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
Thursday Jul 16, 2020
Thursday Jul 16, 2020
Singapore is held up as a free-market utopia: rich, orderly and clean. But the reality is quite different. Why does Singapore exert such a magnetism for neoliberals, when its reality strays from orthodox prescriptions? What and who made this model 'global city', and how does its communist and anti-colonial past lead to its hyper-capitalist present?
Tuesday Jul 14, 2020
Tuesday Jul 14, 2020
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
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
Tuesday Jun 30, 2020
Tuesday Jun 30, 2020
Aleksandar Vučić's coalition won the recent (21 June) Serbian parliamentary elections amidst a mass boycott. We talk to Balkanist editor Lily Lynch about what Vučić represents - violent ultranationalist or technocratic centrist? We also take time to discuss geopolitical rivalries over Kosovo.
Plus: cigar socialism, Yugoboomers and the enduring appeal of Balkan orientalism. According to Julian Assange, the future always comes to Serbia first - what does this mean?
Intro clip: Vučić's very creepy virtual rally | Outro clip: The Big Z
Readings:
- Abramović, Žižek and Milanović: Yugoslavia’s First and Last Global Public Intellectuals, Srdjan Garcevic, The Nutshell Times
- The Tito–Castro Split and the End of Cigar Socialism, Lily Lynch, Balkanist
- Vucic’s nationalist party wins landslide victory in Serbian poll, Valerie Hopkins, FT
- West is best: How ‘stabilitocracy’ undermines democracy building in the Balkans, Srda Pavlovic, LSE blog
Friday Jun 26, 2020
Friday Jun 26, 2020
This episode is for patrons $10 and up. Please sign up at patreon.com/bungacast
On the Ehrenreich's re-evaluation of the Professional-Managerial Class.
We discuss Barbara and John Ehrenreich's "Death of a Yuppy Dream". Also attached are the Ehrenreichs' analyses from the late 70s, also referenced in the discussion.
Thanks again for all your questions!
Tuesday Jun 23, 2020
Tuesday Jun 23, 2020
On this latest Three Articles, we discuss the global Black Lives Matter protests.
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The Triumph of Black Lives Matter and Neoliberal Redemption, Cedric Johnson, NonSite
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The Triumph of American Idealism, Alex Hochuli, Damage
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
On the left case for freedom.
We talk to Corey Robin about how the left has sacrificed the realm of freedom to the right. And why the Left's weakness is also the Right's. Plus, why is it clear that Trump is not a fascist? And insight into the BLM protests in NYC and responses to the pandemic.
Reading:
- What People Power Looks Like in a Pandemic Democracy, Corey Robin, NYRB
- Symposium on the Challenges Facing Democrats: Freedom Now, Corey Robin & Alex Gourevitch, Polity
- If authoritarianism is looming in the US, how come Donald Trump looks so weak?, Corey Robin, Guardian
Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
On culturally conservative critics of capitalism.
Neoliberalism’s fragmentary and atomising tendencies have gone too far. In response, some right-wingers have turned against the market. At the same time, there’s a (marginal) tendency on the left turning against cultural liberalism. Are we witnessing a major political realignment underway? What is the substance of these "culturally conservative" critiques, and do they offer anything new, beyond what people like Christopher Lasch advanced decades ago?
Readings:
- The new intellectuals of the American right, Nick Burns, New Statesman
- The Problem of Hyper Liberalism, John Gray, The TLS
- The Real Class War, Julius Krein, American Affairs
- Socialism in One Country, David Runciman, LRB (on Maurice Glasman & Blue Labour)
- The idea that the British working class is socially conservative is a nonsense, Kenan Malik, The Guardian
- Zero to One, Peter Thiel (pdf)
- The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Daniel Bell (pdf)
Tuesday Jun 09, 2020
Tuesday Jun 09, 2020
This is a sample. For the full episode go to patreon.com/bungacast
Bonus content (always the best stuff) from our interview with Angela and Michael (episode 126).
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Why did Bernie Sanders fail?
In the third in an occasional series on the US presidential election and the Left, we talk to Angela Nagle and Michael Tracey about their analysis of Bernie Sanders' campaign. We put to bed some bad arguments as to why Bernie didn't win the nomination, and examine some better ones: was the campaign was too establishment-friendly? too "left"? too middle-class? too anti-nationalist?... or are structural factors to blame instead?
And we ponder the end of the union of Old and New Lefts, of cultural liberalism and socialism. And the most worrying of all: was Bernie just a blip?
Reading:
- First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: The Collapse of the Sanders Campaign and the "Fusionist" Left, Angela Nagle & Michael Tracey, American Affairs
Tuesday May 26, 2020
Tuesday May 26, 2020
In this latests Three Articles we discuss power, money and the power of money - in a post-Covid world.
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The Death of the Central Bank Myth, Adam Tooze, Foreign Policy
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Why the Neoliberals Won’t Let This Crisis Go to Waste, Philip Mirowski, Jacobin
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Plan A for the coronavirus, Curtis Yarvin, Medium
Tuesday May 19, 2020
Tuesday May 19, 2020
In the second in an occasional series of episodes on the US presidential election and the Left, we talk to Nicholas Kiersey, a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign in Texas and host of the Fully Automated podcast. What were things like on the campaign trail, and what went wrong for Bernie? Will Biden go the distance, and are there more shenanigans in store?
Readings:
- Like It or Not, If We Run Third Party, We Will Lose, Dustin Guastella, Jacobin
- The Tyranny of Decorum Hurt Bernie Sanders’s 2020 Prospects, David Sirota, Jacobin
- ‘Life After Bernie’: The Young Left Braces for Disappointment in 2020, Tim Alberta, Politico
- The Left Can’t Just Dismiss the Anti-Lockdown Protests, Ben Burgis, Jacobin
Tuesday May 12, 2020
Tuesday May 12, 2020
We discuss the new documentary TFW NO GF, which focuses on the lives of extremely online alienated loners in the US. It has consequently been labelled the "incel documentary". Because the subjects are allowed to speak for themselves, it's also been called "irresponsible".
Saturday May 09, 2020
Saturday May 09, 2020
- It might take a while before history starts again, Anton Jäger, Damage
- Are we all covid communists now?, Philip Cunliffe, Medium