World
April 19, 2024
AnalysisDesenrola Brazil
Debt management as social policy under Lula 3
Credit in Brazil—and particularly consumer credit—is expensive, but ubiquitous. Exclusion from the credit market, where basic needs not covered by wages are increasingly financed, is now a threat to the very social reproduction of the working classes. Accordingly, the massive expansion of access to banking services, known as “financial inclusion,” has made working-class and poor…
Longform
April 25, 2024
AnalysisIlliberal Developmentalism
Indonesia under Prabowo
The election of Prabowo Subianto to the Indonesian presidency two months ago has been warmly welcomed by business and political elites in the country. The day following the result, the Jakarta composite index rose by 1.3 percent, a tacit sign…
April 11, 2024
AnalysisThe Electric Vehicle Developmental State
BYD exemplifies transformations in Chinese industrial policy
The rise of the Chinese EV industry has been enabled not only by generous government subsidies but also by profound changes in strategy and organization, and in particular by a distinctive revival of vertical integration—at both individual firm and national…
April 5, 2024
AnalysisInflation as Distributive Struggle
Milei’s relationship with the unions will determine the fate of his government
On January 24, 2024, Argentina’s General Confederation of Labor (CGT) called for a twelve-hour general strike—the first in almost five years—just forty-five days into President Javier Milei’s term. This action was a direct response to the first measures proposed by…
March 29, 2024
AnalysisThe Visible Hand
China’s investments into research and development
China has transformed into a leading force in science, technology, and innovation (STI). With rapidly rising research and development (R&D) expenditure, a larger and increasingly high-quality talent pool, and impressive scientific publication and patenting statistics, the country is set to…
March 28, 2024
AnalysisThe First New Deal
Planning, market coordination, and the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933
The National Industrial Recovery Act is commonly counterposed to antitrust. But at the time, the antitrust camp had little truck with the self-coordinating market ideal. Resistance to public price coordination experiments, meanwhile, particularly among conservative jurists, was also not based…
March 21, 2024
AnalysisOffshore Treasure
ExxonMobil, Venezuela, and the battle for Guyana’s oil
Since the discovery of some of the world’s largest oil reserves in 2015, Guyana has entered a period of economic and geostrategic reconfiguration. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Guyana holds the sixth-largest oil reserves in the Americas and…
March 14, 2024
AnalysisEgyptian Leverage
The IMF invests in the Egyptian dictatorship’s structural payments imbalance
Cairo’s role in a US-backed regional security architecture makes the military dictatorship a regional giant too big to fail. The Sisi regime, like its predecessors, is keenly aware of this status and leverages it to secure the acquiescence of creditors…
March 7, 2024
InterviewsPetrobras in Transition
An interview with Cibele Vieira of the Oil Workers’ Federation of Brazil
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign for his third term as Brazil’s president was defined by the idea of reconstruction. This encompassed both a political recovery from the antidemocratic reign of Jair Bolsonaro as well as the promise of reindustrialization…
February 29, 2024
AnalysisTotal Peace?
Gustavo Petro’s government negotiates with the ELN
Gustavo Petro’s presidency marks a turning point in Colombia’s democratic history. Not only is Petro the first leftist in government, but he has also made achieving peace a central objective of his progressive agenda. The Colombian armed conflict has been…
February 24, 2024
AnalysisThe G20 in the South
The Brazilian Presidency in 2024
In December 2023, Brazil began presiding over the G20. The one-year presidency, which will culminate in the annual summit being hosted in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024, is the third of four terms from the global South—following Indonesia in…
Shortform
April 18, 2024
AnalysisThe Origins of Conditionality
How the IMF turned to austerity
Contemporary debates around the governance of the global economy often center on the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguably the most powerful international organization that—among other responsibilities—provides loans to countries in economic crisis. The most recent iteration of…
New World Order?
Lender(s) of last resort, dollar dominance, and the global financial safety net
We live in a dysfunctional system in which money flows out of the countries that need it most and into the coffers of the wealthiest. In 2023, the private sector collected $68 billion more in interest and principal repayments than…
March 30, 2024
Sources
As the Lula administration tries to balance spending with fiscal rules compliance, some investors have cast doubt on the government’s target of erasing Brazil’s primary fiscal deficit by next year.
March 23, 2024
Sources
In January, Haiti paid Venezuela $500 million to settle $2.3 billion in arrears from PetroCaribe loans. Between 2005 and 2014, PetroCaribe became the largest single source of concessional finance to Caribbean countries, more than doubling US foreign assistance to the region.
March 21, 2024
Analysis100 Days of Milei
Argentina under the “chainsaw”
Javier Milei’s election to the Argentine presidency in November sent shockwaves throughout the country. While the media personality was not altogether an outsider, his party La Libertad Avanza (LLA), formed in 2021, fundamentally lacked political experience. Until Milei’s inauguration in…
March 16, 2024
Sources
On March 6, Egypt agreed to float its currency in exchange for a $5 billion increase in its current loan program with the IMF. It remains to be seen how long the Egyptian pound may remain flexible, as the inflationary effects of a devalued currency…
Liberal Blindspots
An interview with Chris Shaw
Protests led by farmers have been roiling Europe for months. In Belgium, Germany, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland, and France, farmers—armed with grievances ranging from subsidized Ukrainian grain imports to the EU-Mercosur trade deal and falling prices—have been taking to the…
March 2, 2024
Sources
The CHIPS and Science Act aspires to draw the manufacturing of US leading technologies back into domestic supply chains. Speaking on the policy’s implementation, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo stated earlier this week that the US is on track to manufacture 20 percent of leading-edge logic chips…
March 2, 2024
AnalysisOil Linkages
State-led development in Angola and Nigeria
Oil and gas producers in Africa face unique challenges in pursuing state-led development. The resource curse, and specifically the phenomenon of “Dutch disease”, which inflates the value of the local currency, makes exporting local products abroad difficult. As long as…
February 24, 2024
Sources
In light of Israel’s assault on Gaza post-October 7 and growing instability in the region, S&P Global and Moody’s have both downgraded Israel’s credit rating to “negative.” Israeli finance minister and extremist settler Bezalel Smotrich called the revisions “alarmist” and politically motivated.
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Series
Series are collections of works published by Phenomenal World on a single subject or area of research. Series are commissioned to analyze particular issues or historical moments, and are either ongoing projects or collected as one-time volumes.
The Polycrisis is a newsletter and a series of essays and panels exploring intersecting crises with a particular emphasis on the political economy of climate change and global North/South dynamics. It is edited by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie. Follow The Polycrisis on Twitter here.
New World Order?
Lender(s) of last resort, dollar dominance, and the global financial safety net
We live in a dysfunctional system in which money flows out of the countries that need it most and into the coffers of the wealthiest. In 2023, the private sector collected $68 billion more in interest and principal repayments than…
Liberal Blindspots
An interview with Chris Shaw
Protests led by farmers have been roiling Europe for months. In Belgium, Germany, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland, and France, farmers—armed with grievances ranging from subsidized Ukrainian grain imports to the EU-Mercosur trade deal and falling prices—have been taking to the…