Episodes
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
UNLOCKED: /373/ Take a Stand: Be Neutral! ft. Lily Lynch
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
- Why did Sweden and Finland give up decades of neutrality - and why now?
- What happens with an enlarged alliance in light of the conflict in Ukraine?
- How does the current moment compare to the apogee of the Non-Aligned Movement?
- Why were the realists right?
- How is tech mythology helping to build 'digital nationalism'?
- Why is there beef over grain between Poland and Ukraine?
- And what the hell are the "skin suit of social democracy" and the "Waluigi of neutrality"?
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Joining the West, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
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The realists were right, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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The EU’s great power delusions, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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Guns, grain, and history, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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Tech-Mythologies, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
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Imperfect Unity, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
Saturday Dec 02, 2023
Excerpt: /378/ Reading Club: Globalisation (II)
Saturday Dec 02, 2023
Saturday Dec 02, 2023
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Are you 'Team Brenner' or 'Team Arrighi'?
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Was neoliberalism a counter-revolution? A passive revolution? A restoration?
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How does the depression of the 1870s compare to that of the 1970s or the post-2008 period?
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What are the characteristics of our own Belle Époque (1993-2007)
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What matters more in explaining the downturn: inter-capitalist global competition? Upward wage pressure? The role of the global South?
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Excerpt: /376/ AufheBonus Bonus - Nov 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Excerpt: /373/ Take a Stand: Be Neutral! ft. Lily Lynch
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
-
Why did Sweden and Finland give up decades of neutrality - and why now?
-
What happens with an enlarged alliance in light of the conflict in Ukraine?
-
How does the current moment compare to the apogee of the Non-Aligned Movement?
-
Why were the realists right?
-
How is tech mythology helping to build 'digital nationalism'?
-
Why is there beef over grain between Poland and Ukraine?
-
And what the hell are the "skin suit of social democracy" and the "Waluigi of neutrality"?
-
Joining the West, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
-
The realists were right, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
-
The EU’s great power delusions, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
-
Guns, grain, and history, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
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Tech-Mythologies, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
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Imperfect Unity, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
Friday Oct 20, 2023
/370/ Dead Ends in Israel & Palestine ft. Alex Gourevitch
Friday Oct 20, 2023
Friday Oct 20, 2023
- why Hamas was becoming irrelevant and how the 7 October attack was an attempt to combat that;
- why violence is necessary but the Palestinians are in a catch-22;
- how the West is implicated in the violence and callousness on show;
- why the Palestinians are the most oppressed and forgotten people;
- why Hamas is not an anticolonial freedom struggle; and
- what is the right way to compare this to Ukraine.
- No end in sight: Israel’s search for a Gaza strategy, Lawrence Freedman, FT (attached)
- The House of Zion, Perry Anderson, NLR
- Whither Palestine, David Polansky, Strange Frequencies
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
/369/ Information-War and War-Politics ft. Jacob Siegel
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
- On disinformation: A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century, Jacob Siegel, Tablet
- A trap has been set for Israel, Jacob Siegel, Unherd
- End US Aid to Israel, Jacob Siegel & Liel Leibovitz, Tablet
- On data: The Nanny vs. The Nanny State, Jacob Siegel & John Robb, Tablet
- Manifesto Podcast, Jacob Siegel & Phil Klay
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)
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 Apr 04, 2023
/331/ The Zone (pt. 1) ft. Quinn Slobodian
Tuesday Apr 04, 2023
Tuesday Apr 04, 2023
On cracked-up capitalism.
Historian of ideas Quinn Slobodian joins us again, this time to discuss his latest book, Crack-up Capitalism – the vision of a global capitalism with its constituent nation-states perforated by ‘zones’ shorn of any national oversight or democratic accountability. We talk through these archetypal zones encompassing deregulation, investment and sweatshop labour, ranging from the glittering city scapes of Hong Kong, Singapore and Canary Wharf to forgotten zones such as Ciskei in apartheid South Africa as well as the gated communities of California and bit-coin paradise Honduras.
We also talk about archetypal crack-up capitalists such as Peter Thiel, William Rees-Mogg and Milton Friedman’s offspring. How did crack-up capitalism feature in the Tory vision of Brexit? Plus, why is Dominic Cummings the one true Singaporean, and why do crack-up capitalists love medieval LARPing?
For part two, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast
Readings:
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The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa, Quinn Slobodian, The Guardian
- /115/ Singapore Shangri-La ft. Lee Jones
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As special enclaves proliferate, what are the consequences for democracy?, Kwasi Kwarteng MP, The Spectator
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Dominic Cummings understands Singapore. The Tories still don’t, Quinn Slobodian, The Spectator
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Crack-up Capitalism video trailer, Twitter
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 Dec 06, 2022
Excerpt: /307/ Aufhebonus Bonus (Dec 2022)
Tuesday Dec 06, 2022
Tuesday Dec 06, 2022
On your questions & criticisms.
We debate what kind of work 'shared-labour socialism' would involve in a complex society, and what role 'dispossession' or 'expropriation' has in the contemporary economy. Plus: strategies on Ukraine – backing independence, guerilla warfare, and what an 'anti-NATO' stance actually looks like; and whether the forces exist for exiting the EU.
Fill out our 2022 Listener Survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XNLTVLB
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 Nov 08, 2022
Excerpt: /302/ Aufhebonus Bonus (Nov 2022)
Tuesday Nov 08, 2022
Tuesday Nov 08, 2022
[Patreon Exclusive]
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
/300/ Bunga at the End of the World
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
On nuclear exterminism.
To commemorate our 300th episode, we discuss how the world is closer to a nuclear conflict than at any point since the Cold War. After decades of inconsequential 'permawar' (at least inside the Western bubble), the proxy war in Ukraine between NATO and Russia is suddenly very consequential indeed.
How does our situation differ from that of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis? Why might it be more unpredictable? Does today's very different ideological configuration make war more or less likely?
Before that, we reflect on five and half years of Bungacast, how the world has changed over the period, and pick out some of our favourite episode from the past half-decade.
The main discussion begins at 23mins.
Readings:
- Who will stop Putin from going nuclear?, Philip Cunliffe, UnHerd
- How to prevent World War III, Philip Cunliffe, UnHerd
- Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilisation, EP Thompson, New Left Review
- The War in Ukraine Could Lead to Nuclear War, Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institute