The idea behind this show is pretty simple: We invite scholars, makers, and professionals out to brunch for an informal conversation about their work, and then we turn those brunches into a podcast.

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Janne Matláry is a professor of international politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Defence University College. A specialist in European foreign and defense policy as well as international security, she was Norway’s deputy foreign minister from 1997–2000, the first Catholic woman to hold a high government post in Norway since the Protestant Reformation. She has also served on the board of trustees of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights and is a life member of the Pontifical Academy of Science.

Janne was in residence at Notre Dame’s Institute for Advanced Study as a director’s fellow for several weeks this past fall. She and host Ted Fox began their conversation drawing on one of her most recent books—Hard Power in Hard Times: Can Europe Act Strategically?, published in 2018 by Palgrave Macmillan—with Janne providing a general sense of the model on which the European Union has been built.

From there, they talked about the differences between modern and postmodern states, the external and internal challenges facing European democracies today, and the U.S.-EU relationship, particularly with respect to NATO.