NB Political Science

01/07/2022

Vanessa Walker's PRINCIPLES in POWER: Latin America and the Politics of U. S. Human Rights Diplomacy (Cornell University Press) explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in Latin America and the United States government in order to explain the rise of anti-interventionist human rights policies uniquely critical of U.S. power during the Cold War. Walker shows that the new human rights policies of the 1970s were based on a complex dynamic of domestic and foreign considerations that was rife with tensions between the seats of power in the United States and Latin America, and the growing activist movement that sought to reform them. By addressing the development of U.S. diplomacy and politics alongside that of activist networks, especially in Chile and Argentina, Walker shows that Latin America was central to the policy assumptions that shaped the Carter administration's foreign policy agenda. PRINCIPLES in POWER tells the complicated story of the potentials and limits of partnership between government and nongovernment actors. Analyzing how different groups deployed human rights language to reform domestic and international power, Walker explores the multiple and often conflicting purposes of U.S. human rights policy. Learn more on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/principles-in-power

28/06/2022

How much does the average person know about Alexander Hamilton? Most of us know that he was killed by his political enemy Aaron Burr in a duel. But long before that fatal encounter, Hamilton had engaged in major rows with several of his fellow founding fathers, notably Thomas Jefferson but also James Madison and John Adams. Because he cared so deeply about the fate of the newly established United States and its foreign relations, he dipped his pen in rhetorical vitriol when describing many of his rivals and former close allies in private letters and in public writings detailing where he felt they had gone wrong and were, in his view, harming the country.

The angrier side of this brilliant man is on full view in the compendious 2017 two-volume set, THE POLITICAL WRITINGS of ALEXANDER HAMILTON: Volume 1, 1769-1789 and The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton: Volume 2, 1789-1804, edited by Bradford P. Wilson and Carson Holloway.

Today, we will talk Wilson about this important collection of the political writings of that rare combination of man of action and world-shaping public intellectual that was Alexander Hamilton. PODCAST LINK 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-political-writings-of-alexander-hamilton-volume-1-1769-1789

28/06/2022

Philanthropists are praised for their generosity but does their desire to keep control of what happens to their donations mean they exercise power in ways that clash with democratic principles? Approval of philanthropists’ good intentions can mask some important moral considerations about what philanthropy means for the donor and the recipient.

Generosity, influence, reputation and paternalism: democracy and philanthropy with Owen Bennett Jones and Emma Saunders Hastings. Hasting is author of PRIVATE VIRTUES, PUBLIC VICES: Philanthropy and Democratic Equality (University of Chicago Press). Author-interview podcast link 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/private-virtues-public-vices

23/06/2022

In the United States, systemic racism is embedded in policies and practices, thereby structuring American society to perpetuate inequality and all of the symptoms and results of that inequality. Racial, social, and class inequities and the public health crises in the US are deeply intertwined, their roots and manifestations continually pressuring each other. This has been both illuminated and exacerbated since 2020, with the Movement for Black Lives (BLM) and the disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on historically disadvantaged groups within the US.

Dayna Bowen Matthew explores and unpacks the public health crisis that is racism in her new book, JUST HEALTH: Treating Structural Racism to Heal America (NYU Press). She describes how structural inequality undermines the interests of a thriving nation and the steps we can take to undo the pervasive nature of inequality to create more equitable and just systems. Hear her conversation with Lilly Goren on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/just-health

21/06/2022

Politicians and corporations cannot only measure public opinion but also manipulate and create it. And they have been doing so since the 1930s when serious polling began. And as Susan Herbst, author of NUMBERED VOICES: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped American Politics (University of Chicago Press), explains early public opinion research raised hopes for better democratic practice but also led to fears for the future. Don't miss Herbst's discussion with Owen Bennett-Jones on the THE FUTURE of PUBLIC OPINION podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/numbered-voices

17/06/2022

Hi**er, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning authoritarian rule for a more sophisticated, globally connected world. In place of overt, mass repression, rulers such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Viktor Orbán control their citizens by distorting information and simulating democratic procedures. Like spin doctors in democracies, they spin the news to engineer support. Uncovering this new brand of authoritarianism, Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman explain the rise of such “spin dictators,” describing how they emerge and operate, the new threats they pose, and how democracies should respond.

SPIN DOCTORS: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century (Princeton University Press) traces how leaders such as Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Peru’s Alberto Fujimori pioneered less violent, more covert, and more effective methods of monopolizing power. They cultivated an image of competence, concealed censorship, and used democratic institutions to undermine democracy, all while increasing international engagement for financial and reputational benefits. The book reveals why most of today’s authoritarians are spin dictators—and how they differ from the remaining “fear dictators” such as Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad. PODCAST LINK 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/spin-dictators

16/06/2022

In THE ATLANTIC REALISTS: Empire and International Political Thought Between Germany and the United States (Stanford University Press), intellectual historian Matthew Specter offers a boldly revisionist interpretation of "realism," a prevalent stance in post-WWII US foreign policy and public discourse and the dominant international relations theory during the Cold War. Challenging the common view of realism as a set of universally binding truths about international affairs, Specter argues that its major features emerged from a century-long dialogue between American and German intellectuals beginning in the late nineteenth century. Specter uncovers an "Atlantic realist" tradition of reflection on the prerogatives of empire and the nature of power politics conditioned by fin de siècle imperial competition, two world wars, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Focusing on key figures in the evolution of realist thought, including Carl Schmitt, Hans Morgenthau, and Wilhelm Grewe, this book traces the development of the realist worldview over a century, dismantling myths about the national interest, Realpolitik, and the "art" of statesmanship. Hear Specter on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-atlantic-realists

09/06/2022

Most existing literature regarding civil-military relations in the United States references either the Cold War or post-Cold War era, leaving a significant gap in understanding as our political landscape rapidly changes. RECONSIDERING AMERICAN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS: The Military, Society, Politics, and Modern War (Oxford University Press) builds upon our current perception of civil-military relations, filling in this gap and providing contemporary understanding of these concepts. The authors examine modern factors such as increasing partisanship and political division, evolving technology, new dynamics of armed conflict, and the breakdown of conventional democratic and civil-military norms, focusing on the multifaceted ways they affect civil-military relations and American society as a whole. Delve deeper on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/reconsidering-american-civil-military-relations

02/06/2022

The idea of Watergate has long roots in American culture and politics, but in a new book, Garrett Graff dives into this historical era, knitting together the actual reality of Watergate, and correcting, or at least interrogating the mythology that surrounds the scandal itself, the Nixon Administration, and this period in American politics.

Graff has produced a fascinating, propulsive, and captivating narrative about the Watergate scandal that rocked the United States and ultimately brought down a president. WATERGATE: A New History (Simon & Schuster) positions the Watergate burglary and cover-up within the broader “way of life” within the Nixon Administration, which was marked by a variety of different kinds of scandals, some of which are only now fully coming to light, others had been obscured at the time by the attention focused on Watergate. Graff outlines the dark criminal and conspiratorial mindset that dominated the Nixon Administration—and not simply the paranoia that is often associated with Nixon himself. Delve deeper as Graff joins your host Lilly Goren on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/watergate

24/05/2022

On this episode Caleb Zakarin talks to Nomi Claire Lazar about OUT of JOINT: Power, Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time (Yale University Press.

Drawing on stories of leaders and thinkers across a range of cultures and political contexts, ancient and modern, Nomi Claire Lazar shows how constructions of time can help stabilize or destabilize political order and spark violent resistance or coax quiescence by shaping belief in what is possible--and what is inevitable. Give their conversation a listen 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/out-of-joint

20/05/2022

The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality as a form of domination or a way of speaking for others, and have come to favor a politics of particularism—often derided as “identity politics.” Others, both centrists and conservatives, associate universalism with twentieth-century totalitarianism and hold that it is bound to lead to catastrophe.

Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, UNIVERSALITY and IDENTITY POLITICS (Columbia University Press) offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of 21st century collective struggle. This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. Todd McGowan argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. McGowan reconsiders the history of Na**sm and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He joins us on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/universality-and-identity-politics

16/05/2022

To many, the city might seem simply a large urban area to live within, but it actually forms an important political concept and community that has been influential throughout European history. From the polis of Ancient Greece, to the Roman Republic, to the city-states of the Italian Renaissance, and down to the present day, modern concepts of democracy and citizenship that have shaped European thought have historically originated from the political community of the “city”.

