Planetary Choices

In this episode of Planetary Choices, we talk with Fabio Masini, Professor of Theories and History of International Political Economy at Roma Tre University and Secretary General of the Robert Triffin International, to trace the long and unfinished arc of a world that has never quite managed to govern itself.

Fabio has spent decades studying why multilateralism remains more promise than reality. In this conversation, he takes us from the ruins of the post-war international order to the weaponization of the dollar, from the fractures inside the European Union to the quiet rise of regional monetary blocs across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

And beneath all of it, one question keeps coming back: if sovereignty is the capacity to solve problems, and our problems are now planetary, what does that mean for democracy?

Academic Reference: 

Fabio Masini, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Towards Multilateralism: The Road Not Taken - A Conversation with Fabio Masini. Global Perspectives XXX 2026; 7 (1): 163457. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.163457

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

On the 9th episode of Planetary Choices, we had the pleasure of welcoming with us Katharina Pistor, Edward B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School and author of two books, The Code of Capital and The Law of Capitalism and How to Transform It. Katharina is an expert in the legal and social sciences and examines the ways in which law shapes global relations and how they, in turn, transform the law.  

Today, along with our host Hagen Schulz-Forberg, Katharina offers a comprehensive understanding of modern law in the age of capitalism and how it can be used to the advantage of the people with the right resources. 

Academic Reference: 

Katharina Pistor, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Coding the Legal Infrastructures of Capitalism - A Conversation with Katharina Pistor. Global Perspectives XXX 2026; 7 (1): 163459. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.163459

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

In this episode of Planetary Choices, we sit down with Federica Genovese, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Oxford University, to explore the tangled relationship between climate politics, global power, and the future of democracy.

During the episode, Federica takes us from the negotiating rooms of the UN to the coal-dependent communities of Indonesia and Brazil, unpacking how fossil fuel interests, emerging economies, and geopolitical rivalries are reshaping the climate agenda. We discuss the rise of climate realism, the impact of Trump's return to the White House, and China's paradoxical role as both carbon giant and green energy powerhouse. And we ask: can democracy still deliver on climate, or do we need to wait for the next window of opportunity?

Academic Reference: 

Federica Genovese, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; The Glocal Challenge: Distributional Politics and the Global South – A Conversation with Federica Genovese. Global Perspectives XXX 2026; 7 (1): 163461. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.163461

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

In this new special Symposium edition of our podcast series Planetary Choices: Global Governance Beyond Neo-Liberalism, we engage with Dani Rodrik's new book, Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World: A New Economics for the Middle Class, the Global Poor, and Our Climate, alongside a panel of leading scholars: Jayati Ghosh and Marcel Fratzscher.

How can we simultaneously address climate change, restore the middle class, and reduce global poverty, without sacrificing one for the other? Is the Keynesian social-democratic settlement truly exhausted, and if so, what comes next? And how do local and national strategies succeed where global governance has failed?

Our guests unpack these questions, debate the trade-offs and synergies at the heart of Rodrik's "productivist" vision, and offer fresh perspectives on industrial policy, the future of democracy, and what a genuinely inclusive global economy might look like.

Academic Reference: 

Dani Rodrik, Jayati Ghosh, Marcel Fratzscher, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Beyond Trade-offs: New Economics for Climate, Jobs, and Development – A Symposium. Global Perspectives 21 May 2026; 7 (1): 162174. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.162174

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

For episode six of this season, “Global Governance Beyond Neoliberalism”, we had the pleasure of hosting Ian Manners, professor of political science at Lund University. Manners has decades of experience in teaching in Denmark, Britain and Sweden and is widely known for his work on normative power, European integration, and global politics. His research explores how values, identities, and political norms shape international relations and governance beyond traditional state-centered approaches. 

Through his conversation with our host, Hagen Schulz-Forberg, Manners delves into the role of norms and values in global governance at a time marked by geopolitical tensions, democratic challenges, and planetary crises. This episode invites listeners to rethink the relation between Europe and the wider world, not only through a lens of institutional coordination but of global interdependence.

