Episode 16 - Empire and the Polycrisis w/ Tim Sahay
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About this episode:
In this episode, I’m joined by Tim Sahay, co-director of Johns Hopkins University’s Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab and co-editor of Phenomenal World’s The Polycrisis newsletter, to discuss the many interconnected crises facing our world today, from the climate crisis to the rise of the authoritarian far-right to the collapse of the liberal international order—an intersection that some have termed ‘the polycrisis.’ We dig into the scope and meaning of this concept, its usefulness as a tool to make sense of our shifting global order, and the ways it can help us deepen our understanding of global imperialism.
About the show:
Return to Bandung is hosted by Pranay Somayajula, an Indian-American writer, researcher, and organizer based in Washington, D.C. His work explores themes of diaspora, (inter)nationalism, anticolonial politics, and the many lives and afterlives of empire. You can learn more about Pranay and read his writing on his website, as well as on his Substack blog, culture shock.
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Sources and helpful links:
Adam Tooze — Welcome to the world of the polycrisis (The Financial Times, October 2022)
Kate Mackenzie, Tim Sahay, and Laura Merling — Polycrisis 2025 (The Polycrisis, January 2025)
Vijay Prashad — Beneath the Polycrisis Is the Singular Dilemma of Humanity Called Capitalism (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, September 2023)
Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay — Europe Enters Its Metal Era (The Polycrisis, February 2025)
David Adler, Vanessa Romero Rocha, and Michael Galant — The Fourth Transformation: The Political Economy of Claudia Sheinbaum’s Popularity (Phenomenal World, April 2025)
UN Trade and Development — Debt crisis: Developing countries’ external debt hits record $11.4 trillion (March 2025)
James Sundquist — Bailouts From Beijing: How China Functions as an Alternative to the IMF (Boston University Global Development Policy Center, March 2021)
David Landry and Keyi Tang — Calculated Capital: The Business Logic Behind Chinese Lending in the Global South (Boston University Global Development Policy Center, March 2024)
John J. Mearsheimer — Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order (International Security, Spring 2019)
Spencer Ackerman — Gaza Shows the Difference Between International Law and the “Rules-Based International Order” (The Nation, November 2023)
Richard Kozul-Wright and Kevin Gallagher — Restoring Multilaterism: A Reformed Global Agenda Built on Public Foundations (Phenomenal World, April 2025)
Pranay Somayajula — Bandung’s Ghosts (Protean, April 2025)
Arundhati Roy — The pandemic is a portal (The Financial Times, April 2020)
Fidel Castro — Imevision Interviews Castro on Guadalajara Summit (1991)
Social links:
Return to Bandung:
Twitter: twitter.com/returntobandung
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/returntobandung/
Pranay Somayajula:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/p_somayajula
Website: https://www.pranaysomayajula.com/
Substack: https://www.culture-shock.xyz/
Tim Sahay:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/70sBachchan
The Polycrisis: