Pushkin.

It's hard to read the news these days without asking yourself, how did we get here?

Fiasco is a history podcast for the co-creators of Slow Burn.

In our first season, Bush v. Gore, we examine an unmistakable turning point in American politics, the 2000 election, which resulted in a high-stakes stalemate, ended with one of the most controversial rulings in Supreme Court history.

So if you're trying to make sense at the present moment, check out Fiasco, Bush v. Gore. Listen on theHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

From Pushkin Industries, this is Deep Background, the show where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

I'm Noah Feldman. As regular listeners know, this year's central theme on deep background is power.

And we've been approaching the question of power from numerous different angles.

This week, I want to feature a conversation with one of my contemporaries, a college

classmate actually, who has had an intimate understanding of the structure of power long before

chronologically, most of us even had a whiff of getting anywhere near any of it in the real world.

That person is Matthew Barzen, who served as U.S. ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011, and was then the U.S. ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011 and was then the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom

traditionally considered the jewel in the crown of U.S. ambassadorships for another five years

thereafter. What's remarkable about his career is that he had the opportunity to do these jobs,

starting off when he was still in his 30s, rather than as

the capstone to a long and distinguished diplomatic career the way many, many ambassador

positions operate. Since doing that, Matthew has decided to share some of his ideas around power,

and he did so in a new book called The Power of Giving Away Power, a book that offers

a different philosophical account of power, viewing the question very much more from how elites

can broaden the base of power than from the countervailing perspective of how elites can

constrain and control power.

And in an era where populism is seen by many powerful people as a fundamental threat,

...