Addressing this multifaceted topic is Ferenc Hörcher. Learn more about his new book, THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY of the EUROPEAN CITY: From Polis, Through City-State, to Megalopolis? (Rowman & Littlefield), on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-political-philosophy-of-the-european-city

11/05/2022

Mark V. Tushnet's book, THE HUGHES COURT: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941 (Cambridge University Press - Law) describes the closing of one era in constitutional jurisprudence and the opening of another. This comprehensive study of the Supreme Court from 1930 to 1941 – when Charles Evans Hughes was Chief Justice – shows how nearly all justices, even the most conservative, accepted the broad premises of a Progressive theory of government and the Constitution. The Progressive view gradually increased its hold throughout the decade, but at its end, interest group pluralism began to influence the law. By 1941, constitutional and public law was discernibly different from what it had been in 1930, but there was no sharp or instantaneous Constitutional Revolution in 1937 despite claims to the contrary. This study supports its conclusions by examining the Court's work in constitutional law, administrative law, the law of justiciability, civil rights and civil liberties, and statutory interpretation. Delve deeper on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-hughes-court

11/05/2022

When and why does international order change? The largest peaceful transfer of wealth across borders in all of human history began with the oil crisis of 1973. OPEC countries turned the tables on the most powerful businesses on the planet, quadrupling the price of oil and shifting the global distribution of profits. It represented a huge shift in international order. Yet, the textbook explanation for how world politics works--that the most powerful country sets up and sustains the rules of international order after winning a major war-doesn't fit these events, or plenty of others.

Instead of thinking of the international order as a single thing, Jeff Colgan explains how it operates in parts, and often changes in peacetime. Tune in as Colgan discusses PARTIAL HEGEMONY: Oil Politics and International Order (Oxford University Press) on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/partial-hegemony

10/05/2022

As the culture wars intensify, it seems that all sources of neutral authority get challenged and that includes opinion polls. Accusations about bias and unreliability fly around and yet everyone seriously engaged in the political process studies polls closely because they think they contain important truths. So are polls becoming more reliable because of improved techniques or less so because of the increasingly fractured and perhaps, increasingly difficult to measure nature of western democracies?British polling expert Mark Pack, author of POLLING UNPACKED: The History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls (Reaktion Books), discusses the future of opinion polls with Owen Bennett-Jones on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/polling-unpacked

09/05/2022

The events of January 6th 2021 are contested in the US. For some supporters of Donald Trump it was, and remains, a case of a legitimate protest against a rigged election. For opponents of Trump, it was an attempt to bully Congress through physical intimidation into refusing to validate the correct election result. That so many Americans believe the election was rigged raises questions about the nature of right wing politics in the US. This podcast covers these issues with Timothy Snyder of Yale University. Tune into The Future of the Far Right in the US:
A Discussion between Owen Bennett-Jones and Timothy Snyder on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-future-of-the-far-right-in-the-u-s-a-discussion-with-timothy-snyder

The Future of the Far Right in the U.S.: A Discussion with Timothy Snyder

06/05/2022

Present-day relations between ‘the West’ and China, Russia and North Korea are often fractious to say the least, yet today’s global atmosphere of menace or crisis just as often has to do with history as it does with contemporary disagreements.

Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and research in each of these three critically important countries, DANCING on BONES: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea (Oxford University Press), sheds compelling light on often-under-considered connections between three countries that share much beyond their status as perceived ‘revisionist’ powers. Katie Stallard discusses the book on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/dancing-on-bones

05/05/2022

The return to religion has arguably become the dominant theme of contemporary culture. Somehow, the secular age seems to have been replaced by a new era where political action flows directly from theological, indeed cosmic, conflict.

