Podcasts by New Books in Political Science

Apocalyptic Politics: What Do Evangelical Voters Want? from 2023-01-15T09:00

Evangelical voters made up a significant portion of Donald Trump’s base in the 2016 presidential election. Their political agenda may not be peace or prosperity, but instead bringing us closer to t...

On John Rawl's "A Theory of Justice" from 2022-12-01T09:00

How do you create a fair society? Who deserves to rule? What rights do citizens have? How are those rights protected? What does it mean to act morally within society? These are the kinds of questio...

On "The U.S. Constitution" from 2022-11-07T09:00

The story of the Constitution of the United States began long before the American Revolutionary War. This document was influenced by centuries old English law, and the final product was the result ...

On Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract" from 2022-11-03T08:00

The 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that humans are born good, but society corrupts them. He was unimpressed with the fixation on wealth that he saw in the French society. In ...

On Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" from 2022-10-13T08:00

In 1651, the English Civil Wars were ending, and Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan. He used the book to advocate his ideal government: an absolute, monarchical sovereign. He also highlighted the pr...

On Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince" from 2022-10-12T08:00

You may know the term “Machiavellian,” but where does the word really come from? Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat who worked firsthand with Italy’s most powerful politicians. He wrote hi...

On Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism" from 2022-10-11T08:00

In 1951, following the Holocaust and Second World War, Hannah Arendt wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt’s aim was in part to document and reflect on the atrocities that had occurred. But ...

On Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" from 2022-10-03T08:00

In the 1770s, the American colonies were working up to a revolution. But while the colonists were increasingly dissatisfied with British rule, there was no general consensus on what to do about it....

On "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" from 2022-09-22T08:00

In 1948, the United Nations presented a document outlining human rights for every person in the world. This document was called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document has inspired...

On Plato's "The Republic" from 2022-09-12T08:00

Imagine you could start from scratch and create the ideal city. How would you design it? Who would be in charge? This thought experiment was explored almost 2,400 years ago in the Republic, a text ...

On Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" from 2022-08-26T08:00

Edmund Burke was a British government official who saw the French Revolution as a mob action. He wrote a book called Reflections on the Revolution in France. It was published in 1790—one year after...

On Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion" from 2022-08-10T08:00

What is the role of the press in a democracy? For nearly a century, scholars, media critics, and politicians have debated this question—in a large part thanks to Walter Lippmann. Lippmann’s 1922 bo...

Jörg Krieger, "Power and Politics in World Athletics: A Critical History" (Routledge, 2021) from 2021-12-14T09:00

Power and Politics in World Athletics: A Critical History (Routledge, 2021) by Jörg Krieger provides the first detailed history of one of the most powerful international sport organisations, the In...

Post Script: Kamala Harris as Vice President from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This is our second podcast in a new series from New Books in Political Science called POST-SCRIPT in which Susan and I invite authors back to the podcast to react to contemporary political developm...

Daniel Vukovich, "Illiberal China: The Ideological Challenge of the People's Republic of China" (Palgrave, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Illiberal China: The Ideological Challenge of the People's Republic of China (Palgrave, 2018) by Daniel Vukovich analyzes the 'intellectual political culture' of post-Tiananmen China in comparison ...

Paul Hollander, “From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez: Intellectuals and a Century of Political Hero Worship” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It’s true that Western “intellectuals” have not always been wrong about dictators fighting for a supposedly “brighter future,” usually (though not always) of the non-capitalist variety. Nonetheless...

John Hudak, “Presidential Pork” (Brookings Institute Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Hudak is the author of Presidential Pork: White House Influence over the Distribution of Federal Grants (Brookings Institute Press 2014). Hudak is a fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings I...

Andrea Benjamin, "Racial Coalition Building in Local Elections: Elite Cues and Cross-Ethnic Voting" (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What explains voting behavior in local elections? More specifically, what explains how ethnic and racial blocs vote in local elections, especially when the candidate may be of a different race or e...

James W. Pardew, "Peacemakers: American Leadership and the End of Genocide in the Balkans" (U Kentucky Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book  Peacemakers: American Leadership and the End of Genocide in the Balkans (University of Kentucky Press, 2017), Ambassador James W. Pardew describes the role of the U.S. involvement in e...

James Heinzen, “The Art of the Bribe: Corruption Under Stalin, 1943-1953” (Yale UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Soviet Union under Stalin was very repressive. You could get sent to a GULAG (if not shot) for casually telling an “anti-Soviet” joke or pilfering ubiquitous “state property.” But, as James Hei...

Brett Scott, “The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money” (Pluto Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brett Scott is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (Pluto Press, 2013). Scott is a journalist, urban deep ecologist, and Fellow at the Finance Innovatio...

Caron Gentry, "Disordered Violence: How Gender, Race and Heteronormativity Structure Terrorism" (Edinburgh UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Disordered Violence: How Gender, Race and Heteronormativity Structure Terrorism (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), Caron Gentry looks at how gender, race, and heteronormative expectations of pu...

Benjamin Meiches, "The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide" (U Minnesota Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (University of Minnesota Press, 2019),Benjamin Meiches takes a novel approach to the study of genocide by analyzing the ways in which ideas,...

B. Harrison and M. Michelson, “Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brian F. Harrison and Melissa R. Michelson‘s, Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights (Oxford University Press, 2017) is a broad interrogation of the way that public opin...

Dede Feldman, “Inside the New Mexico Senate: Boots, Suits, and Citizens” (University of New Mexico Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dede Feldman is the author of Inside the New Mexico Senate: Boots, Suits, and Citizens (University of New Mexico Press, 2014). Feldman retired from the New Mexico Senate in 2012 and is a former jou...

Post Script: A Deep Dive on China from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today’s begins a new set of podcasts from New Books in Political Science called POST-SCRIPT. Lilly Goren and I invite authors back to the podcast to react to contemporary political developments tha...

Jonathan Gienapp, "The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era" (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, 2018), Jonathan Gienapp revisits the Founding Era to retell the story of America’s ...

Matthew J. Walton, “Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterize...

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, “Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Digital Communications Technologies, or DCTs, like the Internet offer the infrastructure and means of forming a networked society. These technologies, now, are a mainstay of political campaigns on ...

David Livingstone Smith, "On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It" (Oxford UP 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The phenomenon of dehumanization is associated with such atrocities as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the Holocaust in World War II. In these and other cases, people are described in ways that imp...

Eric Blanc, "Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics" (Verso, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Eric Blanc is the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics(Verso, 2019). Blanc is a former teacher, journalist, and doctoral student in sociology at New York...

Phil Gurski, “Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Phil Gurski‘s Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) is his second recent monograph on terrorism, and another useful resource for...

Benjamin Radcliff, “The Political Economy of Happiness” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americans are very politically divided. Democrats say we need a more powerful welfare state while Republicans say we need to maintain the free market. The struggle, we are constantly informed, is o...

W. J. Perry and T. Z. Collina, "The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump" (BenBella Books, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, American nuclear policy continues to be influenced by the legacies of the Cold War. Nuclear policies remain focused on easily identifiable threats,...

Emily S. Johnson, "This Is Our Message: Women's Leadership in the New Christian Right" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over the past 50 years, the architects of the religious right have become household names: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson. They have used their massively influential platforms to build ...

John Hudak, “Marijuana: A Short History” (Brookings, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Hudak‘s book Marijuana: A Short History (Brookings Institutions Press, 2016) is an accessible and informative dive into marijuana on a number of levels and from a variety of perspectives. Huda...

Betsy Leondar-Wright, “Missing Class” (Cornell UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gender and race are visible markers of identity, regularly talked about both in the news and sociology circles. There is another marker, however, that is just as important and predictive, but much ...

Daniel P. Aldrich, "Black Wave: How Networks and Governance Shaped Japan’s 3/11 Disasters" (U Chicago Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Despite the devastation caused by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 60-foot tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, some 96% of those living and working in the most disaster-stricken region of T?hoku mad...

Bhakti Shringarpure, "Cold War Assemblages: Decolonization to Digital" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Bhakti Shringarpure has written a fascinating, multidimensional analysis of the Cold War and decolonization and the often-under-explored connections between these events. In her book, Cold War Asse...

Brandon Kendhammer, “Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy and Law in Northern Nigeria” (U. Chicago Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brandon Kendhammer takes a fresh approach to the juxtaposition of Islam and democracy in his latest book, Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy and Law in Northern Nigeria (University ...

Daniel Altschuler and Javier Corrales, “The Promise of Participation” (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Altschuler and Javier Corrales are the authors of The Promise of Participation: Experiments in Participatory Governance in Honduras and Guatemala (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014). Altschuler is a ...

Kathleen Klaus, "Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Elections, and Claim-Making" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kathleen Klaus, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco has written a terrific book, Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Elections, and Claim-Making published in 2020 by C...

Yuen Yuen Ang, "How China Escaped the Poverty Trap" (Cornell UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I spoke with Dr Yuen Yuen Ang, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She published in 2016 a great new book How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (Cornell ...

Serhat Unaldi, “Working Towards the Monarchy: The Politics of Space in Downtown Bangkok” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Working Towards the Monarchy: The Politics of Space in Downtown Bangkok (University of Hawaii Press, 2016), Serhat Unaldi offers a provocative and original interpretation of the relationship bet...

Paul-Brian McInerney, “From Social Movement to Moral Market: How the Circuit Riders Sparked an IT Revolution and Created a Technology Market” (Stanford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paul-Brian McInerney is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is the author of From Social Movement to Moral Market: How the Circuit Riders Sparked an IT Revolu...

Michael A. Olivas, "Perchance to DREAM: A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA" (NYU Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why did the DREAM Act (for the Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors) never pass Congress – even though it was popular with Republicans and Democrats? What does the political and legal...

Jeffrey Lantis, "Foreign Policy Advocacy and Entrepreneurship: How a New Generation in Congress Is Shaping U.S. Engagement with the World" (U Michigan Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With the US in the midst of on-going negotiations with Iran, North Korea, and China, how is Congress playing a part? How is the new generation of Congress advocating for and against US action? Jeff...

Anuradha Chakravarty, “Investing in Authoritarian Rule: Punishment and Patronage in Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts for Genocide Crimes,” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In my time doing this podcast, I’ve covered a number of books about transitional justice. All have been insightful and interesting. But few of them focused carefully on the trials themselves. Anur...

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton” (Crown Publishers, 2014). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes are the co-authors of authors of HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton (Crown Publishers 2014). Allen is White House bureau chief at Bloomberg; Parnes...

Saqib Iqbal Qureshi, "The Broken Contract: Making Our Democracies Accountable, Representative, and Less Wasteful" (Lioncrest, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A democracy should reflect the views of its citizens and offer a direct connection between government and those it serves. So why, more than ever, does it seem as if our government exists in its ow...

Susanna P. Campbell, "Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and Performance in International Peacebuilding" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why do international peacebuilding organizations sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, even within the same country? Bridging the gaps between the peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and global governance...

Edward J. Balleisen, “Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This week’s podcast is a fraud or at least about a fraud. Edward J. Balleisen has written Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff (Princeton University Press, 2017). Balleisen is associate...

Juan Pablo Scarfi, "The Hidden History of International Law in The Americas: Empires and Legal Networks" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book The Hidden History of International Law in The Americas: Empires and Legal Networks (Oxford University Press, 2017), Juan Pablo Scarfi shows the central role of a coterie of elite Latin...

Jonathan D. T. Ward, "China's Vision of Victory" (Atlas Publishing, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Someday we may say that we never saw it coming. After seventy-five years of peace in the Pacific, a new challenger to American power has emerged, on a scale not seen since the Soviet Union at its h...

Robert Jervis, “How Statesmen Think: The Psychology of International Politics” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Jervis is the author of How Statesmen Think: The Psychology of International Politics (Princeton University Press, 2017). Jervis is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics...

Nicholas Carnes, “White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making” (University of Chicago Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Nicholas Carnes is the author of White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Carnes is an assistant professor of public policy i...

Lindsay M. Chervinsky, "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution" (Harvard UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her new book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution (Harvard University Press, 2020), historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky traces the origins of the President’s c...

Jeremy F. Walton, "Muslim Civil Society and the Politics of Religious Freedom in Turkey" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The social history of Turkey across the twentieth century has produced a tension between state governance and religion. This history informs and shapes modern subjects as they try to live out an au...

Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams, “Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America” (Sourcebooks, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America (Sourcebooks, 2015), authors Stephen F. Knott and Tony Williams explore the relationship between George Washington and Alexander Hamilto...

Amity Shlaes, "Great Society: A New History" (Harper, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

National concern about income inequalities. Race relations at a boiling point. Riots in the streets. Cries on the left for massive allocations of federal money for housing and poverty reduction pro...

Morgan Marietta, "One Nation, Two Realities: Dueling Facts in American Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

American society is deeply divided at this moment—not just on values and opinions but on basic perceptions of reality. In their latest book, One Nation, Two Realities: Dueling Facts in American Dem...

Veronica Herrera, “Water and Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Urban Mexico” (U. Michigan Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Veronica Herrera has written Water & Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Urban Mexico (University of Michigan Press, 2017). Herrera is assistant professor of political science at the University of ...

R. K. Jefferson and H. B. Johnson, "Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court (NYU Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Before Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court in 1981, nine highly qualified women were on the shortlist. What do the stories of these women tell us about the judiciary? G...

Hye-Kyung Lee, "Cultural Policy in South Korea: Making a New Patron State" (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why does Korean cultural policy matter? In Cultural Policy in South Korea: Making a New Patron State (Routledge, 2018), Hye-Kyung Lee, a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries at Kings...

Anastasia Piliavsky, ed., “Patronage as Politics in South Asia” (?Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Does patronage always imply a corruption of democratic political processes? Across sixteen essays by historians, political scientists and anthropologists Patronage as Politics in South Asia (Cambri...

Sarah Anzia, “Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups” (University of Chicago Press 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah Anzia is the author of Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Anzia is assistant professor of public policy at the Goldman Sch...

Shahla Haeri, "The Unforgettable Queens of Islam: Succession, Authority and Gender" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Unforgettable Queens of Islam: Succession, Authority and Gender (Cambridge University Press, 2020) by Shahla Haeri (Associate Professor of Anthropology at Boston University) is a captivating bo...

Anthony J. Badger, "Albert Gore, Sr.: A Political Life" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1956 Albert Gore, Sr. received national attention as one of only three senators from the states of the former Confederacy who refused to sign the infamous “Southern Manifesto” opposing the racia...

Ryan Muldoon, “Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World: Beyond Tolerance” (Routledge, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The idea that a political order derives its authority, legitimacy, and justification from some kind of initial agreement or contract, whether hypothetical or tacit, has been a mainstay of political...

Gilbert Mireles, “Continuing La Causa: Organizing Labor in California’s Strawberry Fields” (Lynne Rienner, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gilbert Mireles is the author of Continuing La Causa: Organizing Labor in California’s Strawberry Fields (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013). He is associate professor of sociology at Whitman College....

John B. Holbein, "Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Action" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the United States, each election cycle reminds us that younger voters vote at much lower rates than their older counterparts. This discrepancy is often chalked up to apathy or lack of interest i...

Jennifer Hubbert, "China in the World: An Anthropology of Confucius Institutes, Soft Power, and Globalization" (U Hawaii Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In recent years, Confucius Institutes—cultural and language programs funded by the Chinese government—have garnered attention in the United States due to a debate over whether they threaten free sp...

Kathleen Dolan, “When Does Gender Matter? Women Candidates and Gender Stereotypes in American Elections” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Does sex play a determinative role in political contests? Recognising the dual political realities of voters holding gender stereotypes and female candidates achieving electoral success, Kathleen D...

Karma Chavez, “Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities” (Illinois University Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Karma Chavez is the author of Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities (Illinois University Press, 2013). Dr. Chavez is assistant professor of Communication Arts an...

Sigurd Neubauer, "The Gulf Region and Israel: Old Struggles, New Alliances" (Kodesh Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gulf scholar Sigurd Neubauer’s?The Gulf Region and Israel: Old Struggles, New Alliances?makes a significant contribution to our understanding of what drives shifting alliances in the Middle East, a...

David Karol, "Red, Green, and Blue: The Partisan Divide on Environmental Issues" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David Karol’s new book, Red, Green, and Blue: The Partisan Divide on Environmental Issues (Cambridge University Press, 2019), examines the history of environmental policy within American political ...

Harris Beider, “White Working-Class Voices: Multiculturalism, Community-Building, and Change” (Policy Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Harris Beider is the author of White Working-Class Voices: Multiculturalism, Community-Building, and Change (Policy Press, 2015). Beider is chair in Community Cohesion at the Center for Trust, Peac...

Erika G. King, “Obama, the Media, and Framing the U.S. Exit from Iraq and Afghanistan” (Ashgate, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Erika G. King learned a lot during research for her book, Obama, the Media, and Framing the U.S. Exit from Iraq and Afghanistan (Ashgate, 2014), but one item surprised her a bit more than most. “O...

Thomas J. Donahue-Ochoa, "Unfreedom for All: How the World's Injustices Harm You" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should we understand and combat injustice? Is it only the responsibility of those who suffer the consequences or perpetrate the harm? When it comes to addressing injustice, for many the first s...

David Milne, "Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are countless ways to study the history of U.S. foreign policy. David Milne, however, makes the case that it is “often best understood” as “intellectual history.” In his innovative book, Worl...

Anna Law, “The Immigration Battle in American Courts” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With public debate about immigration law and policy at a peak, Anna Law is on the podcast this week to discuss her book The Immigration Battle in American Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2014) ...

Will Swift, “Pat and Dick: The Nixons, an Intimate Portrait of a Marriage” (Threshold Editions, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In America, biographies of Presidents and First Ladies are a staple of the genre, but the relationship that exists between the two receives surprisingly less exploration, as though the biographies ...

Kevin Escudero, "Organizing While Undocumented: Immigrant Youth’s Political Activism Under the Law" (NYU Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Undocumented youth activists are at the forefront of the present-day immigrant rights movement. This is especially true surrounding the activism of the recent SCOTUS decision on DACA issued on June...

Rachel Augustine Potter, "Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Rule-making may rarely make headlines, but the significance of this largely hidden process cannot be underestimated. Rachel Augustine Potter makes the case in Bending the Rules: Procedural Politick...

Carol Hardy-Fanta and Dianne Pinderhughes, “Contested Transformation: Race, Gender, and Political Leadership in 21st Century America” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This week on the podcast, I speak with Carol Hardy-Fanta and Dianne Pinderhughes, the co-authors (along with Pei-te Lien and Christine Marie Sierra) of Contested Transformation: Race, Gender, and P...

Daniel Lewis, “Direct Democracy and Minority Rights: A Critical Assessment of the Tyranny of the Majority in the American States” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Lewis is the author of Direct Democracy and Minority Rights: A Critical Assessment of the Tyranny of the Majority in the American States (Routledge, 2013). Lewis is an assistant professor of...

