Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: Lessons From Finland's Former President

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Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: Lessons From Finland's Former President

FromPolicyCast

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21 minutes

Released:

Apr 15, 2015

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Podcast episode

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Former Finnish President Tarja Halonen, currently in residence at the Kennedy School as an Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, recounts the challenges she faced as a woman ascending the Finnish ranks of power. She also explains some of the factors behind Finland’s consistently high rankings in many quality of life metrics.

Released:

Apr 15, 2015

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Each week, Host Matt Cadwallader speaks with leading experts in public policy, media, and international affairs about their experiences confronting the world's most pressing public problems.

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045 Feeding the World Through Science: HKS Professor Calestous Juma, Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization project, believes that science and technology are critical to the future of food security. He talks about meeting the needs of a growing human population, using science t by PolicyCast
13 min listen
The Accidental Fall of the Berlin Wall: Professor Mary Elise Sarotte, a visiting professor at the Harvard Center for European Studies and author of “Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall,” explains how the opening of the border between East and West Germany came down to a decision by PolicyCast
14 min listen
Tunisia and the Arab Spring: Former Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and the Middle East Institute’s Dr. Paul Salem discuss Tunisia’s relative success in establishing a stable democracy in the wake of the Arab Spring. Jomaa, who recently delivered an address at the JFK Jr. Forum, by PolicyCast
22 min listen
An Ethical Perspective on the Brian Williams Scandal: HKS Lecturer Jeffrey Seglin of the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy discusses the ethical hot water Brian Williams has recently found himself in. He breaks down the reputational harm that has been done to both Willi by PolicyCast
14 min listen
A Political Crossroads in Indonesia: HKS Adjunct Lecturer Jay Rosengard, faculty chair of the Ash Center’s HKS Indonesia Program, breaks down the political climate in Indonesia, just months after the election of a new, potentially transformational president. He explains how Indonesia’s still by PolicyCast
15 min listen
Is it Civil Rights or Human Rights?: HKS Associate Professor Moshik Temkin argues that the debate over civil rights in the United States, sparked by the unrest in Ferguson, MO, is actually a debate about human rights and the difference is not just semantic. by PolicyCast
19 min listen
015 Why Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue: Harvard Chan School of Public Health Professor David Hemenway makes an emphatic case for why gun violence needs to be researched through the lens of public health. by PolicyCast
20 min listen
Is Transparency Bad for Politics?: Professor Michael Ignatieff of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy makes the case that increased transparency in government makes it harder for politicians to find compromise by relating his experience as the Leader of the Opposit by PolicyCast
17 min listen
How Uber Wrangles Regulations: Brian Worth, the Public Policy Lead for ridesharing service Uber, discusses how the company works with governments at all levels to tackle hackney regulations it sees as outdated. Worth participated in the Harvard Institute of Politics' 2014 Internet Poli by PolicyCast
14 min listen
Steve Jarding on the 2014 Midterms: HKS Lecturer Steve Jarding, a longtime political operative who’s currently advising the Democratic candidate for US Senate in South Dakota, gives his take on how the upcoming midterm elections are shaping up. He explains the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm by PolicyCast
19 min listen
Big Data; Better Cities: HKS Professor Stephen Goldsmith, Director of the Data-Smart City Solutions Project at the Kennedy School’s Ash Center, describes how city and state governments can improve service to citizens by harnessing new technologies. by PolicyCast
12 min listen
Somalia’s First Female President?: HKS Mid-Career MPA Mason Fellow Fadumo Dayib recounts her story growing up as a Somali refugee and explains how her life’s experience has pushed her to mount a 2016 run for president in her homeland. by PolicyCast
26 min listen
Designing Smarter Policy: HKS Professor Asim Khwaja, Co-Director of the Evidence for Policy Design program, explains the benefits of bringing academics into the field to develop policy in collaboration with practitioners. by PolicyCast
22 min listen
Measuring Human Ability: Ron Suskind’s world was shaken when his son Owen was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Now, more than 20 years later, his experience has helped kick off new research into how we as a society can better integrate those with developmental disabilit by PolicyCast
