‘Peak Disorder’ is Jason’s coinage for: the democratic world’s inability to exert ordering capacity to respond to new challenges except if they are existentially pressing because we are simply too divided, distracted, and overtaxed by existing crises. This phenomenon of ‘peak disorder’ is epitomized over the last two months by events in Bangladesh.  

Bangladesh’s embattled prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, fled the country on Aug 5, 2024, after a brutal government crackdown against protests had resulted in hundreds of deaths. The country’s president, the armed forces, and political parties selected a temporary “caretaker” government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. The key opposition party the BNP has accepted the transition. However, some factions in the country are upset with the nature of the caretaker government’s reforms and the slow progress towards elections.  

Bangladesh is a country with strong economic potential and many opportunities for progress, but its transition from corrupt populism/creeping authoritarianism back to democracy needs to be aided by outside economic help and by being insulated from disordering geopolitical rivalries. Bangladesh’s transition is unfolding amidst Peak Disorder. This makes it very fraught. To delve deeper into events in Bangladesh and what they say about ‘Peak Disorder’, Jason is joined by Michael Kugelman the Director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre. 

To get more background information and perspective about this very complex topic pleasure join our substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/ 

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links: 

Michael’s sterling interview with The Daily Star that gets into the geopolitics of the situation: 

https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/geopolitical-insights/news/the-geopolitics-sheikh-hasinas-fall-explained-3676511 

Michael’s bio: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/michael-kugelman  

For a real concise takes on the facts of what has happened in Bangladesh: 

https://theconversation.com/bangladeshs-protests-explained-what-led-to-pms-ouster-and-the-challenges-that-lie-ahead-236190 

A good overview podcast by ABC (Australia) about how we got to where we are now which also interviews Michael Kugelman: 

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/bangladesh-politics-and-the-business-of-remembering/104180756 

And for an update on the current state of play in Bangladesh and what might lie ahead: 

https://apnews.com/article/bangladesh-yunus-hasina-khaleda-zia-election-3525d4c39c748a974f67b62efadb23b9 

And for the conceptual take on how Tyrants rise and fall revisit Ep 67 with Marcel Dirsus: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/bcd89a117331e217c82af1d018e28d9e 

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What does getting kidnapped in Mexico City have in common with taking Western backpackers on tours of North Korean? Each provides key insights into the disordering essence of how autocracies function and why symbolism is important to dictatorial securocrats. This rather chatty episode builds off of our more academic and systematic look at similar themes in “Dictators’ Disordering Quest for Internal Security” with Marcel Dirsus last Tuesday in episode 67. 

In this episode, Jason is joined by the host of The Jordan Harbinger Show. The pair discuss: how Jordan got kidnapped (and Jason shares his own tale of being kidnapped in Syria and Lebanon); what life is really like in North Korea; why symbols matter so much in dictatorships; the psychology of Xi Jinping; how to deter China from invading Taiwan; why dictators are so fragile and touchy about being made to look bad; and how campaign finance reform could help us order the disorder. 

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

To listen to Jordan’s show visit https://www.jordanharbinger.com/ 

Check out his episode ‘A Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to Lasting Love Part One’ here: https://www.jordanharbinger.com/james-sexton-a-divorce-lawyers-guide-to-lasting-love-part-one/  

And our previous episode with Marcel Dirsus on the innerworkings of Tyrannies here: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/bcd89a117331e217c82af1d018e28d9e  

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To celebrate Disorder’s One Year Anniversary, Alex and Jason recap the shows Greatest Hits, share their thoughts on their favourite guests; explain how their views of the world have changed over the last year; speculate on how today’s disorder is different from what came before; and disagree slightly agreeably about how the moral failings of the Anglo-American colonial empire of bygone days is or is not different from the Chinese and Russian empires of today. After proceeding through these reminiscences, we take listeners questions about Putin, AI, China, imperialism, how recording the podcast has changes how Jason and Alex see the world, and if there are any new orderers on the world stage. 

