Cosmopolitics by Elise Labott

About Cosmopolitics by Elise Labott

An insider's guide to understanding your world and the people who run it. www.cosmopolitics.news (https://www.cosmopolitics.news?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Elise Labott

Category

news · news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Mar 2024

Latest episode

29 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

61 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   29 Oct 2026

   Live with Elise Labott

   Thank you Susan Heinrich (https://substack.com/profile/6011657-susan-heinrich), Candace Head-Dylla (https://substack.com/profile/9454390-candace-head-dylla), Linda Jean (https://substack.com/profile/111991933-linda-jean), Lulu Lew (https://substack.com/profile/4895615-lulu-lew), and many others for tuning into my live video with Danielle Pletka (https://substack.com/profile/4302763-danielle-pletka)! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.cosmopolitics.news/subscribe (https://www.cosmopolitics.news/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   5 Oct 2026

   The women against the strongmen

   There is a tendency to talk about women in power as questions of representation: How many women un governments or serve in parliaments or Congress? When will the United States finally elect a woman president? Linda Robinson thinks we are missing the bigger story. In her new book, Women in Power: Fighting for Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231221746?lv=shuf&hvlocphy=9007526&hvptwo=&hvnetw=g&mcid=&hvext=372751683190&hvadid=812900471724&language=en_US&hvpone=&hvlocint=&hvcampaign=23942148425&hydadcr=17461_13842110_2502578&hvpos=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvocijid=4287516035161428308--&hvqmt=a&hvexpln=0&tag=smgglusdsadts-20&hvtargid=kwl-2484167636399&adgrpid=197821620175&hvrand=4287516035161428308&channelId=500&ref_=&plpRedirect=mhFallback), Robinson, a senior fellow and director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that two troubling trends are converging. Democracy has been losing ground around the world, while decades of progress bringing women into political leadership have stalled – and that, she argues, is not a coincidence. In our Cosmopolitics conversation, Robinson identified three forces hitting women particularly hard: the rise of a more paternalistic strain of authoritarianism that seeks to push women back toward traditional roles; the normalization of violent misogyny; and a digital ecosystem — increasingly turbocharged by artificial intelligence — that makes it easier to target women with sexualized attacks, threats and disinformation. But Women in Power isn’t just a book about what is happening to women. It’s about what women are doing in response. Robinson takes us to some of the world’s most vulnerable democracies, where women have found themselves facing some of the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders. Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen stood up to pressure from Xi Jinping. Estonia’s Kaja Kallas and Moldova’s Maia Sandu confronted Vladimir Putin and Russian efforts to weaken their countries from within. Sandu told Robinson something that stayed with me: Moldovans didn’t elect her because she was a woman. They elected her because they thought she was honest. In a country plagued by corruption and outside interference, she represented something different. And, Robinson argues, that pattern repeats itself: women emerging from movements demanding reform and then broadening the coalitions supporting them. Then there is Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who demonstrates another kind of power. The leader of a tiny Caribbean nation, Mottley has managed to force some of the world’s biggest financial institutions to rethink how vulnerable countries deal with debt and climate disasters. Her influence doesn’t come from military or economic might, but from ideas, persistence and an ability to build coalitions. The backlash can be brutal. Former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin was subjected to gendered attacks while leading her country into NATO. Death threats against New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern tripled during her final two years in office. Women politicians increasingly face sexualized deepfakes and other forms of digital abuse largely unique in their intensity and character. The United States has had women serve as vice president, secretary of state, congressional leaders, governors and generals, yet has never elected a woman president. Now Robinson sees a broader struggle over women’s place in public life, including inside the U.S. military. She was particularly blunt about the removal of senior women under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, arguing the effects on the leadership pipeline could last for years. Meanwhile, after 80 years and nine men, the United Nations is choosing another secretary-general, with several highly qualified women in contention. Robinson is careful not to argue that women are inherently better leaders, or even necessarily democratic ones. Women can be authoritarians too. Her argument is more interesting than that. At a moment when authoritarian movements are challenging democratic institutions, some of the most compelling examples of resistance are coming from women who have learned how to build coalitions, strengthen their societies and exercise power even when the odds are stacked against them. Three decades covering foreign policy has taught me one thing: the story is almost never as simple as your side wants it to be. That’s why I call balls and strikes without keeping score. That means you get reporting and analysis that makes partisans on both sides a little uncomfortable. Clear-eyed, fact-based, and beholden to no one. If that’s the kind of coverage you want to read- I hope you will support my work with a paid subscription. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.cosmopolitics.news/subscribe (https://www.cosmopolitics.news/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   15 Aug 2026

