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Podcast | 31 October 2025

The Women Leaders podcast: Talking about a revolution

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There are many disruptive elements in contemporary global affairs: trade wars, international realignments, weakening democracies, strengthening autocracies, social discontent, wars—both kinetic and hybrid—along with a faltering international system, and much more. Each element may be explained individually, but taken together, they add up to no less than a revolution: a change so fundamental that even after the wheels stop spinning, there will be no return to the previous ways.

Professor Janice Stein, founder of the Munk School of Global Affairs and a renowned expert on conflict and global affairs, joins ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El in a thought-provoking, fast-paced, and incredibly informative conversation on our age of revolution, from the US to China and Europe, and from the past to the future. This episode explains how and why the world is in such turmoil.

This episode was recorded on 30 October 2025.

Chapters

  • What are the challenges in global trade and the economy?
  • Canada’s economic strategy
  • The crisis of developed democracies
  • The real European Union’s struggles
  • The role of experts and public trust

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Credits

Image credit: Florence Ferrando

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

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