The global politics podcast at the end of the End of History. Politics is back but it’s stranger than ever: join us as we chart a course beyond the age of ’bunga bunga’. Interviews, long-form discussions, docu-series.
Episodes
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
Tuesday Feb 11, 2020
On pandemics, panics, and China.
The 2019 Novel Coronavirus is yet another new epidemic to appear on the scene this century. What accounts for their increasing frequency, and who decides if an epidemic is classed as a pandemic? More importantly, what governs that choice? The WHO and the whole intergovernmental management of health has 'securitised' these questions. Are they privileging the free flow of capital over public health? And what of China's draconian response and lockdown of Wuhan - is it effective? And who will bear the blame if things go wrong? Might Coronavirus become a threat to Xi Jingping and the Chinese regime?
Readings:
- ‘Rumormonger’ Doctor Who Raised the Alarm Says He Has Coronavirus, Sixth Tone
- 'Hero who told the truth': Chinese rage over coronavirus death of whistleblower doctor, The Guardian
- The Free Market Isn’t Up to the Coronavirus Challenge, Leigh Phillips, Jacobin
- Locked-down Wuhan and why we always overplay the threat of the new, Kenan Malik, The Guardian
- Coronavirus: nature fights back, Michael Roberts blog
Guests' books:
Mark Honigsbaum: The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris
Lee Jones (& Shahar Hameiri): Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation
Running order:
- (00:44) Introduction
- (06:21) Mark Honigsbaum
- (38:48) Lee Jones
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020
On forecasts for the next decade.
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25 Ideas That Will Shape the 2020s, Various, Fortune
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Boris Johnson is reinventing one-nation Conservatism, Bagehot, The Economist
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Forecasting the world in 2020, Various, Financial Times
Tuesday Dec 10, 2019
Tuesday Dec 10, 2019
On the 30 years since 1989.
For our 100th episode, we invited our favourite guests to reflect on the question: “What one event, personal or political, most captures for you the past thirty years, since 1989?”
Are we still living in the death throes of the 20th century, or is something new emerging?
Guests:
- (00:07:42) - Maren Thom
- (00:14:14) - David Broder
- (00:21:33) - Ashley Frawley
- (00:26:11) - Catherine Liu
- (00:33:05) - Angela Nagle
- (00:40:49) - Benjamin Fogel
- (00:46:25) - Alex Gourevitch
- (00:51:31) - BungaCast hosts
- (00:59:22) - David Adler
- (01:04:05) - Amber A’Lee Frost
- (01:08:48) - James Heartfield
- (01:16:17) - Anton Jaeger
- (01:23:24) - Leigh Phillips
- (01:30:25) - Lee Jones
- (01:36:03) - Karl Sharro
Subscribe: patreon.com/BungaCast
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Thursday Nov 07, 2019
Rojava offered the hope that a progressive, multiethnic politics might be salvaged from the ashes of Syria’s civil war. Now the Turkish assault on northern Syria looks set to crush the Kurds and a radical experiment in the region.
We talk to two British volunteers in Rojava about the prospects that the political structures set up there might be saved.
- Dani Ellis (@lapinesque): engineer; civil defence volunteer, International Commune (@communeint)
- Alexander Norton: deputy features editor, Morning Star; revolutionary volunteer, International Freedom Battalion
Running order
- (05:27) - Dani interview
- (41:39) - Alexander interview
- (01:27:51) - Final discussion
Readings & Links:
- Internationalist Commune
- Rojava Information Center
- America abandons the Kurds, Tom Stevenson, LRB
- Russia and Turkey reach deal on Syrian border, Financial Times
- European leftists are rejecting the Kurds over their reliance on the US. It is just another disgusting betrayal, Slavoj Zizek, The Independent
- "Turkey Is Reviving Islamic State in Rojava", Rosa Burç & Kerem Schamberger, Jacobin
Glossary:
- YPG: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People's Defence Corps); PYD’s armed wing in Syria
- YPJ: Yekîneyên Parastina Jin (Women's Protection Units); all-female militia
- PYD: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (Democratic Union Party); Syrian Kurdish affiliate of the PKK
- SDF: Syrian Democratic Forces; alliance composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian/Syriac militias, led by the YPG
- PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers' Party); Kurdish party in Turkey founded in 1978 by Abdullah Öcalan. Started armed insurgency in 1984, thousands of fighters in northern Iraq and Turkey
- IFB: International Freedom Battalion; armed group of foreign leftists fighting for the YPG in support of the Rojava Revolution
- MLKP: Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, Turkey
- TEV-DEM: Movement for a Democratic Society; umbrella organisation in northern Syria, aims at organising Syrian society within the democratic confederalist system
Wednesday Apr 18, 2018
Wednesday Apr 18, 2018
In which we laugh at The Times' hatchet job with one of its targets & wonder what the West's endgame is in Syria
Wednesday Nov 29, 2017
Wednesday Nov 29, 2017
In which we chat new alt-media, the US left, and Trump's Middle East policy
Saturday Sep 02, 2017
Saturday Sep 02, 2017
In which we learn about Burmese Buddhist nationalism, escalating violence against Muslims, and what happened to the West's liberal hero
Sunday Jul 23, 2017
Sunday Jul 23, 2017
In which we scratch our heads at Russophobia. Plus, strong male role models: Engels, Putin, and the Night King(?!)
Monday May 08, 2017
Monday May 08, 2017
Episode Three: In which we ask what's up with the new 'International Brigades' joining the Kurds, and venture a Spanish pronunciation of 'Rojava'.