The Chatterbox

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is probably the most well known painting of the 20th century, and has become a universal symbol of the horrors of war. But it has also been the subject of renewed controversy in recent weeks in Spain - over a yet another request by the Basque government for the painting to be displayed at least temporarily in Bilbao. The current request comes ahead of the 90th anniversary of the bombing that the painting evokes - when during the Civil War the Nazi Condor Legion unleashed a relentless aerial assault on the Basque town.

The long-running debate over moving the painting to the Basque Country centres on competing claims, with Basque sovereignists arguing that it should be displayed in the same location as the events it commemorates, against Spanish government’s insistence it remain at Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid for reasons of conservation and national heritage. Today on Sobremesa, we discuss the controversy and the relationship between the work’s power and universality and the concrete, historical atrocity inflicted on Gernika the town.

To do so Eoghan is joined by Brittany Kennnedy, Senior Professor of Practice at Tulane University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Brittany is the author of Between Distant Modernities: Performing Exceptionality in Francoist Spain and the Jim Crow South.

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⁠⁠Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters⁠ (May 12th)

Welcome back to After Order - a series from Macrodose and the Alameda Institute - exploring power and crisis in today’s unstable world.

In this week’s episode, we’re turning to the concept of Popular Sovereignty. At a moment when the old order is breaking down - when states are less able to guarantee rights, stability, or even the basic conditions of life - what does it mean for movements, communities, and working people to build power for themselves?

Joining James to explore that question is Gabriel Tupinambá, Senior Researcher at Alameda. In an upcoming paper titled ‘Popular Sovereignties Under Peripheral Conditions’, Gabriel looks to social movements, especially those in Brazil, to understand how communities are attempting to reclaim sovereignty on new terms. 

Gains that once seemed durable - access to land, political representation, legal recognition - now appeared increasingly fragile. Right-wing forces are reorganising both inside and outside the state, and progressives are too often clinging to outdated institutions that have themselves become unstable. 

Under these conditions, Gabriel argues that we need to rethink sovereignty from the ground up. Not as a juridical status, or as participation in a national project, but as something more material and immediate, the means of life itself - food, land, shelter, social reproduction - as the basis for any sustained political struggle.

Was the stability of the postwar period always more fragile than it appeared? Are the conditions long associated with the global periphery now becoming generalised across the world? And if movements today can still disrupt systems of power, why is it so much harder to build alternatives that last?

All that and more, in this week’s After Order.

Image Credits:

• Arquivo e Memória, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)
• Sebastiao Salgado c/o⁠ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=2560,quality=82,format=auto,fit=contain/filestore/images/after-months-of-occupation-of-the-cuiaba-plantation-by-landless-families-the-peasants-celebrate-the-official-expropriation-state-of-sergipe-brazil-1996.jpg⁠
• Wellington Lenon c/o ⁠https://www.brasildefato.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/MST-_-Foto-Wellington-Lenon.jpg ⁠
• Gilvan Oliveria, c/o ⁠https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/01/22/lasdless-workers-movement-celebrates-40-years-and-becomes-the-longest-running-peasant-movement-in-brazil/⁠
• Douglas Mansur, c/o ⁠https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/01/22/lasdless-workers-movement-celebrates-40-years-and-becomes-the-longest-running-peasant-movement-in-brazil/⁠
• Eraldo Peres, c/o ⁠https://www.thenation.com/article/world/brazil-mst-landless-workers-movement/⁠
• Alf Ribeiro, c/o ⁠https://dissentmagazine.org/article/brazils-landless-workers-rise-mst-land-occupation/⁠

• Duda Oliva c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03_Duda-Oliva-2.jpg⁠
• Judy Duarte c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/02_Juliana-2.jpg⁠
• Natália Gregorini c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/04_Natalia-2.jpg⁠

Artworks

• Duda Oliva c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03_Duda-Oliva-2.jpg⁠
• Judy Duarte c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/02_Juliana-2.jpg⁠
• Natália Gregorini c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/04_Natalia-2.jpg⁠
  

How do neoliberal think tanks work? When do they disagree with each other? What do they do to influence government policy and public debate? How did they respond to the crisis of COVID-19 and state intervention that came with it?

Nina Lotze is a Associate Lecturer in the UCL Department of Political Science. She joins Josh White to talk about her article 'Strategies of neoliberal knowledge production: how did free-market think tanks react to the COVID-19 pandemic?' (2026) published in New Political Economy journal. They discuss the similarities and differences between neoliberal think tanks in the UK and Germany respectively; why they supported the first wave of lockdowns but not the second; networking as the basis of political power (including the dinners they organise and they pubs they drink in); and why its not quite right to talk about global neoliberal conspiracy.

'New Thinking in Political Economy' is a monthly podcast showcasing cutting-edge political economy research that helps us to understand the world around us.

