Audio Interviews and Podcasts (Selection)
Corresponsales en Línea (Buenos Aires, Argentina) [In Spanish]
Date: 4 May 2019
Broadcaster: El Clarín | La Nación, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Program: Corresponsales en Línea
Title: “REIWA: EL JAPON EMPIEZA UNA NUEVA ERA” (“Reiwa: Japan Begins a New Era”)
Language: Spanish
Summary:
In this interview with the Argentinian radio program Corresponsales en Línea, I discuss some of the challenges Japan and the new Emperor will face as the country begins a new era called ‘Reiwa’. Japan’s international relations, including in the Asia-Pacific, are touched upon in the full audio file.
- Link: Click Below to Listen
ACUNS Book Talks (Ontario, Canada) [In English]
Date: 23 March 2018
Broadcaster: Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS), Canada
Program: ACUNS Book Talks
Title: “Dangerous Diplomacy”
Language: English
Summary:
In this podcast, host Alistair Edgar is joined by Professor Herman T. Salton to discuss his book Dangerous Diplomacy: Bureaucracy, Power Politics, and the Role of the UN Secretariat in Rwanda (Oxford University Press, 2017). Drawing on access to the archives of Sir Marrack Goulding (1936–2010), former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, Dangerous Diplomacy considers the role of the UN Secretariat during the Rwandan genocide. Salton’s access to the archive provides a rich and unusual resource for this book as he was the first individual to study the archive after Goulding’s death, and found an extensive range of materials containing both personal and professional documents from Goulding’s 40-year career.
Balancing Goulding’s archive with the other resources available on the Rwandan genocide, Salton’s book provides a detailed analysis of functioning—or disfunctioning—of the UN Secretariat at the time. Both Goulding’s records and Salton’s broader research illustrate the division between the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), and Dangerous Diplomacy highlights the role such a divide had in the Rwandan operations.
Considering the current situation and the potential for UN reform, Salton concludes by emphasizing the importance of the independence of the international civil service and advising against the separation of peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Mirroring the earlier conversation about DPA and DPKO, Salton stresses that peacebuilding and peacekeeping are two concepts that are fluid and should not be divided.
- Link: Click Below to Listen
New Books Network (Kansas, United States) [In English]
Date: 8 January 2018
Broadcaster: New Books Network (NBN), United States
Program: New Books in Genocide Studies
Title: “Dangerous Diplomacy”
Language: English
Summary:
In this podcast, Professor Kelly McFall of Newman University in the US speaks to Professor Herman Salton, author of a new book on the role of the UN Secretariat in the Rwandan genocide.
“I was in graduate school during Bosnia and Rwanda”, Professor McFall writes. “Like everyone else, I watched the video footage and journalistic accounts that came from these two zones of atrocity. Like everyone else, I wondered how humans could do such things to each other. And like everyone else, I asked in anguish “why can’t we do something.” Much of the scholarship about Rwanda focuses on this question. Most of it is good, solid, passionate work. but as Herman Salton points out, it largely concentrates on nation-states and their interaction with each other.
Salton’s new book, Dangerous Diplomacy: Bureaucracy, Power Politics and the Role of the UN Secretariat in Rwanda (Oxford UP, 2017), asks ‘why couldn’t we do something’ through a new lens, that of the UN and its various administrative units. Salton, AN Associate Professor of International Relations, reminds us that the UN, rather than being monolithic or powerless, had (and has) its own internal politics and actors. Salton argues that interactions between UN leaders and structures greatly shaped the decisions made by the Security Council and by UN representatives and soldiers on the ground in Rwanda.
By doing so, he sheds new light on the decision to create UNAMIR, on the behavior of Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, on the decision to remove UNAMIR early in the crisis and on the long-term impact of Rwanda on UN decisions about humanitarian intervention. Moreover, in the interview itself, Salton draws on his own experience in the UN to highlight the way the culture of the Security Council itself shapes the debates and decisions in that body.”
This podcast is part of a series on the genocide in Rwanda. The series began with interviews with Michael Barnett and Sara Brown. Future interviews will feature Erin Jessee, Tim Longman, and others.
- Link: Click Below to Listen
RAI - Radio 3 Mondo (Rome, Italy) [In Italian]
Date: 16 December 2005
Broadcaster: RAI Radio Televisione Italiana (Italian National Radio), Rome, Italy
Program: Radio 3 Mondo
Title: “Sequestri in Iraq” (Iraq’s Security Situation)
Language: Italian
Summary:
In this radio broadcast, Herman Salton explains (in Italian) the precarious security situation–including the issue of kidnappings–in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
- Link: Click Below to Listen
SBS Radio (Sydney, Australia) [In English]
Date: 22 April 2006
Broadcaster: SBS Radio Australia
Program: Current Affairs
Title: Iraq
Language: Italian
Summary:
In this radio broadcast, Herman Salton explains (in Italian) the challenges facing Iraq and the Middle East after the spate of kidnappings and abductions that plagued the country.
- Link: Click Below to Listen
Radio France Internationale (Paris, France) [In French]
Date: 25 June 2006
Broadcaster: Radio France Internationale
Program: Current Affairs
Title: “La Loi Française et le Voile Islamique”
Language: French
Summary:
In this broadcast, Herman Salton discusses the French law on religious signs at school, approved by the French parliament in 2005, and its effects in French schools.
RUV Icelandic National Broadcasting (Reykjavik, Iceland) [In English]
Date: 19 September 2002
Broadcaster: RUV – Icelandic National Broadcasting
Program: Current Affairs
Title: Iceland, Biometrics, and Terrorism
Language: English
Summary:
In this broadcast, Herman Salton discusses the measures adopted by the Icelandic government in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States and the heightened terrorist threat.