Left politics with historical weight.
Politics Theory Other treats current events as arguments about power, institutions, and political memory. Its interviews move from the immediate crisis to the deeper structure behind it, especially around war, the left, and the state.
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Politics Theory Other is a measured left politics show organized around interviews, argument, and historical framing. It does not chase the day’s event for speed alone. Instead, it treats the event as evidence of a larger political order under strain. Recent conversations dwell on war with Iran, Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, US decline, Labour’s legitimacy crisis, ICE, surveillance, and the strategic dilemmas of states and movements. The show is dense, but it remains spoken and direct. Questions are often long because they carry context, qualification, and a position at once. Guests are given room to build an answer. Then the conversation narrows toward the practical implication: what the war has exposed, what leverage remains, what the state can still do, or why a party’s authority is draining away. That rhythm gives the show its seminar-like feel without turning it into an academic enclosure. Theory appears as a tool for sorting political reality, not as decoration. A debate over Iranian hegemony becomes a discussion of coercion, realism, and Gramscian meanings of consent. A conversation about US bases becomes an argument about vulnerability, strategic usefulness, and the political cost of empire. The Interregnum episodes with Richard Seymour add a sharper, more sardonic register, especially around Labour, fascization, and imperial language. Elsewhere, the tone remains grave and controlled. The show is willing to describe violence, scandal, and institutional failure plainly, but the center of gravity is analysis rather than outrage. It is built for listeners who want political interpretation with memory. The question underneath is rarely just what happened. It is who benefits, what structure made it possible, and what follows.
Made for: For listeners who already follow international politics, left strategy, and state power closely enough to want context rather than recap. It especially suits people drawn to long-form political interviews with theory in the bloodstream.
What sets it apart: Politics Theory Other connects live crises to deeper arguments about legitimacy, resistance, and institutional decay. Its strength is the patient movement from concrete events to structural conclusions.
A podcast on radical politics, critical theory, and history. Hosted by Alex Doherty.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryotherContact: [email protected]
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Alex Doherty connects immediate political crises to the institutions, histories, and material interests that make them intelligible.
Politics Theory Other turns interviews into sustained examinations of the forces beneath a political crisis. Alex Doherty sets out the immediate stakes, then asks guests to connect events to institutions, economic interests, organizing, and history.
A ceasefire, a traffic stop, a tax break: pick the power struggle you want explained.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A brisk case that America's Gulf bases may now bring more vulnerability than operational value.
A conditional ceasefire prompts a pointed question: has Iran exposed a US strategic weakness across the Gulf? Jennifer Kavanagh argues that American bases may be liabilities when they are unavailable for certain operations, vulnerable to retaliation, or difficult to defend after…
A measured, demanding look at Iran's resilience, escalation risks, and the hard politics behind any negotiation.
Politics Theory Other looks at why Iran's state and military have held together as the US and Israeli war on Iran nears its second month. Alex Doherty's conversation with Iskandar Sadeghi-Burajedi moves from that resilience to the wider strategic risks, including the Strait of…
A historically grounded account of why Israeli intervention in Lebanon keeps producing counterproductive consequences.
Israel's forever war in Lebanon sets the latest Israel-Hezbollah escalation inside a much longer record of Israeli attacks on Lebanese territory and challenges to Lebanese sovereignty.
A grave, incisive argument about confused war aims, gradual US decline, and the political difficulty of securing an exit.
A war with no clear aims becomes a study of political power under pressure. Recorded on the fifth day of US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the conversation takes in the reported killing of more than 160 children in an airstrike on a girls' elementary school, confusion over US and…
A grave, wide-angle account of how the Mandelson scandal exposes Labour's weakening authority and Britain's deeper crisis of legitimacy.
Labour's crisis is framed as a loss of political authority, with the Mandelson appointment and Morgan McSweeney's resignation suggesting how little space Keir Starmer has left to move.
A focused, measured discussion of Labour's growth agenda, private finance, and the politics of de-risking.
Labour's bid to escape the UK's low-growth, low-productivity trap gives this episode its spine, with Will Davies setting the Starmer-Reeves project inside a wider argument about Biden-era economic policy and the left critique of de-risking.
A grounded conversation about ICE, protest, and the local networks resisting federal power.
Minneapolis gives the episode its center: a city where ICE activity, federal power, and organized resistance meet in the shadow of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson debate Canadian politics, from Alberta separatism to Ottawa's bureaucracy.
Robert Evans, Katie Stoll, and Cody Johnston build fake conspiracies and mock right-wing media.
Jonah Goldberg's literate, dry-witted arguments about politics and ideas.
Alex Doherty interviews sociologist Will Davies about his London Review of Books article on Labour's economic programme.
Host Alex Doherty interviews reporter Sarah Jaffe about the political context following the ICE killing of poet Renee Nicole Goode in Minneapolis.
Alex Doherty interviews historian Adam Tooze about the increasing prospect of war with China, Biden's regional alliances, China's climate policy significance, and its economic slowdown.
Alex Doherty interviews Hannah Proctor about her book 'Burnout', which explores the emotional and psychological experiences of political defeat, contrasting with left melancholia and examining historical cases like the miners' strike and Paris Commune.
David Wearing, author of Anglo-Arabia, argues that British-built Tornado and Typhoon jets, BAE maintenance staff and British-supplied munitions sustained the Saudi air campaign in Yemen from 2015 to 2022.
Discussion on whether US involvement in Middle East war could encourage China to invade Taiwan, with analysis of China's cautious approach and timeline.
Jennifer Kavanagh tells Alex Doherty that the new two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire looks like a strategic defeat because Washington gained little leverage, lost aircraft, and still lacks clarity on the Strait of Hormuz.
An expert critiques the argument that Iran will emerge as a regional hegemon from the conflict, highlighting empirical and theoretical flaws.
Alex Doherty and Iskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi discuss the US-Israeli war on Iran as the conflict moves into its second month after the Trump White House expected a days-long campaign.
Politics Theory Other host Alex Doherty interviews Nathaniel George, who teaches Middle East politics at SOAS and authored 'A Third World War: Revolution, Counter-Revolution, and Empire in Lebanon, 1967 to 1982,' about Israel's ongoing military campaign in Lebanon following the US-Israeli war on Iran and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
PTO's Interregnum features Alex Doherty in conversation with Richard Seymour on day five of Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran that opened on February 28 with airstrikes on a girls' elementary school in southern Iran reportedly killing more than 160 children.
["Politics Theory Other's Interregnum episode follows Labour's crisis after Morgan McSweeney resigned over Peter Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador and the fallout from Mandelson's Epstein links.", "Richard Seymour and the interviewer treat cabinet backing for Keir Starmer as tactical, tied to the Gorton and Denton by-election and the May local elections rather than genuine confidence.", "Seymour argues that Labourism has exhausted its historical form, from unions and working men's clubs to Blairism and Starmerism's grey, bureaucratic language of decency, responsibility, and security.", "The later discussion turns to Mandelson's charm, Labour Together's alleged smear operation against Gabriel Pogrand and Harry York, and the wider sense that Westminster and the lobby press are insulated from the damage now building around the government."]
Alex Doherty interviews Sarah Jaffe about the political background of protests in Minneapolis following the murder of a poet by ICE, discussing the role of the Somali community, union organizing, and the intersection of tech and surveillance in border enforcement.
Radhika Desai discusses the latest India-Pakistan violence, the revocation of Kashmir's special status, and the Modi government's repressive policies.
Alex Doherty interviews Hannah Proctor about her book 'Burnout', which explores the emotional and psychological experiences of political defeat, contrasting with left melancholia and examining historical examples.