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 Nov 28, 2023
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
On Australia's lockdown.
We welcome back Shahar Hameiri and Tom Chodor to talk about their new book, The Locked-Up Country, to try to learn some lessons from Australia's response to Covid-19. We also talk about the country's recent Indigenous Voice referendum and ask whether it was Oz's "Brexit Moment".
In the episode we ask:
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Was the pandemic another success for the 'lucky country'?
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How was the Australian state transformed from the 1970s to the 2020s?
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Why was Australia's pandemic planning inadequate?
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What was up with the hotel-based quarantines?
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Why did the public largely support these measure?
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And what can the rest of the world learn from the experience?
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
On your criticisms.
[Patreon Exclusive - subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]
We respond to your points made in the comments on Patreon over the past few months. The first section is of course dedicated to the Gaza war, followed by discussion on hyperliberalism, neutrality, big tech, outsourcing, and drugs.
Now available also as video on Patreon.
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
On John Gray's The New Leviathans.
[Patreon Exclusive - for the full episode, follow the link]
We discuss the British post-liberal philosopher's new book, looking at his background, ideological journey, and why he might be of interest. We also ask:
- How does John Gray use Hobbes and the idea of a Leviathan?
- What is a "state of nature", and what would an artificial state of nature be?
- Is Gray right in this characterization of liberalism?
- Is hyperliberalism the product of liberalism's decay?
- What is postliberalism and how does Gray’s project fit with it?
Readings:
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Pseudo-Leviathans, George Hoare, Damage
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
On a decade of protest around the world.
Journalist Vincent Bevins is back on the podcast to talk about his new book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. We discuss the 2010s protest wave across countries as varied as Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Chile, Bahrain, Yemen, South Korea and Tunisia.
We ask:
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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?
Links:
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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 31, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
On NATO expansion and the end of neutrality
[Patreon Exclusive - for the full episode, sign up @ patreon.com/bungacast]
Lily Lynch is back on the pod to talk about Northern and Eastern Europe and growing hawkishness. We discuss:
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Why did Sweden and Finland give up decades of neutrality - and why now?
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What happens with an enlarged alliance in light of the conflict in Ukraine?
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How does the current moment compare to the apogee of the Non-Aligned Movement?
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Why were the realists right?
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How is tech mythology helping to build 'digital nationalism'?
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Why is there beef over grain between Poland and Ukraine?
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And what the hell are the "skin suit of social democracy" and the "Waluigi of neutrality"?
Links:
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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
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Monday Oct 30, 2023
On Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century
We discuss the Introduction and Part 1 of this landmark book from 2008 and ask if Arrighi's vision of China, the West and the structure of the global economy was correct.
Points discussed:
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What's at stake in thinking of East Asian growth as a renaissance, or correction of the historical blip of European ascendency?
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How compelling is the account of East Asian success as a fusion of industrious and industrial revolution?
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Was Arrighi right to focus on the neoconservative Project for a New American Century?
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What do we think about Adam Smith's account of different classes' capacity for political action
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What's at stake in the revisionist view of Adam Smith as pro-state Enlightenment thinker rather than patron saint of the free market?
Subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
Links:
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The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today, Razmig Keucheyan, Verso (2010)
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
On Argentina's historic election.
Historian of populism and anti-populism Ernesto Seman tells us what is happening in Argentina amidst severe economic crisis. The radical libertarian madman Javier Milei failed to win, and a second-round runoff will be needed, but politics has changed irreparably. The establishment right has been outflanked, while the left-populism of 'Kirchnerismo' is in crisis.
We discuss:
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What is 'Peronism' and how does it occupy so much political space?
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How does Milei appeal to informal workers using market ideology?
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What is distinct about Latin American populism?
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How is anti-populism used to denigrate the masses?
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What is the role of nostalgia for the golden age in Argentina?
Reading:
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In Chile and Argentina, anti-populist politics is failing, Ernesto Seman, FT
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Breve historia del antipopulismo (Brief History of Antipopulism), Ernesto Seman
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Ambassadors of the Working Class, Ernesto Seman
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Javier Milei is not done yet, Alex Hochuli, Unherd
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Javier Milei is not a South American Trump, Alex Hochuli, Unherd
Links:
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/367/ Don’t Pay Them Back ft. Jerome Roos
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/189/ Pink Tide Paradoxes ft. Fabio Luis
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/93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka
Friday Oct 20, 2023
Friday Oct 20, 2023
On violence and the lack of political resolution.
Regular guest Alex Gourevitch joins us to discuss why the Israel/Palestine conflict is so intractable – and why it draws so much attention. Alex then explains why, lamentably, there is no side worth choosing.
We then delve into various key points:
- 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
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
On the war on disinformation and the war in Gaza.
Jacob Siegel, senior editor at Tablet, joins us to talk about Hamas's attack on Israel and Israel's assault on Gaza. We also discuss how the US crusade against 'disinformation' has led it to apply counterinsurgency tactics to its own citizens.
Why did Hamas attack when it did? Has it been successful in stopping Israeli-Saudi rapprochement? How much will this change Israeli society? And what does Israel want to achieve in bombing - and soon invading - Gaza?
Meanwhile, how has domestic politics become war? The state has meshed with corporate power to create an almighty surveillance apparatus. How can we start dismantling it?
