Best of the fortnight - 2 December 2022

Each fortnight BISA Director, Juliet Dryden, scours the internet for IR-related content that might interest you. Here she brings you this week's best readings and podcasts to keep you up to date with what's happening around the world.

Global issues

• The Qatar World Cup exposes soccer’s shame. Tom McTague for The Atlantic
• Great power competition is going nuclear again. Wyn Bowen for Engelsberg Ideas
• Not just another recession. Why the global economy may never be the same. Mohamed A. El-Erian for Foreign Affairs
• Why Africa signed up for eight new fossil fuel projects at COP27. Amelia Womack for openDemocracy
• Podcast: Inside Qatar 2022: the World Cup of politics and protest. Today in Focus by The Guardian.

UK and Europe

• Inside Nicola Sturgeon’s operation to win European support for independence from the UK. Carolyn Rowe for The Conversation
• UK overseas aid still invested in fossil fuels – two years after climate pledge. Dimitris Dimitriadis, Frankie Vetch and Martin Williams for openDemocracy
• EU parliament names Russia ‘a state sponsor of terrorism’ but it won’t stop the missiles. Scott Lucas for The Conversation
• Viktor Orban’s controversial ‘Greater Hungary’ scarf explained. Michael Toomey for The Conversation
• The feminists who want Armenians and Azerbaijanis to forgive each other. Lucy Martirosyan for openDemocracy
• Europe’s anti-American itch. Matthew Karnitschnig for Politico.

Russia and Ukraine                                                       

• The perpetually irrational Ukraine debate. Stephen M Walt for Foreign Policy
• Russia’s missiles and winter conditions mean no quick end to Ukraine war. Paul Rogers for openDemocracy
• What is the war in Ukraine teaching Western armies? The Economist
• The Kremlin’s friends in the sky: the EU satellites carrying Russian propaganda. Clothilde Goujard for Politico.

USA

• US elections. Why Gen Z and millennials came out to vote and why it marks a generational shift. Dafydd Townley for The Conversation
• Looming questions for the Democrats. Michael Tomasky for the New York Review of Books
• ‘You think our country is so innocent’. Polarised States of America. Adam Shatz for the London Review of Books
• What the 2022 Midterm Elections Mean for U.S Climate Policy. Alice C Hill and Madeline Babin for Council on Foreign Relations
• The Next Afghan-Refugee Crisis Is Right Here in the U.S. Elliot Ackerman for The Atlantic
• Podcast: Era of the rogue superpower: what Trump’s bid means for the US, Russia and China. From the New Statesman.

China/Asia

• Western leaders are divided over the future of relations with China. Stefan Woolf for the Conversation
• China’s zero intolerance for Xi’s covid restrictions. Michael Schuman for the Atlantic
• Chinese protests are about more than COVID – student discontent has fuelled the biggest movement since Tiananmen Square. Tao Zhang for The Conversation
• Uyghur people have suffered most from draconian zero covid policies but are too terrorised to join in. Jo Smith Finley in The Conversation
• The Long Odds Facing China’s Protestors. Max Fisher for The New York Times
• NATO holds first dedicated talks on China threat to Taiwan. Henry Foy and Demetri Sevastopulo for the Financial Times
• NATO’s looming fault line: China. Lili Bayer for Politico
• China’s white paper protest movement echoes freedom struggles across Asia. Gareth Dale in The Conversation
• Podcast: China protests, North Korea and the missile tests. Listen to Independent Thinking from Chatham House
• Podcast: Patience zero: China’s remarkable unrest. The Intelligence from The Economist
• What two crimes reveal about the violent lives of Indian women. The Economist
• Podcast: The Rest is Politics. Alastair Campbell and Rory Steward talk China protests, UK strikes and crypto bros
• Podcast: Where do China’s lockdown protests go from here? World Review from the New Statesman
• Podcast: Echoes of 1989: where the protests go next? From Chinese Whispers.

Middle East

Afghanistan: after a year of Taliban government, women are more oppressed than ever. Hind Elhinnawy for The Conversation

Why Saudi Arabia is so quiet about Iran’s protests. Kim Ghattas for The Atlantic

Pakistani Taliban Go to War While People March for Peace. Lynne O’Donnell for Foreign Policy

What is the Kafala System? Kali Robinson for Council on Foreign Relations.

Africa

The Revolutionary Decade: Tunisia since the coup. Tom Stevenson in the London Review of Books

Will the U.N Tax Convention Empower Africa? Nosmot Gbadamosi for Foreign Policy.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash