Global Summitry Podcasts

It was my pleasure to invite Lou Pauly into the Virtual Studio to examine the state of the global economy with Donald Trump once again US President, with the US holding a $40 trillion debt and the impact of Donald Trump on geopolitical relations of the Great and Middle Powers. I also hope to assess with Lou the current state of the Global Order, or maybe more aptly the current state of the Global Disorder.

Lou is a Professor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and the J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto.

His interests include: International and Comparative Political Economy, Politics of Finance and Innovation, and Global Economic Governance.

His books include: Insuring States in an Uncertain World: Towards the Collaborative Government of Complex Risks; The Myth of the Global Corporation, 2025; Who Elected the Bankers? Surveillance and Control in the World Economy; and Opening Financial Markets. He is also the former editor of International Organization (with Emanuel Adler).

It was my pleasure to invite Yves Tiberghien back into the Virtual Studio to examine the state of geopolitical relations today and in particular the impact of the current conflicts – Ukraine and Russia, and the US-Israel war in Iran.

Also, I wanted to get his take on the impact of the Trump administration on the global order. Finally, Yves and a colleague Zaki Laidi recently published a volume with Cambridge University Press called the “Hedgers” which focuses in part on what they identify as 8 key Global South Middle Powers (GSMP) and their active roles in global order. I wanted to get his reflections on these Middle Powers.

Yves is the Distinguished Professor and Dean of the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, at National Tsinghua University. Yves is also a Professor of Political Science, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research (on leave of absence) at the University of British Columbia.

His research focuses on the global order, the comparative political economy of East Asia, and global economic and environmental governance. His latest books include: "The Hedgers: How The Global South Navigates the Sino-American Competition", co-authored with Zaki Laïdi from Sciences Po Paris; and "the Global Economic Order on the Brink", a co-edited book with Shiro Armstrong from ANU.

In November 2017, Yves was made a Chevalier de l’ordre national du mérite by the French President.

It was my pleasure to invite Yves Tiberghien back into the Virtual Studio to examine the state of geopolitical relations today and in particular the impact of the current conflicts – Ukraine and Russia, and the US-Israel war in Iran.

Also, I wanted to get his take on the impact of the Trump administration on the global order. Finally, Yves and a colleague Zaki Laidi recently published a volume with Cambridge University Press called the “Hedgers” which focuses in part on what they identify as 8 key Global South Middle Powers (GSMP) and their active roles in global order. I wanted to get his reflections on these Middle Powers.

Yves is the Distinguished Professor and Dean of the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, at National Tsinghua University. Yves is also a Professor of Political Science, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research (on leave of absence) at the University of British Columbia.

His research focuses on the global order, the comparative political economy of East Asia, and global economic and environmental governance. His latest books include: "The Hedgers: How The Global South Navigates the Sino-American Competition", co-authored with Zaki Laïdi from Sciences Po Paris; and "the Global Economic Order on the Brink", a co-edited book with Shiro Armstrong from ANU.

In November 2017, Yves was made a Chevalier de l’ordre national du mérite by the French President.

Allies and Its Adversaries

It was my pleasure to invite Paola Subacchi back into the Virtual Studio to examine the state of Europe’s relations with its allies and its adversaries. We look at how Europe is reacting to the two hot conflicts, one in Ukraine and the other in the Mideast with the US and Iran; the instability created by the Trump administration in the global order; the geopolitical rivalry between the US and China; how Europe might react to a new UK Prime Minister; and how Europe responding to all these political and economic actions, and more.

Paola Subacchi is currently Professor and Chair in Sovereign Debt and Finance at Sciences Po, Paris, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna. She is also a partner at Essential Economics, a London-based economic consultancy.

Her publications include: “The People’s Money: How China is Building a Global Currency” and more recently, “The Cost of Free Money: How Unfettered Capital Threatens Our Economic Future”. She is currently working on a volume, the (provisional) title of the book is: “Debt Tangle”.

It is with great pleasure that I have invited Pascale Massot back into the Virtual Studio for this episode of the ‘Now’ Series. This is Episode 2 of Season 4. With Pascale today I am particularly interested in how she sees the recent ‘Middle Power’ actions of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and how the Carney government is dealing with Trump trade and foreign policy actions. I was also very interested in Pascale’s view of China's foreign policy actions, after a visit to China. I was keen to explore the state of US-China relations as the Trump-Xi Summit approaches.

Pascale is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, a non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis in New York, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver.

Pascale is the author of China's Vulnerability Paradox: How the World's Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets, Oxford University Press, 2024.

Her research interests include the global political economy of China’s rise, China’s impact on global extractive commodity markets—including debates around de-risking, critical minerals and economic security, Canada-China relations, and the advent of Indo-Pacific strategies around the world.

It is with great pleasure that I invited my colleague, Miles Kahler into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Shaking the Global Order’, S4, Ep 2. With Miles in the Virtual Studio I was particularly interested in how he understands the conflicts that President Trump has engaged in, from: Ukraine, Venezuela and fairly evidently the US-Israel conflict with Iran and the current ceasefire in Gaza. What do all these actions say about Trump’s understanding of interstate relations and what he means when he speaks of ‘America First’.

Miles is a research professor-in-residence and distinguished professor emeritus at American University’s School of International Service. Miles Kahler is also a nonresident scholar in the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before joining the faculty of SIS, Kahler was Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.

It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Stewart Patrick back into the Virtual Studio for this inaugural episode of the ‘Now’ Series – this will be Season 4. With Stewart today I am particularly interested in how he sees the possible action of Middle Powers (MPs) in the current Trump administration’s global order actions. There has been growing interest in the role of MPs in the global order as we’ve seen rising geopolitical tensions: US-China, US-Russia but also their role with potential for a more autonomous Europe. There are many questions: who are the MPs, what role do they, and can they play, especially in the face of the declared ‘Rupture’ in the Liberal Order as described by Canadian Prime Minister Carney recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos? There are many more questions than answers yet a propitious place to start, I hope, is with Stewart Patrick.

Stewart is senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). His primary areas of research focus are the shifting foundations of world order, the future of American internationalism, and the requirements for effective multilateral cooperation on transnational challenges.

Stewart is an expert in the history and practice of multilateralism. He is particularly interested in the international governance dilemmas posed by shifting power dynamics, emerging technologies, anti-globalization sentiments, the planetary ecological crisis, and growing competition in the global commons, including the oceans and outer space.

He recently posted at CEIP, “The Middle Power Moment”.

It is with great pleasure that I have invited my colleague Tom Wright back into the Virtual Studio for this episode of ‘Shaking the Global Order’, the first of the new season. With Tom today I am particularly interested in how he sees the current Trump administration's efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but also take a ‘peek’ at President Trump's ‘New Imperialism’ examining Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and more.

Today, Tom is a senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. In the Biden administration, Tom served as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. At the White House, Tom worked on a wide range of projects and issues, including the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, the Russia-Ukraine war, European security and U.S.-China relations among other issues.

Tom continues his writing and has published relatively recently in Foreign Affairs and he contributes also to The Atlantic magazine.

So, it was with great pleasure that I was able to arrange this podcast with Dan Bilak to discuss:

- the state of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine,

- the prospect for a successful conclusion to the war,

- Ukraine’s efforts to bring about a cessation of the violence,

- he difficult interactions with US President Donald Trump, and

- most importantly Dan’s own involvement in Ukraine and ultimately his involvement in this most dramatic European war.

Dan is currently a partner at Kinstellar, a law firm that acts as counsel to leading investors across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Southeast Europe (SEE) and Central Asia.

Before that Dan served as Chief Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ukraine (2016 – 2019) and headed UkraineInvest, the Ukrainian government’s foreign investment promotion agency, where he supported companies in navigating the Ukrainian investment environment. As Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian State Railways (UkrZaliznytsia), and twice as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Justice of Ukraine, Daniel oversaw governance reforms and developed anti-corruption strategies in the public sector.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Dan has served in the Territorial Defence Forces of Ukraine, a branch of Ukraine’s military. He has been awarded recognition by the Minister of Defence of Ukraine “For Support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.

Though I have not been in touch with Dan for a number of years, in fact we were colleagues at the McGill Law School in the early 1980’s.

As is evident Dan has been personally involved in this still raging war in Ukraine. So let’s welcome Dan to the virtual studio for this podcast.

It was a real pleasure to invite Julia Ganter into our Virtual Studio to talk about today’s role, and possible future roles for Middle Powers, in a world of rising disorder. Which are today’s Middle Powers and what role do Middle Powers play in today’s global order? Is there a characteristic Middle Power Diplomacy?

Julia Ganter is the Programme Director of the Emerging Middle Powers Initiative and Editor-in-Chief of “The Berlin Pulse”, the annual foreign policy publication and public opinion survey of the German foundation Körber-Stiftung. (https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/person/julia-ganter/)