Best of the week - 7 May 2021

Each week 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.

Getting 'reading ready' for COP26

• How bad could the future be if we do nothing? Mark Maslin in The Conversation
• Are you a climate change hyprocrite? Here’s why you shouldn’t worry. Bennet Francis in The Conversation.

Global politics, issues and ideas

• Globalisation's coming golden age. Why crisis ends in connection. Harold James for Foreign Affairs
• The case for microlateralism. With US support, small states can ably lead global efforts. Jared Cohen and Richard Fontaine in Foreign Affairs
• Then and now. Aid’s slow pace of change. The evolution of humanitarianism, one issue at a time. Jessica Alexander in The New Humanitarian
• The endless frontier. American state investment in science is returning. But the threats of today – pandemics, climate change, China – will require bold political leadership as well as money. Sharon Weinberger for Engelsberg Ideas
• Podcast: Blind Spots. Adam Shatz on his studies of Black diasporic culture, from Juan de Pareja to Audre Lorde, and his critique of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s case for reparations. From LRB podcasts
• Podcast: Geopolitics of a pandemic. The Covid-19 crisis has accentuated all the geopolitical fault lines of the past decade. Helen Thompson for Engelsberg Ideas podcasts
• Podcast: Michael Lewis on the Pandemic: Listen to the story of the people who saw the pandemic coming and why they couldn't get a hearing. From TALKING POLITICS.

United States Foreign Policy

• How to craft a durable China strategy. Washington must reconcile interdependence and conflict. Evan Medeiros in Foreign Affairs
• Losing no time. Biden’s first 100 days. Jessica T Mathews in the New York Review of Books
• The China model. Why is the West imitating Beijing? Niall Ferguson for The Spectator
• Podcast: How radial is President Biden? Listen to Adam Tooze for Novara Media.

UK, Europe and Russia

• Five years on. The referendum reconsidered. Andrew Adonis in Prospect Magazine
• Welcome to Germany. Dire predictions of the impact of 1.2 million refugees have not materialised. Thomas Rogers in the New York Review of Books
• The aristocratic ineptitude of Ursula von der Leyen’s EU pandemic response. Peter Kuras in Foreign Policy
• The word ‘feminism’ is still a trigger. Russia’s feminists in their own words. Maria Koltsova in Open Democracy
• People are scared. Putin’s crackdown on the opposition. Felix Light in The New Statesman
• What is happening on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border? Kamila Eshaliyeva in Open Democracy.

Around the globe – Asia, Middle East and Africa

• Podcast:  A shrinking society in Japan. What are the implications of a shrinking society and what lessons can we learn from Japan. Listen to Motoko Rich, the Tokyo bureau chief for The New York Times in the Daily
• A Rohingya refugee reflects on life at disaster’s edge. Mohammad Ahtaran in the New Humanitarian
• Afghanistan’s moment of risk and opportunity. A path to peace for the country and region. Ashraf Ghani in Foreign Affairs
• India’s national government looks increasingly hapless. Confronted with catastrophe, the state has melted away. From the Economist
• Modi fiddles while India burns. What’s unfolding in India is a devastating carnage precipitated by its self-enamoured leader. Kapil Komireddi in Foreign Policy
• What Islamic State police files tell us about everyday life under the Caliphate. Beatrice de Graaf and Ahmet S Yayla in The Conversation
• Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas try to hold on to power. Read more in The Economist
• Podcast: Listen to Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project, talk about ‘indefinitely postponed’ Palestinian elections, Israeli politics, the Biden administration’s policy toward the conflict and what a rights-based approach would entail. From International Crisis Group
• France’s double standard on democracy in Africa. Judith Grunstein in World Politics Review
• Don’t call Nigeria a failed state. It is more resilient and inclusive than ever, despite rising insecurity. Fola Aina and Nic Cheeseman for Foreign Affairs
• How Angola’s Dos dynasty fell apart. Lynsey Chutel in Foreign Policy.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash