Politics Theory Other

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 government's relations with China.

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. We also talked about the social media reaction to the initial vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham common and how the struggle against police violence and violence against women in general requires the building of a mass movement of collective struggle that cuts across different identities.

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 normalisation of citizenship revocation represents. Become a £5 PTO supporter on patreon to get access to this episode: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

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 how the increasing deployment of deskilling technologies made working conditions worse and more dangerous - many union leaders in both the United States and Europe supported the imposition of these new technologies.

On the 1st of February, the Burmese military launched a coup d'état against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy which had been returned to power in November in a landslide victory. Alleging electoral fraud, the Tatmadaw's leader Min Aung Hlaing promised that military rule would last for one year and then be followed by new elections. The coup has perplexed outside observers since Aung San Suu Kyi had done little during her time in office to threaten the power of the Tatmadaw and had defended the military's atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya people in Rakhine State. To make sense of the coup I spoke with journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache. Become a £5 PTO supporter to get access to this episode: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

Kate Aronoff joins PTO to talk about what can be expected from the Joe Biden administration in the United States, both domestically and on foreign policy. We discussed the scale and scope of the administration's stimulus package, where the Republican party goes next after its defeat at the polls in November, and we also talked about why - in spite of Biden's impressive rhetoric on climate and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline - the US fossil fuel industry expects a good year ahead under the new Democratic administration.

With support for Scottish independence at an all time high, and with Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party predicted to win a landslide in May's Scottish parliamentary elections, PTO spoke to Rory Scothorne about whether independence really is inevitable, how the UK government will try to prevent the break up of the union, what the economic argument for Scottish independence looks like post-Brexit, and we also talked about the increasing fractiousness of the SNP. Become a £5 supporter on patreon to access the full episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47289458

Gavin Mueller joins PTO to talk about his new book, 'Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job'. In the first part of our conversation we talk about the history of the Luddites, why their reputation for conservative technophobia is undeserved and how their struggles to resist the imposition of new deskilling technologies are relevant to the contemporary workplace. We also talked about the problems of leftwing techno-utopianism.