Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust
46 episodes - English - Latest episode: 29 days ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsDo our global governance systems have the capacity to effectively address the challenges we face as a civilization? What are the viable pathways towards a fairer, more sustainable and viable future? "Imperfect Utopias or Bust? Global Governance Futures" aims to present a space where these questions, and many more, can be addressed in a spirit of dialogue and exploration.
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Episodes
43: Philip Cunliffe – Liberal Utopianism and its Discontents
June 14, 2024 18:16 - 1 hour - 55.4 MBPhilip 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 transformations currently underway in international politics. Philip provocatively argues that w...
42: Giorgio Savini – Anarchy and the Space Race
June 14, 2024 17:39 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MBProfessor 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 consortiums, including working on the Planck Probe’s High Frequency Instrument and currently se...
41: Deborah Avant – Security in the Global Marketplace
June 14, 2024 16:44 - 1 hour - 47.2 MBDeborah 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 Privatizing Security earned her widespread acclaim and shone an important light on privatization...
40: Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im – Decolonising Human Rights
April 28, 2024 13:31 - 1 hour - 54.8 MBProfessor 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 law, comparative law, human rights, and Islamic law. His research interests include constitutionali...
39: Cynthia Enloe – ‘Later’ Is a Patriarchal Time Zone
March 23, 2024 13:08 - 1 hour - 72.2 MBProfessor 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, dedicated to raising awareness about how feminist and gendered perspectives have shaped both natio...
38: Bonnitta Roy – We Need to Watch Each Other Grow
March 09, 2024 14:34 - 1 hour - 69.7 MBBonnitta 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 an Associate Editor of Integral Review. Bonnitta is among a brilliant cast of metamodern thinke...
37: Michael Barnett – Global Governance in an Age of Precarity
March 09, 2024 09:59 - 1 hour - 66.4 MBProfessor 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 investigation of the sometimes positive, sometimes pernicious effects of international organisations o...
36: Geoff Mann – It Was Not Supposed To End This Way
December 08, 2023 17:02 - 1 hour - 56.4 MBProfessor 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 of a Guggenheim Fellowship award for his contributions to his field. Among many publications, ...
35: David Kennedy – Law as a Global Terrain of Struggle
September 21, 2023 16:39 - 1 hour - 63.8 MBProfessor 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. He is the author of numerous books and articles exploring issues of global governance, human rig...
34: Rhoda Howard-Hassmann – In Defense of Universal Human Rights
April 17, 2023 15:25 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBDr 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 scholar in the field of human rights, named in 2006 the first Distinguished Scholar of Human Rights ...
33: Thomas Oatley – Complexity Theory and Political Economy 2.0
March 10, 2023 13:54 - 57 minutes - 52.5 MBProfessor 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 orthodox IPE and international relations approaches to studying the global economy and world order...
32: Sheldon Solomon – Fear, Death and Politics
December 19, 2022 17:42 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBProfessor 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 their own sense of mortality and the often destructive effects of ‘death denial’ on individual an...
31: Adrienne Buller – Illusions of Green Capitalism
December 19, 2022 17:30 - 58 minutes - 53.1 MBAdrienne 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 environmental breakdown. Tracing the intricate connections between financial power, economic injustice a...
30: Nate Hagens - Energy Blindness and Our Collective Future
October 10, 2022 11:05 - 59 minutes - 54.1 MBNate 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 podcast The Great Simplification which explores the systems science underpinning the human predicam...
29: Jonathon Keats – You Belong to the Universe
August 17, 2022 15:29 - 1 hour - 73.8 MBJonathon Keats is an American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. He is the author of various books, including You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future which sets out to revive the inventor Buckminster Fuller’s (1895-1983) unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller’s philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller’s life. As a major infl...
28: Jennifer Sterling-Folker – Dragons Coming Home to Roost
June 23, 2022 07:01 - 1 hour - 68.5 MBDr Jennifer Sterling-Folker is the Alan R. Bennett Honors Professor in Political Science at University of Connecticut. Professor Sterling-Folker is an international relations theorist whose writing focuses on theories of international organization and global governance. In this conversation we talk about nationalism and world order, how to avoid the pitfalls of political fatalism, imagined dragons and genuine fire-breathers, and much, much more. Jennifer can be found here: https://polisci....
27: Amitav Acharya – In Search of World Order
June 06, 2022 11:13 - 1 hour - 66.4 MBAmitav Acharya, Distinguished Professor of International Relations at American University, Washington DC, where he also holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, is a world-leading authority on Global International Relations, Asian regionalism and constructivism. His celebrated books include The End of the American World Order, among many others. We discussed: The End of American World Order, Polity Press, 2018: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+End+of+American+World+...
