We live in an age of empire and resistance - a shifting geography of global power. The military, political and financial support of one country, the US, above all others has allowed a small country - Israel - to commit genocide in Gaza, to the horror of the vast majority of people worldwide. The US military, its corporations, its digital giants, its banks, and its culture continue to dominate globally. Yet at the same time, US-led imperialism has never felt more fractured and resisted. The heavi...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast History in Action Part 1 delves into the founding of the Transnational Institute (TNI) and its origins with the Institute for Policy Studies. We look at the roots of TNI in opposition to the Vietnam War and other global liberation movements. We explore TNI's evolution and its sustained resistance against neoliberal ideologies, its tragedy with the assassination of Orlando Letelier, and its early work on debt, food and alternatives. Narrator: Shaun Matsheza Interviews conducted by: Denis Burke, D...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast History in Action Part 5 guides us through the multifaceted impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, underscored by increasing corporate power and social injustices—from healthcare privatization and vaccine disparities to the militarization of borders. We talk about green colonialism and the people hijacking the transition to renewable energy for their own profits. We talk about Gaza. Insights from diverse activists and scholars emphasize the need for a collective, just transition and highlight the his...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast History in Action Part 4 talks about the fallout of the financial crises, the rise of new forms of authoritarianism, the new movements that shook the world, and the work against transnational corporate impunity. Narrator: Shaun Matsheza Interviews conducted by: Denis Burke, Daria Gorshenina and Shaun Matsheza Music: Aleksey Chistilin Interviews with: Walden Bello, Sol Trumbo Vila , Niamh Ni Bhriain, Achin Vanaik, Dorothy Guerrero, Lucía Bárcena, Martin Jelsma Archival audio with: Susan George, H...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast History in Action Part 3 discusses the disastrous war on terror, the rise of China, and the convergence of social movements around the climate crisis, land, and essential public services. Narrator: Shaun Matsheza Interviews conducted by: Denis Burke, Daria Gorshenina and Shaun Matsheza Music: Aleksey Chistilin Interviews with: Arun Kundnani, Lyda Fernanda Forero, Jun Borras, Walden Bello, Dorothy Guerrero, Fiona Dove Archival audio with: Howard Wachtel, Brid Brennan, Satoko Kishimoto, Fred Halli...
Dec 12, 2024•54 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast History in Action Part 2 dives into the 1990s, focusing on the impact of the Cold War's end, the rise of neoliberalism, the emergence of the Alter-Globalization Movement, and the history of TNI's drugs and democracy programme. Key figures and activists explore significant shifts in global politics, the consolidation of U.S. imperial power, and the resistance of social movements: from the rise of progressive alternatives to the struggle against corporate power and neoliberal trade regimes. Narrat...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Nearly 75 years after the United Nations called for the abolition of coca leaf chewing, the world will have an opportunity to correct this grave historic error. The World Health Organization (WHO), at the Plurinational State of Bolivia’s request, and supported by Colombia, will conduct a ‘critical review’ of the coca leaf over the next year. Based on its findings, the WHO may recommend changes in coca’s classification under the UN drug control treaties. The WHO recommendations would be submitted...
Jul 09, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast The fossil fuel based energy system has shaped capitalism and our geopolitical order. On the 50th year of TNI's existence, the State of Power report unveils the corporate and financial actors that underpin this order, the dangers of an unjust energy transition, lessons for movements of resistance, and the possibilities for transformative change. How can we build a Just energy transition in the age of corporate and imperial power? In today’s episode, a special accompaniment to the 12th Annual Sta...
Feb 21, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Even a global crisis can provide opportunities for fairer, freer and better ways of organising our world. But too often they can simply become moments to further entrench power, hegemony and undue influence. Unfortunately, as history has demonstrated, global policy making has often shifted in undesirable directions because those in power use crises to push their own interests. Some commentators have made comparisons between the global impact of 911 on public policy, and the impact of the Covid 1...
Jun 30, 2023•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Energy is currently produced and consumed based on sexist, racist and classist power relations that favour the pursuit of private profits at the expense of the common good. Extractivist oligopolies and corporatised politics have imposed humiliating austerity measures, privatisations of public services, and excessive and growing socio-economic inequality, displacement and dispossession, and environmental destruction. These processes drive skyrocketing levels of energy poverty and a worsening ecol...