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Ensuring Electoral Integrity around the Globe: HKS Lecturer Pippa Norris discusses her work on the Electoral Integrity Project, which assesses the veracity of elections around the globe and gives policy recommendations on how to ensure free and fair voting. by PolicyCast
14 min listen
The Midterms, the Youth Vote and GOP Strategy: IOP Fall 2014 Fellow Kristen Soltis Anderson gives her take on the gains the GOP made in the midterm elections, how the party can better target the youth vote and what we can expect from congress over the next two years. by PolicyCast
17 min listen
Startup Government: Aneesh Chopra, a Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow at the Shorenstein Center who served as the United States' first Chief Technology Officer, describes how the federal government, historically a leader in new technologies, fell behind in em by PolicyCast
23 min listen
The End of the American Dream?: HKS Professor Robert Putnam explains how the United States has become a class-segregated society with a growing stratification between the educated and uneducated. He describes how upward mobility has nearly vanished over the last few decades and what by PolicyCast
25 min listen
Behind the Steady Recovery in Cyprus: Cyprus’ Minister of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Yiorgos Lakkotrypis describes his country’s slow emergence from a deep economic recession following a 2013 EU bail-in that came with significant austerity measures attached. He points out brigh by PolicyCast
14 min listen
Taking Down DOMA: Former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, a spring 2015 fellow at the Institute of Politics, recounts the legal journey that ultimately led to the US Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act - a by PolicyCast
13 min listen
Ending Veteran Homelessness: Andrew McCawley, president and CEO of the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, describes the steps the organization is taking to combat homelessness among US veterans and how likely it is that the nation will see the complete eradication of vetera by PolicyCast
16 min listen
The Criminal Injustice System: HKS Alumnus Bryan Stevenson has spent his career working to address issues of racial and wealth inequality in the United States’ justice system. He believes this inequality stems from a failure of the nation to reconcile its dark history with regard to sl by PolicyCast
15 min listen
A Wholesale and Retail Approach to Digital Government: Nick Sinai, formerly a U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House and currently a Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy fellow at the Shorenstein Center, describes in detail the effort the Obama administration has put into modernizing the fe by PolicyCast
22 min listen
How Partisan is the US Judiciary?: HKS Assistant Professor Maya Sen describes new research breaking down political leanings within the United States judiciary. The analyses exposes a partisan divide between lawyers and judges and finds a link between certain political leanings and specific by PolicyCast
13 min listen
Cursed with Clarity: Former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a spring 2015 fellow at the Institute of Politics, recounts how she became interested in a career in politics and speaks about issues of sexism and LGBT rights both in New York and across the United St by PolicyCast
28 min listen
Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: Lessons From Finland's Former President: Former Finnish President Tarja Halonen, currently in residence at the Kennedy School as an Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, recounts the challenges she faced as a woman ascending the Finnish ranks of power. She also explains some of the facto by PolicyCast
21 min listen
From Selma to Harvard: Supporting the notion of public service: Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust discusses what drew her to the study of history; her role as a student activist in the civil rights movement in Selma; how her experience as an activist shapes her leadership now; her advice to young people who are tryi by PolicyCast
21 min listen
How Presidential Campaigns Influence Governance: Republican strategist Matt Lira, a spring 2015 fellow at the Institute of Politics, discusses the early days of a presidential campaign, the importance of primaries, how campaign management eventually influences governance and what technologies will likel by PolicyCast
20 min listen
The Cuba Moment: Marie Sanz, former bureau chief for the AFP in Lima, Peru and a Fall 2015 Joan Shorenstein fellow at the Shorenstein Center, describes how the announcement of normalized relations between the US and Cuba took the world – and the press, in particular – by by PolicyCast
22 min listen
America: The Next Great Emerging Market?: Retired US Army Gen. David Petraeus, a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center, explains why he believes a combination of four technological revolutions will lead to a renewed era of American power. Not just for the United States, but for Canada a by PolicyCast
27 min listen

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Goals and realities: What World Cup performances can teach us about development in African countries: Matt Andrews, the faculty director of the Building State Capability program at Harvard Kennedy School, says the reasons why African nations haven’t done better at soccer’s world championships have a lot in common with why much of the continent’s economic promise has also gone unfulfilled. The World Cup, the biggest championship in soccer—or football, depending on where you are from—is currently underway and it's one of the two most-watched sporting events on the planet, the other being the Olympic Games. Yet even though it’s a world-wide event, the list of World Cup champions is dominated by European countries like France, Italy, and Germany, plus a handful of South American ones like Argentina and Brazil. No African nation, meanwhile, has ever made it even as far as the semifinals, although Morocco will have the opportunity to make history tomorrow when they face off against Portugal by PolicyCast
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240 Values, courage, and how good public leadership can save us: New Center for Public Leadership co-director Devan Patrick ascribes bad leadership as a root cause of many of the huge problems facing human society and the world, including the climate crisis, and threats to democracy and human rights. But are bad leaders flawed because of their personal shortcomings or are they an inevitable product of the flawed systems they operate within? And what makes a good leader? Is it their ability to get people to follow them? Or is it choosing the right things to lead those people toward? Patrick recently became co-director with Hannah Riley Bowles of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, or CPL, as it’s usually referred to here in Cambridge. Transcending his humble beginnings growing up as the son of a single mother on the South Side of Chicago, Patrick has built an impressive—and impressively varied—leadership resume, including serving as governor of Massachusetts, beco by PolicyCast
34 min listen
239 He predicted globalization’s failure, now he’s planning what’s next: Summary: For more than a quarter century, economist and Harvard Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik has been ringing alarm bells about the dangers of globalization. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of people were listening. Now as record economic inequality, a climate in crisis, and global financial shocks from to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of unchecked globalization and neoliberal orthodoxy about the primacy of markets, Rodrik may be having the world’s least-satisfying “I told you so” moment. But while the temptation might be to look backward for vindication, Rodrik is choosing to look toward solutions instead. He says that finding a way forward for the world economy will require two kinds of thinking: small picture—about how to create good jobs in an equitable way in specific settings—and big picture: imaging possible by PolicyCast
38 min listen
238 Reform, refugees, and the war next door: President Maia Sandu of Moldova: Maia Sandu has been president of Moldova since December 2020. She is the first woman to be president of the country, and she named fellow Party of Action and Solidarity member Natalia Gavrilița as prime minister, marking the first time that two women have held the country’s two highest political posts at the same time. Sandu was named prime minister in June 2019, but was removed from power just six months later when Moldova’s Russia-leaning socialist party pulled out of the governing coalition over her reform efforts. She served as the country’s education minister from 2012 until 2015, instituting numerous reforms including ending widespread cheating on exams and bribery of education officials. Sando holds earned her mid-career masters of public administration degree at Harvard Kennedy School in 2010, and worked as a senior advisor for the World Bank in Washington DC before returning to Moldova. Sandu was bor by PolicyCast
26 min listen
237 The pandemic's silver lining—a treasure trove of data on social protection programs: Rema Hanna is the Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies and Chair of the International Development Area at the Harvard Kennedy School. She also serves as the Faculty Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at Harvard University’s Center for International Development and is the co-Scientific Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South East Asia Office in Indonesia. In addition, Professor Hanna is a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and an affiliate of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). Her research revolves around improving the provision of public services in developing and emerging nations, particularly for the very poor. She combines economic theory, qualitative field work, extensive data collection, and cutting-edge empirical analysis to offer insights into how governments func by PolicyCast
35 min listen

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