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links: 

Listen to our first episode here: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/63ff389b562a075c49a81c86e239b85c  

And listen to some of the other favourite episodes that this episode references, 

With Bill Browder (on Navalny’s death): https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/a36160dede2b990a59c34c3c4e8eeece  

With Evegenia Kara Murza (whose husband has just been released in the prisoner swap): https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/8eff8cc4caece2708249ee7bec567ad8  

With Miles Taylor (author of the famous Anonymous article in the NYT): https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/42c97d2971c72d251b59b92d47d6c0ed  

With Armen Sarkissian (the former President of Armenian - Part 1): https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/380a900513c99b34f849e4d74119f46a  

And the one containing arguably our greatest moment with Kurt Volker: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/f20a464df3a71e64f887891339b720dc 

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From Putin to Qadhafi, from Mohammed bin Salman to Trump… our current era of Enduring Disorder is filled with many Tyrants and Tyrant-wannabes. But why do Tyrants tend to seek Disorder rather than Order? The answer appears to lie in Tyrants’ Endless Quest for Regime Security. Dictators have a marked predilection to put their own desire to cling to power in the short-and medium-term above all other considerations – even if that means deliberately making their countries’ economies and militaries inefficient or willfully spreading Disorder around the globe.  

To discuss the deep connections between Tyranny and Disorder, we are joined by Marcel Dirsus, Jason’s old Oxford chum, former Libya-Analysis LLC contractor, and author of ‘How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive’. Marcel is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University and a member of the Standing Expert Committee on Terrorism and Interior Security at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. 

Jason and Marcel dig into the psychology of tyrannical leaders and the structural factors that push tyrants to behave as they do. They explore the concept of the ‘selectorate’ — i.e. who really matters in a given society to keep the ruler in power.  They explain how tyrannies have a much smaller and more elite ‘selectorate’ than democracies… this explains why pleasing these very few elites in the immediate term is the key variable required to keep dictators in power… and since those few pillars of regime support might flip at any moment, tyranny is actually an incredibly brittle form of government… and can actually collapse at any moment if its support pillars are removed 

In the Ordering the Disorder section, Marcel and Jason urge democratic nations to realize the true extent of weakness prevalent in most dictatorships and target tyrants’ henchmen to help create a more Ordered globe. 

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

What is the Selectorate and what are the implications of ‘Selectorate Theory’ on how we understand international politics?  oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-293 

Get Marcel’s book at https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/marcel-dirsus/how-tyrants-fall/9781399809481/  

But if you want to actually learn about Libya rather than simply reading some kooky stories that Marcel includes about Qadhafi, get Jason’s book: https://globalenduringdisorder.com/  

Read more about Marcel at https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/07/17/taking-on-the-global-brotherhood-of-despots  

Visit his website https://www.marceldirsus.com/  

Visit his substack https://thehundred.substack.com/  

And for the reference to Nadav Safran’s ‘Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security’: https://www.amazon.com/Saudi-Arabia-Ceaseless-Quest-Security/dp/0674789857  

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Jason and Alex explain the implications for global order of the first, and possibly onl,y 2024 Presidential Candidates Debate btw Harris and Trump. It was like a legendary heavyweight boxing match between a woman auditioning to be the mega-orderer-in-chief and the most well established disorderer the world has ever scene. And it ended in a more dramatic fashion than even an epic Howard Cosell play-by-play: Down goes Frazier, Down goes Frazier.  

Trump acknowledged that he cannot go against Putin’s wishes, that he does not want the Ukrainians to win the war; and then when taunted by Kamala about the small ‘crowd-size’ at his rallies, Trump simply imploded: spewing grievance-filled conspiratorial lies about Haitian Migrants eating dogs in Springfield, Ohio, that Democrats order doctors to kill babies after birth, and that the Biden-Harris administration gives transgender transition surgeries to illegal aliens. 

We at the Disorder Pod don’t want to count chickens before they are hatched, but were both favourably surprised by Kamala’s performance. As we pointed out in Ep 65, she does portray herself in a rigid, prosecutorial vibe and has been weak at explaining the specifics of her programmes. She might play identity cards a bit much for some middle-aged white males. And yet!, Sept 10, 2024 may go down in history as the first time that an opposing politician beat Donald J. Trump at the game of television. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush failed at it in the 2016 Republican Primary. Hillary and Biden may have won debates against him but they never beat him at the game of television. Whereas, Harris made Trump look like a buffoon and she successfully baited and taunted him on live TV before tens of millions. She made the contrast extremely clear: that she wishes to Order the American economy and the world, while Trump wishes to Disorder it. 