THE FAITH of the FAITHLESS: Experiments in Political Theology (Verso Books) lays out the philosophical and political framework of this idea and seeks to find a way beyond it. Should we defend a version of secularism or quietly accept the slide into theism? Or is there another way? Tune in as Simon Critchley joins us on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-faith-of-the-faithless

03/05/2022

According to a familiar picture, a democracy is a free society of self-governing equals. This means that democratic citizens have a duty to participate in the processes of democratic governance. Moreover, it is often held that their participation should be aimed at acknowledging their fellow citizens’ status as democratic equals. On a dominant interpretation, this acknowledgement comes by way of how citizens conduct themselves in political decision-making contexts -- including especially contexts of political reasoning, disagreement, and debate. This raises the issue of the kind of reasons that one may bring to public political discourse. On a view associated with John Rawls, theorists of liberal democracy must distinguish between properly public reasons and reasons that are nonpublic. Of course, the distinction is fraught.

In his new book, PUBLIC REASON and POLITICAL AUTONOMY: Realizing the Ideal of a Civic People (Routledge Philosophy and Religion), Blain Neufeld defends a novel view of public reason in a democratic society. He makes his case on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/public-reason-and-political-autonomy

03/05/2022

When Trump took office in 2017, he quickly carved out a loyal base within an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, dominated the news cycle with an endless stream of controversies, and presided over one of the most contentious one-term presidencies in American history.

THE PRESIDENCY of DONALD J. TRUMP: A First Historical Assessment (Princeton University Press) presents a first draft history of one of the nation's most divisive presidencies. With essays covering key aspects of Trump's time in office, political historian Julian Zelizer brings together many of today's top scholars to provide balanced and strikingly original assessments of the major issues that shaped the Trump presidency. Check out his conversation with Caleb Zakarin 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-presidency-of-donald-j-trump

02/05/2022

In this timely and insightful new book, Markus Bell presents the case study of Korean-Japanese – “Zainichi” – who have escaped North Korea in the years following the end of the Cold War. Through building alliances and long-distance relationships, Zainichi returnees resist forced integration and push back against life-threatening political purges to forge new ways of belonging and, ultimately, surviving against the odds. OUTSIDERS: Memories of Migration to and From North Korea (Berghahn Books) is the story of Korean families who, despite experiencing loss, trauma and dislocation, manage to remake themselves in the process of transplanting their lives. Markus Bell discusses the project on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/outsiders

02/05/2022

Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in elected office proved so persistent in American politics?

In NOWHERE TO RUN: Race, Gender, and Immigration in American Elections (Oxford UP), Christian Dyogi Phillips argues that any analysis must contend with multiple dimensions of identity, context, and the simultaneous dynamism of opportunity and constraint. Complementing previous studies with her original datasets and rich interviews, Phillips demonstrates how two simultaneous and interactive processes shape electoral opportunity across groups. Phillips’s integration of national and local-level processes reveals that the pathways to getting on the ballot are few and far between for Latinx and Asian Americans – and especially fraught with prospects for exclusion of Latinas and Asian American women. Learn how race and gender simultaneously constrain and facilitate electoral opportunities for Asian American women and men, Latinas, and Latinos on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/nowhere-to-run

28/04/2022

THE WIVES of WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: Gender Politics in Intellectual Labor (Routledge Philosophy and Religion) fills in a rather large hole in the understanding and the substance of the generation of knowledge. This new edited volume provides an exploration of the thinking around the role of the wife, helpmeet, or intimate companion, and how political theory is created, written, and moved into the public sphere. This book also pays particular attention to what we understand to be intellectual labor, and how we have come to think about the genesis of ideas and theories as the work of a solitary individual—usually male—when others are often quite intimately involved in the generation of this labor. Learn more about the project on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-wives-of-western-philosophy

26/04/2022

Public debts have exploded to levels unprecedented in modern history as governments responded to the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis. Their dramatic rise has prompted apocalyptic warnings about the dangers of heavy debts―about the drag they will place on economic growth and the burden they represent for future generations.

IN DEFENSE of PUBLIC DEBT (Oxford University Press) offers a sharp rejoinder to this view, marshaling the entire history of state-issued public debt to demonstrate its usefulness. Authors Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener argue that the ability of governments to issue debt has played a critical role in addressing emergencies―from wars and pandemics to economic and financial crises, as well as in funding essential public goods and services such as transportation, education, and healthcare. In these ways, the capacity to issue debt has been integral to state building and state survival. Learn more on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/in-defense-of-public-debt