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PODCAST

Bungacast

The global politics podcast at the end of the End of History. Politics is back but it’s stranger than ever: join us as we chart a course beyond the age of ’bunga bunga’. Interviews, long-form discussions, docu-series.

news politics

All Episodes

35:36

/516/ France's Two Peripheries: Riots and...

Bungacast ·

2025/10/21

On 20 years since the 2005 riots.Fred Lyra, philosopher and musicologist based in Paris, joins Alex to talk about France through 4 moments: 1995 – the last moment of classic class struggle; 2005 – riots in the banlieues; 2015 – Islamist terror; 2025 – government collapse. For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast How were the riots normalised? And what was the state's response? Why did the riots prompt debates about "models of integration"? Why is there an "excess" of state in

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74:14

/515/ State Capitalism Is Now ft. Ilias Alami

Bungacast ·

2025/10/13

On the weakness of state and capital – and their fusion.Ilias Alami joins Alex and Lee to talk about his essential co-authored book, The Spectre of State Capitalism. Why is state capitalism not just a China story, but is global? What does the rise of state capitalism tell us about the health of contemporary capitalism? How did globalisation and stagnation combine to give birth to it? Is this an extension of neoliberalism or something new and different? Does this represent a

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59:29

/514/ The Expressway World ft. Richard Williams

Bungacast ·

2025/10/07

On living with modernity.Richard J Williams talks to Alex and George about his new book, The Expressway World and how cities have adapted to the infrastructural legacies of the mid-20th century. We talk about New York, London, São Paulo, Madrid, Glasgow and Seoul. Why do people hate expressways – and who actually loves them? What are Big Man cities? How do expressways bring together populism, authoritarianism, and capital? Why is the antidote to 20th century car-centricity always gentrified

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47:43

/513/ Global Right: LATAM Division ft. Guilherme...

Bungacast ·

2025/09/30

On the Bolsonaros, Milei and MAGA.Alex talks to Guilherme Casarões, Associate Professor of Brazilian Studies at Florida International University, about Bolsonaro's sentencing, Trump's tariffs on Brazil, and the bailout of Milei. Is the motivation behind the tariffs on Brazil just partisan interest? How has Jair Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, become point-man for the Latin American radical right's connection to MAGA? Is Bolsonarismo the closest to MAGA among the global radical right? Will a

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25:31

/512/ Reading Club: Middle-Class Dreams & Nightmares

Bungacast ·

2025/09/26

On Göran Therborn's article, "Dreams and Nightmares of the World's Middle Classes".The penultimate episode of this block on the middle class, we discuss the differing fortunes and politics of the global North and South middle-classes – as well as ways they may be similar. Subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Is the middle-class dream increasingly only a dream? Can the "ever-rising middle-class wave" in China and India sustain itself? Is being middle-class defined by one's consumption? By

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79:05

/511/ Britain's Tinderbox ft. Lisa McKenzie

Bungacast ·

2025/09/23

On the UK's working-class unrest. Sociologist Lisa McKenzie talks to Alex and contributing editor Lee Jones about why the country feels like a powder-keg. What's behind protests like Unite the Kingdom? How responsible are far-right agitators? Why are threats posed to women and children such an explosive issue? What is the type of nationalism that is behind the proliferation of English and British flags? What are Farage's Reform promising and will they deliver? What of the immigration

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26:25

/510/ Couch Potatoes to Screen Sausages ft. Ryan...

Bungacast ·

2025/09/16

On critiques of entertainment.New contributing editor Ryan Zickgraf joins Alex and George to talk about the history of media critique and contemporary cases. How does consensus-age comedy like King of the Hill deal with hyperpolitics today? Is the reliance on archetypes a problem, or inherent to all comedy? Why is Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death still relevant? Is the Gen X critique of 'couch potatoes' and TV-watching similar to today's techlash? Have we become insensible to

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77:42

/509/ The Revenge of Ethnic Chauvinism ft. Orlando...

Bungacast ·

2025/09/09

On slavery, racism, and the politics of freedom.Renowned sociologist Orlando Patterson talks to contributing editor Alex Gourevitch about themes brought up by his recent The Paradox of Freedom as well as his works as a whole. Why is the study of slavery too affected by the exceptional US American experience? In what way is violence a constitutive feature of slave relations that aren’t true of others? Are we still mired in a politics of ethnic chauvinism? What does it mean for ethnic

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65:32

RE-RELEASE: OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations, 5

Bungacast ·

2025/09/02

The fifth and final part of a series on generational consciousness and conflict. In this episode, we examine the Millennials and Generation Z. Uniquely, generation war today seems to be a conflict over resources more than over values. Is there any basis for this, and what do Millennials actually want? With generational and class conflict seemingly bound together today, we analyse 'Generation Left' and 'Millennial Socialism'. And we ask what the effect of the pandemic may be on the creation of a Gen

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68:52

RE-RELEASE: OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations, 4

Bungacast ·

2025/09/02

The fourth in a special five-part series on generational consciousness and conflict. In this episode, we examine Generation X – the generation of the End of History. How was this generation overshadowed by the Boomer's failures? In the Eastern Bloc, the fall of Soviet regimes was a traumatic moment – how did this shape consciousness? And how did the Iranian Revolution – and subsequent war – shape the political perspectives of Iranians? Guests include: Maren Thom, film scholar Alexei Yurchak,

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102:37

RE-RELEASE: OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations, 3

Bungacast ·

2025/09/02

The third in a special five-part series on generational consciousness and conflict. In this episode, we examine the Baby Boomers – myth and reality. The revolt of the '60s has been misunderstood in many dimensions. Was it betrayed or did it always express capitalist ideology? Were the Boomers the ones who really did the 1960s anyway? And what world have the Boomers created as they passed through life – and institutions? Guests include: Jennie Bristow, senior lecturer in sociology at

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29:43

RE-RELEASE: OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations, 2

Bungacast ·

2025/09/02

The second in a special five-part series on generational consciousness and conflict. In this episode, we look at the emergence of 'youth' as political concept in the age following the French Revolution, and its shifting meanings. How important was generational consciousness in the Young Italy movement and its imitators in the 19th century, and how should we understand the so-called 'Lost Generation' of 1914? Guests include: Niall Whelahan, Chancellor’s Fellow in History, Strathclyde

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38:10

RE-RELEASE: OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations, 1

Bungacast ·

2025/09/02

The first in a special five-part series on generational consciousness and conflict. In this episode, we look at the current, vexed discourse around generations, and analyse competing theories on how to understand generational cleavages. Guests include: Felix Krawatzek, political scientist at the Centre for East European and International Studies in Berlin Jennie Bristow, sociologist at Canterbury Christ Church University Joshua Glenn, semiotician, author, and publisher of HiLoBrow Original music

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30:56

/508/ Digesting the Four Ds

Bungacast ·

2025/08/28

On disruption, disturbance, decline, decay.We continue our attempt to conceptualise the present moment by looking at Silicon Valley-style disruption, geopolitical disturbances and 'polycrisis', and decline & decay along two axes: normative vs descriptive, and geopolitical and universal. Then we deal with your questions and comments over the past month on: religious authority; Russia, imperialism, and the USSR; and the limitations to 'the national interest'. Subscribe for the full episode:

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01:07:20

UNLOCKED: /201/ Reading Club: The New Class War

Bungacast ·

2025/08/26

[Bungacast is on holiday, so we're unlocking/re-releasing a July 2021 episode that was previously only available to higher-tier subscribers] We discuss Michael Lind's The New Class War. Lind identifies new lines in the class war, between working class and managerial overclass, between those in the "heartlands" and those in the "hubs". How convincing is this account? What is his critique of technocratic managerialism and its symptom, populism? How convincing - and realistic - is his solution of

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01:31:12

/507/ Put 'General Will' in Charge ft. Philip Cunliffe

Bungacast ·

2025/08/19

On The National Interest.Aufhebunga Bunga co-founder and contributing editor Phil Cunliffe joins us to talk about his new book about politics after the age of globalisation. We ask questions about his book – and then put him on trial for wrongthink. SUBSCRIBE: PATREON.COM/BUNGACAST Who is the 'national interest' good for? Is it a domestic or a foreign policy concern? Why did the 'national interest' disappear from our political vocabulary? Is the national interest an abstraction anyone can

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34:56

/506/ Bunga's Been Juicin' ft. Jason Myles

Bungacast ·

2025/08/12

On image-enhancing drugs.Jason Myles of This Is Revolution is back on, talking to George and Alex H about his article in Damage on increasing steroid use. What does the discourse around 'fake natties' tell us about authenticity? Do SSRIs provide "fake happy"? If steroids are a short-cut, how do we understand the "work" in "working out"? Is the taboo on drug use completely gone? Are we medicating to counter the side-effects of other meds? How do issues such as steroids and trans reveal

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21:17

/505/ Reading Club: Classes in Bourgeois Society

Bungacast ·

2025/08/08

On Franz Jakubowski's Ideology and Superstructure in Historical Materialism. We focus on a very short section from Jakubowski's 1936 book, and delve into wider questions regarding ideology, social totality, and the middle classes. Is ideology “false, partial consciousness”? Is Jakubowski right that capitalism is the least ideological social form so far? Is it true that the middle classes only come into contact with the commodity when it is in circulation? How is the middle class' social

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48:24

/504/ Vietnam's Victory: American War to...

Bungacast ·

2025/08/05

On resistance and reform in southeast Asia. Historian Sean Fear talks to Alex H and Lee Jones about Vietnam on the 50-year anniversary since the end of the war. How is Vietnamese identity wrapped up with the notion of resistance? Is Chinese influence as great as resistance to China? How is the ‘American War’ thought about in Vietnam today? How similar is Vietnam to China: defying Fukuyama’s thesis by retaining a state-socialist political system while adopting capitalism? Why has Vietnam

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33:59

/503/ Effervescent Decadence in the Third Modernity

Bungacast ·

2025/07/31

On the end of the end of history and what comes next.Phil is back on the pod, talking with George and Alex about the big themes of the podcast. In particular, we look at a recent essay in Foreign Policy by historian Christopher Clarke called "The End of Modernity". To what extent was the 1989 moment as significant in Beijing as Berlin? Is Trump actually Stalin (but in a good way)? Is Russia the revisionist power? And if so, in what regard and what are the consequences? Who says the choice

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531 results

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