Show Notes Links: 

Read Alex’s Byline Times Article, ‘A Stumbling Trump Receives a Well-Deserved Shellacking at the First Presidential Debate’: https://bylinetimes.com/2024/09/11/donald-trump-kamala-harris-debate-president-receives-shellacking-at-the-first-presidential-showdown/ 

Listen to Mehdi Hassan on the Guardian pod explain Gish-Galloping and how Donald Trump’s debate strategy usually works and how it can be (and was defeated): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/today-in-focus/id1440133626?i=1000668961270  

Listen to the 538 on the history Presidential Debates and how much they have swung the polls in the past: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fivethirtyeight-politics/id1077418457?i=1000668933282 

Listen to our take on Harris’s weaknesses with white men from yesterday here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3MtV4SS0QjAQGN5p9distS?go=1&sp_cid=40c19a23f8ed49573a18b2bb3c9b9b95&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop&nd=1&dlsi=c462b99a0ae7432c  

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This week, Jason and Alex catchup after an eventful summer. Alex discusses her main takeaways from her trip to Tbilisi for the McCain forum, while Jason talks about his conversations back in New Jersey with real American voters. These conversations are giving him a pit in his stomach. His mounting concern is that Harris may fall into the Clinton trap – turning off traditionally Democratic voting white middle-aged men who are not from the coastal elite. Jason has been speaking to some ‘real Americans’ and hearing that they find Harris an uppity female lawyer, who doesn’t stand for anything, and who is too inauthentic to win the 2024 US Presidential election.  

Pivoting away from this doom and gloom, the duo take listener questions. They look at how host countries could better assimilate migrants; whether Starmer should take a braver approach to push the UK back into the single market; how to stave off the rise in populist parties like AfD; how to push back against anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories from one’s colleagues; and if a nationalised health system like the NHS can deliver ‘Ordering Solutions’ for its population or if the failure of the NHS at present showcases that state-led mega ordering is simply not possible in today’s world. 

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

Listen to our million downloads episode which was referenced numerous times, especially about Sweden, Privatization, health care, and assimilation/migration, https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/0c8bf88a4b5b3bfc2ba60f36c12bc4de  

And for more on Harris and her problems being bold and landing with White men: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cnn-political-director-warns-of-trouble-sign-for-harris-as-she-lags-with-white-male-voters-in-key-states/ar-AA1q3lkL  

And her problems also surface with Hispanic voters, especially men: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/skeptical-voters-wrestle-know-kamala-harris-seen-donald-trump-rcna168784  

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Harvey Whitehouse, author of Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World, rejoins Jason Pack for part 2 of their discussion. The duo discuss: whether nationalism can be used for good (rather than just as a calling card for Neo-Populists and disorderers); whether playing off of evolutionary biases towards in-group solidarity might be necessary to solve the collective action problems of today’s world, how putting policy creation in the hands of citizens assemblies might help us Order the Disorder; and what lessons traditional religiosity could teach us about creating Order.  

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

Get Harvey’s book, Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World   https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451443/inheritance-by-whitehouse-harvey/9781529152227 

For more on Harvey and his amazing breadth of research: https://www.harveywhitehouse.com/  

Explore the ideas of Peter Turchin’s ‘Ultrasociety’: https://peterturchin.com/book/ultrasociety/  

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Over the last two decades the seemingly ‘connecting’ phenomena of globalization and the internet have not made human communities more united. Seemingly paradoxically, aided by new technologies and interconnections, new forms of tribalism, superstition, in-group conformism, and out-group hatred have spread. Are these patterns of in-group solidarity and out-group distrust just the way humans are biologically wired to think? 

In today’s episode, Jason Pack is joined by Harvey Whitehouse, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at Oxford University and author of Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World. Jason and Harvey explore: why cultivating a deeper understanding of evolutionary biology helps us explain the exact sociological appeal of strongmen like Putin and Trump; whether the decline in global religiosity has made societies less governable; and why the concept of identity fusion can shed light on how humans see their very essence of their being as part of a group and are willing to act collectively and selflessly to achieve what are perceived as shared interests. 

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

Get Harvey’s book, Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World  https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451443/inheritance-by-whitehouse-harvey/9781529152227  

For more on Harvey and his amazing breadth of research: https://www.harveywhitehouse.com/  

Listen back to Claire York in ‘Ep39. What Role, if any, is there for Empathy in Ordering the Disorder?’ https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/ddabc397bd974b61f558504f5fff388f 

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To celebrate ONE MILLION downloads (thanks mega orderers!), Jason is joined by his best friend and lecturer at the Swedish Defence College, Karl Karim Zakhour. 

The two ruminate on a host of topics including: the rather surprising interconnections between neo-liberal reforms in Sweden and Syria and what they tell us about our era of Global Enduring Disorder; whether 2004 was the worst year in geopolitics, but the best year to drink arak in Damascus; whether a certain kind of vulgar Hegelianism might just save us from the current disorder; and whether Kier Starmer might just have what it takes to be the antidote to the rise of the far-right authoritarians. The episode concludes with Jason taking stock of what he has learned from doing the Disorder pod by laying out his vision for the kind of global institutions needed to make a Global Enduring Order come into being while Karim explains why bottom-up organizing and more voluntary associations are also needed to help us Order the Disorder. 

Links:  

For more on Karim Zakhour and the Försvarshögskolan: https://www.fhs.se/sc/profile-page.html?identity=400.506a10b718cee96f44e50adb  

The Origins of AGE: From States and Markets to Scientific Methods  

(https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-13722-8_23) 

What will the world look like in a hundred years? What will the study of international relations be like? This article lays out a vision of the future, at once familiar and unexpected. 

Entrepreneurs of desperation: Young men and migration in interior Tunisia 

 (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003353232-11/entrepreneurs-desperation-karim-zakhour) 

The article looks at how young men in Tunisia try to navigate around harsh economic realities and dream of better lives. 

While We Wait: Democratization, State and Citizenship among Young Men in Tunisia's Interior Regions 

(https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1456250&dswid=5417) 

Why did the Tunisian democratic experiment fail? Based on long fieldwork this Ph. D thesis argues that democratization creates both opportunities and deep uncertainties that are amplified by economic failures and thus creates its own authoritarian reaction.   

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

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We all know about the potential threats as AI becomes more advanced. They range from spreading disinformation, undermining our democracy (as discussed in our previous episode with Miles Taylor), to completely upending the job market. But could AI be used to radically transform the way bureaucracy works (making it more efficient) and helping us Order the Disorder? 

To discuss whether AI could be used as an ‘Ordering Force’ if regulated properly, Jason is joined by Marc Warner. Marc is the founder of Faculty.AI, and has worked with many UK government agencies and leading multinational brands to implement impactful AI solutions. He sat on the Prime Minister’s AI Council, helped the NHS use AI to save thousands of lives during the pandemic, and attended the first ever AI Safety Summit. 

Jason and Marc discuss: the role AI could play in fixing Britain’s broken public services, whether a Starmer-led Britain could become an AI superpower, and how the whole globe desperately needs global co-ordination to keep AI from turning into a Disordering technology. 

Twitter: @DisorderShow 

Subscribe to our Substack: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/  

Producer: George McDonagh 

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn 

Show Notes Links 

Listen to our previous episode with Miles Taylor, Ep25. Could Artificial Intelligence-powered disinformation campaigns cause electoral mayhem? https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/42c97d2971c72d251b59b92d47d6c0ed  

Read: ‘Using AI to transform public services’ (foreword written by Marc & Tony Blair) https://www.institute.global/insights/politics-and-governance/governing-in-the-age-of-ai-a-new-model-to-transform-the-state  

Watch: ‘Human Led AI’ - a talk by Marc https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/human-led-ai  

Read: ‘AI Could Save (the UK) Government £200 Billion Over Five Years’ https://www.institute.global/insights/news/ai-could-save-government-gbp200-billion-over-five-years  

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