2024 was dubbed the ‘Year of Elections’ due to 64 countries and 4 billion people who headed to the polls last year. Thus, it was only right that we kick off our 2025 Backbench schedule with an episode recapping the Year of Elections!
We start off covering the UK, in which Laurie Glen researched Labour’s landslide victory and the rise of the far-right Reform UK before discussing the backlash against the Scottish National Party.
Next up is the US and Mexico, where Maddie Schwarz covers the historic victories of Donald Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum.
Kashvee Barjatya dove into the world’s largest election: India. Narendra Modi won re-election but was forced to form a coalition government, reflecting global anti-incumbency trends.
This is followed by Alex Daniels’ research on South Africa, in which Cyril Ramaphosa also lost his majority but retained his plurality. Then comes a piece on Botswana, in which the world’s longest streak of uninterrupted governance came to a brutal end.
Rachel Barlow covers the geopolitical tensions of Taiwan’s election, before we discuss Juliet Gartside’s research on the far-right and anti-incumbency trends of the EU elections, particularly France and Austria.
Then we wrap up with Ting Ting Zhang’s coverage on Georgia’s elections and the implications Russia’s electoral inference has on Georgia’s EU aspirations.
If you would like to read Rachel Barlow’s and Alex Daniels’ articles expanding on their commentary in this episode, please visit www.thebackbench.co.uk.
This podcast is made possible by our wonderful team, who have been hard at work for the past six months to prepare and build our podcast for recording this semester. The team is as follows:
Producers
Exec Co-Producers: Finn Hughes and Renee Phan
Co-Producers: David Wilson and Lucy Frewin
Co-Hosts
Seb Illing, Josh Cheshire, Renee Phan
Writers/Researchers
Alex Daniels (lead), Maddie Schwarz, Rachel Barlow, Juliet Gartside, Laurie Glen, Kashvee Barjatya, Ting Ting Zhang
Audio Engineer
Jamie Calder
Production Assistant
Joe Hughes
Outreach Secretary
Conor Ó Dochartaigh
Communications Managers
Helise Helffer, Gabrielle Yurin
Supported by the Edinburgh Political Union and The University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science
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