This episode is produced by Chris Saltmarsh and Josh White. This episode was edited by Josh White with support from Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rodrigo Nunes on ecologies of organization and democratic transformation.  

https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/NUNES97805/Rodrigo-Guimaraes%20Nunes

http://www.fil.puc-rio.br/o-departamento/corpo-docente/rodrigo-guimaraes-nunes/

https://www.versobooks.com/products/772-neither-vertical-nor-horizontal

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2881-anatomy-of-disintegration

Badious, A. (1988-2022). Being and Event I-III. 

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/being-and-event-9781472511065/

https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution

http://www.democraciarealya.org.es/

https://www.youtube.com/user/JuventudSINFuturo/videos

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/complexity-theory

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/chaos-theory

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wSIvtZQaoMHrKUImVBH5gqn303JX0M5n/view?usp=sharing

https://ilpartitocomunista.it/

https://www.arci.it/

Magri, L. (2019). The Tailor of Ulm: A History of Communism. Verso. 

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2211-the-tailor-of-ulm?srsltid=AfmBOor6D6hcoIOngJTTcfkoWSV8uvd9Ej3goiOtBlD6rkgWEqs3Zkcg

Wright, S. (2017). Storming Heaven. Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. 

https://www.plutobooks.com/product/storming-heaven/

Nunes, R. (2025). Neither Vertical nor Horizontal. A Theory of Political Organization. Verso. 

https://www.versobooks.com/products/772-neither-vertical-nor-horizontal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotta_Continua

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potere_Operaio

https://partitodemocratico.it/

https://www.abebooks.com/9780816612253/Anti-Oedipus-Capitalism-Schizophrenia-Deleuze-Gilles-0816612250/plp

https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2143-envisioning-real-utopias?srsltid=AfmBOooibKTSQ_s7NTVZJ1Bvex4_8PNRx1KiVQV6nq6nEKRQZ6XA9PXP

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s04/e01-yousaf-nishat-botero-on-ecologies-of-planning-and-metabolic-municipalism/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e59-cedric-durand-on-ecological-planning/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e52-alexander-neupert-doppler-zu-kairos-und-verbindender-organisation/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e51-aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-ii/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e50-aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-i/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e42-ruediger-haude-und-thomas-wagner-zu-herrschaftsfreien-institutionen/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e40-jan-overwijk-on-cybernetic-capitalism-and-critical-systems-theory/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e44-evgeny-morozov-on-discovery-beyond-competition/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e58-jasper-bernes-on-planning-and-anarchy/

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When commenting on the power and influence of the Catholic Church, Stalin is supposed to have asked: ‘how many divisions has the pope?’ Donald Trump has yet to question how many F35s Leo XIV has, but he may as well have done in his angry response to the American pope’s criticism of the US and Israel’s attack on Iran. With the US president’s supporters invoking the Catholic theory of ‘just war’ to defend the bombing of Iran, and the claims of Silicon Valley to offer their own paths to salvation, the Church of Rome faces multiple challenges to its role as a moral and diplomatic force.

To consider why the conflict between the pope and the American right has escalated so quickly in the past few weeks, James is joined by Massimo Faggioli, a professor in ecclesiology at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin, and Jack Hanson, an associate editor at the Yale Review. They also discuss the nature of papal authority and its evolution since the loss of the papal states in 1870, and whether we’re seeing the return of faith to the public sphere or simply the shattering of a consensus about what constitutes religion.

Read more on politics in the LRB: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrbpolitics⁠

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When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth (Princeton University Press, 2026), Dr. Roland Betancourt tells the story of how the visionary engineers and designers at Disney transformed the technologies of the postwar assembly line into an entertainment experience unlike anything the world had ever seen.
This book traces the origins and evolution of these technical innovations during the theme park’s first three decades in operation, exploring how engineers reimagined the systems and machines of industrial manufacturing and the military. The magnetic tape used to test ballistic missiles was repurposed to animate the talking macaws in the Enchanted Tiki Room. Programmable Logic Controllers, widely used on automotive assembly lines, brought to life the spectacular rides of the Matterhorn Bobsleds and Space Mountain. Dr. Betancourt shows how these and other attractions helped to allay fears about automation and job displacement in 1950s America. Along the way, he situates Disneyland’s remarkable creations within a broader history of the technologies that increasingly order and construct the world around us, from the Fordist factory to artificial intelligence.
Essential reading for anyone interested in engineering, corporate histories, or popular culture, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation invites us to consider how technology and the logic of automation become integrated into our lives through entertainment.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Repression of protest has ramped up in the U.S., but everything that's happening now began with the backlash to the Standing Rock protest back in 2016. In today's episode we look at the connections between fossil fascism, petromasculinity, and protest.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Data Cartels, legal scholar Sarah Lamdan exposes the shadowy industry built around collecting, packaging, and selling our personal data. She reveals how powerful companies hoard information and use aggressive tactics to maintain control—turning data into a commodity that can deepen inequality and restrict the democratic flow of knowledge. Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) speaks with Lamdan about the hidden power structures behind the data economy.

Grab your copy of Data Cartels: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=33205

This conversation was recorded on 11/30/2022. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/book-talk-data-cartels

Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge