{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"BRICS, de-dollarization and Canada in a multipolar world","description":"In our final episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series, season seven, we are joined by author, professor and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Radhika Desai, and author, professor and Chair of International Relations and Political Science at St. Thomas University, Dr. Shaun Narine. We discuss the shifting balance of power in global politics, BRICS, de-dollarization, the rise of Asia and the Global South, the challenges it poses to the rules-based international order of the Global North and Canada\u2019s place within an inevitably multipolar world. Speaking on the growth of multipolarity, Desai says: \u201cLenin argued that imperialism, by which he meant the stage capitalism had arrived at in the early 20th century, was the highest stage of capitalism \u2026 Beyond it, there was not much capitalism had to give to humanity\u2026 After 40 years of neoliberalism \u2026 it is quite obvious that it is suffering from senility \u2026 low growth rates, low investment rates, low innovation rates \u2026 It is far from fulfilling the needs of humanity \u2026 it is far from keeping the West powerful. Part of the emergence of multipolarity \u2026 is the decline in the vigor of Western capitalist economies.\u201d Reflecting on Canada as a middle power in a multipolar world, Narine says: \u201cI think in a world where multipolarity is mattering more and more and more \u2026 simply being an American vassal state, which is what I'd argue we largely are right now \u2026 doesn't encourage anybody to look at Canada as an independent actor \u2026 I think the first step for us to be a Middle Power means to demonstrate that we're actually capable of independent thinking and independent policy and capable of articulating interests that aren't being dictated by the American embassy in Ottawa.\u201d About today\u2019s guests:  Radhika Desai is professor of Political Studies and director of Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, convenor of the International Manifesto Group and past president of the Society for Socialist Studies. Her wide-ranging work covers party politics, political and geopolitical economy, political and economic theory, nationalism, fascism, British, US and Indian politics. Geopolitical economy, the approach to the international relations of the capitalist world she proposed in her 2013 work, Geopolitical Economy, combines Marx\u2019s analysis of capitalism with those of \u2018late development\u2019 and the developmental state as the key to explaining the dynamic of international relations of the modern capitalist world. Currently, she is working on several books including \u2018Hindutva and the Political Economy of Indian Capitalism\u2019 and \u2018Marx as a Monetary Theorist\u2019. Her numerous articles have appeared in Capital and Class, Economic and Political Weekly,  International Critical Thought, New Left Review, Third World Quarterly, World Review of Political Economy and other journals and in edited collections on parties, political economy, culture and nationalism. She is regularly invited as a speaker and to conferences around the world. Shaun Narine is a professor of International Relations and Political Science at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. His research focuses on institutionalism in the Asia Pacific. He has written two books on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and published on issues related to ASEAN as well as Canadian foreign policy, Canada\u2019s relations with China, and US foreign policy. He was a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2000-2002) at the University of British Columbia and has been a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center (2000) and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute (2017 and 2021) in Singapore. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca\/TommyDouglasInstitute.  Image: Radhika Desai, Shaun Narine  \/ Used with permission. Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.  Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy)  Courage My Friends podcast organizing committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu.  Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca.  Host: Resh Budhu.  ","author_name":"Needs No Introduction","author_url":"https:\/\/rabble.ca\/","html":"