Academic Reference: 

Ian Manners, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; From Critical Theory to Planetary Politics; Rethinking Power, Knowledge and Ecology – A conversation with Ian Manners. Global Perspectives 29 June 2026; 7 (1): 162775. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.162775

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

For the fifth episode of this season on “Global Governance Beyond Neoliberalism,” our host, Hagen Schulz-Forberg, had the pleasure of speaking with political scientist, Jonathan Blake. Blake is the Associate Director of the Planetary Program at the Berggruen Institute, an international network of experts focusing on developing innovative, foundational frameworks that tackle questions involving the future of global governance. Through the Planetary Program, Blake and his colleagues have developed the Planetary Compendium: a website made in collaboration with Dark Matter Labs that showcases interactive, audio-visual case-studies concerning issues of planetary governance, health, economics, ecology, and more. This episode explores some of these case-studies and navigates questions of thinking outside of the boundaries of democracy, the possible evolution of political processes, and working together towards planetary governance. 

Academic Reference: 

Jonathan Blake, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Rethinking Global Governance with the Planetary Compendium—A Conversation with Jonathan Blake. Global Perspectives 13 May 2026; 7 (1): 161510. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.161510

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

In this special Symposium edition of our podcast series Beyond Neo-Liberalism, we dive into Anna Schwenck’s monograph, Flexible Authoritarianism, alongside a panel of leading scholars: Jeremy Morris, Greg Yudin, and Johanna K. Bockman. 

How do ambition, loyalty, status, and inequality take shape inside an authoritarian regime? Can neoliberal aspirations thrive under authoritarian rule? And how does everyday life—and innovation—unfold within a war-driven economy? Our guests unpack these questions, debate the concepts we use to understand Russian society today, and offer fresh perspectives on authoritarianism, social change, and resistance.

Academic Reference: 

Anna Schwenck, Jeremy Morris, Johanna Bockman, Greg Yudin, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Rethinking Russia: Transnational Perspectives on Authoritarianism, Society & Resistance—A Symposium. Global Perspectives 14 May 2026; 7 (1): 161510. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.161510

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

In the third episode of our new season, Global Governance Beyond Neoliberalism, we sit down with Vladimir Pacheco Cueva, Associate Professor in the Global Studies Department at Aarhus University.

Drawing on research in political economy and social policy, with a particular focus on Latin America, Cueva takes us through one of the most striking economic experiments of recent years: El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin under President Nayib Bukele.

Together with our host, Hagen Schulz-Forberg, the two explore what this unprecedented crypto-project means for governance, development, financial sovereignty, and everyday life in a country marked by political disruptions and environmental fragility. From the promises of innovation to the risks of deepening inequality, Cueva helps us understand how El Salvador’s Bitcoin project fits into longer histories of neoliberal reform and what its trajectory might reveal about the future of post-neoliberal politics across the region.

Academic Reference: 

Vladimir Pacheco Cueva, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Bitcoin Nation? Assessing El Salvador's Crypto Experiment — A Conversation with Vladimir Pacheco Cueva. Global Perspectives 25 March 2026; 7 (1): 158699. doi:  https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.158699.

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

In the latest episode of Beyond Neo-liberalism, our host Hagen Schulz-Forberg is joined by political scientist and executive director, Fabrizio Tassinari, as we explore his work at European University Institute’s School of Transnational Governance and his works on developing new forms of diplomatic training, suitable for an age of planetary polycrisis.

Throughout the episode we explore questions of what it means to educate our future diplomats in times of planetary crisis, what is left of the old forms of transnational governance and what can guide future visions of global governance.

Academic Reference: 

Fabrizio Tassinari, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Rethinking Education for Transnational Governance — A Conversation with Fabrizio Tassinari. Global Perspectives 25 March 2026; 7 (1): 158897. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.158897

Any Questions? Send us a text

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

In our very first episode in our series Beyond Neo-liberalism, our host Hagen Schulz-Forberg sits down with political scientist Michael Zürn as they explore the intersections of global governance and international relations in the current political climate. The two discuss Zürn’s work with the analytical categories of NALFI (Normativity, Authority, Liberalism, Fragmentation, Inequality), democratic regression and the tensions between national democracy and transnational authorities.

Are we moving beyond our traditional understandings of Global Governance? Do transnational authorities have too big of a grasp on national democracies? Are we moving towards a post-democracy understanding of international relations? If so, what will happen?

Academic Reference:

Michael Zürn, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; The Shifting Tides of Global Governance—A Conversation with Michael Zürn. Global Perspectives 2 January 2026; 7 (1): 159010. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.159010

Any Questions? Send us a text

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary