Danube Institute Podcast

We asked Pierre-Hugues Barré, a French lawyer and academic, a Non-Resident Fellow at the Danube Institute, about the origins, significance, and paradoxes of the French constitutional principle of secularism, as well as the historical struggle between the church and the state in France.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

We asked Rock Missamou, a water management expert at the Department of Water and Environmental Policy and UNESCO Chair at the University of Public Service, Budapest, about African water shortages and their economic, political, and demographic impacts, as well as the Hungarian drought situation.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

We asked Marek Magierowski, a Polish journalist and diplomat, former Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and former Polish ambassador to Israel and the US, about Donald Tusk's "militant democracy," the similarities and parallels between the Polish and Hungarian government changes, and about how Poles view the EU's common values and common policies.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

The past decade has been a blur. Trucks in Nice. Gay pride parades in Oslo. Westminster Bridge. London Bridge. Manchester Arena. The Bataclan. Wherever people have congregated, the forces of Islamic terror have massed to mow them down. To read Simon Cottee’s new paper for the Danube Institute is to be taken back on a bloody and terrible tour of recent European history. To so many flower-saturated memorials. So many breaking news bars. So many proclamations of never again, and they shall not divide us. Yet on it goes. What have we learned?  Not just at the political and civilisational level — but what can we say about the attacks of the post-2015 era, when we view them en masse, as a social phenomenon? Dr Simon Cottee is one of Britain’s leading criminologists. An author, who has delved deep into the question of Islam, and its most ghastly offspring, ISIS. He’s a senior lecturer at the University of Kent, and has been a fellow at the Danube Institute for the past nine months. As part of that fellowship, Dr Cottee performed a complete survey and literature review of Jihadism in the modern era, focusing on a tight ten year stretch, from 2015 to 2025. Raking over hundreds of accounts of bomb plots and mass casualty incidents, to attempt to draw some conclusions. He found many things, but perhaps the biggest headline to come from his paper is that there has been a fourth wave — today’s Jihadists, unlike the local radicalisation of, say, the Dewsbury-born perpetrators of the 7/7 attacks, come as much from overseas. They were born outside of Europe, in the Middle East. 45%, he says of those involved in a fatal terror attack plot, came to the continent as effectively adults. Today, we want to go over his findings of this important paper — as much because, as Simon points out, there seems a reluctance in criminology to categorise people in quite such stark terms. So what is the situation — and is the wave a temporary phenomenon, driven by Angela Merkel’s disastrous 2015 opening of the borders to millions of unvetted migrants? What, if anything, could a fifth wave look like? 

We asked Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, an author, former Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See, and a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, about the turbulent history and the heritage of the Habsburgs, the former ruling family of Austria-Hungary, as well as about the EU, the institution of family, and Christianity.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

We asked Géza Jeszenszky, former Foreign Minister of Hungary and former Ambassador to the United States of America, about the past, present, and future of Hungarian-American relations, their ups and downs, and their turbulent and conflicting nature.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

We asked Mohammed Ibrahim Al Dhaheri, Deputy Director-General of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the UAE, about the United Arab Emirates' initial visions and subsequent strategies for becoming a leading regional power and its relationships with OPEC, the Abraham Accords, and its geopolitical allies.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

For forty years, two countries have tested each other’s resolve over a mountainous black garden. The region in question, Nagorno-Karabakh, literally means "mountainous black garden". It is a rugged enclave that, under Soviet administration, was an autonomous oblast inside the Azerbaijan SSR, while being majority Armenian by population. This was standard Soviet practice in its day. In fact, Stalin made a point of nesting ethnic minorities inside other republics' territory. The conflict seemed intractable. Multiple short wars. Much ethnic strife. And then in a single day in September 2023, Azerbaijan did what three decades of European diplomacy couldn't: it resolved the Nagorno-Karabakh question. By force. Winning the final war in 23 hours. After a 2025 peace treaty, brokered by President Trump, the territory transfer appears to be baked in. The matter is settled. Or is it? This week on Danube Politics, we’re joined by a man who understands the Azerbaijani perspective on the war. Farid Shukurlu is a Visiting Fellow at the Danube Institute, working on three departments: Europe, the Middle East and the Turkic-Western Engagement. Farid is also Azerbaijani, whose ancestry is interconnected with this regional conflict, his grandparents having been expelled from Armenia at the time of the dissolution of the USSR. We wanted to ask him about how Azerbaijan sees the war and its aftermath.

