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 and allies. The size of the IMF agreement—more than double the $3 billion originally on…
Longform
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…
February 15, 2024
AnalysisRed Sea Rivalries
Egypt, Ethiopia, and histories of maritime war
Every few years, a crisis in the Red Sea makes global headlines. In 2014, the Yemeni Civil War spilled into the Red Sea after the Houthis captured the capital Sana‘a and dissolved the parliament. As a warning, the Houthis allegedly…
February 10, 2024
InterviewsMilei and the World
An interview with Maia Colodenco on Argentina’s foreign policy
It didn’t take long for the new President of Argentina, Javier Milei, to don gloves in the international arena and showcase his libertarian approach to foreign policy. Some political gestures have already stirred conflicts with Brazil and China—the country’s two…
January 4, 2024
ReviewsThe Logic of Austerity
On Clara Mattei’s “The Capital Order”
In the aftermath of 2008, the pace at which capitalist states moved from bailouts and stimulus policies to fiscal belt tightening was jarring. No less striking was the shift in the intellectual framework deployed to make sense of it. While …
December 21, 2023
AnalysisAnarcho-Capitalism
Argentina between the IMF and China
Since the early 2000s, Argentine development finance has undergone a profound transformation. Amid cyclical debt defaults and endless negotiations with Western investors and the IMF, Chinese overseas investment loans have slowly crept to the fore. Between 2007 and 2020, Argentina…
December 13, 2023
InterviewsMilei’s Argentina
An interview with Mercedes D’Alessandro
On December 10, the fortieth anniversary of Argentina’s redemocratization, Javier Milei was sworn in as the country’s new president. Milei—a far-right economist who calls himself an “anarcho-capitalist,” denies the existence of the military dictatorship, and claims to be a fan…
December 5, 2023
AnalysisSectoral Strategy
Free trade and the resurgence of industrial policy in Africa
Industrial policy in Africa is back. Beginning last January, Nigeria moved forward with the second phase of its “Sugar Master Plan,” a flagship industrial policy that began in 2013 to stimulate domestic production. It does this by offering numerous incentives…
November 30, 2023
AnalysisIndustrial Experiments
Variants of industrial policy in the global South
The turn of the twenty-first century brought a reassessment of development economics. The global commodity boom of the 2000s ushered in windfall profits for resource-rich countries in the global South, and with them came new agendas for growth. In 2002,…
Shortform
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
SourcesThe 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
SourcesIn 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.
February 17, 2024
SourcesOn Thursday, a few months ahead of nationwide elections, India’s Supreme Court banned electoral bonds—anonymous political donations sold by the State Bank of India. Since the Modi government introduced electoral bonds in 2017, more than $1.9 billion in secret donations have been distributed to political parties.
February 10, 2024
SourcesThe inflation slowdown in the United States stabilized in the last half of 2023 at approximately 3.1 percent. A January report by Liz Pancotti and Lindsay Owens of Groundwork Collaborative attributes most of the rise in prices during the last quarter to corporate profits.
January 27, 2024
SourcesOn Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, marking a triumph for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and far-right Hindu groups including the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The temple was built on the…
January 27, 2024
AnalysisThe Falling Lira
Turkey’s state of permanent crisis
Since late 2021, the Turkish economy has been shattering conventional economic expectations. With deeply negative real interest rates, high inflation, a large and persistent current account deficit, an external debt stock exceeding 50 percent of GDP, and a central bank…
Brand New India
An interview with Ravinder Kaur on the BJP’s “India Shining” campaign, Hindu nationalist designs, and globalist visions
With India headed to elections this April, the ruling BJP is rolling out enormous publicity campaigns to promote its record on economic growth and Hindu nationalism. Central to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third bid for reelection is the narrative that…
January 20, 2024
SourcesBecause of their ability to own property, enter into contracts, and stand in court independently of their owners, charted corporations facilitated the long term capital commitment that often underpinned industrialization. Standard accounts hold that states primarily contributed to the rise of the corporate form…
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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.
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…
Brand New India
An interview with Ravinder Kaur on the BJP’s “India Shining” campaign, Hindu nationalist designs, and globalist visions
With India headed to elections this April, the ruling BJP is rolling out enormous publicity campaigns to promote its record on economic growth and Hindu nationalism. Central to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third bid for reelection is the narrative that…