Bungacast

On migration, monarchy, and legitimacy.

Merouan Mekouar, professor of development studies at York University in Toronto, gives Alex and Lee an in-depth view of a country at the centre of multiple tendencies.

–> Subscribe for more like this, at patreon.com/bungacast

What actually happened with the stream of migrants at the Moroccan border with Ceuta (Spain)?

How much of a pressure valve does outward migration provide in Morocco?

What does Moroccan neoliberalism look like? What is elite cooptation?

How has Morocco avoided mass protest ,and what does the monarchy's legitimacy rest on?

How it Morocco pursuing "polyalignment", between China, US, EU...?

What's up with the massive infrastructure push ahead of the 2030 World Cup which Morocco will co-host?

Links:

Beyond the Model Reform Image: Morocco’s Politics of Elite Co-Optation, Merouan Mekouar, GIGA

Doing Research as a Native: A Guide for Fieldwork in Illiberal and Non-Democratic States, Kira D. Jumet and Merouan Mekouar (eds), OUP

On dead ends and new beginnings.

Socialist writers, teachers and podcasters, Daniel Tutt and C. Derick Varn, talk to Alex and George about their pamphlet, The People Are Not One: Socialist Strategy After Left Populism, which came out this year.

Is left populism not dead and buried?

What's wrong with trying to unite people against the elite?

What is the 'populist method' of class analysis?

Are professionals and managers a class, and are its interests always opposed to the working class?

Where did post-Marxists go wrong?

Links:

The People Are Not One: Socialist Strategy After Left Populism, Revol Press, 2026

Varn Vlog

Emancipations podcast

On sovereignty and Brazil's election.

Juliano Fiori, Alameda Institute director, talks to Alex about Lula versus (Flávio) Bolsonaro through the lens of internal and external threats to sovereignty.

Is this an election about nothing? What is at stake?

How did the Left reappropriate the defence of Brazilian interests?

What's behind US interference in Brazil? Is it economic or political?

How does the state reflect social fragmentation?

Does Brazilian territory suffer from a deficit or an excess of sovereignty?

For the full episode, subscribe: patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Sovereigns of Brazil, Juliano Fiori, Alameda

Soberanos de um Brasil fragmentado, Juliano Fiori, piauí

At the UN, Brazil's Lula warns against foreign interference in upcoming election, Reuters

A docu-series from Bungacast.

This sequence of interviews, conversations and meetings were recorded mostly in New York – the capital of the 20th century – in order to ask what the future of place is in the 21st century.

In part four, we finish off by digging into New York itself to look at the great contradictions of modernism. We conclude by asking what the capital of the 21st century is, and who, if anyone, is planning it.

This fourth episode features:

Catherine Liu, Professor of Film & Media Studies, UC Irvine

Damage summit participants

Nick Burns, writer, editor

Miodrag Mitrašinović, Professor of Urbanism and Architecture, The New School

This documentary was made with the collaboration of our friends at Damage magazine.

A docu-series from Bungacast.

This sequence of interviews, conversations and meetings were recorded mostly in New York – the capital of the 20th century – in order to ask what the future of place is in the 21st century.

In part three, we explore the political economy of place: what produces the city, and what the city produces. We also ask whether place-based cultural scenes are still possible.

This third episode features:

Christie Offenbacher, psychologist

Greg Gabrellas, psychiatrist

Damage summit participants

Pierre d'Alancaisez, critic and curator

Matthew Gasda, playwright

This documentary was made with the collaboration of our friends at Damage magazine.

A docu-series from Bungacast.

This sequence of interviews, conversations and meetings were recorded mostly in New York – the capital of the 20th century – in order to ask what the future of place is in the 21st century.

In part two, we explore "non-places", and ask whether their proliferation presents a challenge to the development of democratic politics. We also inquire into junk spaces and hyper-places. And ask what kind of politics and ideologies a digital life throws up.

This second episode features:

Amber Trotter, psychologist

Damage Summit participants

Alex Gendler, writer

Joshua Citarella, artist, writer, host, Doomscroll

This documentary was made with the collaboration of our friends at Damage magazine.

A docu-series from Bungacast.

This sequence of interviews, conversations and meetings were recorded mostly in New York – the capital of the 20th century – in order to ask what the future of place is in the 21st century. Over this multi-part documentary, we examine public space and non-places; privatisation, gentrification and digitalisation; the role of rent and of local scenes. The ultimate question is, is politics possible without a sense of place?

This first episode features:

Richard J Williams, Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures, University of Edinburgh

Miodrag Mitrašinović, Professor of Urbanism and Architecture, The New School

This documentary was made with the collaboration of our friends at Damage magazine.

On oligarchy and the end of reform.

Vedi Hadiz is back on to talk to Lee and Alex about Indonesia, amidst severe economic instability in the country.

What does the ascendancy of Prabowo Subianto represent?

What is going on with the erratic economic policymaking?

How is Prabowo bullying other oligarchs, and is it working?

What similarities are there between Prabowo and Putin, or even Trump?

– For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Oligarchy and the End of Reformasi in Indonesia: Power Reorganised, Vedi Hadiz & Richard Robison

Prabowo’s Clampdown on Indonesian Tycoons Fuels Capital Flight, Bloomberg

/391/ The Biggest Country No One Talks About ft. Vedi Hadiz

On the complex connections between globalisation and political Islam.

The OG Bunga Boys reflect on the quarter-century since that spectacular terrorist attack, and talk about Phil's recent essay on the waning of Islamism.

Whatever happened to 'solving' Islamic radicalism through moderate conservatism?

Is the end of globalisation also the end of global jihad? Why?

Why did Islamism fail in pursuit of state power?

Will the Left back 'Islamopopulism'?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

The Man Who Was Friday: Global Islamism after Unipolarity, Philip Cunliffe, American Affairs

The Interventionist Future of the DSA, Philip Cunliffe, Compact

NOW UNLOCKED: /355/ F***ing and shooting are not the same

On Zohran Mamdani.

Writer Ross Barkan, author of The Revolutionary on the New York mayor, talks to Ryan Zickgraf and Alex Hochuli about what Mamdani means for the Left.

How did Mamdani mute cultural progressivism to focus concentrate on rent, transport, childcare and food?

Is municipal socialism part of a strategy to rebuild national power, or is it a retreat to the cities after the failure of Bernie?

Is the New York strategy replicable elsewhere in the US?

How is Mamdani different from AOC?

Is Mamdani a populist, not a socialist?

Is the rentier, rather than the worker, the subject of politics?

Links:

Zohran Mamdani and the Remaking of American Politics, Ross Barkan

Ross Barkan on Mamdani and where DSA goes from here, Current Affairs

The New Socialist Revolution, Ross Barkan

NYC-DSA endorsement and platform overview

How Mamdani used social media to build a movement, The Washington Post

Brandon Johnson: Sewer Bill socialist, Ryan Zickgraf