New Books in Political Science

Nisrin Elamin is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto whose work investigates the connections between land, race, belonging, and empire-making in Sudan and the broader Sahel region. Elamin joins the Ufahamu Africa podcast for this episode focused on the conflict in Sudan. Books, Links, & Articles: “Recent protests in Sudan are much more than bread riots.” Analysis by...

On mainstream social media platforms, far-right women make extremism relatable. They share Instagram stories about organic foods that help pregnant women propagate the “pure” white race and post behind-the-scenes selfies at antivaccination rallies. These social media personalities model a feminine lifestyle, at once promoting their personal brands and radicalizing their followers. Amid discussions...

In this episode of Ufahamu Africa, cohost Kim Yi Dionne presents on the state of democracy in Malawi as part of a panel at the 2023 African Studies Association. The panel focused on democratic backsliding and sites and actors that have worked for democratic endurance, strengthening, and democratic governance. Before Kim’s presentation, you’ll hear from cohost Rachel Beatty Riedl who provided an in...

In a world shaken by ecological, economic and political crises, the forces of authoritarianism and reaction seem to have the upper hand. How should we name, map and respond to this state of affairs? The rich archive of twentieth-century debates on fascism can steer a path through an increasingly authoritarian present. Developing anti-fascist theory is an urgent and vital task. From the ‘Great Repl...

Drawing on historical institutionalism and interpretive tools of international law, Transforming International Institutions: How Money Quietly Sidelined Multilateralism at The United Nations (Oxford University Press, 2023) Dr. Erin Graham provides a novel theory of uncoordinated change over time. The book illuminates how a slow, quiet, subterranean process can produce big, radical change in intern...

Through two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a megachurch, sociologist Dr. Sarah Diefendorf investigates the ways in which the evangelical church is working to grow during a time in which cultural shifts are leading young people to leave religion behind. In order to expand, the church has revisited topics long understood as external threats to the organization, such as feminism, gender equality,...

Nearly half of Americans “are inconsistent supporters of democracy and democratic institutions,” Matthew C. MacWilliams writes at the start of his book, On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History (St. Martin’s Griffen, 2020). In the podcast, we explore MacWilliams’ thesis that “authoritarian attitudes,” typically formed in childhood, explain the ascendance of illiberal politics in the United Sta...

The role of mother is often celebrated in the United States as the most important job in the world but Dr. Caitlin Killian argues that American motherhood is increasingly monitored and perilous. From preconception, through pregnancy, and while parenting, she argues that women are held to ever-higher standards and punished – both socially and criminally – for failing to live up to these norms. Usin...

A provocative chronicle of how US public health has strayed from its liberal roots. The Covid-19 response was a crucible of politics and public health—a volatile combination that produced predictably bad results. As scientific expertise became entangled with political motivations, the public-health establishment found itself mired in political encampment. It was, as Sandro Galea argues, a crisis o...

In the summer of 2022, the little-known leader of a small union became a ‘working-class hero’. Facing down media pundits who thought they could walk all over him, he offered a robust critique of the government and provided workers with an authentic voice. At a time when the Labour Party was unable to articulate a credible alternative to the Tories, Mick Lynch spoke for the working class. Where did...

On 1 January 2006, soldiers from across Bosnia and Herzegovina gathered to mark the official formation of a unified army; and yet, little over a decade before, these men had been each other's adversaries during the vicious conflict which left the Balkan state divided and impoverished. Building a Multi-Ethnic Military in Post-Yugoslav Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bloomsbury, 2022) by Dr. Elliot Short of...

How the 1970s energy crisis facilitated a neoliberal shift in US political culture. In Energizing Neoliberalism: The 1970s Energy Crisis and the Making of Modern America (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), Caleb Wellum offers a provocative account of how the 1970s energy crisis helped to recreate postwar America. Rather than think of the crisis as the obvious outcome of the decade's "oil shocks," Wellum unp...

In recent years, government agencies around the world have been forced to consider the role of competition law and policy in addressing various crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2008 financial collapse. There is no easy formula that a competition agency can apply to determine the appropriate response to a crisis; indeed, there is substantial debate about the issue. One common critici...

Mark “Zak” Taylor, a political scientist at Georgia Tech University, has a new book that explores the presidents of the Gilded Age, from Ulysses Grant through William McKinley. This period of presidencies is often a forgotten era, since the presidents were somewhat constrained by congressional action taken in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and then Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. But Taylo...

Over the past decade, many of the world’s biggest companies have found themselves embroiled in legal disputes over corruption, fraud, environmental damage, tax evasion, or sanction violations. Corporations including Volkswagen, BP, and Credit Suisse have paid record-breaking fines. Many critics of globalisation and corporate impunity cheer this turn toward accountability. Others, however, question...

Dr. Kareem Muhammad has a new book that focuses on the role of Black voters in the United States – specifically in their power as participants in democracy. In many ways, this is a “love story to the Black community” in the U.S. The book traces the sustained electoral power of Black voters, and teases at the fissures within this significant bloc of voters. Muhammad pays particular attention to wha...

In On the Concept of Power: Possibility, Necessity, Politics (Oxford UP, 2022), Guido Parietti proposes a more proper definition of power--as the condition of having available possibilities and representing them as such--and examines its implications for the study of politics, both empirical and normative. By neglecting the category of possibility, significant portions of political science and phi...

“How has it come to this? How has ‘Zionist’…become the dirtiest word to the international Left?” Susie Linfield poses that ripe question at the outset of her book, The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky (Yale University Press, 2019). In the podcast, our discussion focuses on three prominent figures examined in The Lions’ Den: Isaac Deutscher, I.F. Stone, and Fred H...

Political Scientists Patricia Strach (The University at Albany, State University of New York) and Kathleen S. Sullivan (Ohio University) have written a fascinating and important exploration of trash. More precisely, this is a complex examination and analysis of the development of our municipal sanitation processes and structures, highlighting intersecting policy areas, urban and local politics, an...

Governments and consumers expect internet platform companies to regulate their users to prevent fraud, stop misinformation, and avoid violence. Yet, so far, they've failed to do so. The inability of platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon to govern their users has led to stolen elections, refused vaccines, counterfeit N95s in a pandemic, and even genocide. Such failures stem from these compani...

In A United Ireland: Why Unification in Inevitable and How It Will Come About (Biteback Publishing, 2017), Kevin Meagher argues that a reasoned, pragmatic discussion about the most basic questions regarding Britain's relationship with its nearest neighbour is now long overdue, and questions that have remained unasked, and perhaps unthought, must now be answered. Indeed, in the light of Brexit and...

How helpful is the democracy-authoritarianism binary when it comes to our understanding of contemporary conflict? What is the state of the Russia-Ukraine war? And how has it affected the great power rivalry between the United States and China? Listen to Stefan Wolff and Petra Alderman talk about the global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, the state of the Russia-Ukraine war, and wh...

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don’t support.  In Race, Rights, and R...

The world is reeling from the savage terror attack that brutalized, raped, murdered and kidnapped Israelis and civilians from at least 25 other countries, continuing to hold many of them hostage – and from the ongoing war that followed. After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, some thought it would become more moderate. That was wishful thinking. The barbaric massacre of October 7, 2023 made it clear t...

Americans frequently criticize US foreign policy for being overly costly and excessively militaristic. With its rising defense budgets and open-ended "forever wars," US foreign policy often appears disconnected from public opinion, reflecting the views of elites and special interests rather than the attitudes of ordinary citizens. The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Ima...