RADIKAAL

My guest isNazita Lajevardi, an attorney and political scientist, who is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. Her work focuses primarily on issues related to public opinion and political behavior through the lens of religious and racial identity. She is also a regular public commentator on these issues, including in various US media. In 2020 she published the book “Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia” with Cambridge University Press. Nazita tweets at @nazitalajevardi.  

My guest today is Tarek Kahlaoui, an academic and activist who has been involved in student protests in the 1990s and the Arab Spring protests in Tunisia in the early 2000s. After teaching for various years at Rutgers University in the US, he returned to Tunisia to join the Southern Mediterranean University in Tunis, where he is now an assistant professor in history. Pre-COVID, he wrote me an email that he was writing a book on populism in Tunisia, which he described as “the only Arab surviving democracy after the wave of the Arab Spring” -- note that this interview took place a week before president Saied's "constitutional coup". You can follow Tarek on Twitter at @t_kahlaoui.

My guest is Paul Mason. Paul is a British journalist and left-wing activist as well as a film maker and prolific author. He has made a four-part documentary on the Greek left populist party SYRIZA called #ThisIsACoup and, more recently, the documentary “R is for Rosa” about the politics of Rosa Luxemburg. Among his books are Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future (2017), Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being (2019), and How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance, which is forthcoming in August. He tweets at @paulmasonnews.  

My guest is Robbie Shilliam. Robbie is a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he researches the political and intellectual complicities of colonialism and race in the global order. His latest book is Decolonizing Politics: An Introduction, which is just out with Polity and is a fascinating read. Robbie is also a scholar-activist of the Rastafari movement, involved in a host of activities focused on highlighting the histories and significance of the Rastafari movement for contemporary politics. Two of these projects are Rastafari in Motion, which focuses on Britain, and Iniversial Development of Rastafari, which focuses on the Baltimore and DC area.

My guest today isLéonie de Jonge. Léonie is an assistant professor in European Politics & Society at the University of Groningen. In 2019 she defended her PhD at the University of Cambridge on “The Success and Failure of Right-wing Populist Parties in the Benelux Countries”, which will be out with Routledge later this month. Léonie is also an up-and-coming commentator in the Dutch media on the topic of the far right as well as a critic of the way the media cover the far right. She tweets at @L_DeJonge.

Léonie and I talk about right-wing populist parties in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, what explains their different levels of success, and what role the media do and should play in covering the far right.

My guest is the US singer-songwriterDavid Lowery. David has a decades-long history in music and is probably best known as frontman of bands like Camper van Beethoven and Cracker. Less know, he has been teaching courses on the music business in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, where I also work. In recent years, David has also been a tireless activist for the right of musicians and a fighter against streaming companies. He is currently involved in a court case against Spotify. David tweets at @davidclowery.

David and I talk about band and song names, about "white angst", about music and politics, and about non-nativist populism.

My guest is Poyâ Pâkzâd, economic policy advisor with the Red-Green Alliance, or Unity List, a left-wing party that supports the current minority government of the Social Democrats in Denmark. He is also the editor of the left-wing magazine Eftertryck, which translates as Emphasis, if I’m not mistaken, and a parliamentary candidate for the Red-Green Alliance. Poya and I got into a discussion on Twitter on the challenges of immigration policy for left parties, which is a key topic of our conversation today. He tweets at @ppkzd.

My guest today is Laurien Schreuder, the artistic director of Snowapple, a multidisciplinary, international ensemble that combines theater with a wide range of different music genres, from pop to opera and avant-garde cumbia. Snowapple has spoken out on political issues, most notably violence against women in Mexico. This year, on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Snowapple and Mexican singer Vivir Quintana released the beautiful song “Alerta” and an incredible video of testimonials. We’ll talk about music and politics in general, and Snowapple’s decision to become active around the issue of femicide in Mexico in particular.

If you want to know more about Snowapple, check out their website at www.snowapple.nl or follow them on Twitter at @snowappleNL or on Instagram at @snowapplemusic. 

Apologies for poor quality on my end -- my computer was very noisy and I was working with open mic.

My guest today is Sam Jackson. Sam is an assistant professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security & Security at the University at Albany in Upstate New York. He primarily studies the far right in the US, focusing most notably on the militia movement and on online extremism. He is the author ofOath Keepers: Patriotism and the Edge of Violence in a Right-Wing Antigovernment Group, published by Columbia University Press in 2020. We will talk about the US militia movement in general and the Oath Keepers in particular. He tweets at @sjack26.

My guest today is Dilara Hekimci-Adak. Dilara is a graduate student in Political Science at Florida International University in Miami, where she works on a PhD on populists in power and the role of the opposition in Hungary and Turkey. Before coming to the US, she had already done a PhD at Bahcesehir University, in her native Turkey, on clientelism and democracy in Latin America. She also wrote an MA thesis on nationalism and football in Turkey. 

Dilara and I talk about football and politics in Turkey, including the role of Istanbul United in  the Gezi protests and the rise and significance of the newest star in Turkish football, Basaksahir, popularly known as the AKP team.