John Heathershaw

Darwin says “unfinished” in the sense of contradictory processes which were not resolved. I’d want to emphasise legacies especially the offshore system created under English common law including some extant colonies and expanding well the time (including to Astana and Baku)!

Again, right out of the authoritarian playbook. All very familar to me from living in West Africa and Central Asia.

The killing of Gazan children, moral injury, and the church Most Western Christians expect Hamas to kill innocents but when Israel does so, many try to justify these deaths. The idea of "moral injury" helps explain IDF war crimes and Christian justifications.

In war, even the victors and their supporters who are physically unharmed can be morally injured. What else explains lack of due regard for the killing of children (including by those who claim to be humanitarians and Christians)?

open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

A glimpse of Gaza’s miserable future The territory will remain at the mercy of outsiders for years to come

Netanyahu is like the head teacher of a school which stops the kids getting food, where part of the playground is run by bullies, and whose teachers kill lots of the kids as punishment. When inspectors question the head’s decisions, he blames the bullies.

economist.com/middle-east-...

"One of the defining features of the Trump decade is the strange combination of conservative Christians’ fervent loyalty to the president and Trump’s obvious ignorance of Christianity. Playing to his base, Trump pretends to be an ardent follower of a faith he couldn’t care less about."

‘Come meet us in Dubai’: the new offshoring of grand corruption This article explores how professional enablers of grand corruption are shifting operations to permissive financial hubs like Dubai, enabling illicit…

“Come meet us in Dubai.”
An offhand remark, but one that captures a seismic shift in global corruption.
Professor's Ricardo Soares de Oliveira and John Heathershaw reveal how professional enablers are redrawing the map of illicit finance.

Read here: www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/blog/come-me...

Unfinished Empire A both controversial and comprehensive historical analysis of how the British Empire worked, from Wolfson Prize-winning author and historian John Darwin The British Empire shaped the world in countless ways: repopulating continents, carving out nations, imposing its own language, technology and values. For perhaps two centuries its expansion and final collapse were the single largest determinant of historical events, and it remains surrounded by myth, misconception and controversy today. John Darwin's provocative and richly enjoyable book shows how diverse, contradictory and in many ways chaotic the British Empire really was, controlled by interests that were often at loggerheads, and as much driven on by others' weaknesses as by its own strength.

Much of my research in the last few years has been about the entangling of two unfinished empires. Here's the book of the same title of the other one. Congratulations on your book. www.penguin.co.uk/books/130910...

The Politics and Theology of Gaza’s Famine In the modern age, malnutrition and starvation are always man-made. The famine in Gaza is a consequence of political decisions & the theological ideas of movements behind the Israeli & US governments.

The Israeli Far Right and Christian Zionists in the US, together with the governments of both countries, are the most responsible for the famine in Gaza.
open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

Apparently I said: "Donald Trump is normal". That needs to be heard in context.

Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back 3 decades Journalist Craig Unger talks Russia, Trump, and “one of the greatest intelligence operations in history.”

“The Russians simply exploited our own corrupt system. They studied America’s pay-for-play culture, found its weak spots, and very carefully manipulated it."

It's worth going back to this Vox interview with Craig Unger.

It's not about regimes, its about networks.

www.vox.com/world/2018/9...

Balancing Act: Azerbaijan’s Energy Links to Russia and the Sanctions Regime - Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu explores Azerbaijan's covert delivery of sanctioned Russian oil and the limitations of the international sanctions regime.

Gubad Ibadoghlu, still under house arrest, shows how the UK's sanctions on entities affiliated with Azerbaijan involved in the sale and transit of Russian oil exposes both the limits of the current regime and the possibilities for secodnary sanctions.

crudeaccountability.org/balancing-ac...

‘Come meet us in Dubai’: the new offshoring of grand corruption Sensitive business is moving towards more permissive jurisdictions in response to tighter regulations and greater media attention.

Laws and rules to counter kleptocracy must have greater extraterritorial reach and/or more effective multijurisdictional partnerships to meet a challenge which is becoming even more transnational in form.

With Ricardo Soares de Oliveira.

theconversation.com/come-meet-us...

‘Come meet us in Dubai’: the new offshoring of grand corruption Sensitive business is moving towards more permissive jurisdictions in response to tighter regulations and greater media attention.

Notre chercheur Ricardo Soares de Oliveira co-signe avec @jheathershaw.bsky.social une analyse percutante sur le rôle de Dubaï dans l’offshoring de la grande corruption mondiale.

👉 À lire sur @theconversation.com
theconversation.com/come-meet-us...

America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This Trump’s Qatari jet was just the beginning.

'Virtually every week, the Trump family seems to find a new way to profit from the presidency... including a Trump tower in Saudi Arabia, a Trump hotel in Oman, and a Trump golf club in Vietnam. “We’re the hottest brand in the world right now,” said Eric Trump.'

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

‘Come meet us in Dubai’: the new offshoring of grand corruption Sensitive business is moving towards more permissive jurisdictions in response to tighter regulations and greater media attention.

"Illicit finance is always transnational, so there is no need to declare defeat just because dodgy business is on the move. However, we are entering a new stage in its global dissemination and complexity" - @jheathershaw.bsky.social for @uk.theconversation.com
theconversation.com/come-meet-us...

From @csc-barrington.bsky.social wherein he discusses what "I will never allow London mansions to be the bitcoin of kleptocrats" (David Lammy) might actually mean.

blogs.sussex.ac.uk/centre-for-t...

I quite enjoyed writing this.

'MAGA is not a coherent agenda or ideology but an unstable identity movement of a minority of Americans. A “powerful” individual in such a context seeks image and status over actual control or domination.'

johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/the-fake-p...

"The misappropriation of Girard’s ideas by the American right is not just a matter of academic concern; it has significant implications for our political discourse and society."

salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/117...

What do we do with scandalous scholars?

I went to a great conference of the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence this week and wrote this post.

johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/scandalous...

📺NEW VIDEO📺

Last night, key British offshore financial centres failed to meet their own deadline for revealing who owns companies registered there.

It’s time the UK Government escalates its response & ensures places like the BVI are no longer safe havens for the world's corrupt.

Watch and read ⤵️

Liberal-International-Order question of the day.. Does the new US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act guidance which prioritises national economic interests violate article 5 of the OCED anti-bribery convention? Or have states always done this and hence the LIO was and is a simulacrum?

Trajectories of Governance Trajectories of Governance - Tracing the Entanglements of Order and Violence in Peripheral Cities of Latin America; Based on a multidisciplinary analytical framework, it explains why and how some peri...

👏
Viviana García Pinzón's "Trajectories of Governance: Tracing the Entanglements of Order and Violence in Peripheral Cities of Latin America" published in our @brisunipress.bsky.social series has won an award from the Latin American Studies Association.
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trajectories...

bp: The electricity produced at the

Solar powered oil production in the ethnically-cleansed (sorry "liberated" [according to BP]) territories of Karabakh. Nice Orwellian PR.

Western oil majors parroting the talking points of Eurasian dictators. It's all to be expected.

www.azerbaycan24.com/en/bp-the-el...

Ploughshares into swords? The UK's Strategic Defence Review promises a “defence dividend’”. But its plans for rearmament as a reinvigorated great power lack both hope and realism. What might a “Christian" SDR look like?

I wrote for my theological blog about the delusions of grandeur in the UK's strategic defence review.
johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/ploughshar...

Between Two Kingdoms Asylum seekers are necessarily between two kingdoms. In a different way, and from a Christian perspective, giving expert testimony on asylum applications feels like that too.

Some musings about being an expert witness in asylum cases a little conflict with the US Department of Homeland Security

open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...

Ditto. I’d like to make sure my research is “in sync” with Trump administration so I’m still able to visit the US, but I’m not sure whether he wants to use our book as a how-to guide for indulging kleptocrats.
@tenaprelec.bsky.social

An archive of our Exeter Central Asia (ExCAS) website is here, including our Central Asian Political Exiles database (a project which was updated between 2014 and 2020): excas2.micheldurinx.opalstacked.com

Exeter Centre for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ECEEES) | Exeter Centre for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies | University of Exeter

Yesterday, we launched the new Exeter Centre for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies. @catherineowen.bsky.social Muireann Maguire, Nelly Bekus, and others organised with excellent external speakers and a display of the wealth of Eurasia expertise at Exeter.
www.exeter.ac.uk/research/cen...

Why Evangelicals Don't See Corruption-They See Divine Confirmation. Taking gifts from foreign governments, is not bribery—it’s proof that God is rewarding his obedience and reclaiming America.

Excellent piece on "propserity gospel" and politics among American conservative evangelicals.
open.substack.com/pub/thestron...

An “Island of Strangers” or diverse communities of inclusion? Once again, a Western government misleads its voters over immigration. Political discourse has become devoid of hope on this issue and misses the practical realities of inclusion.

I was not surprised but I was angry about Starmer's "island of strangers" speech. It came not 24 hours after we hosted one of his MPs are our cafe project for refugees and new immigrants. So, I had to write about it...
open.substack.com/pub/johnheat...