Boris Johnson's grip on power seems more precarious than at any other point during his time in office. PTO spoke to Will Davies about whether we're at the beginning of the end of the Johnson era, and why Will compares Boris Johnson to a financial asset - and his allies and supporters to investors.
How to chang...
Lea Ypi will be returning to the show to respond to your questions on the recent episode on her extraordinary book, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History which tells the story of Lea's upbringing in Stalinist Albania and the post-communist transition of the 1990s. As well as describing Lea's personal experience, ...
2021-12-05 20:47:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Lea Ypi joins PTO to talk about her new book Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. It tells Lea's story of growing up in Stalinist Albania, the end of communist party rule in 1990, and the country's slide into violent chaos in 1997. We talked about Albania's isolation during the cold war after schisms with first...
2021-12-03 10:48:04 +0000 UTC View PostPart two of Richard Seymour responding to listener's questions, including on Amia Srinivasan's work, and also on critiques of psychoanalysis - a practice that plays a very important role in Richard's writing.
2021-11-25 13:13:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Jason Hickel joins PTO to talk about his book, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. In part one of the interview we discussed the comprehensive and all-encompassing character of the ecological crisis which extends well beyond the issue of CO2 emissions. We also talked about the violent emergence of capital...
2021-11-17 12:40:01 +0000 UTC View PostRichard Seymour, who was recently on the show to discuss supply chains and the ecological crisis, returns to respond to the excellent questions sent in by listeners. We talked about how the left should respond to the issue of consumerism and Richard's opinion of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain. And we also tal...
2021-11-06 11:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Kate Crawford joins PTO to talk about her book, Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. We talked about why some proponents of AI are so convinced - against so much evidence - that systems of machine learning will truly be able to replicate human intelligence, and how the ext...
2021-11-02 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostRichard Seymour will be returning to the the show soon to respond to your questions - both on the recent episode on supply chains, environmental breakdown, and the UK's covid-19 situation - and more broadly. As anyone who follows his excellent 2021-10-25 16:47:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Richard Seymour joins PTO to talk about his recent articles on the supply chain and fuel crisis - both in the UK and abroad - and how they portend a future of climate related disruption. We also talked about the significant uptick in the UK's Covid-19 cases and death toll, and why the government scaled back public health regu...
2021-10-21 17:36:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Andy Beckett joins PTO to talk about the recent Conservative and Labour Party conferences and whether the supply chain and fuel crises might finally undermine support for Boris Johnson's government. We also chatted about why Keir Starmer seems to have made so little effort to make political capital out of the government's cur...
2021-10-11 15:24:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Amia Srinivasan joins PTO to talk about her new book, The Right to Sex. We spoke about whether it's legitimate to interrogate our sexual desires and to think about how desire is shaped by patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and heteronormativity. We also talked about why Amia takes the case of so-called incels as the way...
2021-10-05 08:49:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Ines Schwerdtner and Adrian Daub join PTO to talk through the Bundestag election. We talked about the election results and the partial revival of the SPD. We also talked about the permutations of possible governing coalitions, and the unusual extent of the red scare tactics deployed by the CDU and the other parties of the rig...
2021-09-28 19:29:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Paul Rogers and David Brophy join PTO to talk about AUKUS, the new security pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. We spoke about the significance of Australia acquiring nuclear powered submarines through the deal, the fallout from the cancellation of Australia's prior deal with France, and finally ...
2021-09-19 12:23:49 +0000 UTC View Post
James Meadway joins PTO again to respond to listener's questions on the recent episode on the end of neoliberalism. We chatted about who might be the winners of a post neoliberal settlement, whether neoliberal ideology is compatible with a more state directed economy, and why James believes we will likely see a shift in power...
2021-09-13 14:41:06 +0000 UTC View Post
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, ...
2021-09-07 07:38:48 +0000 UTC View Post
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 centur...
2021-09-02 18:28:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ficti...
2021-08-30 20:34:56 +0000 UTC View PostDue to illness the Listener's Questions episode with James Meadway on the end of neoliberalism ended up being pushed back a bit, but we'll now be chatting on Tuesday so there's still time to send in a question. You can either comment here or email politicstheoryother@gmail.com - please include 'listener's questions' in ...
2021-08-29 14:00:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Paul Rogers returns to PTO to respond to listener questions on the situation in Afghanistan and the implications of the Taliban's victory.
2021-08-25 10:46:45 +0000 UTC View PostInternational security expert Paul Rogers will be returning to PTO to respond to listener questions on the situation in Afghanistan and the implications of the Taliban's victory. Topics we might touch on include: how the Taliban will govern Afghanistan, the human rights implications of their victory, the UK and European...
2021-08-18 14:01:35 +0000 UTC View Post
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 I...
2021-08-13 16:55:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe recent interview with James Meadway prompted lots of discussion on social media regarding his contention that neoliberalism is in the process of being superseded by what some are calling 'authoritarian capitalism'. Some of that discussion has focussed on how neoliberalism is distinct from capitalism more generally, whethe...
2021-08-04 10:36:49 +0000 UTC View Post
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.
2021-08-02 14:16:15 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2021-07-23 09:45:37 +0000 UTC View Post
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 retr...
2021-07-10 10:46:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe recent episode with Owen Hatherley on the new career-spanning collection of his work, Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances barely scratched the surface, so I'll be putting some more questions to him in a PTO Extra! episode. Topics covered in the book that we didn't get to discuss include The Pet Shop Boys, ...
2021-07-06 12:09:09 +0000 UTC View Post
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 achieve...
2021-06-29 09:38:08 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2021-06-16 09:04:41 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Bo...
2021-06-08 09:53:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe recent episode with Jeremy Gilbert on Labour and Keir Starmer's leadership has generated lots of interesting comments and questions. And so later this week Jeremy will be doing a PTO patrons-only episode where he'll be respondi...
2021-06-02 10:12:54 +0000 UTC View Post
