Episodes
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
/374/ You’re Gonna Need Representation ft. Vincent Bevins
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
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Why were protests in places that were so different all look so similar?
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Why was there such a focus on spontaneity, leaderlessness, peformativity, and horizontalism?
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What are some examples of the ways protests rejected representation?
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Was class or generation more important in driving these protests?
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Why did media becomes so important in pursuing political change?
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How can we avoid a repeat of the failures of the 2010s?
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If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Vincent Bevins, Public Affairs
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The mass protest decade: why did the street movements of the 2010s fail?, Vincent Bevins, The Guardian
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The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century, Bungacast authors, Zer0 Books
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
/367/ Don’t Pay Them Back ft. Jerome Roos
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
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Memoria del saqueo (Social Genocide), film on 2001 debt crisis and uprising in Argentina (many versions available online)
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/83/ Now It’s Syrizous (episode on Syriza's defeat in Greece)
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The World in One Country: Greece, Jonas Kyratzes (part of ep.200)
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
UNLOCKED: /351/ Eating the Left’s Lunch? ft. Cecilia Lero & Tamás Gerőcs
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
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Philippines: /52/ Duterte's Despotism ft. Nicole Curato
Thursday Jul 27, 2023
UNLOCKED /328/ The New Scramble for Africa
Thursday Jul 27, 2023
Thursday Jul 27, 2023
- /303/ The Failure of the French Forever War ft. Yvan Guichaoua
- /304/ The Failure of the French Forever War (2) ft. Yvan Guichaoua
- Russia in Africa, Financial Times series of articles
- Defending Our Sovereignty: US Military Bases in Africa and the Future of African Unity, Tricontinental Institute
- Italophone Somalia, Then and Now, Iman Mohamed, The Drift
- Emmanuel Macron must reset France’s Africa policy, Sylvie Kauffman (Le Monde editor), FT
- Debunking the Myth of ‘Debt-trap Diplomacy’, Lee Jones & Shahar Hameiri, Chatham House
- Let’s talk about neo-colonialism in Africa, Mark Langan, LSE blog
- /267/ South Africa Mafia State ft. Benjamin Fogel
Tuesday May 02, 2023
/337/ Nigeria Rising Downwards ft. Sa’eed Husaini
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Tuesday May 02, 2023
On Nigeria's 'end of the end of history'.
Sa'eed Husaini from The Nigerian Scam podcast joins us to reflect on all things Nigeria: oil, debt, corruption and February's election. What was all that hype about the 'outsider' who wasn't much of an outsider? Has the country's populist moment passed?
More Nigerians are falling into poverty due to low economic growth, while the state is due to spend 96% of its income on debt service. How is this sustainable?
We also talk about oil and corruption: the 'resource curse' and the 'survival of the fattest'. And conclude on China's role in the country and Nigeria as a cultural powerhouse.
Links & Readings:
- Buharism is dead, long live Buharism, Sa’eed Husaini, Africa is a Country
- /61/ Making Plans for Naija ft. Sa'eed Husaini
- The Nigerian Scam podcast
- The Oil Thieves of Nigeria, James Barnett, New Lines
- Survival of the Fattest, Paulo Collier, The American Interest
Tuesday Mar 21, 2023
Excerpt: /328/ The New Scramble for Africa
Tuesday Mar 21, 2023
Tuesday Mar 21, 2023
On geopolitical competition over Africa.
In light of the 'new Cold War', we look at what the US, Europe, Russia and China's respective "pitches" are to African countries – what are they selling? And we examine the factors that contribute to Africa's place in geopolitics today: Chinese hunger for raw materials, the global war on terror, the green energy transition, drug and people smuggling, and more.
If the original Scramble for Africa (1884-1914) was driven by an attempt to displace European class war onto another terrain, can we say anything analogous is happening today?
