State of Power

COVID-19 has become another touchstone for today’s deeply entrenched politics of militarised borders and anti-migrant racism. This webinar explored the trajectory and globalization of border militarization and anti-migrant racism across the world, the history, ideologies and actors that have shaped it, the pillars and policies that underpin the border industrial complex, the resistance of migrants, refugees and activists, and the shifting dynamics within this pandemic. Panellists: * Harsha...

A great global panel of activists, social movement leaders and thinkers discuss how to make this pandemic a turning point towards system change that we need not just to deliver social justice but increasingly to defend our very survival. The very insightful conversation examined what can we learn from previous major global mobilisations, how can we build cross-sectoral and intersectional movements and what strategies and tactics we need to confront entrenched corporate power and...

Prior to the pandemic, popular opposition to the power of Big Tech was growing. Yet, in the COVID-19 moment, Big Tech has emerged stronger than ever. Dependence on digital platforms has delivered record profits for the likes of Amazon (and Zoom on which this webinar relies), while states are rolling out new apps with corporate partners in the name of a health emergency with almost no consideration of privacy or human rights. A new digital economy opportunism is deepening faultlines of...

Ten years ago, the Arab uprisings were celebrated as world changing events. The emancipatory experience was so contagious that people were inspired all over the world. Occupiers from London to Wall Street and the Indignados were proud to “Walk like an Egyptian”. The revolutionary process that has swept North Africa and West Asia, driven by demands for bread, freedom, dignity and social justice, has seen ups and downs, gains and setbacks, which materialized in a liberal democratic transition...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led governments to release an unprecedented number of people from prison and curb new admissions to prevent deadly outbreaks in prisons and other detention centres. The pandemic has exposed the societal costs of mass incarceration, while the quick actions taken by governments casts doubt on the necessity of imprisonment for those released. This webinar looks at the drivers of mass incarceration worldwide, sharing analysis on the impact of COVID-19, the negative...

An inspiring global panel of feminist thinkers and activists discuss how we can collectively reorganise, shift power and pivot towards building transformative feminist realities that can get us out of the worsening health, climate and capitalist crises. This webinar explores feminist analyses of the crisis and the way the pandemic intersects with patriarchy, corporate power and a global division of labour that is both gendered and racialised. What can we learn from the feminist practices and...

Support for public services and limits on private profit is at an all-time high in the wake of the pandemic. How do we ensure this prioritisation of public needs and goods becomes permanent? What are the best models of democratic and participatory public services? This webinar shares some of the most visionary ideas and campaigns emerging across the world at local, state and national levels advancing a new vision of a public future. The speakers tackle the question: How can we build a broad...

As governments take action to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent economic collapse, big law firms are watching the virus too. Yet, their concern is not to save lives or the economy. Instead, the lawyers are urging big business to challenge the social and economic emergency measures that governments around the world have taken to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. 2600 investment protection agreements worldwide have opened the door for transnational companies to sue States for billions of...

How do we ensure that the economic response to COVID-19 also addresses existing crises, most of all the unfolding climate crisis? How do we build a truly Global Green New Deal that delivers transformation and justice especially in the Global South? This webinar features leading international activists and thinkers, bringing fresh new perspectives on how to embed just transition into our response to the coronavirus pandemic. Panellists: * Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of the Division on...

With Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017) as well as experts on public health systems and activists on the frontlines responding to the crisis in the Global South. Images from Italy of the army unloading coffins, exhausted doctors and fearful citizens in ever more countries shocked the world and pushed even recalcitrant politicians into action. But the real health disaster could still be ahead of us as the pandemic spreads in countries...

What are the likely global impacts of the economic fallout from the Coronavirus pandemic? What would a peoples' agenda look like? How might we be better prepared than in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis to put forward progressive solutions that address the immediate crisis as well as existing crises of poverty, inequality and environmental destruction? Panellists: - Professor Jayati Ghosh, award-winning economist Jawaharlal Nehru University, India - Quinn Slobodian, associate...

A conversation between Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Indonesia and Europe. This episode explores how globalised industrial food systems set the scene for the emergence of COVID-19 and the structural connections between industrial agriculture, pathogens and precarious working conditions. It also explores the different realities people face right now, and how these impact ongoing struggles for more just food systems and...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed like never before the perils of governments handing over our right to health and life to corporations. The privatisation of our health has made millions of people vulnerable to infectious diseases and undermined the integrated public systems needed to coordinate an effective response. This webinar brings healthcare experts together with activists at the forefront of struggles for equitable universal public healthcare from across the globe. Panelists speak...

This episode examines authoritarian and repressive state responses to the Coronavirus pandemic, featuring the UN Special Rapporteur on Protecting Human Rights and other global experts and activists. In response to an unprecedented global health emergency, many states are rolling out measures from deploying armies and drones to control public space, to expanding digital control through facial recognition technology and tracker apps. What if these measures become permanent once the pandemic...

This episode is an extract from the first in our series of webinars focused on Covid-19, which featured a presentation by Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017), as well as contributions from experts on public health systems and activists on the frontlines responding to the crisis in the Global South. Images from Italy of the army unloading coffins, exhausted doctors and fearful citizens in ever more countries shocked the world and pushed...

This episode is an extract from the third edition in our weekly webinar series, which featured a dialogue between Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Indonesia and Europe. The webinar explored how globalised industrial food systems set the scene for the emergence of COVID-19, and examined the structural connections between industrial agriculture, pathogens and precarious working conditions. It also brought out the different...

Two decades ago, and without significant public debate, an obscure international investment agreement entered into force. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) gives foreign investors in the energy sector sweeping powers to sue states for millions of dollars over government actions that have supposedly ‘damaged’ their investments. In recent years, the ECT has become increasingly controversial – because of its potential to obstruct the transition from climate-wrecking fossil fuels towards renewable...

This is episode two of a series on Border Wars: placing the ‘migration crisis” in perspective. In episode one, we looked at some of the reasons for the building of militarized borders, and examined the systemic causes of migration, showing how people are displaced as a result of corporate crimes, conflict, poverty, climate change. We showed that migration cannot be divorced from the legacy of colonialism and the impact today of corporate capitalism and imperialism. This episode takes a...

This is episode one of a series on Border Wars: Placing the ‘migration crisis” in perspective. It explores the rise of border walls particularly in the last three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and analyses some of the systemic reasons behind what has been termed the “migrant crisis”. Follow-up episodes will focus on the corporate interests that stand to gain the most from existing migration policies, and explore ways in which communities are reaching out and building bridges...

Walden Bello is a TNI associate, a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and journalist who has made a major contribution to the international case against corporate-driven globalization. He is currently a senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, as well as an adjunct professor of sociology at the State University of New York, Binghamton. In our latest podcast he shares his thoughts about China and its role in the global financial system. The discussion is guided...