, and expressions they spawn. She is the author or co-author of a dozen books, including States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity; Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire; Walled States, Waning Sovereignty; Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution; and In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. Across her work, Brown aims to illuminate powers unique to our era and the predicaments they generate for democratic thought and practice. --- While it would be impossible to cite all of her influential work on power here, the publications below provide a useful starting point for her scholarship: Brown, W. (2020). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity. Princeton University Press. Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution. Mit Press. Brown, W. (2006). American nightmare: Neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and de-democratization. Political theory, 34(6), 690-714. Brown, W. (2003). Neo-liberalism and the end of liberal democracy. Theory & event, 7(1). --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we introduce two new conceptualizations of power. First, we look at the urban regime framework, which suggests that groups (regimes) come together to govern collaboratively around collective interests. Second, we discuss democratic understandings of power, which suggests that power should be shared and distributed. Dr. Max Stephens, Professor of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech, joins us for the conversation and walks us through these complex theories. --- Max Stephenson, Jr. currently serves as a Professor of Public and International Affairs and the Director of the Institute for Policy and Governance at Virginia Tech. His research and teaching interests include civil society and democratic theory, social change processes, international development, human rights and refugees and peacebuilding. He is the author or editor of thirteen books or monographs and more than 80 refereed articles and book chapters. He has also authored more than 400 commentaries addressing U.S. and international politics. --- Dr. Stephenson has written widely on how power and agency interact. You can read more of his thoughts here on Soundings. --- The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

In this episode, we start our exploration of power. We seek to introduce the concept and begin to frame how individuals interested in social change might start to think about power in their own work. To explore how power operates in our world, we look at how revolutionary movements of the past have both confronted and utilized power. Our guest scholar for this conversation is Dr. Michael Hardt, Professor of Literature at Duke University. --- Michael Hardt's writings explore the new forms of domination in the contemporary world as well as the social movements and other forces of liberation that resist them. In the Empire trilogy -- Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), and Commonwealth (2009) -- he and Antonio Negri investigate the political, legal, economic, and social aspects of globalization. They also study the political and economic alternatives that could lead to a more democratic world. Their pamphlet Declaration (2012) attempts to articulate the significance of the encampments and occupations that began in 2011, from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, and to recognize the primary challenges faced by emerging democratic social movements today. His new book, The Subversive Seventies, focuses on how the revolutionary movements of the 1970s confronted and sought to change power structures. While his work on power is extensive, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic: Hardt, M. (2023). The subversive seventies. Oxford University Press. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press. The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

In this episode, we continue our exploration of trust theory with a conversation about how we should understand political trust and trustworthiness. We look at how we might understand trust in this specific context. Our guest scholar is Dr. Margaret Levi, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University Dr. Levi is also Senior Fellow, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the former Sara Miller McCune Director and current Faculty Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), Senior Fellow of the Woods Institute, and co-director of Ethics, Society and Technology at Stanford University. Additionally, she is Jere L. Bacharach Professor Emerita of International Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. She held the Chair in Politics, United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, 2009-13. At the University of Washington she was director of the CHAOS (Comparative Historical Analysis of Organizations and States) Center and formerly the Harry Bridges Chair and Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies. Levi is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and six books, including Of Rule and Revenue (University of California Press, 1988); Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Cambridge University Press, 1997); Analytic Narratives (Princeton University Press, 1998); Cooperation Without Trust? (Russell Sage, 2005), In the Interest of Others (Princeton, 2013), and A Moral Political Economy (Cambridge, 2021). She explores how organizations and governments provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest. Professor Levi has written extensively on trust, but these publications provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic: Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust and trustworthiness. Annual review of political science, 3(1), 475-507. Levi, M. (2022). Trustworthy Government: The Obligations of Government & the Responsibilities of the Governed. Daedalus, 151(4), 215–233. The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

We continue our exploration of trust theory in this episode with a conversation about the different types of trust and how they might interact with one another to form a trust ecology. Our guest scholar is Dr. Marc Stern, Professor in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech Dr. Stern's research focuses on human behavior within the contexts of environmental conflicts, natural resources planning and management, and environmental education and communication. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports, and has won multiple research and teaching awards. His most recent book, Social Science Theory for Environmental Sustainability: A Practical Guide, published by Oxford University Press, translates social science theory and knowledge for everyday use by people interested in working on environmental problems. He teaches undergraduate courses in Environmental Education and Interpretation and graduate courses in Social Science Research Methods and Sustainability. Working with several colleagues, he has developed a typology of trust in the context of natural resource management and has suggested a trust ecology framework for how these types interact and buffer one another. Professor Stern's portfolio of work on trust and collaborative governance is large and varied, but these publications provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic: Stern, M. J., & Coleman, K. J. (2015). The multidimensionality of trust: Applications in collaborative natural resource management. Society & Natural Resources, 28(2), 117-132. Stern, M. J., & Baird, T. D. (2015). Trust ecology and the resilience of natural resource management institutions. Ecology and Society, 20(2). The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: Purple-planet.com

We begin our exploration of trust theory in this episode with a conversation about how that construct might be defined and operationalized. Our guest scholar is Dr. Guido Möllering, the Director of the Reinhard Mohn Institute of Management at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany, where he holds the Reinhard Mohn Endowed Chair of Management. Professor Möllering earned his Ph.D. in Management Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his habilitation (postdoctoral degree, venia legendi) in Business Administration at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His principal research interests include inter-organizational relationships, organizational fields, and trust. He has published several books, including Trust: Reason, Routine, Reflexivity (2006), and articles in leading journals, including Organization Science and the Journal of International Business Studies. He now serves as a Senior Editor of Organization Studies and previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Trust Research. Professor Möllering's work on trust is large, but these publications provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic: Mollering, G. (2006). Trust: Reason, routine, reflexivity. Emerald Group Publishing. Möllering, G. (2005). The trust/control duality: An integrative perspective on positive expectations of others. International Sociology, 20(3), 283-305. The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change. Music: purple-planet.com