26: Ben Neimark - Militarism and Environmental Destruction
May 11, 2022 10:22 - 1 hour - 58.1 MBDr Ben Neimark is a Senior Lecturer at the Lancaster University Environment Centre. A human geographer and political ecologist by training, his research focuses on the socio-ecological effects of military supply chains and their wider environmental footprint. We spoke with him in March 2022.
25: What Is Home? - A Dialogue with Bayo and Claudio
May 11, 2022 09:35 - 1 hour - 81 MBTune in for a new format this week! After our episode with essayist, speaker and activist, Bayo Akomolafe, we were inspired to see a half hour video response from Claudio on his channel, Consciousness Now. For a while we have wanted to set up a discussion within our growing community, connecting audience and guests and vice-versa. Settle in for a dialogue spanning the eternal question of what 'home' is, has been and should be - utopian visions meeting messy and complex realities. This is ...
24: Vandana Shiva – Earth Democracy in Defence of the Life World
March 24, 2022 11:24 - 54 minutes - 49.7 MBVandana Shiva is a world-renowned Indian scholar, ecological feminist and activist who over a career spanning decades has emerged as one of the world’s most prominent critics of GMOs, intellectual property rights and free trade. She holds a PhD in philosophy of physics and wrote her thesis on ‘Hidden Variables and Locality in Quantum Theory’. Her books include ‘The Violence of Green Revolution’ and ‘Monocultures of the Mind’. Dr Shiva is the Founder of Navdanya, a movement for Earth Democra...
Alfred McCoy - Who Governs the Globe?
February 23, 2022 13:41 - 1 hour - 108 MBProfessor Alfred McCoy is the Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He specialises in the history of the Philippines, US foreign policy, European colonisation of Southeast Asia, illegal drug trade, and Central Intelligence Agency covert operations. In this conversation we talk about run-ins with the CIA, world order and empire over the past 500 years, the duality of raw power and principle, the fading of US empire and the rise of China, as well as the prosp...
23: Alfred McCoy - Who Governs the Globe?
February 23, 2022 13:41 - 1 hour - 108 MBProfessor Alfred McCoy is the Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He specialises in the history of the Philippines, US foreign policy, European colonisation of Southeast Asia, illegal drug trade, and Central Intelligence Agency covert operations. In this conversation we talk about run-ins with the CIA, world order and empire over the past 500 years, the duality of raw power and principle, the fading of US empire and the rise of China, as well as the prosp...
22: Dave Snowden – Complexity, Sensemaking and Entanglement
February 10, 2022 10:03 - 54 minutes - 50.3 MBDave Snowden is the founder and chief officer of Cognitive Edge. He is a pioneer in the field of complexity science and sensemaking, and is perhaps best known for developing the Cynefin framework as a sensemaking device for decision-makers. In this conversation, we talk about Neo-Darwinism, the trouble with specialisation, why democracy is failing, radical sacrifice, and much more. Dave blogs here: https://thecynefin.co/author/dave-snowden/ You can find more out about Cognitive Edge here...
21: Virginia Haufler – Private Authority in an Age of Globalization
February 04, 2022 11:14 - 1 hour - 58.3 MBVirginia Haufler is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on the changing nature of governance in the global political economy, especially the role of transnational corporations and corporate social responsibility. In this conversation, we talk about private power, the blindspots of IR regime theory, transparency in the extractive industry, and the place of ethics within the capitalist structures of ...
20: Bill McGuire – Telling the Truth About the Climate Emergency
January 20, 2022 14:24 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBBill McGuire is an academic, activist, broadcaster, blogger and writer of popular science and speculative fiction. Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at University College London, Bill cut his teeth researching the link between volcanism and sea-level change and pioneered research on the geological impact of a rapidly changing climate. Over the past two decades, his expertise on natural hazard has been frequently sought out by government and media broadcasters. In more recent years, Bill...
19: Jim Rutt – Prototyping a Global Social Operating System
December 21, 2021 17:45 - 1 hour - 64 MBJim Rutt is the host of one of our favourite podcasts: the Jim Rutt Show. He is a past chairman of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) with a long and distinguished career in the California tech community. An avid proponent of complexity science, Jim is currently an SFI Research Fellow working in the scientific study of consciousness and evolutionary artificial intelligence. He is also one of the founders and most prominent advocates for Game B, a community trying to figure out what a viable, bett...
