Best of the week - 23 April 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 ready for COP26

• Four steps this Earth day to prevent environmental catastrophe. Simon Lewis in the Guardian
• America’s race to net zero: Does Joe Biden’s climate plan go far enough? Adam Tooze in the New Statesman
• Concept of net zero is a dangerous trap. Read the view from the climate scientists, James Dyke, Robert Watson and Wolfgang Knorr in The Conversation
• A climate first foreign policy. Diplomacy and executive action will allow Biden to tackle climate change. Steven Herz, Brendan Guy and Jake Schmidt in Foreign Affairs.

Global affairs

• Podcast: How should leaders deal with today’s great global standoff? Listen to Henry Kissenger for the Economist.

United Kingdom

• The UK’s foreign policy tribes. Understanding polarisation and cohesion on international affairs. Read The British foreign Policy’s new report by Sophia Gaston and Evie Aspinall
• Taking liberties. Covid-19 and the anatomy of a constitutional catastrophe. Adam Wagner for Prospect Magazine
• How the pandemic changed research culture. Times Higher Education Supplement
• Podcast: Identity, Ignorance and Innovation: Why the old politics is useless. Listen to Matthew d’Ancona talk about what we should make of identity politics, what we should teach in our schools and universities and what the digital future holds for us all. Listen to this Mile End Institute podcast from Queen Mary, University of London.

Europe and Russia

• The singular Chancellor. The Merkel model and it’s limits. Constanze Steizenmuller in Foreign Affairs
• Armin Laschet: who is the man who has been chosen to replace Angela Merkel? Ed Turner for The Conversation
• The EU’s next problem is Switzerland. Caroline de Gruyter in Foreign Policy
• Navalny has a lesson for the world. The Russian opposition leader is showing what courage means. Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic
• Putin dares to go where Soviet leaders dared to tread. Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg Opinion
• Ukraine and Russia. Why troop build-up unlikely to lead to all-out war? Liana Semchuk in The Conversation.

The United States

• Can America remain preeminent? Howard W. French in the New York Review of Books
• How Joe Biden is reshaping Americas global role. The Economist
• Joe Biden’s first 100 days have been action packed but on foreign policy he is moving more slowly. Emily Tankin in the New Statesman
• Is Biden’s Afghan withdrawal misguided or long overdue? Emily Ashford and Matthew Kroenig in Foreign Policy
• China isn’t that big a threat to America. Michael D Swaine in Foreign Policy
• Podcast: Does Biden’s cabinet look like America? Listen to Politics Weekly Extra from the Guardian.

Asia, Middle East and Africa

• How Modi is everything apart from what he seems. Hologram and holy man, sectarian and seer, the Indian prime minister is a trick of the light. Andrew Adonis for Prospect Magazine
• Bangladesh’s remarkable journey from basket case to rising star. Salil Tripathi in Foreign Policy
• Marib’s descent into war is shocking, but it shouldn’t be a surprise. Annie Slemrod in The New Humanitarian Monitor
• In Jordan, a reunited royal family can’t hide economic woes. Albert B Wolf in Foreign Policy
• A look at the Palestinian elections. Read Dalia Hatuqa in Foreign Policy
• Iran’s new partnership with China is just business as usual. Dina Esfandiary in World Politics Review
• The death of Déby leaves big worries in Chad and beyond. Obi Anyadike in the New Humanitarian Monitor
• Podcast: A difficult diplomatic triangle. A look at US, Israel and Iran relations with David E. Sanger for the Daily Podcast

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