May 25, 2023•52 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast In 1973, a group of women from Mandal village in the Himalayas in India “hugged” trees to prevent them from being felled. When the loggers came, the women, led by Gaura Devi, surrounded the trees and chanted: “This forest is our mother’s home; we will protect it with all our might”. This was the beginning of what came to be known as the Chipko movement, which put a spotlight on ecofeminism. Consequently, when many people hear the term ecofeminism, it is the image of those women hugging the trees...
May 25, 2023•37 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Borders uphold a global system of apartheid—and we should demand nothing less than their abolition. In this interview, activist and writer Harsha Walia lays out how borders and citizenship maintain colonial axes of power. From Fortress Europe outsourcing border control far into the African continent in exchange for aid, to Canada securing the availability of cheap farm workers through its selective immigration system, she demonstrates how capitalism and border regimes feed off of each other. Har...
Apr 12, 2023•34 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast How is it that drug companies can make huge profits from vaccines while people in the global south die from lack of access to medical care? How does the global regime of intellectual property rights enable this inequality? And what is the role of Bill Gates in defending this system? In this interview, Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni argues that vaccine inequality is not a market but a policy failure. From the HIV crisis in the early 2000s to the recent pandemic, the public has repeatedly shouldered the ri...
Feb 23, 2023•42 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast An influential group of big technology corporations, commonly referred to as Big Tech has concentrated vast economic power with the collusion of states, which has resulted in expanded surveillance, spiraling disinformation and weakened workers' rights. TNI’s 11th flagship State of Power report exposes the actors, the strategies and the implications of this digital power grab, and shares ideas on how movements might bring technology back under popular control. Our guest on the podcast is Cory Doc...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast What are the economic challenges facing the Global South post-pandemic? What role have global financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF played in worsening the economic situation for poorer countries? And what economic alternatives might exist? In this interview, Jomo Kwame Sundaram shines a light on the effects that decades of liberalisation policy have had on countries in the global South, including deindustrialisation, food insecurity, and another looming debt crisis. He argues t...
Jan 26, 2023•43 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast As the various tax avoidance scandals such as the Panama papers, Paradise papers and Pandora papers have shown, tax havens are some of the most important instruments for reproducing social inequalities. The wealthy use countries with favourable laws to store their wealth, safely and away from public scrutiny. But tax havens are becoming an even bigger problem for social equity as the global economy becomes more and more digital. Big Data, generated by all of us all over the world through our int...
Nov 23, 2022•31 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast The environmental and social effects of the industrial capitalist system have long been obvious to marginalised communities forced to live in the garbage dumps of production while their resources are pillaged for raw materials. However, today, the systemic effects are increasingly visible to all. It’s clear, to save humanity and complex life on our precious planet, we need a major course change. If we’re to survive, we need to figure out how to leave fossil fuels in the ground, and how to adapt ...
Nov 03, 2022•44 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Nigeria has a terrible history with international oil companies like Shell, having a hard time getting compensation for environmental damage. Even with some legal wins, like when the Hague Court of Appeals found Shell Nigeria liable for damages from pipeline leaks in the villages of Oruma and Goi, the country is still a long way from achieving true justice. To add salt to the injury, the violators have themselves gone on to sue Nigeria, sometimes using domestic law, but in the greater number of ...
Oct 05, 2022•34 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Lack of access to modern energy services remains a major constraint to economic development in many regions, and perhaps in Africa most of all. According to the Africa development Bank, only 40 percent of the continent’s people have regular access to electricity. African governments are trying to expand their capacity to provide energy to their citizens, and this has seen a proliferation of “mega energy deals”, where governments sign deals investors, usually foreign, who pledge to work with the ...
Sep 12, 2022•44 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Why are US-China relations deteriorating? What are the impacts of growing anti-Asian racism on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) living in the US? Will the new Cold War with China replace the US War on Terror? In this interview, Tobita Chow argues that the rise of China as an economic power has become a clear threat to US hegemony. While the pandemic served as a catalyst for anti-Asian racism, it was not the root cause: Increasingly hostile foreign policy towards China leads to increa...
Aug 22, 2022•30 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Why did the pandemic spiral out of control in India? Why did some states see many more people dying than others? The central government's authoritarian measures, badly planned lockdowns, structural inequality and many forms of discrimination drastically increased the death toll, argues Sulakshana Nandi in this interview. She discusses India's unequal vaccination rollout and the roles of the public and private healthcare sector in pandemic management. Finally, she explains what a better health sy...
Jul 21, 2022•35 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast During the pandemic, the World Health Organisation and governments took a back seat and power was centred on corporate interests. Health was viewed not as a right or a necessity, but as a product to be marketed and sold. Even in the midst of a global health emergency, companies treated the ill and the vulnerable as consumers and vaccines as commodities, setting prices and production rates that maximise profit. How has this happened and what, if any, are the alternatives? Harris Gleckman is a Sen...
Jun 23, 2022•44 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast New generations of technologically advanced, hyper efficient industrial vessels, have gotten too good at fishing. This limited number of vessels has a massive impact on the ocean. Fish stocks have largely declined since the 1980s, but not all fishers contribute to the problem to the same extent, nor are all fishing livelihoods impacted to the same degree. The crisis of overfishing, fuelled in large part by a small number of industrial vessels, is threatening the livelihoods of coastal communitie...
Jun 16, 2022•49 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Aside from occasionally popping up as a topic, for example in relation to plastics, oil-spills, or occasional references to melting glaciers, the oceans are often a "forgotten space" for many otherwise inspiring social movements. But the oceans have had a central and changing role across different moments. The global ocean has through the centuries served as a trade route, strategic space, fish bank and supply chain for the modern capitalist economy. While sea beds are drilled for their fossil f...
Jun 03, 2022•58 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast The privatisation of public services is a long-standing global trend. But in the wake of the pandemic and through the introduction of contact tracing apps, Big Tech has gone one step further: Large corporations like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are now set to control the very infrastructure that underlies our public health system. In this eye-opening discussion, Arun Kundnani interviews Dr Seda Gürses about the dangers of a system in which we depend on profit-oriented companies for receiving ba...
May 19, 2022•49 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Many poor countries sign trade agreements with the desperate hope of attracting investment from their wealthy counterparts. However, these agreements, or treaties, tend to have some very problematic clauses, which often lead to trouble down the road. Investors have used these treaties to sue countries for any actions, such as changes in policy, that they perceive to be a threat to their projected profits. And they don’t sue in the national courts either, but in a special parallel system that see...
May 12, 2022•47 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast For a while now, the mantra “trade not aid” has dictated how the overdeveloped countries of the Global North engage with their less wealthy counterparts. The logic being that trade is more dignified than aid, and leads to longer lasting change. However, to anyone who has been paying attention, the way global trade is set up may actually be one of the reasons these countries remain poor. The playing field is far from level, and there are multiple mechanisms that work in concert to ensure it remai...
Apr 29, 2022•45 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast For a while now, the mantra “trade not aid” has dictated how the overdeveloped countries of the Global North engage with their less wealthy counterparts. The logic being that trade is more dignified than aid, and leads to longer lasting change. However, to anyone who has been paying attention, the way global trade is set up may actually be one of the reasons these countries remain poor. The playing field is far from level, and there are multiple mechanisms that work in concert to ensure it remai...
Apr 14, 2022•26 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast On 24 February 2022, to considerable shock, Russia launched a large scale invasion of Ukraine. This was a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that has been ongoing, particularly since 2014. In this podcast we want to find out what Ukrainians involved in its social movements are thinking about the conflict. Where do they think the war is going? What are their thoughts about the apparent rifts in the global left response? What should solidarity look like? The State of Power podcast sp...
Mar 10, 2022•40 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Governments around the world have used the pandemic as an excuse to expand their powers. Populations have been divided on the basis of race and class into those deserving of protection and those perceived as risky and to be controlled. Migrants, refugees, precarious workers, and racialized groups have faced vulnerability and repression. Many Western liberals, nevertheless, seem to wish for governments to be tougher in enforcing measures. In this fascinating discussion, Eda Seyhan lays out why an...
Feb 01, 2022•40 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 
