World
September 16, 2023
AnalysisCrisis in the Bread Basket
Investment and agriculture in Punjab
In the run-up to the general elections of 2014, Narendra Modi was hailed across mainstream quarters of journalism and policy-making as the crusader of economic reform and growth in India, a spirit that was only bolstered by the resounding majority his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), received. Almost a decade on, the spell has…
Longform
September 30, 2023
InterviewsMarketing War
An interview with Magdi el Gizouli
Sudan’s ongoing war between two military formations—the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces—has killed thousands and displaced millions. The current crisis follows years of political upheaval across the country. In late 2018, mass protests calling for democratic rule…
September 12, 2023
AnalysisLabor’s Green Capital
Pension funds, asset managers, and solar energy
Global investment in solar energy has skyrocketed in recent decades: from 1 TWh of solar power in 2000 to 1,284 TWh in 2022. The trend is likely to be magnified in the United States by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),…
September 7, 2023
AnalysisThe IRA and Public Schools
Green investment for school infrastructure
Public school buildings in the United States are crumbling. National school infrastructure received a D+ rating from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2021, and in serious cases, learning environments have become toxic. Given the segregated and unequal nature…
Defining Bidenomics
Industrial policy, labor, and the New Cold War
A new American industrial policy—“Bidenomics”—has arrived, consisting of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act. The proclaimed goals of Bidenomics are to propel a green energy transition to confront climate…
The Investment Climate
The limits of private financing
The world urgently needs financing for renewable energy, infrastructure, public transit, land restoration, and much more to face the storm of climate change. But these necessary capital investments in the green transition face real barriers, such as a high cost…
August 10, 2023
AnalysisElusive Boundaries
The politics of public-private relations in Brazilian water provision
In April 2021, private investors gathered at B3, Brazil’s stock exchange, to bid for water concessions in Rio de Janeiro. The former capital city and its surrounding municipalities had been divided into four “concession blocks,” all of which were up…
August 5, 2023
AnalysisThe Agribusiness Pact
The “reprimarization” of the Brazilian economy
Over the past two decades, Brazilian media and political discourse have exalted the uncontroversial success of a magical entity known as “agribusiness.” Closely associated with the rise of commodity exports such as soy, sugarcane, and corn, “agribusiness” has come to…
July 29, 2023
InterviewsFragile Democracies
An interview with Pranab Bardhan
Pranab Bardhan is Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of California, Berkeley. Among the foremost global scholars of development, distribution, and trade, his twelve books and more than one hundred fifty journal articles cross disciplinary boundaries in an effort to…
July 27, 2023
ReviewsConstructing “Social Europe”
Alternative visions for European cooperation
Accounts on the rise of neoliberalism commonly emphasize the exhaustion of post-war systems of embedded liberalism during the economic crises of the 1970s and the parallel internationalization of economic activity. In Europe, this latter process is especially, and controversially, associated…
Working Capital
Tim van Bijsterveldt on transformations in the global payments system
The Federal Reserve has provided payment and settlement services for more than a century. But FedNow, the instant payments service rolled out in late June 2023, is the first new Fed payments rail in 50 years. Though payment and settlement…
Shortform
September 16, 2023
Sources
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military, led by General Augusto Pinochet, and with support from the CIA, overthrew the socialist government of President Salvador Allende. The fiftieth anniversary of the coup has occasioned several reflections on the impact of Pinochet’s neoliberal reforms.
Trading Order
Protectionism and interdependence pact?
Export Bans. Sanctions. Investment screens. The liberal trading order has been weaponized; security, not efficiency, is the new watchword. And yet, 2023 has seen an all-time high of goods traded across borders. Even bilateral trade between the warring great powers,…
September 11, 2023
Sources
Since 2020, there have been military coups in six Francophone African countries—Mali, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and most recently Gabon. The region has also witnessed unprecedented civic protests against the French government. In a 2021 book, FANNY PIGEAUD and NDONGO SAMBA SYLLA examine…
Grievance and Reform
Will the BRICS bargaining chip bear fruit for smaller and lower-income countries?
The precursor of 2022’s energy crisis was 2020–2021’s vaccine apartheid. These shortages were in no way natural but reflected financial and geopolitical hierarchies: those with more power and resources bid up prices and developing countries lost out in the process.…
August 26, 2023
Sources
Feminist economists have problematized the “unitary” conceptualization of the household, probing the black box of domestic life to explore how allocations of labor and resources are contested within the family.
August 23, 2023
AnalysisCoercion and Inequality
The distributional effects of sanctions in Iran
“Plumbing” is an oft-used metaphor for understanding how sanctions work. Sanctions are intended to stop the flow of money to the targeted government; reserves are frozen, trade is blocked, export revenues dry up, and government budgets are drained. Even the…
August 19, 2023
Sources
From the mid 1960s, a group of international scholars—including Issa G. Shivji, Walter Rodney, John S. Saul, Giovani Arrighi—gathered at the University of Dar es Salaam to study the political and economic issues facing a newly postcolonial Africa. Looking past the…
Hockey Sticks and Crosses
Images that define the globalization debate
Images that define the globalization debate
August 12, 2023
Sources
Founded in the 1970s in Paris, the Regulation School was a group of scholars who offered a novel conceptualization of economic history. Rejecting the notion of universal economic laws, they presented capitalism’s development as a series of phases, each defined by certain social and institutional forms, with an…
August 5, 2023
Sources
Since April 15, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting to take control over Sudan. Extensive war crimes have been committed by both sides.
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Series
Series are collections of works published by Phenomenal World on a single subject or area of research. Series are commissioned to analyze particular issues or historical moments, and are either ongoing projects or collected as one-time volumes.
The Polycrisis is a newsletter and a series of essays and panels exploring intersecting crises with a particular emphasis on the political economy of climate change and global North/South dynamics. It is edited by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie. Follow The Polycrisis on Twitter here.
Trading Order
Protectionism and interdependence pact?
Export Bans. Sanctions. Investment screens. The liberal trading order has been weaponized; security, not efficiency, is the new watchword. And yet, 2023 has seen an all-time high of goods traded across borders. Even bilateral trade between the warring great powers,…
Defining Bidenomics
Industrial policy, labor, and the New Cold War
A new American industrial policy—“Bidenomics”—has arrived, consisting of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act. The proclaimed goals of Bidenomics are to propel a green energy transition to confront climate…