Audio Explainers
Spoken-word analysis — listen while you commute or multitask.
Oliver Stuenkel on Lula 3.0 foreign policy
The FGV São Paulo professor on how Brazil's third Lula term differs from the first two. Broker positioning over membership-seeking, the failed 2023 Ukraine peace plan, the BRICS+ enlargement vote, and the COP30 Belém hosting. Where the diplomatic ambition exceeds the resource base, and what Itamaraty's career service makes of the political investment.
Eswar Prasad on renminbi internationalization — the structural gap
The Cornell professor and former IMF China chief on why China's growing share of global trade invoicing has not translated into reserve-currency status. The four functions of international money, the post-2022 Russia-China bilateral settlement acceleration, and why open capital markets remain the binding constraint Beijing will not deliver.
Brazil's hedge — what Lula's multi-alignment doctrine costs and earns
Itamaraty's *autonomia pela diversificação* doctrine in operation. Why Beijing and Washington both find Brazil frustrating, why that frustration is the point, and what would force the doctrine to fail.
Tanvi Madan on the Quad — read the working groups, not the communiqués
The Brookings senior fellow on what the US-India-Japan-Australia Quad actually produces. Maritime domain awareness, vaccine manufacturing, critical-technology principles, infrastructure coordination. Why Indian non-alignment is a feature, not a bug, and why reading the Quad as proto-NATO is the standard Western analytical error.