We asked Raymond Ibrahim, a Middle East expert, scholar, historian, and Visiting Fellow at the Danube Institute, about the true nature of Islam, the chances of coexistence between Muslims and inclusive Western societies, and the differences between the main teachings of Islam and Christianity.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.--

All things must pass. Five years ago, Rod Dreher turned up at the Danube Institute as a fresh-faced pup of 54. He was here to build a new life. Resetting after a traumatic divorce was the push factor. The pull was his burgeoning interest in what you might call the Orbán model. A new kind of National Conservatism. Strong on borders; but strong also on the family — an integration of social conservatism with social democracy, It seemed to answer a question Rod had been working on in his journalism. What you might call the Post-Liberal question: how then shall we live? Rod took a chance on Hungary — and given that we’re half a decade later, something in it must’ve gotten into him. For the past five years, Rod has been the backbone of the DI’s internal structures. A talented writer, a charming speaker, Rod’s a man who can always cut to the quick. Due to a rare medical condition, he physically cannot tell a lie — that is why he is so widely read. People look to Rod to give us the truth. Unvarnished, occasionally whimsical, but never angled or glossed. Whether that means falling out with Tucker Carlson over the question of the ethno-nationalist Nick Fuentes. Or holding that Britain is about to enter a pre-civil war state of turmoil. Rod is the guy who holds together a wide range of conservative strands, from MAGA to liberalism, bound by good downhome Louisiana common sense. Today, though, Rod has his return ticket booked. At the end of the month, he is heading to Birmingham, Alabama, to begin a new chapter. We wanted to ask him about what he’s learned. About the politics, the people, the country. 

We asked Vasif Huseynov, head of the Western Studies Department at the Center for Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center) in Baku, Azerbaijan, about the possible scenarios for ending the Ukrainian war, the power games in the Caucasus, and Azerbaijan's geopolitical priorities.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

We all know what we mean by the Western Canon. Or do we? The Canon comes from nowhere and everywhere. A smelted down best-of-the best of the things our culture has truly loved. But at its borderlands, there are constant wars for what should be included. Culture always evolves. We see the same Roman poets quite differently to how the Victorians did. At its core, things like Shakespeare sit firmly within the redoubt. But is Henry James worthy? And is Trollope not? Magrite - yes; Koons no?  Dr Jonathan Price is a Visiting Fellow at the Danube Institute. In his new show for Danube Culture, he wants to explore the meaning of the Canon, by asking individual experts what they think it should contain. Each episode, we’ll have two guests. Each will argue to place one new artefact inside the Canon — and argue as to why one well-respected piece should be removed. You’ll hear passionate arguments about the meaning of art.  And hopefully, you’ll pick up some recommendations of great works to check out —  and those to swerve.  After all, the canon is made by those who actually engage with it.  This week: Jane Cooper, a Prize Fellow at All Souls College Oxford, and Charles Foster, Fellow at Exeter College Oxford (and author of Being a Beast, long-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize). Charles wants to put The Waste Land in the bin of cultural history, but thinks Zorba The Greek should be on the curriculum. Meanwhile, Jane wants Bob Dylan to be knocked from his cultural perch, while vouching for the exquisite Tudor poet Robert Southwell, who was hanged at Tyburn for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy to Queen Elizabeth.

We spoke to Edward N. Luttwak, Contractual Strategic Advisor to the U.S. Department of Defense, and former advisor to many American presidents, about Ukraine's chances of winning the war, China's readiness to change the status quo, and the turbulence in the Middle East.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.