Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust

In this episode, we welcome Professor Kathryn Sikkink, one of the most influential scholars of human rights, transnational advocacy and global accountability. The conversation opens with her early encounters with dictatorship in Uruguay and a sustained challenge to familiar origin stories that locate human rights primarily in the 1970s. For Sikkink, Latin America is not a peripheral or late adopte...

In this episode, we welcome Professor Andrew Lang (University of Edinburgh), a leading critical voice in international economic law and global political economy. Andrew’s work poses a deceptively simple but analytically demanding question: how do law and expertise make global markets possible, and what forms of power and inequality are sedimented within everyday technical decisions? Drawing on his...

In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Simon Dalby, one of the most original thinkers in critical geopolitics and environmental security. His scholarship has fundamentally reshaped how we understand the relationship between ecology, violence, and global governance – pioneering the concept of political geoecology and, more recently, probing the incendiary entanglements of fossil fuels, statecra...

In this episode, we welcome Dr Nat Dyer, journalist, researcher and author of Ricardo’s Dream: How Economists Forgot the Real World and Led Us Astray. With clarity and wit, Nat takes us inside the story of how mainstream economics became unmoored from reality, tracing its detachment back to the legacy of David Ricardo and the seductive pull of abstract models. Drawing on insights from his new book...

In this episode, we welcome longtime friend and collaborator of the UCL Global Governance Institute, Professor Philipp Pattberg, to the podcast, a leading scholar in global environmental governance and sustainability transitions. As Director of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute and Professor of Transnational Environmental Governance at VU Amsterdam, Philipp’s research examines the role of non...

In this episode, we welcome one of the most influential voices in international relations, Professor Craig Murphy. A pioneer in global governance scholarship, Craig has been at the forefront of research on international organizations, industrial change, and the historical evolution of global political structures. His work bridges critical theory, historical materialism, and the study of transnatio...

Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman join us to discuss their recent book, Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises, in which they propose a framework of "planetary thinking" to address the interconnected crises facing humanity. Drawing on historical lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the eradication of smallpox, among other examples...

In this episode, we welcome one of the foremost scholars in international relations to the podcast, Professor Martha Finnemore. Recognized globally for her pioneering contributions to the field, Finnemore recently received the 2023 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science alongside Alexander Wendt. This prestigious accolade celebrates their groundbreaking work in constructivism, a theory that has r...

Join me and some of our amazing UCL students as we delve into the world of global governance! Olivia Crosby, Oliver Parker, and Rachel Dodimead, all part of the MSc in Global Governance and Ethics in the Department of Political Science at University College London, chat about what it’s like studying here, their favourite moments from the year, and their aspirations for the future. We talk about th...

Craig Murphy and Jonathan Rowson join us for a dialogue on global politics and the metacrisis, using as a springboard for this conversation the essay ‘Prefixing the World: Why the polycrisis is a permacrisis, which is actually a metacrisis, which is not really a crisis at all’, published by Jonathan on his Substack blog in late 2023. Craig recently participated in a panel on Crisis in Global Gover...

Tim Maughan is a British science fiction writer whose work critically explores the intersections of technology and society. He is perhaps best known for his debut novel, “Infinite Detail,” which was a 2020 Locus Award finalist for best first novel and shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel. "Infinite Detail" presents a prescient examination of the dystopian im...

Philip Cunliffe joins us to talk about his recent book ‘The New 20 Year Crisis’ which draws inspiration for the classic 1939 text ‘The 20 Year Crisis’ by E. H. Carr to advance a powerful, incisive critique both of the liberal internationalist project of the past two decades, as well as the discipline of IR itself which beguiled by the ‘unipolar imaginary’ has failed to comprehend the depth of the...

Professor Giorgio Savini is an astrophysicist at University College London, specialising in instrumentation for space exploration. As a key figure at UCL’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, his work bridges the gap between astrophysics and engineering, focusing on the development of cutting-edge technologies for space telescopes and satellite systems. He has been involved in major international...

Deborah Avant is the Sié Chéou-Kang Chair for International Security and Diplomacy at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. She is a distinguished scholar in the field of international relations, renowned for her expertise in global governance, security studies, and civil-military relations. Her groundbreaking 2005 book, The Market for Force: The Consequences of P...

Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law Emeritus at Emory Law, associated professor in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences, and senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion of Emory University. A world-renowned scholar of Islam and human rights and human rights in cross-cultural perspectives, An-Na'im teaches courses in international la...

Professor Cynthia Enloe is a Research Professor in the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Cynthia is one of the leading voices on gender and militarism, as well as one of the main proponents of feminist international relations. With fifteen published books and numerous awards to her name, Cynthia is a passionate lecturer and activist, d...

Bonnitta Roy is an author and a teacher. Her work focuses on breaking away from limiting patterns of thought. She is the founder of Alderlore Insight Centre, a non-profit educational organisation focusing on secondary education and insight training for post-formal thinkers. She is Professor in Residence for the MA in Consciousness Studies and Transpersonal Psychology at the Graduate Institute, and...

Professor Michael Barnett is University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University. Michael is one of the leading International Relations scholars of his generation and a major figure in the field of humanitarianism, global governance, global ethics and the United Nations. He has set the coordinates for major debates in the field, including investi...

Professor Geoff Mann is Distinguished Professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver BC. Geoff is an award-winning political economist and writer, known as a leading researcher on the historical development and future trajectory of economic governance set against the backdrop of the climate crisis. He is a senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking and a 2022 recipient...

Professor David Kennedy is the Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School. Described by prominent historian Samuel Moyn as “the single most important innovator in international legal thought of the past several decades,” David is renowned for his penetrating and critical analysis of the place of law in global governance....

Dr Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights and Professor Emeritus at the Department of Political Science and the School of International Policy and Governance (Balsillie School of International Affairs), Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. A sociologist by training, Professor Howard-Hassmann is widely recognized as a leading interdisciplinary scho...

Professor Thomas Oatley is the Corasaniti-Zondorak Chair of International Relations at Tulane University. He focuses his research and teaching on the intersection of American hegemony and international political economy (IPE). Widely regarded as a scholar at the leading-edge of IPE research, Thomas has in recent years adopted an explicit complex systems frame to undergird a powerful critique of or...

Professor Sheldon Solomon is the Ross Professor for Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College, New York. Professor Sheldon is one of the true pioneers in the fields of social and evolutionary psychology. Best known for developing terror management theory (TMT), along with Jess Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon and colleagues have revolutionised our understanding of how humans deal with th...

Adrienne Buller is the Director of Research at Common Wealth, an organization focused on promoting democratic ownership to transform how the economy operates and for whom. Adrienne has recently published ‘The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism’ (2022), offering a deep dive into the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to climate and environme...

Nate Hagens is the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF), an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers ISEOF assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles. He is the host of the podca...