Politics Theory Other

Vivian Gornick on her classic book, 'The Romance of American Communism'. We spoke about her experience of growing up amongst communists and socialists in the Bronx in the 1930s, how she sought to counter simplistic depictions of the lives of American communists and how - in spite of its authoritarianism - the American Communist Party enabled ordinary people to feel connected to a larger human project.

In a recent long read for the Boston Review, Noura Erakat argued that the Board of Peace represents a new model of governance that aims to circumvent international law, democratic accountability and self-determination. Comparing the project to charter cities and other libertarian projects Noura argues that the board offers a blueprint for a new world order in which corporate power trumps international law and collective political rights.

In our conversation we talked about the origins of the board, why it's a mistake not to take its creation seriously, and how the structure of the board - and the personnel involved - overlap with other projects that involve exit from established norms and legal structures around the world.

Notes:

Exit and Exception: The Board of Peace’s model for governing Palestine reflects designs for a new world order: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/exit-and-exception/

The first round of the Brazilian presidential election had been expected to result in a relatively comfortable victory for Lula. Instead the results on October 4th had Lula on just forty-five percent of the vote - two percentage points behind Flávio Bolsanaro. Since the restoration of Brazilian democracy no candidate who failed to win the first round had ever prevailed in the second - and far-right candidates had won victories in legislative races across the country.

But on Sunday Lula and his campaign beat the odds and achieved a remarkable turnaround - winning nearly 52 percent of the vote, with more than 64 million Brazilians coming out to vote for Lula and the Brazilian Worker's Party. To explain the extraordinary election result PTO was joined by Ben Fogel.

Notes:

Lessons From Lula’s Historic Victory - Benjamin Fogel: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/lula-brazil-election-2026-flavio-bolsonaro-victory/

Lula’s Leap Into the Future - Andre Pagliarini:
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2026/10/lulas-leap-into-the-future

Lula’s Final Chapter:
https://www.equator.org/articles/brazil-lula-elections-results

To listen to this episode of PTO Extra! please consider becoming a £5 patron of the show at patreon.com/poltheoryother

The term Global South has become ubiquitous in commentary on international affairs, but by the early 2000s middle and lower income countries were more frequently described as belonging to the developing world or - in the case of those states deemed favourable destinations for international capital - emerging markets. Those terms have since increasingly fallen out of favour and been replaced by 'Global South' - a term whose roots go back to the 1960s.

To talk about why that occurred - and its historical significance in the context of the decline of US hegemony, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the US war on Iran - Ravinder Kaur returns to PTO to talk about the concept of the Global South and her recent essay on the topic.

Notes:

Global South Redux: The Making of a Geopolitical Concept

https://brill.com/view/journals/gg/32/2/article-p207_4.xml

PTO interview: Capitalist dreams and nationalist designs w/ Ravinder Kaur

https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/108-capitalist-dreams-and-nationalist-designs-w-ravinder-kaur