Category: PSIR

The demise of the nation state

August 12, 2021

After decades of globalisation, our political system has become obsolete – and spasms of resurgent nationalism are a sign of its irreversible decline. By Rana Dasgupta

When we discuss “politics”, we refer to what goes on inside sovereign states; everything else is “foreign affairs” or “international relations” – even in this era of global financial and technological integration. We may buy the same products in every country of the world, we may all use Google and Facebook, but political life, curiously, is made of separate stuff and keeps the antique faith of borders.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta

What the Tributes to George H. W. Bush Are Missing

August 11, 2021

The 41st president was the last person to occupy the Oval Office whose opponents saw him as fully legitimate.

Since George H. W. Bush’s death, many observers have noted that he embodied a less rancorous, less polarized political era. But underlying that civility was something deeper: Bush was the last person to occupy the Oval Office whose opponents saw him as a fully legitimate president.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/bush-race/577150/

Why the Left Should Embrace Brexit

August 11, 2021

The Left’s anti-Brexit hysteria, however, is based on a mixture of bad economics, flawed understanding of the European Union, and lack of political imagination. Not only is there no reason to believe that Brexit would be an economic apocalypse; more importantly, abandoning the EU provides the British left — and the European left more generally — with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show that a radical break with neoliberalism, and with the institutions that support it, is possible.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/04/brexit-labour-party-socialist-left-corbyn

Living on the Shifting Border of Georgia and Russia

August 11, 2021

“There are two kinds of people along the border, people who fight every day along the creeping border and people who have lost everything,” said Ms. Robakidze, who grew up in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and documented the crisis in “Creeping Borders,” a new project. “Overnight, you can find out your land or your house is now in occupied territory.”