18: Jacqueline McGlade – Empathy, Science and Circles of Compassion
December 08, 2021 17:29 - 59 minutes - 54.3 MBJacqueline McGlade is Professor of Resilience and Sustainable Development at University College London. She is also the Frank Jackson Foundation Professor of the Environment at Gresham College and Professor at Strathmore University Business School in Kenya. A marine biologist by training, Jacqueline was Chief Scientist and Director of the Science Division of the UN Environment Programme from 2003 to 2013 and before that, served as Executive Director of the European Environment Agency. Howe...
17: Bayo Akomolafe – Bending Questions Into Rites of Passage
October 23, 2021 15:37 - 1 hour - 73.9 MBBayo Akomolafe is a prolific essayist, speaker and activist, a professor of psychology, a master wordsmith and executive director of the Emergence Network. An acute observer of our troubled times, Bayo has a gift for capturing the awkward confusion of our present predicament in phrases like “the times are urgent, let us slow down.” In this conversation, Bayo invites us to sit with our awkward confusion as we explore vulnerability as strength, the acceleration of history, race and reparations...
16: Vinay Gupta - A Radical Manifesto for Fixing the World
August 25, 2021 12:29 - 1 hour - 81 MBVinay Gupta is a leading figure in the blockchain space, having coordinated the release of the blockchain platform Ethereum in 2015. He is the Founder and CEO of Mattereum, a company which uses the blockchain to eliminate transaction risk from on-chain trade of physical assets. Vinay is also a prolific writer, commentator and futurist, building upon decades of research and strategic expertise across energy policy, defence, disaster relief and infrastructure risk, with stints at the Rocky Moun...
15: Robyn Eckersley – Green Political Theory, The State and the Climate Emergency
August 25, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 57.5 MBRobyn Eckersley is Professor and Head of Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia where she specialises in environmental governance, politics, political theory and international relations. She was elected as Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2007 and in 2019, she received a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association. Robyn has been working at...
Why All Global Crises Are Crises of Education
July 06, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 67.6 MBDr Zak Stein is a writer, futurist, and transformative educator working to bring a greater sense of justice and sanity to education. He is also a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. Zak was educated at Hampshire College and received his PhD from Harvard University, where he studied educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education. While at Harvard, he also co-founded Lectica, a non-profit organization de...
14: Zak Stein - Why All Global Crises Are Crises of Education
July 06, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 67.6 MBDr Zak Stein is a writer, futurist, and transformative educator working to bring a greater sense of justice and sanity to education. He is also a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. Zak was educated at Hampshire College and received his PhD from Harvard University, where he studied educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education. While at Harvard, he also co-founded Lectica, a non-profit organization de...
13: Sophie Harman – Global Health and Power in a Visual World
June 18, 2021 13:53 - 1 hour - 55.4 MBSophie Harman is Professor of International Politics at Queen May University of London with interests spanning global health, African Agency, film and visual methods, and gender politics. Sophie has pushed the boundaries of International Relations (IR) scholarship more than most, notably through her use of visual mediums to convey the lived experience of those at the receiving end of global health programmes. In 2019, she was nominated for the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer,...
12: Daniel Schmachtenberger – Existential Risk and Phase Shifting to a New World System
June 03, 2021 09:57 - 1 hour - 81.9 MBDaniel Schmachtenberger is a social philosopher and founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The through line of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he has a particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progres...
11: Patrick (William) Ophuls – Politics in the Age of Ecology
May 31, 2021 15:19 - 48 minutes - 44.5 MBDr Patrick Ophuls (who writes under the pen name William Ophuls) is an American political scientist, ecologist, independent scholar and author. He is known for his pioneering role in the modern environmental movement. A prominent voice in the environmental movement since the 1970s, Patrick received his PhD in political science from Yale University in 1973. His 1977 book Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity was awarded the Sprout Prize from the International Studies Association. Subsequent w...
10: Richard Falk – Reflections of a public intellectual and citizen pilgrim
April 30, 2021 10:11 - 59 minutes - 54.1 MBProfessor Richard Falk taught at Princeton University Politics department for over 40 years and has published more than 50 books and many articles on global politics and international law. A self-described, “citizen pilgrim”, he decided early on that his career would combine academic work with an ethical obligation to speak out on questions of global and local justice. A prominent voice in the nuclear deproliferation movement, Professor Falk was chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Boa...
9: Jonathan Rowson – Dear Human Rights Movement
April 01, 2021 14:02 - 1 hour - 55.3 MBJonathan Rowson is co-founder and Director of Perspectiva. He was previously Director of the Social Brain Centre at the RSA. Jonathan is an applied philosopher with degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Bristol Universities. In a former life he was a chess Grandmaster and British Champion (2004–6) and views the game as a continuing source of insight and inspiration. Towards the end of 2017, Jonathan was awarded an Open Society Foundation (OSF) Fellowship to inquire into the putative crisis in h...
8: Susan K. Sell – Winners and Losers in the Global Political Economy
March 06, 2021 11:32 - 1 hour - 68.7 MBSusan K. Sell is Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (REGNET) at the Australian National University. Susan has been at the forefront of critical international political economy (IPE) scholarship for over two decades. An admirer of earlier critical IPE voices, like Susan Strange, Susan has forged a career shining a light on the dark side of global governance in a world of hyper-globalisation and acquisitive transnational private power. For Susan, it has always been abo...
7: Forrest Landry – Principles To Live By
February 03, 2021 14:36 - 1 hour - 260 MBThe multi-talented Forrest Landry joins us for this podcast episode. A philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, systems engineer, master woods craftsman and teacher, Forrest combines decades of inquiry into metaphysics and especially the relationship between causation and choice, with deep appreciation of how design and complete system solutions can be used in service to individuals, nature and to the future of humanity. This is definitely a full stack episode! We explore: why asking th...
6: Scott Williams – Living In Right Relationship In Times of Systemic Risk
January 06, 2021 13:34 - 1 hour - 69.7 MBScott Williams joins us for a deep dive into what it means to live in right relationship in times of systemic and accelerating risk. With a “rigorous sense of humility and confusion,” Scott helps us understand some of the underlying drivers which have led the human and social to become separated from the underlying reality of the stochastic vitality of living systems, and the consequences of this separation for human relationship, both human-to-human and to nature. Along the way, we explore ...
5: Nafeez Ahmed - Taking a Step Back to Move Forward In Times Of Transition
December 07, 2020 16:34 - 1 hour - 64.5 MBNafeez Ahmed guides us through the intricacies of systems thinking from within and outside the IR Academy, throwing light on the scale of the governance challenge which complex global problems such as the climate crisis pose, the inevitable demise of current systems, and what a new emerging paradigm might look like, one in which we find ways to live together in our diversity and thrive within planetary boundaries. Nafeez is an investigative journalist, founding editor and chief writer for IN...
4: Farhana Yamin - A Journey to Green Radicalism
November 30, 2020 14:30 - 59 minutes - 47.3 MBAs crucial climate negotiations are postponed to 2021, many wonder whether the world can wait. Echoing calls by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, our guest today, Farhana Yamin is clear that “we need to stop talking about climate change as a future problem, we really only have a short space of time to start making fundamental changes. The time for action really is now.” Farhana is an internationally recognized environmental lawyer, climate change policy expert and justice activi...
3: Jordan Hall – Global Politics and Civilizational Redesign
October 01, 2020 09:49 - 1 hour - 83.1 MBToday we are in conversation with Jordan Hall. Jordan lays bare the multiplicity of issues that emerge from relying on complicated systems to manage complex situations. The conversation elucidates the fatal flaws with the complicated systems currently in place and touches on what solutions could look like, whilst contending with the difficulty in achieving these. Jordan is the executive chair and co-founder of Neurohacker Collective, a company that makes ground-breaking products for health an...
2: Mark Maslin - Un-Denialism and the Politics of Enabling Climate Action
October 01, 2020 08:32 - 56 minutes - 51.7 MBCrucial climate negotiations loom in 2021. Despite the incredible disruption caused by COVID-19, the work of the climate policymakers, researchers and activists is not, in any way, on hold. It is important to flag that this interview with one of UCLs leading climatologists was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. Nevertheless, this lively conversation ranging from climate change to green capitalism remains as pertinent today as ever. Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA is a Professo...
1: Mary Lawlor - Human Rights on the Front Line
September 03, 2020 08:43 - 50 minutes - 46.4 MBMore than 300 human rights defenders were killed in 2019 and many more face regular threats, physical assaults, arrests, harassment, and defamation campaigns. In this episode of Global Governance Futures, we speak with leading human rights expert and advocate Mary Lawlor about the growing list of challenges facing human rights defenders around the world. Mary was recently appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders. As an independent expert, her mandate includes...
Imperfect Utopia or Bust? Global Governance Futures - Trailer
September 03, 2020 08:16 - 1 minute - 1.68 MBIs global governance failing? This podcast provides a space for dialogue and reflection, with a view to fostering well-informed principles and pragmatic visions for a better tomorrow.