Politics Theory Other

Adam Tooze joins PTO to talk about his new book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy. We talked about the problems and pitfalls of writing instant history, why 'shutdown' is a more useful way of thinking about how governments and ordinary people responded to the Covid19 crisis than 'lockdown'. And finally, we chatted about why China's radical efforts to suppress the virus in Wuhan, Hubei...

Timothy Nunan joins PTO to talk about the current situation in Afghanistan, the refugee crisis in the country, the US media discussion around the American withdrawal, and what descriptions of Afghanistan as 'a graveyard of empires' or a 'second Vietnam' obscures regarding the history of the country in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Juliet Jacques joins PTO to talk about her debut collection of short stories, Variations. Inspired by found material and real-life events, the book explores the history of transgenderism in Britain, from the time of the Oscar Wilde trial to the second decade of the 2000s. We talked about why Juliet chose to use fiction to address the history of trans, the feelings of responsibility that come with...

Paul Rogers returns to PTO to respond to listener questions on the situation in Afghanistan and the implications of the Taliban's victory. Become a $5 supporter on patreon to access this and all other episodes of PTO Extra: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

Paul Rogers joins PTO to talk about the Taliban's advance across Afghanistan and the possibility of an imminent takeover of the capital Kabul. We spoke about why the Taliban have been so successful against the more numerous and better equipped and supported Afghan government forces, what the Taliban's victory might mean for India, Pakistan and China, and finally we discussed how history will judge...

Owen joins PTO to respond to listener questions on our recent discussion on Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances, a career spanning new collection of his writings. Become a £5 PTO supporter on patreon to get access to all episodes of PTO Extra! https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

James Meadway joins PTO to talk about his forthcoming article for Open Democracy on the end of neoliberalism. We talked about why James believes that we're witnessing a transition away from neoliberalism and towards what some are calling authoritarian capitalism, why the left needs to focus more on the high point of globalisation of the early 2000s when thinking about neoliberal forms of governanc...

Benjamin Bratton joins PTO to discuss his new book, The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World. We talked about how the Covid-19 pandemic could transform our sense of human subjectivity, how to think about planning at a planetary scale - in a way that neither falls prey to techno utopianism, nor retreats into a romantic localism. We also talked about what the pandemic means for po...

Margret Grebowicz joins PTO to talk about her new book, 'Mountains and Desire: Climbing vs. The End of the World'. We talked about how the notion of the boho climbing rat, who forgoes a normal life and conventional ideas of success has given way to the idea of the modern climber as emblematic of entrepreneurial achievement and heteronormativity. We also talked about Free Solo, the 2018 documentary...

Jeremy Gilbert joins PTO to respond to listener questions on our recent discussion about the Labour Party. We talked about whether Jeremy holds a "stagist" approach to political consciousness and social change, what the far more positive public discussion around migration in Scotland suggests about possibilities elsewhere in the UK, and what - if anything - Labour can do to win over the support of...

Owen Hatherley joins PTO to discuss a new career spanning collection of his writings, Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances. We talked about the early 2000s blogging scene as a reaction to New Labour, Owen's writings on music and how Black Box Recorder's work seemed to anticipate the world of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. And finally, we talked about Owen's review of K-Punk - the collected...

With the prospect of another potential Labour by-election defeat in Batley and Spen next month, Jeremy Gilbert joins PTO to talk about the prospect of the Labour Party facing further erosion in its support and whether the Keir Starmer project is even about winning elections or if the goal is simply to defeat and marginalise the Labour left.

Jacqueline Rose joins PTO to talk about her new book, On Violence and on Violence against Women. We discussed how psychoanalysis can help us grasp the mental states that make male violence possible, where Jacqueline parts company with the radical feminist perspectives of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, and how the experience of trans women illuminates more broadly the nature of male violen...

Rana Barakat joins PTO from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to talk about the current humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, the significance of the recent general strike and the protests amongst Palestinians within the 1948 borders, and what Israel's escalation of violence may mean for Netanyahu's efforts at normalising Israel's relations with Arab states in the region...

Jacqueline Rose joins PTO to talk about her new book, On Violence and on Violence against Women. We discussed how psychoanalysis can help us grasp the mental states that make male violence possible, where Jacqueline parts company with the radical feminist perspectives of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, and how the experience of trans women illuminates more broadly the nature of male violen...

At the end of the 1980s, China's leaders came close to implementing the kind of economic shock therapy reforms that a few years later caused a social and economic catastrophe in the former Soviet Union and much of eastern Europe. A moment of enormous significance for Chinese and world history, Isabella Weber explains how and why China came to the brink of initiating an economic "big bang", and why...

Alex De Waal joins PTO to talk about his new book, New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease. We discussed the history of pandemic disease control, from the cholera outbreaks of the 19th century to HIV/AIDS and the Covid19 crisis. We chatted why the war on disease narrative is so unhelpful, how colonial era vaccination programmes spread HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and why the...

Earlier this month rioting broke out in loyalist communities in several towns and cities in Northern Ireland - the worst such violence for years. PTO spoke to Daniel Finn about his recent article for the London Review of Books on the causes of the disturbances. Become a £5 PTO supporter to get access to this episode and all other episodes of PTO Extra: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50112410

Robbie Shilliam joins PTO to talk about his article, 'Enoch Powell: Britain’s First Neoliberal Politician' which appeared in the New Political Economy Journal. We spoke about how Enoch Powell, far from being a political throwback was in fact a key figure in the emergence of neoliberalism and Thatcherism, and how his politics presaged the Brexit project. We also chatted about how Powell, in contras...

Earlier this month the UK government published the latest defence review, titled 'Global Britain in a Competitive Age'. PTO spoke to international security analyst Paul Rogers about the defence review, and the government's move to increase the UK's nuclear stockpile by 40%. We also talked what the review tells us about the UK in a post-Brexit world and finally what the review means for the governm...

Owen Hatherley, Juliet Jacques, and Alberto Toscano join PTO to talk about Adam Curtis's new BBC series Can't Get You Out of My Head. We chatted about Curtis' politics, the changes in his documentary style since the early 1990s, and why he avoids talking about neoliberalism.

Melissa Gira Grant and Chardine Taylor Stone join PTO to discuss police and male violence and the murder of Sarah Everard. We talked about the importance of not seeing Wayne Couzen's role as a police officer as merely incidental to the murder of Everard and we also talked about why carceral feminist approaches that seek to combat male violence through the police and the courts are doomed to fail....

Emma Dowling joins PTO to talk about her new book 'The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We End It'. We chatted about the scale of the care crisis today, how social reproduction theory can help us to make sense of the crisis, and we also talked about how conservatives conceive of care and of how they believe practices of care should be undertaken.

On Friday the UK's supreme court ruled against allowing Shamima Begum, the young British woman who in 2015 travelled to Syria to join ISIS, to return to the UK to contest the Home Office's removal of her citizenship. PTO spoke to Nisha Kapoor about the Supreme Court's decision, the question as to whether Begum was groomed by traffickers and we also talked about the dangerous precedent that the nor...

Gavin Mueller joins PTO for part two of our conversation on his new book, 'Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites were Right About Why You Hate Your Job'. We talked about Taylorism and the deskilling of workers, how automation was used by American military planners during the Vietnam war in order to maintain control of the increasingly mutinous US Army, and finally we talked about why - in spite of...