Links:
- /303/ The Failure of the French Forever War ft. Yvan Guichaoua
- /304/ The Failure of the French Forever War (2) ft. Yvan Guichaoua
- Russia in Africa, Financial Times series of articles
- Defending Our Sovereignty: US Military Bases in Africa and the Future of African Unity, Tricontinental Institute
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Italophone Somalia, Then and Now, Iman Mohamed, The Drift
- Emmanuel Macron must reset France’s Africa policy, Sylvie Kauffman (Le Monde editor), FT
- Debunking the Myth of ‘Debt-trap Diplomacy’, Lee Jones & Shahar Hameiri, Chatham House
- Let’s talk about neo-colonialism in Africa, Mark Langan, LSE blog
- /267/ South Africa Mafia State ft. Benjamin Fogel
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
/321/ Covid Dissensus ft. Toby Green & Thomas Fazi
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
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The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left, Toby Green & Thomas Fazi
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/213/ The Leopard Lockdown ft. Adam Tooze
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/38/ The Economics of Exit ft. Thomas Fazi
Tuesday Nov 22, 2022
/303/ The Failure of the French Forever War ft. Yvan Guichaoua
Tuesday Nov 22, 2022
Tuesday Nov 22, 2022
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Norms, non-combatants' agency and restraint in Jihadi violence in Northern Mali, Yvan Guichaoua and Ferdaous Bouhlel, International Interactions
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The bitter harvest of French interventionism in the Sahel, Yvan Guichaoua, International Affairs
Tuesday May 31, 2022
/267/ South Africa Mafia State ft. Benjamin Fogel
Tuesday May 31, 2022
Tuesday May 31, 2022
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The insurrection in South Africa is about more than freeing Zuma, Benjamin Fogel, Al Jazeera
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Dons have KZN in their grip — and Don of Dons Jacob Zuma has the tightest grip, Chris Makhaye, Daily Maverick
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No two elephants are alike, Ryan Brunette, Africa Is A Country
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Rising vigilantism: South Africa is reaping the fruits of misrule, Landau & Misago, The Conversation
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Excerpt: /202/ 3 Articles: Clerisy, War, Football
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
In our latest 3A, we discuss "the clerisy" and how it relates to the PMC; how the EU is doing forever war just as much as the US; and the hyper-commodification of football.
The full episode is for subscribers only. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast
Articles:
- Did Populism Start A 21st Century Anti-Clerical Revolution?, Angela Nagle, Substack
- Interview with Wolfgang Streeck: The EU’s war in Africa, Jonas Elvander, Brave New Europe
- Cursed and compromised but Euro 2020’s irresistible circus rolls on, Barney Ronay, The Guardian
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Excerpt: /134/ The Call - Afterparty
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
This is a sample. For the full episode, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast
The three of us discuss some of the themes that emerged from our interview with Krithika Varagur (ep.133) - the entanglement of the US state with Islamism, the Americanisation of the Middle East, and especially the Gulf States, and Wahhabism as religious justification for the Saudi state project.
Tuesday Jul 07, 2020
/133/ The Call ft. Krithika Varagur
Tuesday Jul 07, 2020
Tuesday Jul 07, 2020
On Saudi religious proselytism.
Saudi Arabia has actively sought to export Salafism. How has it done this - and what have been its effects, in countries like Indonesia, Nigeria and Kosovo? Why was fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s such a formative experience for jihadists? And why has appeal of secularism faded?
Readings:
- The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project, Krithika Varagur
- How Saudi Arabia's religious project transformed Indonesia (Long excerpt from the book)
- The Coronavirus Threatens Saudi Arabia’s Global Ambitions, Krithika Varagur, Foreign Affairs
- Saudis and Extremism: 'Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters', Scott Shane, NYT
- China as the New Frontier for Islamic Daʿwah, Mohammed Turki al-Sudairi, Journal of Arabian Studies
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
/61/ Making Plans for Naija ft. Sa'eed Husaini
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
On Nigeria's elections. Sa'eed Husaini fills us in on the stakes of this election. President Buhari dismissed the country's top judge weeks before the election, but the former military dictator is meant to be an anti-corruption figure. His main opponent is a neoliberal privatiser. What's behind this contents between two faces of the Nigerian elite? What happens when politics is fought over the grounds of corruption? Can recent trade union mobilisations shake things up? Meanwhile violence associated with Boko Haram still festers...
Readings:
Introductory
Nigeria’s Brutal Decision: Former Dictator or Alleged Kleptocrat, Bloomberg Businessweek
Thatcher-Loving Nigeria Candidate Plans to Overhaul Economy, Bloomberg Businessweek
Election overview by Brookings
More depth
The rebirth of the Nigerian left?, Sa'eed Husaini in Africa Is a Country
Democracy fading in Nigeria, Al Jazeera
On Sowore's programme, Marxist.com
The struggle for a minimum wage, Africa Is a Country
PATREON: Help us grow (pay what you want) patreon.com/bungacast
Wednesday Jan 31, 2018
/27/ After Zuma ft. Sean Jacobs
Wednesday Jan 31, 2018
Wednesday Jan 31, 2018
In which we explore what Ramaphosa's South Africa will be like. Plus BRICS, Pan-Africanism, and @AfricasACountry
Friday Dec 01, 2017
/20/ The Coup in Zimbabwe
Friday Dec 01, 2017
Friday Dec 01, 2017
In which we do the big picture of the coup. With deep context from David Moore & the political goings-on from Chipo Dendere.