Andreas Fulda, "The Struggle for Democracy in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The key question in The Struggle for Democracy in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong: Sharp Power and its Discontents (Routledge, 2020), is to what extent political activists in these three domi...

Ben Merriman, "Conservative Innovators: How States Are Challenging Federal Power" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Expansion of federal power has typically come with the consent of states, often eager to receive the funding tied to new policy priorities. Not so any more, as some states have famously rejected fu...

Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Terry Nichols Clark, “The Third Sector: Community Organizations, NGOs, and Nonprofits” (U. Illinois Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Terry Nichols Clark are the authors of The Third Sector: Community Organizations, NGOs, and Nonprofits (University of Illinois Press, 2016). Kallman is a postdoctoral r...

John Hibbing et al., “Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Hibbing, Kevin Smith, and John Alford are the authors of Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences (Routledge, 2013). Hibbing is professor of political sci...

Luke Messac, "No More to Spend: Neglect and the Construction of Scarcity in Malawi's History of Health Care" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dismal spending on government health services is often considered a necessary consequence of a low per-capita GDP, but are poor patients in poor countries really fated to be denied the fruits of mo...

A. Nilsen, K. Nielsen, A. Vaidya, "Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations" (Pluto Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

More than 70 years after its founding, with Narendra Modi's authoritarian Hindu nationalists in government, is the dream of Indian democracy still alive and well? Indian Democracy: Origins, Traject...

K. Sabeel Rahman, “Democracy Against Domination” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sabeel Rahman is the author of Democracy Against Domination (Oxford University Press, 2016). Rahman is assistant professor of law at Brooklyn Law School. Combining perspectives from legal studies, ...

John Ahlquist and Margaret Levi, “In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism” (Princeton UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Ahlquist and Margaret Levi are the authors of In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism (Princeton University Press, 2013). Ahlquist is associate professor of political scie...

Brian F. Harrison, "A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The United States takes pride in its democratic model and the idea that citizens deliberate in a process to form political opinions. However, in recent years, division and partisanship have increas...

Joseph C. Sternberg, "The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future" (PublicAffairs, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joseph C. Sternberg's book The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future (PublicAffairs, 2019) is an analysis of the economic condition of the Millennial genera...

Matt Grossman and David A. Hopkins, “Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins are the authors of Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (Oxford University Press, 2016). Grossmann is director of the Instit...

Elaine Kamarck, “How Change Happens–or Doesn’t: The Politics of US Public Policy” (Lynne Rienner 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Elaine Kamarck is the author of How Change Happens–or Doesn’t: The Politics of US Public Policy (Lynne Rienner, 2013). Kamarck is a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard University Kennedy Schoo...

Kregg Hetherington, "The Government of Beans: Regulating Life in the Age of Monocrops" (Duke UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

By the time Bolivian President Evo Morales was deposed in December 2019, it had become increasingly clear that Latin America’s Pink Tide – the wave of left-leaning, anti-poverty governments which t...

Daniel HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes, "Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity" (U Minnesota Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dan HoSang and Joe Lowndes’ new book,Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) documents the changing politics of race ...

Dave Karpf, “Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For the start of 2017, Dave Karpf is back on the podcast with his new book, Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy (Oxford University Press, 2016). Karpf is associate p...

John Sides and Lynn Vavreck, “The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election” (Princeton UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of 2013’s most important new books in political science was The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election (Princeton UP 2013). I had the chance to interview one of the co-auth...

Matto Mildenberger, "Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics" (MIT Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why do some countries pass legislation regulating carbon or protecting the environment while others do not? In his new book Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics (MIT Pre...

Jennifer Dixon, "Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan" (Cornell UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jennifer Dixon’s Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan (Cornell University Press, 2018), investigates the Japanese and Turkish states’ narratives of their “dark pasts,” the Nan...

“Best New Books in Political Science 2016: International Politics Edition” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Last week featured a year-end-round up of books in American politics. This week I looked back to the past year on the podcast in other subfields. I start with an interview I enjoyed with Prerna Sin...

Ravi K. Perry, “Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics” (University of Nebraska Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Do black mayors face a different governing challenge than other mayors? Ravi K. Perry explores this question in his Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics (University ...

Jennifer L. Holland, "Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement" (U California Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sandie Holguín speaks with?Jennifer L. Holland about her book, Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement (University of California Press, 2020). In addition to her book, Dr. Holland...

Matt Guardino, "Framing Inequality: News Media, Public Opinion, and the Neoliberal Turn in US Public Policy" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Neoliberal policies have been a primary feature of American political economy for decades. In Framing Inequality: News Media, Public Opinion, and the Neoliberal Turn in US Public Policy (Oxford Uni...

“Best New Books in Political Science 2016: American Politics Edition” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We are nearing the end of the year and have for you a best-of-2016 podcast featuring an array of American politics books. Some of these books were featured on the podcast this year, but most are ju...

Joseph Carens, “The Ethics of Immigration” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is commonly assumed that states have a right to broad discretionary control over immigration, and that they may decide almost in any way they choose, who may stay within the territory and who mu...

Melissa K. Merry, "Warped Narratives: Distortion in the Framing of Gun Policy" (U Michigan Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If gun violence kills so many Americans, why don’t we see more effective solutions? How much does the way we frame an issue impact how we feel about it? How often are hot button issues deeply polar...

Abigail De Kosnik and Keith P. Feldman, "#Identity: Hashtagging Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation" (U Michigan Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the new book #Identity: Hashtagging Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation (University of Michigan Press, 2019), Abigail De Kosnik and Keith Feldman bring together a broad array of chapters that di...

Marc Sageman, “Misunderstanding Terrorism” (U. Pennsylvania Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Misunderstanding Terrorism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) Marc Sageman provides an important reassessment of the global neojihadi threat to the West. He argues that inaccurate evaluati...

Kristin A. Goss, “The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women’s Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice” (University of Michigan Press 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kristin A. Goss is author of The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women’s Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice (University of Michigan Press 2013). She is associate professor of public...

Nancy Beck Young, "Two Suns of the Southwest" (U Kansas Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does the 1964 presidential election have to teach us about party dynamics, civil rights and polarization? While many scholars have treated the dramatic candidates and characters such as Lyndon...

Demetra Kasimis, "The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Demetra Kasimis’s new book, The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2018) interrogates the role and unstable place of the metics (metoikoi) in Athe...

Robert Lacey, “Pragmatic Conservatism: Edmund Burke and His American Heirs” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With Republicans in control of Washington, many suspect that conservatism is on the ascent. Others are wondering what conservatism even means in 2016. In which version of conservatism does Presiden...

Joshua Mitchell, “Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age” (University of Chicago Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joshua Mitchell is the author of Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age (University of Chicago Press 2013). Mitchell is professor of political science in the Department of Government a...

Peniel E. Joseph, "The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr." (Basic, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do the political afterlives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to shape American democracy? How does a common myth of opposition distort our understanding of civil rights? In his...

Norman Eisen, "The Last Palace: Europe's Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House" (Crown, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As we’ve previously discussed, there are a lot of books about democracy filling book store and library shelves right now. Norman Eisen could have written a book in the vein of Daniel Ziblatt and St...

Regis Darques, “Mapping Versatile Boundaries: Understanding the Balkans” (Springer, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Regis Darques‘ Mapping Versatile Boundaries: Understanding the Balkans (Springer, 2016) offers the unique mapping perspectives on the Balkan region. By exploring a range of topics such as borderlan...

Christina Greer, “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christina Greer is the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press, 2013). Greer is assistant professor of political science at Fordha...

Richard Gergel, "Unexampled Courage" (Sarah Crichton Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring (Sarah Crichton Books, 2019), District Judge Richard...

Christopher Childers, "The Webster-Hayne Debate: Defining Nationhood in the Early American Republic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

No, not the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Perhaps even more important than that Illinois contest of 1858 was the Webster-Hayne debate of 1830. Confused? Drawing a blank? Not really your fault. Would you...

Sarah Jaffe, “Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt” (Nation Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah Jaffe has written Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt (Nation Books, 2016). Jaffe is a Nation Institute fellow and an independent journalist. Over the last few years, several authors on th...

Natalie Masuoka and Jane Junn, “The Politics of Belonging: Race, Public Opinion, and Immigration” (University of Chicago Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On the podcast over the last few months, we’ve heard from Phil Krestedemas, Ron Schmidt, Shannon Gleeson about various aspects of immigration and immigrants in the US. Adding to this impressive lis...

J-B. Tchouta Mougoué, "Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon" (U Michigan Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon (University of Michigan Press, 2019) illuminates how issues of ideal womanhood shaped the Anglophone Cameroonian nationalist moveme...

Christopher J. Galdieri, "Stranger in a Strange State: The Politics of Carpetbagging from Robert Kennedy to Scott Brown" (SUNY Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Chris Galdieri has written an engaging analysis of carpetbagging in American politics. Stranger in a Strange State: The Politics of Carpetbagging from Robert Kennedy to Scott Brown (SUNY Press, 201...

Heath Brown, “Immigrants and Electoral Politics: Nonprofit Organizing in a Time of Demographic Change” (Cornell UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why do nonprofits representing immigrants participate (or choose not to participate) in electoral politics, and what forms does their participation take? In his new book, Immigrants and Electoral P...

Yuval Levin, “The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left” (Basic Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you went to college in the United States and took a Western Civ class, you’ve probably read at least a bit of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and Thomas Paine’s Rig...

Kara Moskowitz, "Seeing Like A Citizen" (Ohio UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kara Moskowitz, Assistant Professor of African History as the University of Missouri-St. Louis. has written a terrific book, Seeing Like A Citizen: Decolonization, Development and the Making of Ken...

James Miller, "Can Democracy Work?: A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World" (FSG, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea from Ancient Athens to Our World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), James Miller encapsulates 2500 years of democracy history into ...

Corey D. Fields, “Black Elephants in the Room: The Unexpected Politics of African American Republicans” (U. of California Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The 2016 election cycle will be remembered as one for the history books. Many people are left asking questions as to what happened to lead to such an expected outcome, while still others are left w...

Michael Huemer, “The Problem of Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The philosopher Robert Nozick once claimed that the most basic question of Political Philosophy is “Why not Anarchy?” Political philosophers pose this question often with the intent of demonstratin...

Gina Anne Tam, "Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The question of how a state decides what its official language is going to be, or indeed whether it even needs one, is never simple, and this may be particularly true of China which covers a contin...

Mark D. White, "Batman and Ethics" (Wiley Blackwell, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mark D. White's new book Batman and Ethics (Wiley Blackwell, 2019) focuses on the comic book character Batman, particularly from the early 1970s through 2011, exploring Batman’s motivations, his mi...

Leon Wildes, “John Lennon vs The U.S.A.: The Inside Story of the Most Bitterly Contested and Influential Deportation Case in United States History” (Ankerwycke, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Leon Wildes is the author of John Lennon vs The U.S.A.: The Inside Story of the Most Bitterly Contested and Influential Deportation Case in United States History (Ankerwycke 2016). Wildes is an imm...

Jeffrey Church, “Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G.W.F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche” (Penn State Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jeffrey Church is the author of Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G.W.F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche (Penn State Press 2012). The book won the Best First Book ...

Nicole Myers Turner, "Soul Liberty: The Evolution of Black Religious Politics in Postemancipation Virginia" (UNC Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her nuanced case study of postemanciaption Virginia, Nicole Myers Turner, (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University) challenges assumptions regarding the intersection between ...

Jeremy Black, "War and its Causes" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jeremy Black, professor of history at Exeter, is well-known as one of the most prolific of publishing historians. His latest book, War and its Causes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), returns to a subj...

Patrick Jory, “Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man” (SUNY Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man (SUNY Press, 2016; in paperback from 2017), Patrick Jory offers a compelling reinterpretation of religious te...

Vincent Geoghegan, “Socialism and Religion: Roads to Common Wealth” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“Christianity and socialism go together like fire and water,” remarked August Bebel, Germany’s leading socialist, in 1874. The anticlerical violence of revolutions in Mexico, Russia, and Spain in t...

David Shimer, "Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference" (Knopf, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The "guard is tired." With that simple phrase, the newly installed Bolshevik regime in Russia dismissed the duly elected Constituent Assembly in January 1918. And, one might say, so started Russia'...

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, "How Democracies Die" (Crown, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Ziblatt has done a lot of interviews since the release of How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018) the bestselling book he co-wrote with Steven Levitsky. But we asked him a question he’d never gott...

Carrie Booth Walling, “All Necessary Measures: The United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention” (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why does the UN intervene in some cases of mass violence and not others? Why and how have public attitudes toward humanitarian intervention changed over the past decades? And how do the stories we ...

William G. Howell et al., “The Wartime President” (University of Chicago Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

William G. Howell, Saul P. Jackman, and Jon C. Rogowski are the authors of The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat (University of Chicago Press, 2013). H...

S. Moskalenko and C. McCauley, "Radicalization to Terrorism: What Everyone Needs to Know" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Terrorism and radicalization came to the forefront of news and politics in the US after the unforgettable attacks of September 11th, 2001. When George W. Bush famously asked "Why do they hate us?,"...

Gwendoline M. Alphonso, "Polarized Families, Polarized Parties: Contesting Values and Economics in American Politics" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gwendoline M. Alphonso's new book Polarized Families, Polarized Parties: Contesting Values and Economics in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) demonstrates how regional idea...

Tevi Troy, “Shall We Wake the President?: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office” (Lyons Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What happens during a presidential transition should a disaster occur? Who is in charge of addressing the 3am phone call, the outgoing or incoming administration? Tevi Troy is the author of Shall W...

Melissa Aronczyk, “Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity, Melissa Aronczyk locates the rise of nation branding as a response to the perceived need to sculpt national identity in the face of...

Peter J. Boettke, "Public Governance and the Classical-Liberal Perspective" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I spoke with Professor Peter J. Boettke, co-author of Public Governance and the Classical-Liberal Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2019) with Paul Dragos Aligica and Vlad Tarko. Dr Boett...

F. Grillo and R. Nanetti, "Democracy and Growth in the 21st Century: The Diverging Cases of China and Italy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I spoke with Francesco Grillo (co-authored with Raffaella Nanetti) about his latest book, Democracy and Growth in the 21st Century: The Diverging Cases of China and Italy (Palgrave Macmillan,...

Christopher Faricy, “Welfare for the Wealthy: Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christopher Faricy makes a return visit to New Books Network for Part II of a conversation about Welfare for the Wealthy: Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States (Cambridge Un...

James E. Fleming and Linda C. McClain, “Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues” (Harvard UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many have argued in recent years that the U.S. constitutional system exalts individual rights over responsibilities, virtues, and the common good. Answering the charges against liberal theories of ...

Nicole Maurantonio, "Confederate Exceptionalism: Civil War Myth and Memory in the Twenty-First Century" (UP of Kansas, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In a time of contentious debate over Confederate monuments, Nicole Maurantonio (Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communication studies and American Studies at the University of Richmond) provide...

Matthew Green, "Legislative Hardball: The House Freedom Caucus and the Power of Threat-Making in Congress" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“You think I am crazy, and I know you are not” is what future-White House Chief of Staff and then-House Freedom Caucus leader Congressman Mick Mulvaney said to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The t...

J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht, “Counting Women’s Ballots: Female Voters from Suffrage through the New Deal” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On the eve of the 2016 election, it is worth reflecting on the history of women’s voting. Up to this weighty task is a new book by J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht. They are the authors of C...

Glenn Feldman, “The Irony of the Solid South: Democrats, Republicans, and Race, 1865-1944” (University of Alabama Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Glenn Feldman is the author of The Irony of the Solid South: Democrats, Republicans, and Race, 1865-1944 (Alabama UP 2013). He is professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and...

Co-Authored: Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When you ask people about academic collaborations, Piven and Cloward is almost always the first one they mention. In this episode of the Co-Authored podcast, we look at the four-decade collaboratio...

J. Dyck and E. Lascher, "Initiatives without Engagement: A Realistic Appraisal of Direct Democracy’s Secondary Effects" (U Michigan Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ballot initiatives offer voters the chance to directly determine the outcome of state policy change. Do Americans who vote on initiatives grow in political efficacy and participate more in the futu...

A. John Simmons, “Boundaries of Authority” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens...

Tom Sorell, “Emergencies and Politics: A Sober Hobbesian Approach” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Emergencies and Politics: A Sober Hobbesian Approach (Cambridge UP, 2013), Tom Sorell argues that emergencies can justify types of action that would normally be regarded as wrong. Beginning with...

Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, "Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

College courses in Ethics tend to focus on theories of the moral rightness or wrongness of actions. This emphasis sometimes obscures the fact that morality is a social project: part of what makes a...

Peter B. Josephson and R. Ward Holder, "Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice: Christian Realism and Democracy in America in the Twenty-First Century" (Lexington Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Peter Josephson and Ward Holder collaborated on their second book on theologian and political theorist Reinhold Niebuhr in producing this new book, specifically focusing on the questions of “why Ni...

James D. Boys, “Hillary Rising: The Politics, Persona, and Policies of a New American Dynasty” (Biteback Publishing, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

James D. Boys is the author of Hillary Rising: The Politics, Persona, and Policies of a New American Dynasty (Biteback Publishing, 2016). Boys is an associate professor of international political s...

Isaac Martin, “Rich People’s Movement: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Isaac Martin is the author of Rich People’s Movement: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent (Oxford UP 2013). He is professor of sociology at University of California, San Diego. Martin’s ...

Katherine Stewart, "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism" (Bloomsbury, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, The...

Aram Gousouzian, "The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America" (UNC Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The endlessly fascinating 1968 presidential race transformed American politics in ways that are still being felt. Aram Goudsouzian explores the characters who shaped that race in The Men and the Mo...

Matthew Dallek, “Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matthew Dallek is the author of Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security (Oxford University Press, 2016). Dallek is associate professor of political man...

David Bleich, “The Materiality of Language: Gender, Politics and the University” (Indiana UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David Bleich‘s book The Materiality of Language: Gender, Politics and the University (Indiana University Press, 2013) is described as a wide-ranging critique of academic practice, which is almost a...

Archie Brown, "The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What brought about an end to the Cold War has long been a subject of speculation and mythology. One prominent argument is that the United States simply bankrupted the Soviet Union, outspending the ...

Henry Kissinger and Winston Lord, "Kissinger on Kissinger: Reflections on Diplomacy, Grand Strategy, and Leadership" (All Points Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In a series of riveting and in depth interviews, America's senior statesman, former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, discusses the challenges of directing foreign policy during times of great g...

Matthew MacWilliams, “The Rise of Trump: America’s Authoritarian Spring” (Amherst College Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

NB: Because Amherst College Press is open-access, this book is available free for download here. Just when I thought I had a pretty good handle on the ways and means of American politics, Donald T...

Philip Mirowski, “Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown” (Verso, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Philip Mirowski is author of Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown (Verso Books 2013). Mirowski is the Carl Koch Chair of Economics and the Histo...

