Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust
Global Governance Futures
53 episodes
5 months ago
In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Simon Dalby, one of the most original thinkers in critical geopolitics and environmental security. His scholarship has fundamentally reshaped how we understand the relationship between ecology, violence, and global governance – pioneering the concept of political geoecology and, more recently, probing the incendiary entanglements of fossil fuels, statecraft, and planetary breakdown.
We explore Simon’s intellectual journey, from early work on geopolitics and discourses of security, to his provocative interventions on anthropogenic fire and the combustible politics of the climate crisis, captured in his recent book Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World.
With characteristic clarity and urgency, Simon unpacks the dangerous inertia of existing institutions and the need to stop “governing as if the Earth were not burning.” We discuss the challenge of reimagining sovereignty, security, and governance in the context of Earth system disruption – and why a politics of planetary responsibility must begin with confronting fossil modernity head-on.
Simon Dalby is Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is a former co-editor of the journal Geopolitics and author of multiple influential books on climate, war, and the changing foundations of global order.
Simon’s profile can be found here: https://balsillieschool.ca/people/simon-dalby/
We discussed:
• Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate Disrupted World (2024): https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pyromania/9781788216517/
• Review of Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises by J. Blake & N. Gilman (2024): https://issforum.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XXVI-24.pdf
• Firepower, Climate and the Dilemma of Security, RUSI Commentary, May 2022: https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/firepower-climate-and-dilemmas-security
• Rethinking Environmental Security (2022): https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/rethinking-environmental-security-9781800375840.html
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In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Simon Dalby, one of the most original thinkers in critical geopolitics and environmental security. His scholarship has fundamentally reshaped how we understand the relationship between ecology, violence, and global governance – pioneering the concept of political geoecology and, more recently, probing the incendiary entanglements of fossil fuels, statecraft, and planetary breakdown.
We explore Simon’s intellectual journey, from early work on geopolitics and discourses of security, to his provocative interventions on anthropogenic fire and the combustible politics of the climate crisis, captured in his recent book Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World.
With characteristic clarity and urgency, Simon unpacks the dangerous inertia of existing institutions and the need to stop “governing as if the Earth were not burning.” We discuss the challenge of reimagining sovereignty, security, and governance in the context of Earth system disruption – and why a politics of planetary responsibility must begin with confronting fossil modernity head-on.
Simon Dalby is Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is a former co-editor of the journal Geopolitics and author of multiple influential books on climate, war, and the changing foundations of global order.
Simon’s profile can be found here: https://balsillieschool.ca/people/simon-dalby/
We discussed:
• Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate Disrupted World (2024): https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pyromania/9781788216517/
• Review of Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises by J. Blake & N. Gilman (2024): https://issforum.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XXVI-24.pdf
• Firepower, Climate and the Dilemma of Security, RUSI Commentary, May 2022: https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/firepower-climate-and-dilemmas-security
• Rethinking Environmental Security (2022): https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/rethinking-environmental-security-9781800375840.html
33: Thomas Oatley – Complexity Theory and Political Economy 2.0
Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust
57 minutes 18 seconds
2 years ago
33: Thomas Oatley – Complexity Theory and Political Economy 2.0
Professor Thomas Oatley is the Corasaniti-Zondorak Chair of International Relations at Tulane University. He focuses his research and teaching on the intersection of American hegemony and international political economy (IPE). Widely regarded as a scholar at the leading-edge of IPE research, Thomas has in recent years adopted an explicit complex systems frame to undergird a powerful critique of orthodox IPE and international relations approaches to studying the global economy and world order.
In this conversation we talk about the value of thinking in terms of complex systems, why complexity theory remains on the margins of global political scholarship, the nexus between our global financial and energy systems, green industrial policy and much, much more.
Thomas can be found here: https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/departments/political-science/people/thomas-oatley
He tweets @thoatley
We discussed:
‘Energy and the Complexity of International Order’, Global Environmental Politics (2021): https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article-abstract/21/4/20/107829/Energy-and-the-Complexity-of-International-Order
‘Green industrial policy and the global transformation of climate politics’ (with B. Allan and J. I. Lewis), Global Environmental Politics (2021): https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/21/4/1/107853/Green-Industrial-Policy-and-the-Global
‘Toward a political economy of complex interdependence’, European Journal of International Relations (2019): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354066119846553?journalCode=ejta
Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (1990): https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/archaeology/archaeological-theory-and-methods/collapse-complex-societies?format=PB&isbn=9780521386739
Global Governance Futures: Imperfect Utopias or Bust
In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Simon Dalby, one of the most original thinkers in critical geopolitics and environmental security. His scholarship has fundamentally reshaped how we understand the relationship between ecology, violence, and global governance – pioneering the concept of political geoecology and, more recently, probing the incendiary entanglements of fossil fuels, statecraft, and planetary breakdown.
We explore Simon’s intellectual journey, from early work on geopolitics and discourses of security, to his provocative interventions on anthropogenic fire and the combustible politics of the climate crisis, captured in his recent book Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World.
With characteristic clarity and urgency, Simon unpacks the dangerous inertia of existing institutions and the need to stop “governing as if the Earth were not burning.” We discuss the challenge of reimagining sovereignty, security, and governance in the context of Earth system disruption – and why a politics of planetary responsibility must begin with confronting fossil modernity head-on.
Simon Dalby is Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is a former co-editor of the journal Geopolitics and author of multiple influential books on climate, war, and the changing foundations of global order.
Simon’s profile can be found here: https://balsillieschool.ca/people/simon-dalby/
We discussed:
• Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate Disrupted World (2024): https://cup.columbia.edu/book/pyromania/9781788216517/
• Review of Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises by J. Blake & N. Gilman (2024): https://issforum.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XXVI-24.pdf
• Firepower, Climate and the Dilemma of Security, RUSI Commentary, May 2022: https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/firepower-climate-and-dilemmas-security
• Rethinking Environmental Security (2022): https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/rethinking-environmental-security-9781800375840.html
