Indigenous socialism with a Chilean face.
Happy New Year everyone. I am, by personal and professional inclination, loathe to speculate on uncertain future events. On the other hand, I have an abiding interest in distant political processes...
View ArticleMedia Link: “A View from Afar” podcast returns.
After a brief hiatus, the “A View from Afar” podcast is back on air with Selwyn Manning leading the Q&A with me. This week is a grab bag of topics: Russian V-Day celebrations, Asian and European...
View ArticleMedia Link: AVFA on Latin America.
In the latest episode of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss the evolution of Latin American politics and macroeconomic policy since the 1970s as well as US-Latin American relations during that time...
View ArticleMedia Link: AVFA on Trump and the US midterm elections.
This week on the “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and I discuss the FBI raid on Trump’s Florida property and the impact it and other factors may haven the US midterm elections in November.
View ArticleMedia Link: The Era of Restive Politics.
In the latest “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and I explore what can be called the era of restive politics in national and international affairs. We review recent political dynamics in the...
View ArticleMedia Link: “AVFA” on electoral politics in Brazil, US and Israel.
This week Selwyn Manning and I do a post-mortem on Brazil’s election and a preview of the US midterms under the general banner of “it is about the movement, not the man,” then turn to the tactical and...
View ArticleMedia Link: “AVFA” on US midterms and Trump’s return.
After a small hiatus due to Covid hitting my household, Selwyn Manning and I resumed our weekly ” A View from Afar” podcast series with an analysis of the 2022 US midterm results and a look at what...
View ArticleTrump’s toxic tail.
I was going to write about something else to start off the KP year but current events have intruded in the form of the craziness surrounding the selection of US House Speaker and the storming of the...
View ArticleMedia Link: “A View from Afar” on “democratic backsliding.”
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and I discuss the concept of “democratic backsliding” and why it is a troublesome development world wide. To do so we disaggregate the...
View ArticleSomething on the Politics of Social Engineering
Over the years here at KP I have episodically written about the impact of ideology on social order and the debates that revolve on what constitutes the “proper” way in which to organise society. In...
View ArticleBully Pulpits and the Politics of Nastiness.
Teddy Roosevelt coined the phrase “bully pulpit” to describe the US presidency given the position that the country occupied in world affairs. He saw it as a tremendous platform for promoting political,...
View ArticleTurn to nasty.
From its first actions as government, it seems that the National-ACT-NZ First (NACT1st) coalition is basing its approach to policy-making on utu (they would prefer to say revenge), racism and repaying...
View ArticleThe New Zealand Junta.
Some readers will remember that I spent 25 years in academia researching, writing and teaching about authoritarianism, among other things, and that I was a foreign policy practitioner in/for the US...
View ArticleIt is not about age, it is about team.
Much attention has been directed at Joe Biden’s mental lapses and physical frailty. Less attention has been spent on Donald Trump’s cognitive difficulties and physical limitations, with most focus...
View ArticleMedia Link: AVFA on the implications of US elections.
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also...
View ArticleMedia Link: AVFA on post-colonial blowback.
Selwyn Manning and I discuss varieties of post colonial blowback and the implications its has for the rise of the Global South. Counties discussed include Palestine/Israel, France/New Caledonia,...
View ArticleVoting as a multi-order process of choice.
Recent elections around the world got me to thinking about voting. At a broad level, voting involves processes and choices. Embedded in both are the logics that go into “sincere” versus “tactical”...
View ArticleMedia Link: AVFA on the Trump assassination attempt.
In this episode of “A View from Afar” Selwyn Manning and I discuss the attempt on Donald Trump’s life and its implications for the US elections. The political darkness grows.
View ArticleChoosing the lesser evil.
(With Kate Nicholls) Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on July 28th, delivering an apparent victory for the Opposition headed by Edmundo Gonzalez of the Unitary Democratic Platform (PUD)...
View ArticleMedia Link: “AVFA” on the politics of desperation.
In this podcast Selwyn Manning and I talk about what appears to be a particular type of end-game in the long transition to systemic realignment in international affairs, in which the move to a new...
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