   An ode to the women who shaped me

   I’m writing this from the tail end of a few days in Myrtle Beach, where I came to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday and ended up doing something I almost never do: actually unplugging. No filing and very little doom-scrolling. Just sand, old friends, wine and cake. Today is my birthday. And for whatever reason, this one has me thinking a little more than usual about how I got here. Earlier this week, I did an interview with my friend Kate Brower (https://substack.com/profile/137646377-kate-brower) for her excellent podcast How She Led To Me. Thankfully, Kate didn’t want to talk about Iran or Trump or whatever crisis was breaking that morning. She wanted to talk about the women who shaped me. Most of you who know me know I’m much more comfortable asking the questions than answering them. I’ve never really talked about myself publicly. And honestly, preparing for this wrecked me a little, but in a good way. Attached is the recording. If you ever wanted to know more about me, here is your chance! I didn’t grow up around people who were particularly interested in foreign affairs. My obsession with the world came later, thanks largely to a high school teacher who talked about places like Kazakhstan as if they mattered, back when most kids my age probably couldn’t have found it on a map. But the people who built me weren’t diplomats or journalists or any of the presidents and secretaries of state I would later spend my career chasing around the world. My grandmother Libby took me in when I was in my twenties. I was broke, making about $12,000 a year at a little local newspaper and wondering whether I had any business trying to become a journalist. She fed me. She poured me wine. After dinner, I’d take the bottle into her bedroom and we’d watch TV while I complained about whatever terrible job or boss I had at the time. My grandmother always had a show tune, a pep talk and a home-cooked meal ready to make me — and everyone around her — feel special. She passed away in 2003, but left me with the lesson that you can be tough and still be funny and kind, and that it costs you nothing to look out for someone else. My mother taught me something else. She has lived with MS for decades, and I’ve watched it steadily take things away from her. She just refuses to let it take everything. For her 60th birthday, I saved every point and airline mile I had and took her on a blowout trip to Paris. Then I saved up for another ten years and asked where she wanted to go for her 70th. She wanted Vegas. She wanted the Bellagio. She wanted the shows. And she wanted to go to Chippendales. So we did. At the end, she couldn’t get out of her wheelchair to go onstage for the photo, so the Chippendales came down to her. This is a fabulous picture of my mother surrounded by half-naked men that probably says more about resilience than anything I could write here. Kate and I also talked about my friends who sustain me. You know Danielle Pletka (https://substack.com/profile/4302763-danielle-pletka) from Hot Takes Happy Hour. I know her as my rock, who knows where all my bodies are buried — and even helped me bury some of them. And there are the Diplobabes — the women who covered the State Department with me all those years ago. We traveled the world together and somewhere along the way became family. We’ve since been through layoffs, marriages, new jobs, grief, kids and now grandkids. We still get together and do a ridiculous white elephant Christmas every year. Talking to Kate made me realize something I probably should have figured out years ago. When I think about the people who got me here, I don’t really think about my career. The people I think about now are the ones who picked me up, made me laugh and told me to keep going. Maybe that’s why this birthday feels a little different. I’m building something again. Cosmopolitics is still a work in progress. Some things have worked better than I imagined. Others haven’t. I’m learning what you want more of, what I want to spend my time doing, and how to make the whole thing sustainable without turning it into something I never want it to be. Which brings me to a quick update on my slightly crazy birthday experiment. The $25 annual membership has been such a hit, I am extending it until tomorrow. If you sign up this weekend, that’s your rate for good. That’s just over $2 a month. I honestly can’t think of much you can still buy for $2. And judging by how much you read, watch, share and argue with me, I’m pretty sure you’re getting your two bucks’ worth. I still hate asking for money. But I do love the idea behind this experiment: maybe good journalism doesn’t need another expensive paywall. Maybe less is more. Maybe it just takes enough people who value the work to kick in a few dollars. I’m heading home tan, rested and, for once, actually glad I stepped away for a few days. I’ll be back on Monday. Hot Takes Happy Hour will be back too, with Danielle ready to debate me, cocktail in hand, about something before the week is out. Thank you for being part of this — for reading, watching, arguing, pushing back and sticking around. And here’s to another trip around the sun. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.cosmopolitics.news/subscribe (https://www.cosmopolitics.news/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

Who has been a guest on Cosmopolitics by Elise Labott

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Ivo Daalder
• Steven A Cook
• Steve Schmidt
• Danielle Pletka
• Barbara Starr

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

1.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

1.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 11 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

23

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0