Kennan Ferguson, "Cookbooks Politics" (U Penn Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many of us have stacks of cookbooks on our shelves, which we look through for ideas and inspiration, or to transport us to distant places with different foods, smells, experiences, and sometimes me...

E. M. Levintova and A. K. Staudinger, "Gender in the Political Science Classroom" (Indiana UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gender in the Political Science Classroom (Indiana University Press, 2018) is part of a series at Indiana University Press on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL), and there is much with...

James Kloppenberg, “Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

James Kloppenberg is the Charles Warren Professor of American history at Harvard University. Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford University Press, ...

Helene Landemore, “Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many” (Princeton UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We’re all familiar with the thought that democracy is merely the rule of the unwise mob. In the hands of Plato and a long line of philosophers since him, this thought has been developed into a form...

Kevin W. Fogg, "Indonesia’s Islamic Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As Indonesia nears the 75th anniversary of its proclamation of independence this year, the socio-political debates surrounding her birth as a nation-state take on contemporary salience. In Indonesi...

Lindsey N. Kingston, "Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship, and Rights" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lindsey N. Kingston’s new book, Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship, and Rights (Oxford University Press, 2019) interrogates the idea of citizenship itself, what it means, how it works, how it is ...

Caroline Winterer, “American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason” (Yale UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Caroline Winterer is the Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016) g...

Benedetta Berti, “Armed Political Organizations: From Conflict to Integration” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Benedetta Berti is the author of Armed Political Organizations: from Conflict to Integration (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Berti is a research fellow at the Institute for National Securit...

Theodor Adorno, "The Authoritarian Personality" (Verso, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

70 years ago, the philosopher Theodore Adorno and a team of scholars released a massive book titled The Authoritarian Personality (Verso, 2019), which attempted to map the psychological and emotion...

Gregory V. Raymond, "Thai Military Power: A Culture of Strategic Accommodation" (NIAS Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Thailand is one of the world’s last remaining military dictatorships, and the last in Asia. While we are familiar with the Thai military’s frequent interventions in Thai politics, we know rather le...

Patricia Strach, “Hiding Politics in Plain Sight: Cause Marketing, Corporate Influence, and Breast Cancer Policymaking” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we hear from Patricia Strach, the author of Hiding Politics in Plain Sight: Cause Marketing, Corporate Influence, and Breast Cancer Policymaking (Oxford Universit...

Eric Waltenburg and Stephen K. Medvic, “Politics, Groups, and Identities” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For this podcast, I usually interview book authors. This week, I am trying something a little different. I focus on a new political science journal and one of their upcoming book review articles. O...

Pavlina Tcherneva, "The Case for a Job Guarantee" (Polity, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating ...

Ernest McGowen III, "African Americans in White Suburbia: Social Networks and Political Behavior" (UP of Kansas 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Relative wealth has given suburban African Americans employment opportunities and political resources--but not necessarily neighbors, coworkers, or elected officials who share their concerns. How d...

Lucas Graves, “Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In a fragmented media world where anyone can speak, professional journalists are no longer the “gatekeepers” who decide what the public will see and hear. Instead, citizens are barraged with claims...

Stella M. Rouse, “Latinos in the Legislative Process: Interests and Influence” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stella M. Rouse is the author of Latinos in the Legislative Process: Interests and Influence (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Rouse is assistant professor of political science at the University ...

R. P. Saldin and S. M. Teles, "Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Should we understand the conservative elites of #Never Trump as homogeneous and united? Failed renegades? Moral guardians of republicanism and values? In their new book Never Trump: The Revolt of t...

Erin M. Kempker, "Big Sister: Feminism, Conservatism and Conspiracy in the Heartland" (U Illinois, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Erin M. Kempker is an associate professor of history at Mississippi University for Women and the author of Big Sister: Feminism, Conservatism and Conspiracy in the Heartland (University of Illinois...

Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore, “Fast Policy: Experimental Statecraft at the Thresholds of Neoliberalism” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do new policies move from one city or country to another, and is there something distinct about how those transfers work in our perpetually accelerating and ever-more interconnected world? Join...

Robert Horwitz, “America’s Right: Anti-Establishment Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party” (Polity, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Horwitz is the author of America’s Right: Anti-Establishment Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party (Polity, 2013). Horwitz is professor in the Department of Communication at the Unive...

Regina M. Paulose, "People’s Tribunals, Human Rights and the Law" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

People’s Tribunals, Human Rights and the Law (Routledge, 2020) gives a vital introduction to an essential but overlooked topic; the rise of People’s Tribunals, their role in truth and justice, and ...

Jessica A. J. Rich, "State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Democratic Brazil" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jessica Rich’s new book, State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Democratic Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is a fascinating and important examination of civil-state...

Frances Lee, “Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign” (U. of Chicago Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Frances Lee is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Lee is professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the Unive...

Philip Kretsedemas, “The Immigration Crucible: Transforming Race, Nation, and the Limits of the Law” (Columbia UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Philip Kretsedemas is the author of The Immigration Crucible: Transforming Race, Nation, and the Limits of the Law (Columbia UP 2012). He is associate professor of sociology at the University of Ma...

Gerarldo Cadava, "The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump" (Ecco, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the lead-up to every election cycle, pundits predict that Latino Americans will overwhelmingly vote in favor of the Democratic candidate. And it’s true—Latino voters do tilt Democratic. Hillary ...

Jonathan Marks, "The Perils of Partnership: Industry Influence, Institutional Integrity, and Public Health" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is an article of faith in many circles that the most effective and efficient way to solve a broad range of local and national problems is through public-private partnerships. What’s not to like?...

Daniel Amsterdam, “Roaring Metropolis: Businessmen’s Campaign for a Civic Welfare State” (Penn Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On the podcast this week is Daniel Amsterdam, author of Roaring Metropolis: Businessmen’s Campaign for a Civic Welfare State (Penn Press, 2016). He is assistant professor in the School of History a...

Guido Steinberg, “German Jihad: On the Internationalisation of Islamist Terrorism” (Columbia UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I have read quite a few books on terrorism but always from an English language perspective. This has meant that I was missing the alternative stories from other nations. Guido Steinberg has done me...

Ayesha Siddiqi, "In the Wake of Disaster: Islamists, the State and a Social Contract in Pakistan" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over the last couple of decades, a number of books written both by the academics and journalists  have appeared on many dysfunctions of the Pakistani state, a few of them even predicting why and ho...

Abraham A. Singer, "The Form of the Firm: A Normative Political Theory of the Corporation" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Form of the Firm: A Normative Political Theory of the Corporation (Oxford University Press, 2018), Abraham Singer essentially marries together two disciplinary schools of thought and approac...

Monika McDermott, “Masculinity, Femininity, and American Political Behavior” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With the 2016 presidential election in full swing and rhetoric surrounding each candidate becoming more polarized, how does gender impact the way that people behave politically? Monika McDermott in...

Michael Lind, “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States” (Harper, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over the last several podcasts, authors (Stedman Jones, Buchman, and Tienken) have repeatedly evoked neoliberalism. A new book helps to place this term and its meaning in American political history...

Steven J. L. Taylor, "Exiles, Entrepreneurs, and Educators: African Americans in Ghana" (SUNY Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

African Americans have a long history of emigration. In Exiles, Entrepreneurs, and Educators: African Americans in Ghana, Steven J. L. Taylor explores the second wave of African American exiles or ...

Eric T. Kasper and Quentin D. Vieregge, "The United States Constitution in Film: Part of Our National Culture" (Lexington Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The U.S. Constitution is often depicted in popular films, teaching lessons about what this founding document means and what it requires. The United States Constitution in Film: Part of Our National...

James E. Campbell, “Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

James E. Campbell has written Polarized: Making Sense of a Divided America (PrincetonUniversity Press, 2016). Campbell is UB Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Buffal...

Michael Innis-Jimenez, “Steel Bario: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915-1940” (NYU Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael Innis-Jimenez is the author of Steel Bario: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915-1940 (New York University Press, 2013). Innis-Jimenez is assistant professor in the Department...

E. Bruce Geelhoed, "Diplomacy Shot Down: The U-2 Crisis and Eisenhower's Aborted Mission to Moscow, 1959–1960" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The history of the Cold War is littered with what-ifs, and in?Diplomacy Shot Down: The U-2 Crisis and Eisenhower's Aborted Mission to Moscow, 1959–1960 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020), Profess...

Michael J. Mazarr, "Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy" (Public Affairs, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael J. Mazarr has written a history of the policy planning process leading up to the Iraq War in 2003.  Mazarr has conducted over one hundred interviews with senior policy officials from the Ge...

James Waller, “Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today is the third of our occasional series on the question of how to respond to mass atrocities. Earlier this summer I talked with Scott Straus and Bridget Conley-Zilkic. Later in September I’ll t...

Virginia Gray et al., “Interest Group$ and Health Care Reform Across the United State$” (Georgetown UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Virginia Gray, David Lowery, and Jennifer Benz are the authors of Interest Group$ and Health Care Reform Across the United State$ (Georgetown University Press, 2013). Gray is Distinguished Professo...

Laura A. Dean, "Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia" (Policy Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Laura A. Dean (Assistant Professor of Political Science at Millikin University and director of the Human Trafficking Research Lab) has spent many years investigating the urgent human rights issue o...

Wendy Pearlman and Boaz Atzili, "Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States That Host Nonstate Actors" (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the post–Cold War era, states increasingly find themselves in conflicts with nonstate actors. Finding it difficult to fight these opponents directly, many governments instead target states that ...

Megan Tompkins Stange, “Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence” (Harvard Education Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Megan Tompkins-Stange is the author of Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence (Harvard Education Press, 2016). She is assistant professor at the Gerald Ford S...

Venessa Williamson and Theda Skocpol, “The Tea Party: Remaking of Republican Conservatism” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Vanessa Williamson is coauthor (with Theda Skocpol) of The Tea Party: Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford University Press, 2012), a New Yorker magazine “Ten Best Political Books of 2012”)....

Monika Gosin, "The Racial Politics of Division: Interethnic Struggles For Legitimacy in Multicultural Miami" (Cornell UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over recent years, scholarship centering Afrolatinidad has pushed the bounds of the field towards greater forms of racial and ethnic understanding. Dr. Monika Gosin’s monograph, The Racial Politics...

Ariel I. Ahram, "Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Resshaping of the Middle East" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Since 2011, civil wars and state failure have wracked the Arab world, underlying the misalignment between national identity and political borders. In Break all the Borders: Separatism and the Ressh...

Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, “America Abroad: The United States’ Role in the 21st Century” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A decade and a half of exhausting wars, punishing economic setbacks, and fast-rising rivals has called into question America’s fundamental position and purpose in world politics. Will the US contin...

Hedrick Smith, “Who Stole the American Dream?” (Random House, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the “Great Recession,” millions lost their jobs, retirement savings, and even their houses. The entire middle class was shaken. Yet almost no one has been brought to justice. Quite the opposite:...

Leticia Bode et al., "Words That Matter: How the News and Social Media Shaped the 2016 Presidential Campaign" (Brookings, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Words That Matter: How the News and Social Media Shaped the 2016 Presidential Campaign (Brookings Institution Press, 2020) comes out of a broader collaboration between social scientists at the Univ...

Andra Gillespie, "Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols, and Hope" (Manchester UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scholars and pundits have been busy trying to assess the legacy of President Barack Obama. Few have done so with the nuance and comparative approach of Andra Gillespie. In her new book Race and the...

Mary Hawkesworth, “Embodied Power: Demystifying Disembodied Politics” (Routledge, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How can we explain the “occlusion of embodied power” and “lack of attention to race, gender, and sexuality” in the discipline of political science, a field “that claims power as a central analytica...

Joseph Nye, “Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era” (Princeton UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joseph Nye‘s latest book is Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (Princeton University Press, 2013). Professor Nye is University Distinguished Professor and former dean of t...

Ken O. Opalo, "Legislative Development in Africa: Politics and Postcolonial Legacies" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Legislative Development in Africa: Politics and Postcolonial Legacies (Cambridge University Press, 2019) examines the development of African legislatures from their colonial origins through indepen...

Sally Nuamah, "How Girls Achieve" (Harvard UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does it take for all girls to achieve? What will it take to remove the seen and unseen barriers-- some a matter of policy and others cultural practice--to more girls achieving the equitable ed...

Holly Allen, “Forgotten Men and Fallen Women: The Cultural Politics of New Deal Narratives” (Cornell UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Forgotten Men and Fallen Women: The Cultural Politics of New Deal Narratives (Cornell University Press, 2015), Holly Allen offers a fascinating analysis of how notions of race, gender, sexuality...

Gregory Heller, “Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gregory Heller is the author of Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). Heller is Senior Advisor at Econsult Solutions, Inc. ...

George Lawson, "Anatomies of Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The success of populist politicians and the emergence of social justice movements around the world, and the recent demonstrations against police violence in the United States, demonstrate a widespr...

Hennie van Vuuren, "Apartheid Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit" (Hurst, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Apartheid Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit(Hurst, 2019), Hennie van Vuuren examines the final decades of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He weaves together archival material,...

Jessica Greenberg , “After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia” (Stanford University Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jessica Greenberg’s After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia (Stanford University Press, 2014) explores a dual tension at work in Serbia in the early 200...

Ron Schmidt (et al.), “Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and the American Racial Politics in the Early 21st Century” (University of Michigan Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ron Schmidt is the co-author (with Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh, Andrew L. Aoki, and Rodney Hero) of Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and the American Racial Politics in the Early 21st Cen...

Paul D’Anieri, "Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paul D’Anieri’s Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War (Cambridge University Press, 2019) documents in a nuanced way the development of the current military conflict between Russ...

Anthony Nownes, "Organizing for Transgender Rights: Collective Action, Group Development, and the Rise of a New Social Movement" (SUNY Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Hard won transgender rights have been under attack by the Trump administration. Officials across government have sought to overturn decisions made by the Obama administration to expand rights to tr...

Donald Kettl, “Escaping Jurassic Government: How to Recover America’s Lost Competence” (Brookings Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Donald Kettl is the author of Escaping Jurassic Government: How to Recover America’s Lost Competence (Brookings Press, 2016). Kettl is professor of public policy in the School of Public Policy at t...

Thom Brooks, “Punishment” (Routledge, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Social stability and justice requires that we live together according to rules. And this in turn means that the rules must be enforced. Accordingly, we sometimes see fit to punish those who break t...

Micol Seigel, "Violence Work: State Violence and the Limits of Police" (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Recent calls for the defunding or abolition of police raise important questions about the legitimacy of state violence and the functions that police are supposed to serve. Criticism of the militari...

Sarah Reckhow, "Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politics" (Harvard Education Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who funds local school board elections? Local residents or major donors living elsewhere? Jeffrey R. Henig, Rebecca Jacobsen, and Sarah Reckhow seek to answer this question in Outside Money in Scho...

Matt Dawson “Social Theory for Alternative Societies” (Palgrave, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What can social theory offer to visions of an alternative society? In his new book, Social Theory for Alternative Societies (Palgrave, 2016), Dr Matt Dawson, a Lecturer in Sociology at the Universi...

William G. Howell (with David Brent), “Thinking about the Presidency: The Primacy of Power” (Princeton UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

William G. Howell (with David Brent) is the author of the new book Thinking about the Presidency: The Primacy of Power (Princeton UP, 2013). Howell is the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politic...

Sherrow O. Pinder et al., "Black Political Thought: From David Walker to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Black Political Thought: From David Walker to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2020) is a nuanced and long-needed anthology interrogates the “never ending issue” of the unequal positioning ...

Racquel J. Gates, "Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture" (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen.  This book...

Prerna Singh, “How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Prerna Singh has written How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Singh is the Mahatma Gandhi Assistant Professor of Poli...

Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon, “Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change” (Lynne Rienner, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon are authors of Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change (Lynne Rienner, 2012). Palmer is associate professor of political science at Baldwin Wallace Un...

J. Bernstein and C. B. K. Dominguez, "The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2020" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2020 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019) is the most recent entrant within a long-established, well-respected series that surveys the nomination process in the ...

Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr., "Reading Politics with Machiavelli" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr., in his new book, Reading Politics with Machiavelli(Oxford University Press, 2018), puts himself and the reader into conversation with Machiavelli, exploring Machiavelli’s th...

Daniel Kreiss, “Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Kreiss is back on the podcast with his new book Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2016). Kreiss is associate professor ...

Andrew J. Taylor, “Congress: A Performance Appraisal” (Westview Press 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Andrew J. Taylor is the author of Congress: A Performance Appraisal (Westview Press, 2013). Taylor is professor of political science in the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carol...

Mona L. Siegel, "Peace on Our Terms: The Global Battle for Women’s Rights After the First World" (Columbia UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We are all familiar with the story of how in early 1919 heads of state and diplomats from around the world came to Paris to negotiate a peace settlement with a defeated Germany and its allies. Many...

Candis Watts Smith, "Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Candis Watts Smith and Christina Greer are the editors of Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification (Routledge, 2019). Smith is assistant professor of public po...

Bridget Conley-Zilkic, ed. “How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you want to know how to bring future mass atrocities to an end, the best place to start is to examine how past mass atrocities have ended. This simple piece of logic is at the heart of Bridget ...

John O. McGinnis, “Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology” (Princeton UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The advent of very powerful computers and the Internet have not “changed everything,” but it has created a new communications context within which almost everything we do will be somewhat changed. ...

Robert Nichols, "Theft Is Property!: Dispossession and Critical Theory" (Duke UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Nichols, an associate professor of political theory at the University of Minnesota, has written an engaging and important examination of the clash between the western theoretical approaches ...

Serene J. Khader, "Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Transnational feminist theory and practice is faced with a dilemma: how should we contest and resist gender-based oppression, while at the same time respecting cultural difference? In her book, Dec...

Joel K. Goldstein, “The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden” (U. of Kansas Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joel K. Goldstein has written The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden (University Press of Kansas, 2016). Goldstein is the Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law, Sai...

Andrew Karch, “Early Start: Preschool Politics in the United States” (University of Michigan Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over the last several months, I’ve had the pleasure to have a number of political scientists who study education policy on the podcast. Jesse Rhodes, Jeff Henig, and Sarah Reckhow have brought thei...

Kathleen Hale and Mitchell Brown, "How We Vote: Innovation in American Elections" (Georgetown UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The idea of voting is simple, but the administration of elections in ways that ensure access and integrity is complex. In How We Vote: Innovation in American Elections (Georgetown University Press,...

Michael C. Desch, "Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security" (Princeton UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many have read and debated “How Political Science became Irrelevant” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The author of that piece is Michael C. Desch and much it comes from his recent book Cult o...

Jason Stahl, “Right Moves: The Conservative Think Tank in American Political Culture since 1945” (U. of North Carolina Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jason Stahl is the author of Right Moves: The Conservative Think Tank in American Political Culture since 1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2016). Stahl is an historian and lecturer in the ...

Christine Trost and Lawrence Rosenthal, eds. “Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party” (University of California Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christine Trost is program director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies and associate director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Her co-editor is Lawrence Rosenthal,...