And how do we escape the postmodern hall of mirrors in which high diplomacy and low culture-war merge, in which domestic and international, and peace and war, all blur into each other?
Links:
- 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
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
On sovereign debt and taking back control.
The leading candidate in Argentina's election this month wants to avoid defaulting on the country's debt at all costs. But back in 2001, after a mass revolt, Argentina reneged on its debts – one of the very rare cases over the past 70 years of unilateral default.
Why are nations so eager to pay back creditors nowadays, especially when it means endless austerity and little prospect of economic development?
We talk to scholar Jerome Roos about his book, Why Not Default? and discuss a range of cases: Mexico, Greece, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Ghana - and of course Argentina. We find that the old free market system used to accept that reneging on your debts was a risk creditors had to take. No longer: transnational institutions make sure that creditors get paid every time.
How might countries free themselves from international financial dictatorship?
For part two of the interview and the After Party, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast
Links:
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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)
Monday Oct 09, 2023
Monday Oct 09, 2023
On polycrisis.
[Patreon Tier II and III Exclusive - subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast]
We reflect back on Jurgen Habermas' Legitimation Crisis as a whole, having gone through it section by section in previous episodes, before exploring what the idea of 'polycrisis' is about. Everyone from Adam Tooze to the FT to the World Economic Forum think we're in a polycrisis. How does this notion compare to Habermas' understanding of crisis?
We also explore some related themes: cynical ideology and how it deflects criticism; whether we are more or less individualised today, and how you can have less collectivism and less individualism at the same time; and the difference between crisis and emergency.
Links:
- Why the West's elites invented a permacrisis, Thomas Fazi, Unherd
- Welcome to the world of the polycrisis, Adam Tooze, FT
- Year in a word: Polycrisis, Jonathan Derbyshire, FT
- On the crisis of crisis: /327/ Capitalism on Edge ft. Albena Azmanova
- On the structural reasons why the regime survives: /246/ Why Isn’t There Revolution? ft. Vivek Chibber
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
On the end of politics.
Is the craziness of the past years, since 2016, ebbing away? Is the establishment back in charge? Journalist Ryan Zickgraf joins us to argue that, yes, the period of 'hyperpolitics' has passed.
Trump has lost his edge, BLM has imploded, boring Biden rules, the Proud Boys are nowhere to be seen. Fewer protests, fewer small campaign donations, fewer news articles shared.
What is the implication of this? It seems that people are exhausted by the politicisation of everything. The upsurge in engagement in formal politics may be dwindling. But the culture wars are as hot as ever. And the venues for 'escape' from politics are more politicised than ever.
Accelerated social decline means we aren't exactly going back to the 1990s, but is history over all over again?
Readings:
- America's Politics of Nothing, Ryan Zickgraf, Compact
- After Anti-Politics: The Apeiron, Alex Hochuli, Sublation
- Everything is Hyperpolitical, Anton Jäger, The Point
- /361/ A Nightmare on the Brains of the Living ft. Benjamin Studebaker
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
On US politics being stuck.
[This was originally a subscriber exclusive. Sign up now at patreon.com/bungacast]
We talk to political theorist Benjamin Studebaker about his new book, The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut. Studebaker holds that hope is a problem because it's used by professionals to keep people engaged in a system that simply doesn't deliver. Hence the culture wars and the focus on various 'vices'.
How are both left and right complicit in this situation? What's the solution? Are we dependent on oligarchs going rogue to shake the system? Do we need to hit rock bottom to rekindle our political imaginations?
Tuesday Sep 26, 2023
Tuesday Sep 26, 2023
On satire of the bourgeoisie.
[Patreon Exclusive. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast]
We discuss Luis Buñuel's "deranged masterpiece" from 1972, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and debate the social ritual of dinner, and why the guests in the film never get to eat theirs.
How does this early 70s surrealist film – which in many ways set the template for cinematic satires of the bourgeoisie – compare to more recent portrayals such as The Menu or Triangle of Sadness? Ultimately, who are the bourgeoisie and do they still exist, in a world of distributed ownership and managerialism?
Readings:
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‘A deranged masterpiece’: why you should watch The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Luke Buckmaster, The Guardian
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What Have the Bourgeoisie Done for us Lately?, Stephan Bertram-Lee, Sublation
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A Brief History of the Bourgeoisie, or We Are All Bourgeois Now, David Polansky, Strange Frequencies
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The Bourgeois(ie) as Concept and Reality, Immanuel Wallerstein, New Left Review
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
On the radical right in the global periphery.
[This was originally a Patreon Exclusive]
Erdogan, Modi, Orban, Bolsonaro, Duterte. Though the latter two are gone, the first three are still going strong, in government for a decade or more. What unites these figures? They’re all right wing and authoritarian, but also popular and anti-establishment.
How similar are these politicians to their analogues in the core of global capitalism? Might they even be seen to be forerunners of developments in the rich world? And to what extent are they able to resolve the crises of the end of the end of history?
In this episode, we talk to two of the editors of a new book, The Radical Right: Politics of Hate on the Margins of Global Capital.
Previous episodes on this theme:
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Philippines: /52/ Duterte's Despotism ft. Nicole Curato