Kareem Chehayeb, Contributor
Kareem Chehayeb is Beirut-based Lebanese journalist and leads investigations at The Public Source.
Sima Ghaddar, Contributor
Sima Ghaddar was a policy associate at The Century Foundation specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. Her research focuses on identity and mechanisms of social control.
Thanassis Cambanis, Senior Fellow and Director of Century International
Thanassis Cambanis is an author, journalist, and director of Century International. His work focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Arab politics, and social movements in the Middle East.
Order from Ashes Podcast: Lebanon, Neoliberalism’s Proving Ground
Lebanon has served for decades as one of the world’s leading experiments in extreme libertarianism, illustrating what happens to a society with little to no government regulation or social protection.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the weaknesses of a health system suffering from corruption and gaping inequalities between public and private hospitals. What role have neoliberal international aid demands for austerity and privatization—known as the Washington Consensus—played in setting up Lebanon’s health system for failure? And what does Lebanon’s case show about the need to reinvest in strong public goods?
On this episode of Order from Ashes, Sima Ghaddar joins Kareem Chehayeb, who in a recent commentary for The Century Foundation argued that austerity and privatization have left residents of Lebanon extremely vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Participants include:
Tags: lebanon, World, covid-19, neoliberalism