Shauna L. Shames et al., "Good Reason to Run: Women and Political Candidacy" (Temple UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Good Reason to Run: Women and Political Candidacy (Temple University Press, 2020) is an excellent text that provides a wealth of information and analysis of the reasons why women (and men) choose t...

Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contri...

Marie Lall, “Understanding Reform in Myanmar: People and Society in the Wake of Military Rule” (Hurst, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A lot has been going on in Myanmar in the last few years, and even people who are deeply familiar with the country have had trouble following and interpreting the many changes. Fortunately, Marie L...

Drew Maciag, “Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism” (Cornell UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Drew Maciag, author of Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism (Cornell University Press, 2013) spoke with Ray Haberski about the intellectual challenges ...

Jennifer Holland, "Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement" (U California Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Although much has been written about the anti-abortion movement in the United States, Jennifer Holland (Assistant Professor of U.S. History, University of Oklahoma) has written the first monograph-...

S. M. Milkis and D. J. Tichenor, "Rivalry and Reform: Presidents, Social Movements, and the Transformation of American Politics" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sidney M. Milkis and Daniel J. Tichenor have written Rivalry and Reform: Presidents, Social Movements, and the Transformation of American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Milkis is the...

Zachary Roth, “The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy” (Crown, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This week we feature two new books on the podcast, both about corporate power. First, Zachary Roth has written The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on ...

Nicco Mele, “The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath” (St. Martin’s Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Nicco Mele is the author of The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath (St. Martin’s Press, 2013). He is Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Cent...

Lauren Turek, "To Bring the Good News to All Nations" (Cornell UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lauren Turek is an Assistant Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She earned her doctorate from the University of Virginia in 2015 and holds a degree in Museum Studies ...

Pat Garofalo, "The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs" (Thomas Dunne, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Politicians love to woo entertainment corporations to their states and cities through subsidies and tax cities. But Pat Garofalo argues that such incentives waste taxpayer money in The Billionaire ...

Dov Waxman, “Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel (Princeton University Press, 2016), Dov Waxman, professor of political science, international affairs, and Israel studies at Northe...

Shannon Gleeson, “Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston” (Cornell UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Shannon Gleeson is the author of Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston (Cornell University Press, 2012). Dr. Gleeson is assistant profes...

Daniel Q. Gillion, "The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American Democracy" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Political Scientist Daniel Q. Gillion’s new book, The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2020) is an incredibly topical and important analysis of ...

Martha S. Jones, "Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Martha S. Jones, in her excellent new book Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America(Cambridge University Press, 2018), weaves together the legal and constitutional di...

Jack Jacobs, “The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and Antisemitism” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and Antisemitism (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Jack Jacobs, Professor of Political Science at John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center, investigate...

Cari Lee Skogberg Eastman, “Shaping the Immigration Debate” (Lynne Rienner, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Cari Lee Skogberg Eastman is the author of Shaping the Immigration Debate: Contending Civil Societies on the US-Mexico Border (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2013). Eastman earned her doctoral degree at ...

Begüm Adalet, "Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey" (Stanford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

During the opening decades of the Cold War, US policymakers and academics used modernization theory to provide an alternative model to communism for improving living standards. As Begüm Adalet demo...

Reece Peck, "Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Reece Peck's Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class (Cambridge University Press, 2019) offers a unique argument of why the Fox News Channel has been both a commercial successful and w...

Eric Schickler, “Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor ...

Patrick James and Abigail Ruane, “The International Relations of Middle-Earth: Learning from the Lord of the Rings” (University of Michigan Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Patrick James is the Dornsife Dean’s Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. A self-described intellectual “fox,” James works on a wide variety of subjects in...

S. E. Schier and T. E. Eberly, "How Trump Happened: A System Shock Decades in the Making" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How did Donald Trump’s leveraging of emotions get him to The White House? Today I discussed this question with Steven E. Schier and Todd E. Eberly, co-authors of the new book How Trump Happened: A ...

Darren Barany, "The New Welfare Consensus: Ideological, Political and Social Origins" (SUNY Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The 1996 repeal of Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- the New Deal-era relief program for poor women with children -- was a seminal moment in the modern history of the US welfare state. Tha...

Scott Straus, “Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention” (US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This podcast is the first of a new occasional series of interviews addressing the question of responding to mass atrocities and genocide. Later in the summer I’ll interview Bridget Conley-Zilkic, J...

John Buschman, “Libraries, Classrooms, and the Interests of Democracy: Marking the Limits of Neoliberalism” (Scarecrow Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Buschman is the author of Libraries, Classrooms, and the Interests of Democracy: Marking the Limits of Neoliberalism (Scarecrow Press 2012). Buschman is Dean of University Libraries at Seton H...

Gilda R. Daniels, "Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression" (NYU Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Are we asleep at the (common)wheel? Civil rights attorney and law professor Gilda R. Daniels insists that contemporary voter ID laws, voter deception, voter purges, and disenfranchisement of felons...

Christine Loh, "Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There can be little doubt that Hong Kong has stood out as a particularly intense East Asian news hotspot in recent years. Whether reports have focused on pro-democracy protests, abducted bookseller...

John Mollenkopf and Manuel Pastor, eds. “Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civic Leadership for Immigrant Integration” (Cornell UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Mollenkopf and Manuel Pastor are the editors of Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civic Leadership for Immigrant Integration (Cornell University Press, 2016). Mollenkopf is Disting...

Kimberley Brownlee, “Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When confronted with a law that they find morally unconscionable, citizens sometimes engage in civil disobedience – they publicly break the law with a view to communicating their judgment that it i...

Frank Wilderson III, "Afropessimism" (Liveright, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should we understand the pervasiveness – and virulence – of anti-Black violence in the United State? Why and how is anti-Black racism different from other forms of racism? How does it permeate ...

Greg Sargent, "An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics" (HarperCollins, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Greg Sargent’s new book, An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics (HarperCollins, 2018), dives into an analysis of the strength and fr...

Seth Masket, “The Inevitable Party: Why Attempts to Kill the Party System Fail and How they Weaken Democracy” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Seth Masket has written The Inevitable Party: Why Attempts to Kill the Party System Fail and How they Weaken Democracy (Oxford UP, 2016). Masket is associate professor and chair of the Department o...

Ben Judah, “Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin” (Yale UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Debates about the nature of Putin’s rule abound. Is Putin a hard fisted authoritarian? Is he the master of the power vertical? An arbiter of competing clans? Or something else? In his Fragile Empir...

James C. Scott, "Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States" (Yale UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We are schooled to believe that states formed more or less synchronously with settlement and agriculture. In Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (Yale University Press, 2017), ...

Matthew Bowman, "Christian: The Politics of a Word in America" (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The intersection of religion and politics in the United States is one of the nation's most enduring conversations. Christian: The Politics of a Word in America(Harvard University Press, 2018) by Dr...

Robert Boatright, ed. “The Deregulatory Moment? A Comparative Perspective on Changing Campaign Finance Laws” (U. of Michigan Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Boatright, associate professor of political science at Clark University, is the editor of The Deregulatory Moment? A Comparative Perspective on Changing Campaign Finance Laws (University of ...

Ray Haberski, “God and War: American Civil Religion Since 1945” (Rutgers UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americans are simultaneously one of the most religious people on earth and prone to conflict and war. Ray Haberski is interested in how this paradox has shaped the nation’s civil religion. His book...

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, a...

Jocelyn M. Boryczka, "Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue, and Vice in Backlash Politics" (Temple UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her book Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue, and Vice in Backlash Politics (Temple University Press, 2012), Jocelyn M. Boryczka explores the fraught position that women find themselves in as citize...

William Resh, “Rethinking the Administrative Presidency: Trust, Intellectual Capital, and Appointee-Careerist Relations in the George W. Bush Administration” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

William Resh is the author of Rethinking the Administrative Presidency: Trust, Intellectual Capital, and Appointee-Careerist Relations in the George W. Bush Administration (Johns Hopkins University...

Inderjeet Parmar, “Foundations of the American Century” (Columbia UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Inderjeet Parmar‘s Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia University Press, 2012) navigates the history of US f...

Mary-Kate Lizotte, "Gender Differences in Public Opinion: Values and Political Consequences" (Temple UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Political Scientist Mary-Kate Lizotte’s new book, Gender Differences in Public Opinion: Values and Political Consequences (Temple University Press, 2020) helps us to understand the concept of the g...

B. I. Page, J. Seawright, and M. J. Lacombe, "Billionaires and Stealth Politics" U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With at least one new billionaire in the 2020 presidential race, the politics of the one percent are with us again. What do billionaires believe? And do they believe the same things as the average ...

Ugur Umit Ungor, “Genocide: New Perspectives on its Causes, Courses and Consequences” (Amsterdam University Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I remember working on my master’s thesis while at Ohio State. Hour after hour after hour I labored-writing, rewriting, formatting. Then the day of the defense arrived. Ninety minutes later, I exite...

Daniel Stedman Jones, “Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics” (Princeton UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Stedman Jones is the author of Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics (Princeton University Press, 2012). The book tells a portion of the intellectual...

Ilya Somin, "Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When we think of democracy, we typically think of voting; and when we think of voting, we ordinarily have elections and campaigns in minds. In this intuitive sense, voting is a matter of casting a ...

Susan Thomson, "Rwanda: From Genocide to Precarious Peace" (Yale UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do you put Humpty-Dumpty back together again? Susan Thomson's new book Rwanda: From Genocide to Precarious Peace (Yale University Press, 2018) examines the postwar history of Rwanda to consider...

Susan Turner Haynes, “Chinese Nuclear Proliferation: How Global Politics is Transforming China’s Weapons Buildup and Modernization” (Potomac Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

While the world’s attention is focused on the nuclearization of North Korea and Iran and the nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, China is believed to have doubled the size of its nucle...

Daniel W. Webster and Jon S. Vernick, “Reducing Gun Violence in America” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We’ve all heard the saying that when arguing we should ‘disagree without being disagreeable’ but, when it comes to guns, we often find ourselves disagreeing without actually disagreeing. Most Ameri...

Simon Bowmaker, "When the President Calls: Conversations with Economic Policymakers" (MIT Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I spoke with Dr Simon Bowmaker, Professor of Economics at New York University, Stern School of Business. He has recently published When the President Calls: Conversations with Economic Policymakers...

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, "State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Back on the podcast for the second time in two years is Alex Hertel-Fernandez. You might recall his last book Politics at Work which examined the way employers are increasingly recruiting their wor...

Lance deHaven-Smith, “Conspiracy Theory in America” (U of Texas Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lance deHaven-Smith‘s Conspiracy Theory in America (University of Texas Press, 2014) investigates how the Founders’ hard-nosed realism about the likelihood of elite political misconduct articulated...

Christopher Tienken and Donald Orlich, “The School Reform Landscape: Fraud, Myth, and Lies” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christopher Tienken and Donald Orlich are authors of the provocative new book, The School Reform Landscape: Fraud, Myth, and Lies (Rowman and Littlefield 2013). Dr. Tienken is an assistant professo...

Jane Gordon, "Statelessness and Contemporary Enslavement" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Statelessness and Contemporary Enslavement (Routledge, 2020) bridges current policy debates around citizenship, states, and nations, and theoretical analysis of issues of belonging, consent, and fr...

Debra Thompson, "The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census" (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Debra Thompson, in her award-winning* book The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census (Cambridge University Press, 2016), explores the complexities of the politics ...

Elizabeth Hurd, “Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Among the most frequent demands made of Islam and Muslims today is to become more moderate. But what counts as moderate and who will decide so are questions with less than obvious answers. In her t...

Steven Hill, “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age” (University of California Press, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What can the United States learn from Europe? One good answer, says Steven Hill, is social capitalism, a form of economic management that is responsive to markets and productive of broadly-shared p...

Diana Fu, "Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China" (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When advocacy organizations are forbidden from rallying people to take to the streets, what do they do? Diana Fu’s nuanced ethnography of Chinese labor organizations demonstrates how grassroots non...

Jieun Baek, "North Korea's Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society" (Yale UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With recent events having raised hopes that significant change may be afoot in North Korea, it is important to remember that DPRK society has in fact been undergoing steady transformation for a con...

Josh King, “Off Script: An Advance Man’s Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide” (St. Martin’s, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who plans the hundreds of political rallies and events each year? Josh King’s new book, Off Script: An Advance Mans Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide (St. M...

Philip Pettit, “On The People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In political philosophy, republicanism is the name of a distinctive framework for thinking about politics. At its core is a unique conception of freedom according to which freedom consists in non-d...

Jennifer Mercieca, "Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump" (Texas A&M UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Polarization, a disaffected and frustrated electorate, and widespread distrust of government, media, and traditional politicians set the stage in 2016 for an unprecedented presidential contest. For...

Jessica Trisko Darden, Alexis Henshaw, and Ora Szekley, "Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars" (Georgetown UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars (Georgetown University Press, 2019), investigates the mobilization of female fighters, women’s roles in combat, and what happens to women when confl...

Michael Barnett, “The Star and the Stripes” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews (Princeton University Press, 2016), Michael Barnett, University Professor of International Affairs and Political Scie...

Muzammil Hussain and Phillip Howard, “Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring” (Oxford UP 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Muzammil Hussain and Phillip Howard have authored Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2013) which explores the role social media (Twitter, Facebook,...

Vanessa Cook, "Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left" (U Penn Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this episode of the podcast, Vaneesa Cook discusses her new book Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). The book shows that there is a dee...

Danyel Reiche, "Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games" (Routedge, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today we are joined by Danyel Reiche, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the American University of Beirut, and the author of Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games (Rout...

Ayten Gundogdu, “Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How does one “rethink and revise the key concepts of Hannah Arendt’s political theory in light of the struggles of asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants” (207)? In her new book Righ...

Cyril Ghosh, “The Politics of the American Dream: Democratic Inclusion in Contemporary American Political Culture” (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Cyril Ghosh is Visiting Assistant Professor at Wagner College where he teaches courses in American government, political theory, and immigration. His new book, The Politics of the American Dream: D...

Richard Lachmann, "First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers" (Verso, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Richard Lachmann’s First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers (Verso, 2020) is a two-for-one deal. The first half of the book is a historical analysis ...

Gary Metcalf, "Social Systems and Design" (Springer Verlag, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the opening chapter of his edited volume, Social Systems and Design, out from Springer in 2014, Gary Metcalf asks if it is possible to establish ethical “first principles” for the design of soci...

Scott Meinke, “Leadership Organizations in the House of Representatives: Party Participation and Partisan Politics” (U of Michigan Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scott Meinke has just published Leadership Organizations in the House of Representatives: Party Participation and Partisan Politics (University of Michigan Press, 2016). He is associate professor o...

Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party” (University of California Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz observed that many of the important variables in war exist in ‘clouds of great uncertainty’ which create disconnects and confusion that persist even aft...

Kevin Duong, "The Virtues of Violence: Democracy Against Disintegration in Modern France" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kevin Duong, a political theorist in the Politics Department at the University of Virginia, has written a fascinating analysis of the way that violence has been used, in a sense, to create or promo...

Matthew Longo, "The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen after 9/11" (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Matthew Longo takes the reader on an unusual journey, at least within political theory, since his work combines a normative political theory approach with an ethnographic approach ...

Geoffrey McCormack and Thom Workman, “The Servant State: Overseeing Capital Accumulation in Canada” (Fernwood, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Two Canadian political science professors contend that the grotesque inequities of the capitalist system feed hatred, nourish misogyny, promote chronic dispossession and wreak havoc on the environm...

Moises Naim, “The End of Power” (Basic Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Moises Naim is the author of The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be (Basic Books, 2013). Dr. Naim served as the Minis...

Co-Authored: COVID, Collaboration, and Loss from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered colleges and universities across the globe. With that, collaboration has been stalled, frustrated, or interrupted. In this episode of the Co-Authored podcast we ...

George R. Boyer, "The Winding Road to the Welfare State: Economic Insecurity and Social Welfare Policy in Britain" (Princeton UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The creation of the postwar welfare state in Great Britain did not represent the logical progression of governmental policy over a period of generations. As George R. Boyer details in The Winding R...

Marc Lynch, “The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East” (PublicAffairs, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Marc Lynch is the author of The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2016). Lynch is a professor of political science at George Washington University and blogs a...

Azar Gat, “Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When I went to college long ago, everyone had to read Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto (1848). I think I read it in half-a-dozen classes. Today Marx is out. Benedict Anderson, however, is in. Y...

James Bernard Murphy, "How to Think Politically" (Bloomsbury, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore t...

Jonathan Fulton, "China's Relations with the Gulf Monarchies" (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jonathan Fulton's China's Relations with the Gulf Monarchies (Routledge, 2018) sheds light on China’s increasing economic role at a moment that the traditionally dominant role in international oil ...

Meredith Conroy, “Masculinity, Media, and the American Presidency” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Meredith Conroy is the author of Masculinity, Media, and the American Presidency (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015). Conroy is assistant professor of Political Science at California State University, San B...

Neil Gross, “Why are Professors Liberal and Why do Conservatives Care?” (Harvard UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Most people think that professors are more liberal, and some much more liberal, than ordinary folk. As Neil Gross shows in his eye-opening Why are Professors Liberal and Why do Conservatives Care...

Dana El Kurd, "Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What demobilizes a once mobilized society? How does international involvement amplify or suppress these dynamics? In Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine (Oxford Uni...

Onur Ulas Ince, "Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Onur Ulas Ince constructs an important analysis of liberalism, capitalism, and empire in his new book, Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2018). This text ...

Daniel E. Dawes, “150 Years of ObamaCare” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel E. Dawes has written 150 Years of ObamaCare (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). Dawes is the executive director of health policy and external affairs at Morehouse School of Medicine and ...

Robert W. McChesney, “Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy” (The New Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert W. McChesney, the celebrated political economist of communication, takes the Internet, industry and government head-on in his latest book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the I...

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, "Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink" (Columbia Global Reports, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This podcast was recorded on May 21st, 2020 – the same day that the Chinese government proposed new national security laws that would give China greater control over Hong Kong. What motivates these...

Judith Eve Lipton and David P. Barash, "Strength through Peace: How Demilitarization Led to Peace and Happiness in Costa Rica" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Costa Rica is the only full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarized. Its military was abolished in 1948, with the keys to the armory handed to the Department of Educati...

Cass Sunstein, “The World According to Star Wars” (Harper Collins, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Su...

Jeffrey Henig, “The End of Exceptionalism in American Education: The Changing Politics of School Reform” (Harvard Education Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jeffrey Henig is the author of The End of Exceptionalism in American Education: The Changing Politics of School Reform (Harvard Education Press, 2013). Henig is Professor of Political Science and E...

Noëlle McAfee, "Fear of Breakdown: Psychoanalysis and Politics" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his classic essay on the fear of breakdown, Donald Winnicott famously conveys to a patient that the disaster powerfully feared has, in fact, already happened. Taking her cue from Winnicott, Noël...

Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan, "Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means" (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan are authors of Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2019). Herd is a Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy a...

Betina Cutaia Wilkinson, “Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century” (U of Virginia Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Betina Cutaia Wilkinson is the author of Partners or Rivals? Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century (University of Virginia Press 2015). Wilkinson is assistant pro...

Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady, “Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry” (Wiley, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Marc Ambinder is the author, with D.B. Grady, of Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry (Wiley, 2013). He is a contributing editor at GQ and The Atlantic magazine, and has served as Whi...

James M. Jasper, "Public Characters: The Politics of Reputation and Blame" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Did Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency in 2016 because he was a master of character work – able to sum up opponents in pithy epithets that encourage the public to see them as weak or immoral? Wha...

Andrea Micocci and Flavia Di Mario, "The Fascist Nature of Neoliberalism" (Routledge, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I spoke with Flavia di Mario, a young scholar of political economy and industrial relations. She coauthored a very provocative book with Andrea Micocci, The Fascist Nature of Neoliberalism (R...

Valerie Sperling, “Sex, Politics and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The prevalence of media that reinforces a traditional masculine image of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader, is at the core of Valerie Sperling‘s analysis of gender norms and sexualization as a means ...

Sarah Reckhow, “Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public School Politics” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah Reckhow is the author of Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public School Politics (Oxford University Press 2013). Reckhow is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Michi...

T. Skocpol and C. Tervo, "Upending American Politics: Polarizing Parties, Ideological Elites, and Citizen Activists from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How can we make sense of the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump? What forces moved American politics from the first African-American president and an all-Democratic Congress (2008) to ethno...

Helena Rosenblatt, "The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century" (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How is it that “liberalism” is a word so ubiquitous and yet we can hardly seem to agree on its meaning? In her book The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (Pr...

Sahana Udupa, “Making News in Global India: Media, Publics, Politics” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What role does Bangalore’s private news culture play in shaping the southern Indian metropolis’ ongoing urban transformation? Sahana Udupa‘s new book Making News in Global India: Media, Publics, Po...

S. Laurel Weldon, “When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups” (University of Michigan Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

S. Laurel Weldon is Professor of Political Science, Purdue University, and Director of the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion. She is the author of When Protest Makes Policy: How Social...

Massimo Modonesi, "The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action?" (Haymarket, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does it mean to be a political subject? This is one of the key questions asked by Massimo Modonesi in ?The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action (2019)?, published as part of th...

New Books in Political Science Year in Review: 2018 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

To wrap up the year and look ahead to 2019, we talked about the books we loved. There were so many great books in 2018, that we had the chance to mention just a few. Lilly reviewed her interview wi...

Nicholas Vrousalis, “The Political Philosophy of G.A. Cohen: Back to Socialist Basics” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book The Political Philosophy of G.A. Cohen: Back to Socialist Basics (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), Nicholas Vrousalis (Leiden University) provides a thorough and complex reconstruction of G....

Arend Lijphart, “Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries” (Yale UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Arend Lijphart is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a past president of the America...

Julia C. Strauss, "State Formation in China and Taiwan: Bureaucracy, Campaign, and Performance" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

State Formation in China and Taiwan: Bureaucracy, Campaign, and Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2019) by Julia C. Strauss is a comparative study of regime consolidation in the People’s Rep...

Jonathan Fulton and Li-Chen Sim, "External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies" (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jonathan Fulton and Li-Chen Sim’s edited volume, External Powers and the Gulf Monarchies(Routledge, 2018) is a timely contribution to understanding the increasingly diversified relations between th...

Lester K. Spence, “Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics” (Punctum Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lester K. Spence is the author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics (Punctum Books, 2016). Spence is associate professor of political science and Africana Studies a...

Daniel McCool, “The Most Fundamental Right: Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting Rights Act” (Indiana UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel McCool, professor of political science at the University of Utah, is the editor of The Most Fundamental Right: Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting Rights Act (Indiana University Press, 20...

Courtney J. Fung, "China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

China is a veto-holding member of the UN Security Council yet Chinese officials have been skeptical of using the powers of the UN to pressure nations accused of human rights violations. The PRC has...

Ashley Jardina, "White Identity Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the themes of the era of Donald Trump is whiteness and white identity. From his first steps into the public eye, Trump used race to frame his positions and relevance. His presidency has been...

Lincoln A. Mitchell, “The Democracy Promotion Paradox” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In book his new book The Democracy Promotion Paradox (Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Lincoln A. Mitchell (Political Correspondent for the New York Observer) raises difficult but critically imp...

Kristi Andersen, “New Immigrant Communities: Finding a Place in Local Politics” (Lynne Rienner, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kristi Andersen is the author of New Immigrant Communities: Finding a Place in Local Politics (Lynne Rienner, 2010). Andersen is professor of political science at Syracuse University. Previous to h...

Nusrat S. Chowdhury, "Paradoxes of the Popular: Crowd Politics in Bangladesh" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Few places are as politically precarious as Bangladesh, even fewer as crowded. Its 57,000 or so square miles are some of the world's most inhabited. Often described as a definitive case of the bank...

George Lakey, "How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning" (Melville House, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“One-off” protests don’t change the world; sustained direct action campaigns do. That’s one of the many insights from George Lakey in his new book, How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action C...

Timothy Stewart-Winter, “Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Timothy Stewart-Winter is an assistant professor of history and women and gender studies at Rutgers University. Newark. His book Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics (University of Pen...

Michael P. Jeffries, “Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America” (Stanford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over the last year, this podcast has featured several authors who’ve examined the presidency of Barack Obama. John Sides, Daniel Kriess, and Enid Logan each wrote about the election campaign of the...

Pasha Mahdavi, "Power Grab: Political Survival through Extractive Resource Mobilization" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why did Muammar Qaddafi and Hugo Chavez nationalize the oil industries in Libya and Venezuela? Machiavelli urged princes to attend to both acquiring and sustaining power. In Power Grab: Political S...

Jessica Trounstine, "Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

2018 has been a great year for books about sub-national government in the United States. The year ends with another to add to the list. Jessica Trounstine has written Segregation by Design: Local P...

Katherine J. Cramer, “The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker” (U of Chicago Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Katherine J. Cramer is the author of The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Cramer is professor of political ...

Kevin Mattson, “Just Plain Dick” (Bloomsbury, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The “rise” of the Tea Party has become one of the most exaggerated political stories in recent memory. The hullabaloo regarding the Tea Party reminds me of what a leading neo-conservative once said...

Andrew Monaghan, "Dealing with the Russians" (Polity, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Are the generals fighting the last war? In Dealing with the Russians (Polity, 2019), Andrew Monaghan argues that Western policy makers are using an outdated Cold War model of ideology, language and...

Patricia O'Toole, "The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made" (Simon and Schuster, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Whether you love him or hate him, it is indisputable that few, if any, other 20th-century American presidents were as historically consequential as Woodrow Wilson. Historian Patricia O’Toole explor...

Peter K. Enns, “Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Peter K. Enns is the author of Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Enns is Associate Professor in the Dep...

Andra Gillespie, “The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America” (NYU Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Andra Gillespie is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America (NYU Press, 2012). She is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Emory University and...

Randy E. Barnett, "An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know" (Wolters Kluwer, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What do you think about these days when you hear the words, “Supreme Court?” Salacious news coverage of the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh? Gushing profiles of feminist icon Ruth Bader Gi...

McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty...

John Bew, “Realpolitik: A History” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Since its coinage in mid-19th century Germany, Realpolitik has proven both elusive and protean. To some, it represents the best approach to meaningful change and political stability in a world buff...

Landon Storrs, “The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left” (Princeton UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Most people who listen to this podcast will have heard of Joseph McCarthy and HUAC (The House Committee on Un-American Activities). His activities and those of HUAC were, however, only the tip of a...

Kenesha N. Grant, "The Great Migration and the Democratic Party" (Temple UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kenesha N. Grant, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Howard University, at the beginning of her new book, The Great Migration and the Democratic Party: Black Voters and the Realignment of ...

Rob Reich, "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better" (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How political are private foundations? Are they good or bad for democracy? Such are the big questions taken up by Rob Reich in his new book Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and Ho...

Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King, “Fed Power: How Finance Wins” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King are the authors of Fed Power: How Finance Wins (Oxford UP, 2016). Jacobs is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies and Director of the Center fo...

Frederick E. Hoxie, “This Indian Country: American Indian Activists and the Place They Made” (Penguin, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Deploying hashtags and hunger strikes, flash mobs and vigils, the Idle No More movement of First Nation peoples in Canada is reaching a global audience. While new technology and political condition...

Sonali Chakravarti, "Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life" (U Chicago Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sonali Chakravarti, Associate Professor of Political Science at Wesleyan University, has written a thoughtful analysis of the role of the jury in American democracy, with specific attention to the ...

Amanda H. Lynch and Siri Veland, "Urgency in the Anthropocene" (MIT Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Amanda Lynch and Siri Veland’s Urgency in the Anthropocene(MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating and trenchant analysis of the core beliefs and ideas that motivate current political responses to global...

Keenanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” (Haymarket Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Few social justice struggles have captivated recent political history like the broad Black Lives Matter movement. From the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore to campaign rally interruptions of leadi...

Scott Farris, “Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race But Changed the Nation” (Lyons Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mitt Romney must feel like Charlie Brown. Always facing an uphill climb against a popular incumbent, Romney truly believed he would kick the veritable football and take the White House. Unfortunate...

Matthew McManus, "The Rise of Post-Modern Conservatism" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 shocked and surprised a number of commentators, especially because his own attitudes seemed to be in conflict with much of what people often associate with cons...

John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck, "Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America" (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (Princeton University Press, 2018), co-authors John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck explore the ...

Tran Ngoc Angie, “Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam’s Labor Resistance” (Cornell UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Labour consciousness is not just class-based; it also emerges out of cultural identities, as Tran Ngoc Angie argues powerfully in Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam’s Labo...

Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain, “Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns” (Temple University Press 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stephen Caliendo and Charlton McIlwain are the authors of Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in US Political Campaigns (Temple University Press 2011). Caliendo is Professor of Political Scienc...

Antony Dapiran, "City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong" (Scribe, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Hong Kong in 2019 was a city on fire. Anti-government protests, sparked by an ill-fated extradition bill sparked seven months of protest and civil unrest. Protestors clashed with police in the stre...

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, “The Politics of Common Sense: State, Society and Culture in Pakistan” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar’s The Politics of Common Sense: State, Society and Culture in Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 2018) is an incisive study of continuity as well as change in Pakistan that h...

Thomas G. Weiss, “Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action” (Polity Press, 2016 ) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How are humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect changing in the current international political scene? In Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action (3rd ed., Polity Press, 2016...

Ines Mergel, “Social Media in the Public Sector: A Guide to Participation, Collaboration and Transparency in the Networked World” (Jossey-Bass 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ines Mergel, assistant professor of public administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University, is the auth...

Abram Van Engen, "City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism" (Yale UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Abram Van Engen is an Associate Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. Van Engen’s research examines early American literature, the history of emotions, Puritanism, collective ...

Sumantra Bose, “Secular States, Religious Politics: India, Turkey and the Future of Secularism” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sumantra Bose‘s new book Secular States, Religious Politics: India, Turkey and the Future of Secularism (Cambridge University Press, 2018) is a fascinating comparison of the rise of religious parti...

Jefferson Cowie, “The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jefferson Cowie is the James G. Stahlman professor of history at Vanderbilt University. His book The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (Princeton University Press, 2...

Scott Melzer, “Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War” (NYU Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scott Melzer is the author of Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War (New York University Press, 2012). Scott earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside and now is an associate pro...

Witold Szab?owski, "How to Feed a Dictator" (Penguin, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you’re a despot, there are two people you can’t lie to, your doctor and your chef. This is one of the nuggets explained to me by Witold Szab?owski, author of How to Feed a Dictator: Saddam Husse...

Julie L. Rose, “Free Time” (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Though early American labor organizers agitated for the eight-hour workday on the grounds that they were entitled to “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will,” ...

Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman, “Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy” (Bloomsbury, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman are the authors of Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2016). Potter is a former health insurance executive, is the author of Dead...

Alan Wolfe, “Political Evil: What It Is and How to Combat It” (Vintage, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Somewhere Hannah Arendt is smiling. In the pages of the 1945 Partisan Review Arendt declared, “The problem of evil will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe.” In the s...

David A. Bateman, "Disenfranchising Democracy: Constructing the Electorate in the US, the UK, and France" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David A. Bateman’s fascinating new book opens with a puzzle. In 19th-century America, why was mass democratization – abolishing property and tax qualifications – accompanied by the mass disenfranch...

Brian Frederick, “American Presidential Candidate Spouses: The Public’s Perspective” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Laurel Elder, Brian Frederick, and Barbara Burrell are the authors of American Presidential Candidate Spouses: The Public’s Perspective (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). Elder is professor of political s...

Sangay Mishra, “Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans” (U of Minnesota Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sangay Mishra is the author of Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). Mishra is an assistant professor of political science at Drew Unive...

Thomas Holyoke, “Competitive Interests: Competition and Compromise in American Interest Group Politics” (Georgetown University Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Thomas Holyoke has recently published Competitive Interests: Competition and Compromise in American Interest Group Politics with Georgetown University Press (2011). Tom is an Associate Professor of...

Ibrahim Fraihat, "Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict" (Edinburgh UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration of the history of animosity between Saudi Arabia ...

Bernard Fraga, “The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Following a historic election, we return again to the question of turnout. Who turned out in large numbers to shift power in the House back to the Democrats? What we know about the past is that the...

Nayanika Mathur, “Paper Tiger: Law, Bureaucracy and the Developmental State in Himalayan India” (U of Cambridge Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A village terrorized by a man eating tiger and a state struggling to implement possibly the largest social security program in the world coalesce in this wonderful ethnography of bureaucracy by Nay...

Rachel Kleinfeld and Drew Sloan, “Let There Be Light: Electrifying the Developing World With Markets and Distributed Energy” (Truman Institute, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

You wouldn’t know from the 2012 president race but the United States remains engaged in a fairly bloody conflict in Afghanistan. In addition to boots on the ground, we deploy scores of drones in Pa...

Yael Tamir, "Why Nationalism?" (Princeton UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Around the world today, nationalism is back—and it’s often deeply troubling. Populist politicians exploit nationalism for authoritarian, chauvinistic, racist, and xenophobic purposes, reinforcing t...

Kristina C. Miler, “Poor Representation: Congress and the Politics of Poverty in the United States” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It’s been an article of faith among scholars and activists alike that poor Americans are ignored in national politics. But what if that conventional wisdom is wrong, and poor people, at least rheto...

Heather Boushey, “Finding Time: The Economies of Work-Life Conflict” (Harvard UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Heather Boushey has written Finding Time: The Economies of Work-Life Conflict (Harvard University Press, 2016). Boushey is Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equita...

Corey Brettschneider, “When the State Speaks, What Should it Say? How Democracies can Protect Expression and Promote Equality” (Princeton UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Liberal democracies are in the business of protecting individuals and their rights. Central among these are the rights to free expression, freedom of association, and freedom of conscience. Liberal...

Lucia Rubinelli, "Constituent Power: A History" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

"The intellectual historian has to start with the words." – Richard Whatmore, What is Intellectual History? When political theorists write about the principle of popular power, that is, who are the...

Paul Djupe and Ryan L. Claassen, eds., “The Evangelical Crackup?: The Future of the Evangelical-Republican Coalition” (Temple UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 2016, despite only mixed support from evangelical leaders, Donald Trump won an enormous share of the white evangelical vote. How did Trump manage to overcome the seeming mix-match between his re...

Alexander Wolff, “The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama” (Temple UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alexander Wolff is the author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama (Temple University Press, 2015). Wolff is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. On the eve of the college ba...

James Daily and Ryan Davidson, “The Law of Superheroes” (Gotham Books 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

James Daily, J.D. and Ryan Davidson, J.D. are the co-authors of The Law of Superheroes (Gotham Books 2012). The book uses comic book scenarios, much as previous volumes on physics and philosophy, t...

María Cristina García, "The Refugee Challenge in Post-Cold War America" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“Never again!” This was the rallying cry, seemingly universal and unanimous, among liberal nation-states as they formed the United Nations (UN) in 1945 and later signed the UN Declaration on Human ...

David Rondel, “Pragmatist Egalitarianism” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Pragmatism is a longstanding philosophical idiom that advocates public-facing philosophy – philosophy that abandons merely academic puzzles and addresses itself to the social and political problems...

Steve Phillips, “Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority” (The New Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Steve Phillips is the author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (The New Press, 2016). Phillips is a senior fellow at the Center for Ameri...

Patrick Allitt, “The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History” (Yale University Press, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Tired of politics? I grew tired of campaign commercials, especially once Mitt Romney identified Pennsylvania (where I live) as a battleground state. Now that the ad wars have ended and the ballots ...

Yue Hou, "The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In China, roughly 60% of GDP and 80% of employment comes from the private sector – yet half of private entrepreneurs report that they faced expropriation of property by local governments. Yue Hou’s...

J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood, “Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics” (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Magical thinking lies at the heart of J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood’s new book, Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Oliver is pr...

Brian Epstein, “The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The social sciences are about social entities – things like corporations and traffic jams, mobs and money, parents and war criminals. What is a social entity? What makes something a social entity? ...

Martin Plaut and Paul Holden, “Who Rules South Africa?” (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anybody who has been following the news in recent months knows that bloodshed has returned to South Africa. The recent violence and deaths among strikers in the country’s platinum mining industry r...

Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, is the first edited collection of schola...

Robert Kagan, “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World” (Knopf, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for The Washington Post. He is also the author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Dangerous Nation, Of Para...

Fowler, Franz, and Ridout, “Political Advertising in the United States” (Westview Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Erika Franklin Fowler, Michael M. Franz, and Travis N. Ridout are the co-authors of Political Advertising in the United States (Westview Press 2016). Fowler is assistant professor of government at ...

Jamie Kelly, “Framing Democracy: A Behavioral Approach to Democratic Theory” (Princeton UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Plato famously argued that democracy is nearly the worst form of government because citizens are decidedly unwise. Many styles of democratic theory have tried to meet Plato’s argument by denying th...

Great Books: Melissa Schwartzberg on Rousseau's "The Social Contract" from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." The opening sentence of 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Roussau's The Social Contract poses a central question for all of us. Why do we liv...

Chloe Thurston, “At the Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination, and the American State” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Earlier this year, we heard from Suzanne Mettler and her book on the politics of policies hidden from view. Mettler explained that most Americans are benefiting from numerous public policies, but o...

Lori Flores, “Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants and the California Farmworker Movement” (Yale UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants and the California Farmworker Movement (Yale University Press, 2015), Lori A. Flores illuminates a neglected part of Salinas Valley’s ...

