Skip to content
What Is the State For? episode artwork

Jun 9, 2014 41 min

What Is the State For?

from Start the Week Hosted by BBC Radio 4

Tom Sutcliffe discusses whether Western states have anything to learn from countries like China and Singapore. Adrian Wooldridge argues that many governments have become bloated and there's a global race to reinvent the state. In the past Britain was at the forefront of exporting ideas on how to run a country, as the Labour MP Tristram Hunt explains in his book on the legacy of empire. Charu Lata Hogg from Chatham House looks at the challenges to democracy in Thailand where the country is in political turmoil, and the journalist Anjan Sundaram spent a year in The Congo during the violent 2006 elections, and looks at day-to-day life in a failing state. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Episode details come from the podcast's RSS feed.

Embed this episode

Ready to play

What Is the State For?

0:00 41:53

No transcript yet.

Requests help us decide what to transcribe next.

Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of Start the Week?

This episode is 41 minutes long.

When was this Start the Week episode published?

This episode was published on June 9, 2014.

Can I download this Start the Week episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.