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State of Power

State of Power

Written by: State of Power
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Let us introduce you to some of the fascinating people we work with to help you make sense of the world’s most complex challenges. In this podcast we share our research, explore alternatives to the status quo and give a platform to scholars and activists who are at the forefront of the fight against the current neoliberal order. We believe there are alternatives to this world and hope you do too.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Political Science Politics & Government Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • S5 Ep6: A Fractured World: Reflections on Power, Polarity and Polycrisis (Nick Buxton in Conversation with Adam Tooze and Walden Bello)

    S5 Ep6: A Fractured World: Reflections on Power, Polarity and Polycrisis (Nick Buxton in Conversation with Adam Tooze and Walden Bello)
    Feb 6 2025
    We live in an age of empire and resistance - a shifting geography of global power. The military, political and financial support of one country, the US, above all others has allowed a small country - Israel - to commit genocide in Gaza, to the horror of the vast majority of people worldwide. The US military, its corporations, its digital giants, its banks, and its culture continue to dominate globally.

    Yet at the same time, US-led imperialism has never felt more fractured and resisted. The heavily-resourced US army has been forced out of Afghanistan and was recently expelled from Niger. Nations such as Nicaragua and South Africa are taking powerful former colonial countries to court. Other international institutions, long seen as vehicles for exporting or enforcing US-led neoliberalism, such as the World Trade Organisation have seemingly run out of steam. The US is also increasingly isolated globally: Brazil, China, India, Russia and other nations are directly challenging its hegemony, and the US' dysfunctional democracy is less and less cited as a model by other countries. There is a growing popular sense that the post-Cold War neoliberal globalised order is in crisis.

    Is US hegemony really fading? Does any other nation, including China, pose any real challenge to US power, let alone offer a political or economic alternative? Has the heralded hope of a BRICS bloc collapsed amidst its contradictions? What would it take to build a more equitable and just new international political and economic order?

    In this episode, to properly examine where geopolitical or geoeconomic power lies today – and how it is being exercised and how that might be changing, TNI's Nick Buxton speaks to Adam Tooze, and Walden Bello.
    Adam Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute. In 2019, Foreign Policy Magazine named him one of the top Global Thinkers of the decade.
    Walden Bello is a TNI associate and author of more that 20 books, a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and journalist who has made a major contribution to the international case against corporate-driven globalization.
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • S5 Ep1: History in Action Part 1: 1970-1990 - A counter history by the Transnational Institute

    S5 Ep1: History in Action Part 1: 1970-1990 - A counter history by the Transnational Institute
    Dec 12 2024
    History in Action Part 1 delves into the founding of the Transnational Institute (TNI) and its origins with the Institute for Policy Studies. We look at the roots of TNI in opposition to the Vietnam War and other global liberation movements. We explore TNI's evolution and its sustained resistance against neoliberal ideologies, its tragedy with the assassination of Orlando Letelier, and its early work on debt, food and alternatives.

    Narrator: Shaun Matsheza
    Interviews conducted by: Denis Burke, Daria Gorshenina and Shaun Matsheza
    Music: Aleksey Chistilin
    Interviews with: Susan George, Cora and Peter Weiss, John Cavanagh, Achin Vanaik, Anthony Barnett, Susan Buck-Morss, Ariane van Buren, Manuel Pérez-Rocha
    Archival audio with: John Berger, Isabel Letelier, Orlando Letelier, Eqbal Ahmad, Basker Vashee, Fred Halliday

    Find out more about TNI at tni.org
    Please consider making a contribution to support our vital work at tni.org/donate

    With thanks to the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • S5 Ep5: History in Action Part 5: 2020-onward! - A counter history by the Transnational Institute

    S5 Ep5: History in Action Part 5: 2020-onward! - A counter history by the Transnational Institute
    Dec 12 2024
    History in Action Part 5 guides us through the multifaceted impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, underscored by increasing corporate power and social injustices—from healthcare privatization and vaccine disparities to the militarization of borders. We talk about green colonialism and the people hijacking the transition to renewable energy for their own profits. We talk about Gaza. Insights from diverse activists and scholars emphasize the need for a collective, just transition and highlight the historical and ongoing struggles for social justice, for international solidarity and for systemic change.

    Narrator: Shaun Matsheza
    Interviews conducted by: Denis Burke, Daria Gorshenina and Shaun Matsheza
    Music: Aleksey Chistilin
    Interviews with: Arun Kundnani, Niamh Ni Bhriain, Katie Sandwell, Lucía Bárcena, Walden Bello, Sol Trumbo Vila , Achin Vanaik, Dorothy Guerrero, John Cavanagh, Achin Vanaik, Lyda Fernanda Forero, Manuel Pérez-Rocha, Fiona Dove
    Archival audio with: Abir Kopty, Hamza Hamouchene, Susan George

    Find out more about TNI at tni.org
    Please consider making a contribution to support our vital work at tni.org/donate

    With thanks to the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam
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    1 hr and 11 mins
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