Bill Chafe, “Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The “Personal is Political” was the mantra for the women’s movement and a generation of social historians interested in the lives of women and assorted minorities. This lens, looking at the interio...

Mark Sedgwick, "Key Thinkers of the Radical Right" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The resurgence of the radical Right in America and Europe has drawn attention to the existence of political philosophers and writers whose names are only sometimes familiar and whose thought is gen...

Stella M. Rouse and Ashley D. Ross, “The Politics of Millennials: Political Beliefs and Policy Preferences of America’s Most Diverse Generation” (U Michigan Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Millenial generation, those born between the early 1980s and late 1990s, are the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in US history. They also grew up during the birth of the digital...

Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov, “Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov are the authors of Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Klar is assistant professor...

Craig Harline, “Conversions: Two Family Stories from the Reformation and Modern America” (Yale UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the 2012 presidential race two major issues are ever present but never mentioned: Mormonism and homosexuality. According to opinion polls, a significant number of Americans either won’t vote or ...

Peter La Chapelle, "I’d Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Hillbilly, and Country Music" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Historians, musicologists, and sociologists have long studied the relationship between politics and music. Peter La Chapelle’s new book, I’d Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Hillbi...

Michael G. Hanchard, “The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracies” (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael G. Hanchard’s new book The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracies (Princeton University Press, 2018) is a rich and complex examination of the question of discriminat...

Matt Lewis, “Too Dumb Too Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections” (Hachette, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matt Lewis is the author of Too Dumb Too Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections (And How it Can Reclaim its Conservative Roots) (Hachette Books, 2016). Matt Lewis is a Se...

LIsa Bedolla and Melissa Michelson, “Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns” (Yale University Press 2012). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lisa Garcia Bedolla and Melissa Michelson are the co-authors of Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns (Yale University Press 2012). Lisa is associate...

Adam H. Domby, "The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory" (U Virginia Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Adam H. Domby, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Charleston, has written a rigorous analysis of American political memory as it connects to the Civil War and long shadow of the...

Steve Kornacki, “The Red and The Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism” (Ecco, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How did American politics become so polarized? MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki points to clash of two larger-than-life characters in the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, as the origin of our viciously...

Adam Seth Levine, “American Insecurity: Why Our Economic Fears Lead to Political Inaction” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Adam Seth Levine has written American Insecurity: Why Our Economic Fears Lead to Political Inaction (Princeton University Press, 2015). Levine teaches in the Department of Government at Cornell Uni...

Julietta Hua, “Trafficking Women’s Human Rights” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Trafficking Women’s Human Rights (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Julietta Hua analyzes how discourse on human trafficking creates the boundaries of victimhood and thereby restricts concep...

David Kettler and Thomas Wheatland, "Learning From Franz L. Neumann" (Anthem Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Franz Neumann was a member of a generation that saw the end of the Kaiserreich and the beginnings of a democratic republic carried by the labor movement. In Neumann's case, this involved a practica...

Michael Koncewicz, “They Said No to Nixon: Republicans Who Stood Up to the President’s Abuses of Power” (U California Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Is it possible for a president’s political appointees to rein in a president with a penchant for abusing power? Yes. Michael Koncewicz, who listened to hundreds of hours of the Nixon tapes, digs de...

Tasneem Khalil, “Jallad: Death Squads and State Terror in South Asia” (Pluto Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

State executioners in their various guises are explored in all their horrific detail by Tasneem Khalil, in his new book Jallad: Death Squads and State Terror in South Asia (Pluto, 2016). From the R...

Joseph Crespino, “Strom Thurmond’s America” (Hill and Wang, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The 2012 presidential election might be closely contested but the battleground states are almost all exclusively outside of the Old Confederacy. Florida, Virginia, and, to a lesser extent, North Ca...

Charles J. Holden, "Republican Populist: Spiro Agnew and the Origins of Donald Trump’s America" (UVA Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today Spiro Agnew is best known for his resignation from the vice presidency of the United States as part of a plea bargain deal related to a legal case involving bribes he took as a public officia...

Jeffrey D. Sachs, “A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism” (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you are tired of reading the same, Washington-based, consensus, ‘realist’ and or ‘neo-conservative’, critiques of American foreign policy, here is something to salivate on: Jeffrey D. Sachs’, A ...

Richard L. Hasen, “Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections” (Yale UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Richard L. Hasen has written Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections (Yale University Press, 2016). Hasen is Chancellor’s Professor of Law and...

Wendy Roth, “Race Migration: Latinos and the Cultural Transformation of Race” (Stanford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

During a Presidential campaign when the ethnic background of many major national figures and immigration in general has weighed heavily on the debate, Wendy Roth‘s new book, Race Migration: Latinos...

Co-Authored: The Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On this episode of the Co-Authored podcast, we learn about one the most ambitious recent collaborations. The Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey or CMPS has brought together hundreds of ...

K. Dittmar, K. Sanbonmatsu, and S. Carroll, “A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Interviewing one member of Congress is a feat for most researchers. Interviewing nearly 100 and almost every women member of Congress is remarkable. Even more remarkable is what we can learn from t...

Shana Kushner Gadarian and Bethany Albertson, “Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Shana Kushner Gadarian and Bethany Albertson are the authors of Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World (Cambridge UP, 2015). Gadarian is assistant professor of political sc...

Michael Grunwald, “The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era” (Simon & Schuster, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

$800 billion is a lot of money. That is the amount of cash the Obama administration pumped into the American economy through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ever wonder what happen...

David Swift, "A Left for Itself: Left-Wing Hobbyists and Performative Radicalism" (Zero Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why has the recent crisis of capitalism benefitted the nationalist right rather than the left? Is there a tension between socio-economic realities and the politico-cultural views of leftists? In hi...

Daniel E. Ponder, “Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State” (Stanford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dan Ponder’s new book, Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State (Stanford University Press, 2018), is an important and thoughtful exploration of the concept of presidenti...

Marc Simon Rodriguez, “Rethinking the Chicano Movement” (Routledge, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Rethinking the Chicano Movement (Routledge, 2015), Marc Simon Rodriguez surveys some of the most recent scholarship on the Chicana/o Civil Rights Movement, situating the struggle within the broa...

Nicole Hassoun, “Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Citizens of well-developed liberal democracies enjoy an unprecedented standard of living, while a staggering number of people worldwide live in unbelievable poverty. It seems obvious that the well-...

Sara E. Davies, "Containing Contagion: The Politics of Disease Outbreaks in Southeast Asia" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

At the start of 2020 few of us would have recognized the face of the current director general of the World Health Organization. Three months later, and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic he a...

Joel R. Pruce, “The Mass Appeal of Human Rights” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How can human rights campaigns function in consumer and celebrity society? In The Mass Appeal of Human Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Joel Pruce, assistant professor in political science at the...

Adam Sheingate, “Building a Business of Politics: The Rise of Political Consulting and the Transformation of American Democracy” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Adam Sheingate has written Building a Business of Politics: The Rise of Political Consulting and the Transformation of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2016). Sheingate is associate pro...

Daniel Kreiss, “Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Kreiss is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networke...

K. Aronoff, et al., "A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal" (Verso, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In early 2019, freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Ed Markey proposed a bold new piece of legislation, now very well known as the Green New Deal. Intended as a means of com...

P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, outlines the history of social media platforms and their use in popular culture...

Deepa Iyer, “We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future” (The New Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Deepa Iyer is the author of We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (The New Press, 2015). Iyer is Senior Fellow at Center for Social Inclus...

Paul Weithman, “Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls’s Political Turn” (Oxford UP, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is difficult to overstate the importance of John Rawls to political and moral philosophy. Yet Rawls’s work is commonly read as fundamentally divided between “early” and “late” periods, which are...

Max Blumenthal, "The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump" (Verso, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (Verso, 2019), Max Blumenthal excavates the real, connected story behind the...

Candice Delmas, “A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

According to a long tradition in political philosophy, there are certain conditions under which citizens may rightly disobey a law enacted by a legitimate political authority.  That is, it is commo...

Christopher Faricy, “Welfare for the Wealthy: Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States” (Cambridge UP 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christopher Faricy has written Welfare for the Wealthy: Parties, Social Spending, and Inequality in the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Faricy is an assistant professor of politic...

Clifford Bob, “The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Clifford Bob is the author of the new book The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics (Cambridge University Press 2012). Bob is an associate professor of political science at Duquesne Un...

A Discussion with Kelly McFall about Using "Reacting to the Past" in College Courses from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How best to teach history and, for that matter any social science subject, to college students? The traditional answer has been to lecture them. Given that the typical length of an attentive lectur...

Samuel Helfont, “Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Samuel Helfont‘s Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2018) makes an invaluable contribution to an understanding of Iraqi st...

Luke Nichter and Douglas Brinkley, “The Nixon Tapes: 1973” (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Luke Nichter and Douglas Brinkley are the editors of The Nixon Tapes: 1973 (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt 2015). Nichter is associate professor of history at Texas A&M University and Brinkley is prof...

David Karpf, “The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David Karpf is the author of The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy (Oxford University Press 2012) and an assistant professor in the School of Media and Pu...

Katherine Franke, "Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition" (Haymarket Books, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Katherine Franke’s ambitious new book challenges Americans to face our collective responsibility for ongoing racial inequality. Rather than fall back on what Franke calls a “palliative history” tha...

Nicholas Carnes, “The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office and What We Can Do About It” (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 2018, much attention has been drawn to candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Randy Bryce: candidates for Congress who’ve made a living doing working class jobs. They are unusual because C...

Carla Freeman, “Entrepreneurial Selves: Neoliberal Respectability and the Making of a Caribbean Middle Class” (Duke University Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This marvelous ethnography traces one of the surprising outcomes of shifting neoliberal regimes in Barbados. As women find themselves leading entrepreneurial lives, they also find themselves engagi...

Isaac Campos, “Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs” (UNC Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Isaac Campos is the author of Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Campos is an assistant professor of history at the Universit...

Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird, "Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In their new book, Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior (Princeton University Press, 2020), political scientists Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird explore the poli...

Janelle Wong, “Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change” (Russell Sage Foundation, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Surprising to many, white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election at a higher rate than any candidate in the previous four presidential elections. At the same time, the Evangelical...

Anthony Maniscalco, “Public Spaces, Marketplaces, and the Constitution: Shopping Malls and the First Amendment” (SUNY Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anthony Maniscalco is the author of Public Spaces, Marketplaces, and the Constitution: Shopping Malls and the First Amendment (SUNY Press, 2015). Maniscalco is the director of the Edward T. Rogowsk...

Jesse Rhodes, “An Education in Politics: The Origin and Evolution of No Child Left Behind” (Cornell UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jesse Rhodes‘ book An Education in Politics: The Origin and Evolution of No Child Left Behind (Cornell University Press, 2012). The book synthesizes nearly forty years of US political history. It...

Oliver Kaplan, "Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Reporters and scholars often focus on violence and victimization: “if it bleeds, it leads.” But unarmed civilians around the world often protect themselves against armed combatants using social pro...

Ellen R. Wald, “Saudi Inc.: The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Power and Profit” (Pegasus Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ellen R. Wald’s timely, well-written history of the Saudi national oil company, Saudi Inc. The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Power and Profit (Pegasus Books, 2018), is as much the story of the Saudi...

Sujey Vega, “Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest” (NYU Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest (New York University Press, 2015), Sujey Vega Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, traces the wa...

Benjamin Wittes, “Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy” (Brooking Institution Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Benjamin Wittes is senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and the editor of Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy (Brookings Institu...

Christine Fair, "In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The attacks on the luxurious Taj Hotel in Mumbai in 2008 put Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a jihadist terrorist group, in the international / Western spotlight for the first time, though they had been deadly ...

Neil Roberts, “A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass” (UP of Kentucky, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The year 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ birth. It can hardly be said that scholars have neglected Douglass; indeed, he is one of the most written-about figures in American ...

John Casey, “The Nonprofit World: Civil Society and the Rise of the Nonprofit Sector” (Kumarian Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The nonprofit sector is growing, not just in the United States, but globally. In The Nonprofit World: Civil Society and the Rise of the Nonprofit Sector (Kumarian Press, 2015), John Casey demonstra...

Heath Brown, “Lobbying the New President: Interests in Transition” (Routledge, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Lobbying the New President: Interests in Transition (Routledge, 2012), Heath Brown, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at Seton Hall University, considers ...

Marco Z. Garrido, "The Patchwork City: Class, Space and Politics in Metro Manila" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In contemporary Manila, slums and squatter settlements are peppered throughout the city, often pushing right up against the walled enclaves of the privileged, creating the complex geopolitical patt...

Spencer Piston, “Class Attitudes in American Politics: Sympathy for the Poor, Resentment of the Rich, and Political Implications” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It has long been a truism that Americans’ disdain for poor people–our collective sense that if they only worked harder or behaved more responsibly they would do well in this land of opportunity–exp...

Guntis Smidchens, “The Power of Song: Nonviolent National Culture in the Baltic Singing Revolution” (University of Washington Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the late 1980s, the Baltic Soviet Social Republics seemed to explode into song as Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian national movements challenged Soviet rule. The leaders of each of these movemen...

John Fonte, “Sovereignty or Submission?: Will Americans Rule Themselves or Be Ruled By Others” (Encounter Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others? (Encounter Books, 2011), John Fonte, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for American Common C...

Sanjib Baruah, "In the Name of the Nation: India and its Northeast" (Stanford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sanjib Baruah’s latest book In the Name of the Nation: India and its Northeast (Stanford University Press, 2020) completes a trilogy on India’s northeastern borderland region of which the first two...

Courtney Freer, “Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies” (OUP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Courtney Freer‘s new book Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies (Oxford University Press, 2018) contributes significantly to an understanding of one of the mo...

Neil Roberts, “Freedom as Marronage” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does it mean to be free? How can paying attention to the relationship between freedom and slavery help construct a concept and practice of freedom that is “perpetual, unfinished, and rooted in...

Kok-Chor Tan, “Justice, Institutions, and Luck: The Site, Ground, and Scope of Equality” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Justice requires that each person gets what he or she deserves. Luck is a matter of good or bad things simply befalling people; hence luck distributes to people things they do not deserve. Justice ...

V. Hudson, D. Bowen, P. Nielsen, "The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide" (Columbia UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Global history records an astonishing variety of forms of social organization. Yet almost universally, males subordinate females. How does the relationship between men and women shape the wider pol...

B. T. Gervais and I. L. Morris, “Reactionary Republicans: How the Tea Party in the House Paved the Way for Trump’s Victory” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There’s been a lot written about the Tea Party, but nothing focused on members of Congress like the new book, Reactionary Republicans: How the Tea Party in the House Paved the Way for Trump’s Victo...

Alice J. Kang, “Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy” (U of Minnesota Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alice J. Kang has written Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy (University of Minnesota Press, 2015). Kang is assistant professor of political science and ethnic ...

Mitchel Sollenberger, “The President’s Czars: Undermining Congress and the Constitution” (University of Kansas Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mitchel A. Sollenberger, assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Mark J. Rozell, professor of public policy at George Mason University, have co-authored...

C. Wolbrecht and J. K. Corder, "A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christina Wolbrecht and J. Kevin Corder have a new book that builds on their previous work exploring women and suffrage in the United States, Counting Women’s Ballots: Female Voters from Suffrage t...

Madiha Afzal, “Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State” (Brookings, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State (Brookings, 2018) provides a unique insight into Pakistan’s complex and multi-layered relationship with militancy and the role of the state i...

Mark A. Smith, “Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics” (University of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mark A. Smith is the author of Secular Faith: Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Smith is professor of political science at the University of Was...

Enid Logan, “At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama’s Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race” (NYU Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Enid Logan‘s At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama: Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race (NYU Press, 2011) examines the campaign and politics around the election of Barack Obama from...

Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like ra...

Millington W. Bergeson-Lockwood, “Race Over Party: Black Politics and Partisanship in Late Nineteenth-Century Boston” (UNC Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Boston’s political culture is most known within the frame of antebellum political struggles over the institution of slavery. What about Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction era Black Bostonian po...

Eli Zaretsky, “Political Freud: A History” (Columbia UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Back in the early 70s, Eli Zaretsky wrote for a socialist newspaper and was engaged to review a recently released book, Psychoanalysis and Feminism by Juliet Mitchell. First, he decided, he’d bette...

Jay Cost, “Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic” (Broadside Books, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic (Broadside Books, 2012), Jay Cost, a political analys...

Frederic C. Schaffer, "Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide" (Routledge, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For the third installment in our special series on interpretive political and social scientific research, Frederic C. Schaffer joins us to discuss his Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interp...

Sean Molloy, “Kant’s International Relations: The Political Theology of Perpetual Peace” (U Michigan Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does Kant have to tell us about International Relations? In Kant’s International Relations: The Political Theology of Perpetual Peace (University of Michigan Press, 2017), Sean Molloy, a Reade...

Raymond La Raja and Brian Schaffner, “Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail” (U of Michigan Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For much of the last 50 years, there has been a consensus that restrictions on political money would improve politics and government. Federal and state campaign finance reforms aimed to do just tha...

Jonah Goldberg, “The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas” (Sentinel, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (Sentinel HC, 2012), Jonah Goldberg, founding editor of National Review Online and columnist for the Los Angeles Time...

Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Ins...

Michele Margolis, “From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity” (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On this American Political Science Association special podcast, we welcome a special guest host – and former guest of the podcast – Andy Lewis. In addition to his recent book, The Rights Turn in Co...

Robert Stoker, et al., “Urban Neighborhoods in a New Era: Revitalization Politics in the Postindustrial City” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Stoker is the co-author (with Clarence Stone, John Betancur, Susan Clarke, Marilyn Dantico, Martin Horak, Karen Mossberger, Juliet Musso, Jeffrey Sellers, Ellen Shiau, Harold Wolman, and Don...

Richard Sakwa, “The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism, and the Medvedev Succession” (Cambridge UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Richard Sakwa‘s new book, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism, and the Medvedev Succession (Cambridge University Press, 2011), comes at a moment in Russian political histo...

Edward E. Curtis IV, "Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy" (NYU Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York University Press, 2019), Edward E. Curtis IV interrogates the limitations of American liberalism in light of the st...

Elizabeth F. Cohen, “The Political Value of Time: Citizenship, Duration, and Democratic Justice” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We’re all familiar with some of the ways that time figures into our political environment.  Things such as term limits, waiting periods, deadlines, and criminal sentences readily come to mind.  But...

Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik, eds., “Twenty Years After Communism” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For people and governments in the west the revolutions of 1989 and 1991 were happy events, and as the twentieth anniversary of those events rolled around they were to be celebrated once again with ...

Matt Grossmann, “The Not-So-Special Interests: Interest Groups, Public Representation, and American Governance” (Stanford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matt Grossmann, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, has authored the recently released book, The Not-So-Special Interests: Interest Groups, Public Representation,...

Andrew Leigh, "Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Are Changing Our World" (Yale UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

From the unending quest to turn metal into gold to the major discoveries that reveal how the universe works, experiments have always been a critical part of the hard sciences. In recent decades soc...

Ben Epstein, “The Only Constant is Change: Technology, Political Communication, and Innovation Over Time” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ben Epstein’s new book, The Only Constant is Change: Technology, Political Communication, and Innovation over Time (Oxford University Press, 2018), traces communication changes and innovations in t...

Ilan Zvi Baron, “Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique” (Edinburgh UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Ilan Baron, Lecturer in International Political Theory in the School of Government and Internati...

Stephen White, “Understanding Russian Politics” (Cambridge UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stephen White‘s Understanding Russian Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2011) begins simply enough: “Russia is no longer the Soviet Union.” While this is a well-known fact, the details of Russi...

Sara Hughes, "Repowering Cities: Governing Climate Change Mitigation in New York City, Los Angeles, and Toronto" (Cornell UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scholars like Ben Barber have suggested that cities provide the democratic culture to pragmatically problem-solve challenging policy issues – such as climate change. Many North American cities have...

Mary E. Stuckey, “Political Vocabularies: FDR, The Clergy Letters, and the Elements of Political Argument” (Michigan State UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mary E. Stuckey’s new book, Political Vocabularies: FDR, The Clergy Letters, and the Elements of Political Argument (Michigan State University Press, 2018), is a fascinating and engaging investigat...

Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

While “fundamentalism” and “authoritarian secularism” are commonly perceived as the two mutually exclusive paradigms available to Muslim majority countries Naser Ghobadzadeh‘s new book Religious Se...

Noam Scheiber, “The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery” (Simon & Schuster, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery (Simon & Schuster, 2012), Noam Scheiber, Senior Editor of The New Republic, presents a behind the scenes look at the membe...

Ahmet T. Kuru, "Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ahmet T. Kuru’s new book Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment, A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is a ground-breaking history and analysis of the evoluti...

Lessie B. Branch, “Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America” (U Massachusetts Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America (University of  Massachusetts Press, 2018) takes as its point of departure and central preoccupation the notion ...

Marc J. Hetherington and Thomas J. Rudolph, “Why Washington Won’t Work” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Marc J. Hetherington and Thomas J. Rudolph have written the alliteratively titled Why Washington Won’t Work: Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 20...

Mike Allen and Evan Thomas, “The Right Fights Back” (Random House, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, The Right Fights Back (Random House, 2011), Mike Allen, the chief White House correspondent for Politico and author of Robert F. Kennedyand The War Lovers, provides a detailed anal...

Tevi Troy, "Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump" (Regnery History, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Washington Post best-selling presidential historian and former senior White House aide Tevi Troy examines some of the juiciest, nastiest, and most consequential internecine administration struggles...

Ron Fein, “The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump” (Melville House, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Is there a case for the impeachment of Donald Trump? Constitutional attorney Ron Fein says not only is there a case, but also that the case exists regardless of what happens with the special counse...

Nahuel Ribke, “A Genre Approach to Celebrity Politics” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

From Ronald Reagan through Gilberto Gil to Donald Trump, our media channels are filled with celebrities vying for the highest political posts. In A Genre Approach to Celebrity Studies (Palgrave Mac...

Tim Groseclose, “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind” (St. Martin’s Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind (St. Martin’s Press, 2011), Tim Groseclose, Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA, discusses his qua...

Joshua Foa Dienstag, "Cinema Pessimism: A Political Theory of Representation and Reciprocity" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joshua Foa Dienstag, Professor of Political Science and Law at UCLA, considers, in his new book, the interaction between our experiences in watching films and our positions as citizens in a represe...

Thomas Mulligan, “Justice and the Meritocratic State” (Routledge Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Thomas Mulligan’s new book, Justice and the Meritocratic State (Routledge Press, 2018), posits a theory of justice that is based on the allocation of valuable goods (jobs and appropriate income) ac...

Elisabeth Anker, “Orgies of Feeling: Melodramatic Politics and the Pursuit of Freedom” (Duke UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Elisabeth (Libby) Anker has recently published Orgies of Feeling: Melodramatic Politics and the Pursuit of Freedom (Duke University Press, 2014). Anker is an associate professor of American Studies...

Phil Kerpen, “Democracy Denied: How Obama is Ignoring You and Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America and How to Stop Him” (BenBella Books, 2011)” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Democracy Denied: How Obama is Ignoring You and Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him (BenBella Books, 2011), Phil Kerpen, vice president for poli...

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "In Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americans since the beginning of their history, have constantly made moral judgments about presidents and foreign policy. Unfortunately, many of these assessments are poorly thought through and ass...

Timothy J. Lombardo, “Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and Populist Politics” (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

President Donald Trump is not sui generis. Populist impulses and political actors have been pulsating in the American soul since the nation’s founding. Timothy J.  Lombardo’s excellent book, Blue-C...

Richard H. King, “Arendt and America” (U of Chicago, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Richard H. King is Emeritus Professor of American and Canadian Studies at The University of Nottingham. His book Arendt and America (University of Chicago, 2015) is an intellectual biography and tr...

Robert Audi, “Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In a liberal democratic society, individuals share political power as equals. Consequently, liberal democratic governments must recognize each citizen as a political equal. This requires, in part, ...

Michelle Murray, "The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Is a rising power – like China – a threat to the world order? The conventional wisdom in international relations says that power transitions – particularly increases in military power – are intrins...

Stephen Tankel, “With Us and Against Us: How America’s Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror” (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With Us and Against Us: How America’s Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror (Columbia University Press, 2018) offers readers a fresh, insightful and new perspective on US counterterrorism coop...

Am Johal, “Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene” (Atropos Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The French philosopher Alain Badiou is not best known for his engagement with ecological matters per se. Badiou’s insights regarding being, truth, and political militancy are, however, highly relev...

Naomi Schaefer Riley, “The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid For” (Ivan R. Dee, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her new book The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get The College Education You Pay For (Ivan R. Dee, 2011), Naomi Schaefer Riley, former Wall Street Journal editor and affiliat...

D. A. Bell and W. Pei, "Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What are the arguments in favor of social hierarchies? Are there differences in how hierarchy is viewed and valued in China compared with other countries? Which forms of social hierarchy are morall...

Suzanne Mettler, “The Government-Citizen Disconnect” (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the paradoxes of US politics today is the widely dispersed benefits, but overall distrust, of government. Citizens enjoy many types of social policy, yet reject the process that provides for...

Eitan Hersh, “Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Eitan Hersh is the author of Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Hersh is an assistant professor of political science at Yale University. We’v...

Colin Woodward, “American Nations: A History of Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America” (Viking, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Europeans like to say that “America” (aka the “United States”) is not a nation. They are right and wrong. It’s true that Americans come from all over the place, unlike, say, Germans. Just ask an Am...

Benjamin Wittes, "Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office" (FSG, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2020) guides the reader through both historical and contemporary considerations of how t...

Ilene Grabel, “When Things Don’t Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence” (MIT Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We spoke with Ilene Grabel, Professor at the University of Denver and Co-director of the MA program in Global Finance, Trade & Economic Integration at the Josef Korbel School of International Studi...

Ken MacLean, “The Government of Mistrust: Illegibility and Bureaucratic Power in Socialist Vietnam” (U of Wisconsin Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When a revolutionary party aims to take administrative control of the countryside, what kinds of devices, training and documents does it use? And what are their consequences? In The Government of M...

Fabienne Peter, “Democratic Legitimacy” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. The quip reveals an interesting dimension of democracy: it’s hard to beat, but it’s also hard to lov...

Co-Authored: Sidney Verba, Kay Scholzman, and Henry Brady from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Great collaborations often work like a family. They involve love, effort, and support, but also conflict and disagreement. The multi-decade collaboration between Professors Sidney Verba, Kay Schloz...

Thomas Ogorzalek, “The Cities on the Hill: How Urban Institutions Transformed National Politics” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Urban politics scholars have long studied what makes cities interesting. Rarely, however, have these unique qualities of cities been studied in the national context. How do representatives of citie...

Daniel Schlozman, “When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History” (Princeton University Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel Schlozman is the author of When Movements Anchor Parties: Electoral Alignments in American History (Princeton University Press, 2015). Schlozman is assistant professor of political science a...

Jennifer Frost, “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism” (NYU Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Any pop culture scholar worth her salt will tell you that discussion of Beyonce’s baby bump or Charlie Sheen’s unique sex life is far from apolitical, but, at times, gossip columnists have engaged ...

Walter Nugent, "Color Coded: Party Politics in the American West, 1950–2016" (U Oklahoma Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The political West is far from monochrome, writes Walter Nugent in Color Coded: Party Politics in the American West, 1950–2016 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018). Over the last half century and m...

Maria Repnikova, “Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Despite its extraordinary diversity, life in the People’s Republic of China is all too often viewed mainly through the lens of politics, with dynamics of top-down coercion and bottom-up resistance ...

Kerry Eleveld, “Don’t Tell Me to Wait: How the Fight for Gay Rights Changed America and Transformed Obama’s Presidency” (Basic Books, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kerry Eleveld is the author of Don’t Tell Me to Wait: How the Fight for Gay Rights Changed America and Transformed Obama’s Presidency (Basic Books, 2015). Eleveld is a writer for DailyKos and a for...

Lester K. Spence, “Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Hip-hop has, within a short time span, moved from a free-flowing expression of urban youth to a global–and highly marketable–musical genre. Its influence in culture, fashion, film, and music is ubi...

Sarah Burns, "The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism" (UP of Kansas, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah Burns’ new book The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism (University Press of Kansas, 2020) pulls together distinct threads in analyzing the theoretica...

Jeffrey Dudas, “Raised Right: Fatherhood in Modern American Conservatism” (Stanford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With the rise of President Donald Trump as the head of the Republican Party, once a Democrat and liberal on many social issues, what does it mean to be a conservative today? What is the glue that c...

James Curry, “Legislating in the Dark: Information and Power in the House of Representatives” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

James Curry has written Legislating in the Dark: Information and Power in the House of Representatives (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Curry is assistant professor of political science at the ...

Tim Goeglein, “The Man in the Middle: An Inside Account of Faith and Politics in the George W. Bush Era” (B&H Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, The Man in the Middle: An Inside Account of Faith and Politics in the George W. Bush Era (B&H Books, 2011), Timothy S. Goeglein, former deputy director of the White House Office of...

Jonathan Hopkin, "Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Should we understand the rise of Trump or the success of Brexit in terms of populism? Culture? Xenophobia? Do the same political forces produce Sanders and Trump? In his new book Anti-System Politi...

Clayton Nall, “The Road to Inequality: How the Federal Highway Program Polarized America and Undermine Cities” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Several recent guests on New Books in Political Science have talked about the path to political polarization in the US, including Lilliana Mason, Dan and Dave Hopkins, and Sam Rosenfeld. The deep d...

Edwin van de Haar, “Degrees of Freedom: Liberal Political Philosophy and Ideology” (Transaction Publishers, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“What exactly is liberalism?” The independent scholar Edwin van de Haar tackles this important question in his new book Degrees of Freedom: Liberal Political Philosophy and Ideology (Transaction Pu...

Jason Brennan, “The Ethics of Voting” (Princeton UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is commonly held that citizens in a democratic society have a civic duty to participate in the processes of collective self-government. Often, this duty is held to be satisfied by voting. In fac...

Maria Ryan, "Full Spectrum Dominance: Irregular Warfare and the War on Terror" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

America's war on terror is widely defined by the Afghanistan and Iraq fronts. Yet, as this book demonstrates, both the international campaign and the new ways of fighting that grew out of it played...

Andrew Selee, “Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together” (PublicAffairs, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With so much political effort placed into forcing a wall between the US and Mexico, Andrew Selee’s new book shows how the ties that bind the two countries together are much stronger. Selee has been...

Douglas L. Kriner and Andrew Reeves, “The Particularistic President: Executive Branch Politics and Political Inequality” (Cambridge UP, 2015). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Douglas L. Kriner and Andrew Reeves have written The Particularistic President: Executive Branch Politics and Political Inequality (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Kriner is associate professor ...

Adam Hodges, “The ‘War on Terror’ Narrative” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many entries in our lexicon have an interesting history, but it’s very seldom the case that the currency of a phrase has global repercussions. In his book The ‘War on Terror’ Narrative (Oxford Univ...

David Estlund, "Utopophobia: On the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is tempting to hold that any proposed principle of social justice is defective if it demands too much of people, given their proclivities. A stronger view, one that many philosophers find attrac...

Adis Maksic, “Ethnic Mobilization, Violence, and the Politics of Affect: The Serb Democratic Party and the Bosnian War” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Within the space of only six months in 1990, the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) managed to win the majority of the Serb vote in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his new book, Ethnic Mobilization, Violence, and ...

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, “Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi is the author of Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2015). She is an assistant professo...

Elizabeth Anderson, “The Imperative of Integration” (Princeton UP, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Demographic data show that the United States is a heavily segregated society, especially when it comes to relations among African-Americans and whites. The de facto segregation that prevails in the...

Aliide Naylor, "The Shadow in the East: Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front" (I.B. Tauris, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Baltics are about to be thrust onto the world stage. With a 'belligerent' Vladimir Putin to their east (and 'expansionist' NATO to their west), Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are increasingly th...

Daniel Hopkins, “The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized” (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Will voters this fall be voting for or against Donald Trump, even though he isn’t on the ballot? Will they be voting on national issues, such as immigration or relations with North Korea, even when...

David Sehat, “The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible and the Our Politics Inflexible” (Simon and Schuster, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David Sehat is an associate professor of history at Georgia State University. His book The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible and the Our Politics Inflexible (Simon and Schu...

Ben Shapiro, “Primetime Propaganda: The True Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” (Broadside Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV (Broadside Books, 2011), Ben Shapiro, who is the youngest person ever to get a nationally syndicate...

Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong, assistant professor in sociology at McM...

Michael L. Sullivan, “Cambodia Votes: Democracy, Authority and International Support for Elections 1993–2013” (NIAS Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ahead of a nominal general election scheduled in Cambodia for the end of July 2018, Michael Sullivan, author of Cambodia Votes: Democracy, Authority and International Support for Elections 1993–201...

Ronald P. Formisano, “Plutocracy in America” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ronald P. Formisano has written Plutocracy in America: How Increasing Inequality Destroys the Middle Class and Exploits the Poor (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015). Formisano is the William T. Bryan Chair of...

Max Singer, “History of the Future: The Shape of the World to Come Is Visible Today” (Lexington Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, History of the Future: The Shape of the World to Come Is Visible Today (Lexington Books, 2011), Max Singer, Senior Fellow and co-founder of the Hudson Institute, argues that the hu...

Daniel Skinner, "Medical Necessity: Health Care Access and the Politics of Decision Making" (U Minnesota Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The definition of medical necessity has morphed over the years, from a singular physician’s determination to a complex and dynamic political contest involving patients, medical companies, insurance...

Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani, “Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook” (Syracuse UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani‘s new book, Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook (Syracuse University Press, 2017), traces the political events that mark almost four decades of re...

Martha Joynt Kumar, “Before the Oath: How George W. Bush and Barack Obama Managed a Transfer of Power” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Martha Joynt Kumar has recently published, Before the Oath: How George W. Bush and Barack Obama Managed a Transfer of Power (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015). She is professor of political science at Towson...

Tamara Metz, “Untying the Knot: Marriage, the State, and the Case for Their Divorce” (Princeton UP, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Marriage is at the center of some of our fiercest political debates. Here are some recent developments regarding marriage in the United States. Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced t...

Murad Idris, "War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Murad Idris, a political theorist in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, explores the concept of peace, the term itself and the way that it has been considered ...

James M. Jasper, “The Emotions of Protests” (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do emotions affect participation in protests, and in politics more generally? In The Emotions of Protests (University of Chicago Press, 2018), James M. Jasper develops a solid critique to appro...

Elizabeth Haas, Terry Chrstensen, and Peter J. Haas, “Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films” (Routledge, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Politics has been a part of many films, since the beginning of the industry over 100 years ago. These include movies with political subjects, such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to films with pol...

Dov Zakheim, “A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan” (Brookings Institution Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Brookings Institution Press, 2011) Dov Zakheim, former chief financial officer for the U....

Eric Lomazoff, "Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy: Politics and Law in the Early American Republic" (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Eric Lomazoff has written a kind of detective novel about the national bank controversy during the early years of the new republic. Lomazoff poses, in the introduction, and at the start of each cha...

Jeremi Suri, “Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office” (Basic Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The office of the president in the United States is one of the most visible institutions not just in its own country, but around the world as well. The expectations that the office and officeholder...

Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy, “New Subaltern Politics: Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India” (Oxford UPs 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

New Subaltern Politics: Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press, 2015), edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy, is a wonderfully rich and theore...

Yuval Levin, editor, “National Affairs” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Public policy ideas make their way into the conversation in a variety of ways. Typically, New Books in Public Policy looks at how books influence the debate, but in this episode we talk to the foun...

Lee Drutman, "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are quite a few authors writing about the problems facing American democracy and how best to solve those problems. Many of the problematic issues devolve to the question of representation – a...

Rick Hasen, “The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption” (Yale UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Several years on from the death of Antonin Scalia, what is his legacy? What did he leave the Supreme Court and jurisprudence? In The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Di...

Justin S. Vaughn and Jose D. Villalobos, “Czars in the White House: The Rise of Policy Czars as Presidential Management Tools” (U of Michigan Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Justin S. Vaughn and Jose D. Villalobos have written Czars in the White House: The Rise of Policy Czars as Presidential Management Tools (University of Michigan Press, 2015). Vaughn is Associate Pr...

Daniel Treisman, “The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev” (Free Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, journalists, academics, and policymakers have sought to make sense of post-Soviet Russia. Is Russia an emerging or retrograde democracy? A free-market or cro...

Robert Frank, "Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. But social influence is a two-way street?our environments a...

Lily Geismer, “Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberalism and the Transformation of the Democratic Party” (Princeton UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stories about the suburbs often focus on conservatism. But, as Lily Geismer shows in her fascinating book, called Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberalism and the Transformation of the Democratic Party ...

Cass Sunstein, “Choosing Not to Choose: Understanding the Value of Choice” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The political tradition of liberalism tends to associate political liberty with the individual’s freedom of choice. The thought is that political freedom is intrinsically tied to the individual’s a...

Gerald Gaus, “The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bound World” (Cambridge UP, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If we are to have a society at all, it seems that we must recognize and abide by certain rules concerning our interactions with others. And in recognizing such rules, we must take ourselves to some...

S. Bergès, E. Hunt Botting, A. Coffee, "The Wollstonecraftian Mind" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Wollstonecraftian Mind (Routledge, 2019) is an extensive compendium of Mary Wollstonecraft as a writer, as an interlocutor, as a philosopher and political theorist, and as a feminist thinker. T...

Eric Miller, “The Rhetoric of Religious Freedom in the United States” (Lexington Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The recent Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling showed the on-going debate between religious conservatives and advocates of LGBTQ rights. Much of this debate has been about the definition of r...

Thomas Holyoke, “The Ethical Lobbyist: Reforming Washington’s Influence Industry” (Georgetown UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Thomas Holyoke is the author of The Ethical Lobbyist: Reforming Washington’s Influence Industry (Georgetown UP, 2015). Holyoke is associate professor of political science at California State Univer...

Gregory Koger, “Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate” (University of Chicago Press, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In recent months, we’ve been hearing a lot of talk about filibustering in the Senate, about how Senate Democrats acquired a filibuster-proof majority in the 2008 elections only to lose it by the mi...

Saladin Ambar, "Reconsidering American Political Thought: A New Identity" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Saladin Ambar has written a masterful examination and analysis of American political thought in this new book which does, in fact, reconsider our thinking about this particular branch of political ...

Peter Allen, “The Political Class: Why It Matters Who Our Politicians Are” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who is in charge? In The Political Class: Why It Matters Who Our Politicians Are (Oxford University Press, 2018), Peter Allen, a Reader in Comparative Politics in the Department of Politics, Langua...

Zachariah Mampilly and Adam Branch, “Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change” (Zed Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Zachariah Mampilly is the author along with Adam Branch of Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (Zed Press, 2015). Mampilly is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director...

Greg Myre and Jennifer Griffin, “This Burning Land: Lessons from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (Wiley, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In their new book, This Burning Land: Lessons from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), the husband and wife team of Greg Myre and Jennifer Griff...

Michael Bobelian, "Battle for the Marble Palace: Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Forging of the Modern Supreme Court" (Schaffner, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael Bobelian has written a history of the nomination of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968. In Battle for the Marble Palace: Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnso...

Lilliana Mason, “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity” (University of Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Recent debates about partisan polarization have focused primarily on ideology and policy views. In Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2018), social id...

Leah Wright Rigueur, “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Leah Wright Rigueur is an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her book The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Po...

Elizabeth Cohen, “Semi-Citizenship in Democratic Politics” (Cambridge UP, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Practically everyone thinks they understand what citizenship means. Yet, there is a great deal of conceptual ambiguity about the term and scholars studying citizenship often disagree about what cit...

Co-Authored: Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones on American Politics and Policy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Co-Authored podcast takes you behind the major academic collaborations in the study of politics. The first episode of the Co-Authored podcast focuses the multiple decade collaboration between F...

A. James McAdams, “Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Is there a difference between the Communist Party as an idea and the Communist Party in practice? A. James McAdams thinks so and takes the global approach to history to write a political and intell...

Kristin Soltis Anderson, “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up)” (Broadside, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With over a dozen Republican candidates in the summer news, what will it take for one to emerge from the pack? Kristen Soltis Anderson‘s new book, The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading Ame...

Reuel Marc Gerecht, “The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East” (Hoover Institution Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East (Hoover Institution Press, 2011), Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, looks a...

Daniel Mattingly, "The Art of Political Control in China" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Tocqueville and Putnam insist that civil society helps individuals flourish and resist authority, but Daniel C. Mattingly’s decade of research in rural China leads him to conclude that civil societ...

William A. Edmundson, “John Rawls: Reticent Socialist” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Rawls is easily the most celebrated and influential political philosopher of the 20th Century, and his impact remains remarkably strong today.  The central concepts with which his theory of ju...

James Gelvin, “The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Professor James Gelvin joins host Jonathan Judaken to discuss the Arab Uprisings, democratization in the Middle-East and Northern Africa, ISIS, al-Qaeda, terrorism, and America’s role imposing neo-...

Peter Baehr, “Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Social Sciences” (Stanford UP, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Contemporary research into illiberal governments draws much inspiration from the writings of Hannah Arendt. In her classic The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Arendt claimed that Nazi Germany an...

K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years work...

Avidit Acharya et al., “Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics” (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Several weeks ago, we had Professor Lilliana Mason on the podcast talking about her book about the process of social sorting that has deepened divides between citizens by aligning race, religion, a...

David George Surdham, “The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989” (U of Illinois Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David George Surdham is the author of The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989 (University of Illinois Press, 2015). Surdham is Associate Professor of Economics at...

Andrew Breitbart, “Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!” (Grand Central Publishing, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Is there a liberal media elite in our country? If there is, do the New Media have the potential to displace it? According to Andrew Breitbart‘s Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the Wor...

Michael Menser, "We Decide!: Theories and Cases in Participatory Democracy" (Temple UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Participatory democracy calls for the creation and proliferation of practices and institutions that enable individuals and groups to better determine the conditions in which they act and relate to ...

Jeffrey Tulis and Nicole Mellow, “Legacies of Losing in American Politics” (University of Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Donald Trump famously said “We’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning.” Tell that to the losers of politics; those who have lost major elections or key political debates. We rare...

Jeffery Witsoe, “Democracy against Development: Lower-Caste Politics and Political Modernity in Postcolonial India” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jeffery Witsoe‘s book Democracy against Development: Lower-Caste Politics and Political Modernity in Postcolonial India (University of Chicago Press, 2013) takes the reader to urban and rural Bihar...

Francis Fukuyama, “The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution” (FSG, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When I was an undergraduate, I fell in love with Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. In the book Montesquieu reduces a set of disparate, seemingly unconnected facts arrayed over centuries and contine...

Daniel Deudney, "Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Space is again in the headlines. E-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are planning to colonize Mars. The Trump Administration has created a "Space Force" to achieve "space dominance" with expens...

Mark Katz, "Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In April 2014, a cohort of twenty-five hip hop artists assembled in Washington, D.C. for the first orientation meeting of a new cultural diplomacy program sponsored by the United States State Depar...

Donatella della Porta, “Legacies and Memories in Movements: Justice and Democracy in Southern Europe” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do transitions to democracy affect the shape and participation of social movements in the present? In their new book, Legacies and Memories in Movements: Justice and Democracy in Southern Europ...

Sarah S. Bush, “The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah S. Bush is the author of The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Dunn is an assistant professor in the Depa...

Dan Drezner, “Theories of International Politics and Zombies” (Princeton UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

International theorists like to game out every possible scenario. What would happen if you applied their methodology to dealing with the fictional public policy challenge of a zombie infestation? ...

Laura DeNardis, "The Internet in Everything: Freedom and Security in a World with No Off Switch" (Yale UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Most people recognize that the internet is growing at an exponential rate. But few have thought as deeply as Laura DeNardis, a Professor and Interim Dean at the School of Communication at American ...

Leah Stokes, "Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why do even successful clean energy policies fail to create momentum for more renewable energy? In her new book Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate...

Salena Zito and Brad Todd, “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” (Crown Forum, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

During the 2016, journalist Salena Zito, who is based in Western Pennsylvania, sensed a brewing conservative populist in the white working-class when many thought the election would be determined b...

Nancy Fraser, “Transnationalizing the Public Sphere” (Polity, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How is “the public sphere” best conceptualized on a transnational scale? Nancy Fraser (The New School for Social Research) explores this pressing question in her book Transnationalizing the Public ...

David Aaronovitch, “Voodoo Histories: The Role of Conspiracy Theory in the Shaping of Modern History” (Penguin, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In preparation for this interview I watched the documentary (that’s what the producers call it, anyway) “Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup.” Of course it’s absolutely loony. In fact, it’s so loon...

Tobias Harris, "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan" (Hurst, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Abe Shinz? is seen today through many lenses: as the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan; as a pragmatic leader with a consistent policy vision and a commitment to the art of sta...

Daniel Denvir, "All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It" (Verso, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is often said that with the election of Donald Trump nativism was raised from the dead. After all, here was a president who organized his campaign around a rhetoric of unvarnished racism and xen...

Jon D. Michaels, “Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic” (Harvard UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jon D. Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA Law School, has written an argument in favor of the administrative state and against recent efforts to shift government functions to private contractors....

Kevin Vallier, “Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation” (Routledge, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In a liberal democracy, citizens share political power as equals. This means that they must decide laws and policies collectively. Yet they disagree about fundamental questions regarding the value,...

Michaela Hoenicke, “Know Your Enemy: American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945” (Cambridge UP, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

To Americans, Hitler et al. were a confusing bunch. The National Socialists were Germans, and Germans had a reputation for refinement, industry, and order. After all, many Americans were of German ...

Robert Vitalis, "Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy" (Stanford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We've heard and rehearsed the conventional wisdom about oil: that the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees access to this strategic resource; that the "special" relationshi...

Lindsay Mayka, "Building Participatory Institutions in Latin America: Reform Coalitions and Institutional Change" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lindsay Mayka’s new book examines the idea and implementation of participatory institutions, asking the question about when they actually work, and when they do not work, and why this is the case, ...

Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt, “Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office” (U Michigan Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Research has demonstrated that women legislators face tougher re-election campaigns, often confronting stiff general election and primary competition. They typically received less favorable media c...

Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, “Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox are the authors of Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics (Oxford UP,2015). Lawless is a Professor of Government and the Director...

Thomas Wheatland, “The Frankfurt School in Exile” (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I have a friend who, as a young child, happened to meet Herbert Marcuse, by that time a rock-star intellectual and darling of the American student movement. Upon seeing the man, he exclaimed “Marcu...

Koritha Mitchell, "From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture" (U Illinois Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Koritha Mitchell, Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University, has written a complex, interdisciplinary, and important analysis focusing on black women as the lens to explore the in...

William Callison and Zachary Manfredi, "Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule and Political Rupture" (Fordham UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The neoliberal consensus, once thought to be undefeatable, seems to have been broken both in the wake of the fiscal crisis of 2008, as well as a series of surprise movements and elections throughou...

Paul Cartledge, “Democracy: A Life” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Western concept of democracy has a lineage dating back to the classical world. Paul Cartledge’s book Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2016) details its origins in ancient Greece and ...

Philip A. Wallach, “To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis” (Brookings, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Philip A. Wallach is the author of To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (Brookings Institution Press, 2015). Wallach is a fellow in Governance Studies a...

Ray Boomhower, “Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary” (Indiana UP, 2008) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As some of you may be aware, there’s a big election coming up. Yes, it’s time to pick a new auditor for Iowa City, Iowa, my hometown. It’s a hotly contested race between a jerk with a drinking prob...

Erica Marat, "The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her book, The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press, 2018), Erica Marat provides an answer to a very important question: “What do...

James M. Banner, Jr., "Presidential Misconduct: From George Washington to Today" (The New Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What standard should be used to assess presidential misconduct during the Trump presidency? How should the public, press, Congress, and bureaucracy resist and punish executive misconduct? President...

Milan Vaishnav, “When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics” (Yale UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why do Indian voters knowingly vote for politicians with pending criminal proceedings against them? Why do political parties recruit criminal politicians among their rank and file? If money and mus...

Denis Dragovic, “Religion and Post-Conflict Statebuilding: Roman Catholic and Sunni Islamic Perspectives” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The subject of statebuilding has only become a more visible issue since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, the world has continued to deal with a host of pro...

K. A. Lieber and D. G. Press, "The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age" (Cornell UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age (Cornell University Press, 2020), Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press tackle the central puzzle of the nuclear age: the persist...

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, "The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games" (NYU Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas has written a beautiful, captivating, and thoughtful book about the idea of our imaginations, especially our cultural imaginations, and the images and concepts that we all co...

John J. Pitney, “The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Autism as a condition has received much focused attention recently, but less attention has been paid to its politics. It is a condition that necessitates significant accommodations and intervention...

Kyle Mattes and David Redlawsk, “The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning” (U of Chicago Press 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kyle Mattes and David Redlawsk are the authors of The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Mattes is assistant professor of political science at Florida Inter...

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A startling look at the unexpected places where violent hate groups recruit young people. Hate crimes. Misinformation and conspiracy theories. Foiled white-supremacist plots. The signs of growing f...

Wendy Bottero, "A Sense of Inequality" (Roman and Littlefield, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should we understand inequality? In A Sense of Inequality (Roman and Littlefield, 2020), Wendy Bottero, a Reader in Sociology at the University of Manchester offers a detailed and challenging n...

Jeremy M. Teigen, “Why Veterans Run: Military Service in American Presidential Elections, 1789-2016” (Temple UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Will the military background of Tulsi Gabbard and Tammy Duckworth lead them to a presidential nomination in 2020 or 2024? If the past is any guide, the answer is a strong maybe. More than half of p...

Scott Straus, “Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership and Genocide in Modern Africa” (Cornell University Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who, in the field of genocide studies, hasn’t at least once used the phrase “The century of genocide?”  Books carry the title, journalists quote it in interviews and undergrads adopt it. There’s n...

Conservatism is Always Evolving: A Discussion with Edmund Fawcett from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For two hundred years, conservatism has defied its reputation as a backward-looking creed by confronting and adapting to liberal modernity. By doing so, the Right has won long periods of power and ...

Magnus Nordenman, "The New Battle for the Atlantic: Emerging Naval Competition with Russia in the Far North" (Naval Institute Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The New Battle for the Atlantic: Emerging Naval Competition with Russia in the Far North (Naval Institute Press, 2019), Magnus Nordenman explores the emerging competition between the United Stat...

Harlan Ullman, “Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts” (Naval Institute Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Since 1945, the United States has lost every war it started. Why? A Vietnam War veteran, Tufts University Ph. D. and intimate of many of the leading figures in the American national security appara...

Michael G. Miller, “Subsidizing Democracy: How Public Funding Changes Elections and How it Can Work in the Future” (Cornell UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With a 2016 presidential election likely to cost several billions dollars, is there any way to prevent money from completely overwhelming US politics? Public financing of campaigns has offered one ...

J. A. Delton, "The Industrialists: How the National Association of Manufacturers Shaped American Capitalism" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Historians often portray the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) as a conservative force in debates over free enterprise, battles against unions and government regulation, and the rise of c...

Elizabeth Economy, "The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A trade war with China has dangerous implications for the global economy. What began more than a year ago with President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs has become an unpleasant economic reality...

Jonathan Engel, “Unaffordable: American Healthcare from Johnson to Trump” (U Wisconsin Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Earlier this year, Jamila Michener visited the podcast to talk about her new book, Fragmented Democracy, about Medicaid and the state-based structure that results in very different experiences of M...

Sophia Z. Lee, “The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americans believe they have a number of protections on the job, which are common in other democracies (free speech and privacy, defense against capricious firing, etc.). They are wrong. And in her ...

F. H. Buckley, "American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Break-Up" (Encounter Books, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Francis Buckley, who is Foundation Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, has written a fast-moving and provocative new book about the opportunities and possibilities ...

Stephen Benedict Dyson, "Imagining Politics: Interpretations in Political Science and Political Television" (U Michigan Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stephen Dyson has provided a fascinating and engaging analysis of political science, the discipline, and political television in his new book, Imagining Politics: Interpretations in Political Scien...

John Krinsky and Maud Simonet, “Who Cleans the Park? Public Works and Urban Governance in New York City” (U Chicago Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is possible that you did not know that you need a comprehensive labor market analysis of the New York City Parks Department, but John Krinsky and Maud Simonet, in their new book, Who Cleans the ...

Brett Sheehan, “Industrial Eden: A Chinese Capitalist Vision” (Harvard UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brett Sheehan‘s new book traces the interwoven histories of capitalism and the Song family under a series of five authoritarian governments in North China. Based on a wide range of sources a range ...

Jana K. Lipman, "In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates" (U California Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Repatriates (University of California Press, 2020) is an in-depth study of the fate of the nearly 800,000 Vietnamese refugees who left their countr...

Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller, "The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller insist that the Second Amendment is widely ...

John Aldrich and John Griffin, “Why Parties Matter: Political Competition and Democracy in the American South” (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Aldrich and John Griffin are the co-authors of Why Parties Matter: Political Competition and Democracy in the American South (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Aldrich is the Pfizer-Pratt Un...

Michael Gould-Wartofsky, “The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael Gould-Wartofsky is the author of The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is a PhD candidate in Sociology at New York University. There has ...

Myanmar’s Disciplined Democracy and the 2020 Elections: A Discussion with Dr Roger Lee Huang from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Myanmar is scheduled to hold general elections in November 2020. While the country has experienced political liberalisation since 2011, the latest Freedom House Report ranked Myanmar as “not free.”...

Lori Cox Han, "Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan" (UP of Kansas, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Political Scientist and presidential expert Lori Cox Han has written an absorbing analysis of the many, many memos that Pat Buchanan wrote while working in Richard Nixon’s White House. Buchanan was...

R. Shep Melnick, “The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education” (Brookings Institution Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When thinking of Title IX, most people immediately associate this important education policy with either athletics or a general idea of increasing opportunities for women in education. Rarely do th...

James D. Boys, “Clinton’s Grand Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Post-Cold War World” (Bloomsbury, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should we look back at President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy legacy? As muddled? Visionary? Or simply uninspired? To answer these questions, James D. Boys has just written Clinton’s Grand Str...

Robert Zoellick, "America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy" (Twelve, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ranging from Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and James Baker, America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy (Tw...

Marlene Laruelle, "The Nazarbayev Generation: Youth in Kazakhstan" (Lexington Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Nazarbayev Generation: Youth in Kazakhstan (Lexington Books, 2019), edited by Marlene Laruelle, looks at the younger generations of Kazakhstan that have come of age during the post-Soviet presi...

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, “Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Their Workers into Lobbyists” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is the author of Politics at Work: How Companies Turn Their Workers into Lobbyists (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is an assistant professor of political science at C...

Lawrence Jacobs, “Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation” (U Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lawrence Jacobs is the author (with James Druckman) of Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Jacobs is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair ...

M. Sobolewska and R. Ford, "Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What are the identity conflicts that define contemporary society? In Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics (Cambridge UP, 2020) Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford, pro...

Jenna Jordan, "Leadership Decapitation: Strategic Targeting of Terrorist Organizations" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the central pillars of US counterterrorism policy is that capturing or killing a terrorist group's leader is effective. Yet this pillar rests more on a foundation of faith than facts. In Lea...

Jeanine Kraybill, “Unconventional, Partisan, and Polarizing Rhetoric: How the 2016 Election Shaped the Way Candidates Strategize, Engage, and Communicate” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Unconventional, Partisan, and Polarizing Rhetoric: How the 2016 Election Shaped the Way Candidates Strategize, Engage, and Communicate (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), Jeanine Kraybill, assistant...

Asaad al-Saleh, “Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories from the Arab Revolutions” (Columbia UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Asaad al-Saleh is assistant professor of Arabic, comparative literature, and cultural studies in the Department of Languages and Literature and the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. His...

Barry C. Lynn, "Liberty From All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People” (St. Martin's Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americans are obsessed with liberty, mad about liberty. On any day, we can tune into arguments about how much liberty we need to buy a gun or get an abortion, to marry who we want or adopt the gend...

New Books in Political Science Year in Review, 2019 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

To wrap up the year and look ahead to 2020, we talked about the books we loved and the podcasts that we enjoyed recording. There were quite a few excellent books in 2019, and we only had a chance t...

Daniel J. Kapust, “Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393