The Western Bubble
by Balder Hageraats & Dario Hasenstab
Latest episode
Elections Are Not Enough #163
Elections Are Not Enough #163
About this podcast
The West is suffering from the "Western Bubble" and as a result, the world suffers from it as well.
In this podcast, Balder Hageraats and Dario Hasenstab examine how Western countries are increasingly lost in their own delusions on the world stage and what must be done to bring them back to reality.
Understanding and acknowledging this phenomenon is crucial. It allows both Western and non-Western actors to much better navigate the current era of global uncertainty.
🎙️ What we analyse:
• Geopolitics & Global Power Shifts
• Human Rights & Development Aid
• Institutional Decline & Foreign Policy
All analysed strictly through the lens of the Western Bubble.
Executive Producer: Stefani Obradovic.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 201 episodes
- Elections Are Not Enough #163 · 56 minA crowded week of elections, with midterms in the United States a day away, prompts a question we think gets too little attention: what actually makes a democracy work? Voting is…
- Ukraine Through the Western Bubble #162 · 1 h 2 minFour and a half years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with ceasefire rumours circulating once again, we return to the conflict that was the subject of one of our very first…
- Cracks in Trump's MAGA Cult #161 · 46 minWe have not given Donald Trump his own episode since March, partly because the diagnosis rarely changes, but the approaching midterms are exposing something worth examining: the…
- The Disconnect: Flock Cameras, French Protests & Data Centres #160 · 53 minThe thread this week is a disconnect. Not between the one per cent and everyone else, but between a comfortable top fifth of society and the eighty per cent now waking up worried…
- Manufactured Consent in the Western Bubble #159 · 48 minThree topics, one mechanism, the Western Bubble. The Anthropic IPO, the Spanish housing market and NATO's war-gaming over Kaliningrad look unrelated, but each runs on a…
- A Noble Death for Democracy #158 · 49 minDario spent Sunday running a Berlin polling station, which is the closest either of us gets to democracy as a physical process rather than an argument. The count added up. What…
- Where Is the Government on AI? #157 · 1 h 0 minOver two weeks, the AI industry started warning about itself. Employees resigned with doomsday statements, and within hours Amodei, Altman and Musk agreed the technology they…
- Project Rediscovery - A guide to long-term survival for Western organisations #156 · 50 minLast week we left you on a cliffhanger. This week we launch Project Rediscovery, the first public project from Western Bubble Insights & Strategy, and the reason the August Deep…
- Scaring Ourselves Into Decline #155 · 47 minWe are back from the August break, and after a month away from current affairs we take stock of what happened while the Deep Dive series ran. The thread running through most of…
- Deep Dive S2E4: How the West Lost the End of History · 44 minThe fourth and final Deep Dive of the season arrives at the 21st century, the point where our four-part history of liberal political ideology turns from triumph to neglect…
- Deep Dive S2E3: How Liberal Democracy Won · 38 minIn the third episode of our Deep Dive series on liberal political ideology, we arrive in the 20th century: the most violent, destructive and ultimately transformative hundred…
- Deep Dive S2E2: The Century That Consolidated Liberal Democracy · 33 minIn the second episode of our Deep Dive series on liberal political ideology, we move into the 19th century, the most turbulent, violent and intellectually fertile period in the…
- Deep Dive S2E1: The Intellectual Revolution That Built the West · 40 minThis is the first episode of our second Deep Dive series, in which we explore the rise and fall of liberal political ideology in the West. Over four episodes published throughout…
- The Party Is Over, Grab What You Can #154 · 46 minThis week we look at two stories that share a single underlying logic: the people running things have stopped pretending to care about the original purpose of the institutions…
- Autopsy #16 Elon Musk vs the Economist · 13 minIn this week's Autopsy we react to an interview the Economist published with Elon Musk, conducted by Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes. We focus on the section where Musk…
- The Siege Mentality: Argentina & Israel #153 · 44 minThis week we start with the World Cup final. Spain beat Argentina, Argentina's players started fights during the game, declined to return the guard of honour as Spain lifted the…
- Autopsy #15 Travel Influencers and the UN General Assembly · 15 minIn this week's Autopsy we react to two travel influencers who responded to a UN General Assembly vote on slavery by advising their followers which countries are unsafe to travel…
- The Establishment Is Panicking #152 · 1 h 2 minThis week we look at a pattern that has been building for years and is now accelerating: the establishment panicking, and the increasingly desperate measures it is reaching for…
- Autopsy #14 The Falklands, the Final, and Empty Nationalism · 19 minIn this week's Autopsy we react to the controversy that followed the England-Argentina World Cup semi-final, when Argentine players held up a sign referencing the Falkland…
- Trump vs NATO, Chat Control, and China's BIG Missile #151 · 55 minThree topics this week, none of them reassuring. Trump threatened to cut off all trade with Spain at the NATO summit in Ankara, apparently unaware that EU trade is negotiated…
