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The myth of the reforming monarch - Britain and the Gulf w/ David Wearing

The latest episode of the Politics Theory Other podcast.

27 June 2023

The myth of the reforming monarch - Britain and the Gulf w/ David Wearing

David Wearing joins PTO to discuss his article 'The myth of the reforming monarch: Orientalism, racial capitalism, and UK support for the Arab Gulf monarchies'

We talked about the nature of Britain's relationship with the Gulf states, and why it's a mistake to see Western support for brutal, absolutist authority in the region as simply self-consciously cynical realpolitik. And we also talked about the nature of the Sportswashing debate and what's missing from mainstream discussion of the purchase of football clubs such as Manchester City, Newcastle United and Paris St. Germain by the gulf states.

Politics Theory Other is a weekly political podcast. The show aims to bring the work of writers on the radical left to a broader public.

Check out the latest episode of PTO here.


Past episodes include Judith Butler on nonviolence, Adam Tooze on the war economy of Nazi Germany, Amia Srinivasan on Sex and the Politics of Desire, and Philip Mirowski on Covid19 and neoliberalism.

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