Conversations

5:00 – 6:00 pm
Arjun Appadurai and Slavenka Drakulić
The New Machismo
India, Russia, Turkey, and the US are run by men who have declared their enmity to the liberal legacy of the post-World War Two period. Does this constitute a new “movement” in international politics, and what is its significance? Is it a popular movement against global elites? Or a cynical appropriation of popular feeling to achieve quite different ends?

6:30 – 7:30 pm
Antony T. Anghie and Susan George
How is the World Governed, and Towards What End?
Global corporations increasingly seek control over national political decision-making. This brings them into conflict with voters, who increasingly suspect the national political machine of being rigged. Globalization has profoundly challenged the authority of the nation-state. Decisions which affect the well-being of people are now being made by entities other than the nation-state, such as international institutions, corporations. How exactly is political power distributed today? What political and legal mechanisms exist today that would ensure democracy, accountability and legitimacy values associated with proper government?

7:30 – 8:30 pm
In Koli Jean Bofane and Brigitta Kuster
Reinventing Futures?
The postcolonial present is marked by an ambiguous temporality. Instead of certainties from past through present to future it is characterized by the experience of prolonged endings, the loss of postcolonial futures and a past that is owned by those in power. Tracing the conditions of the ”failed postcolonial state“ back to the time of decolonization, the discussants ask: what role does the concept of the nation-state and its metric of “failed” and “viable” play? And even more pressing: how can one unearth lost alternative futures at least poetically?