The campus protests over conflict in Israel and Gaza have engulfed universities, and led to the resignation of several university presidents. In this podcast, recorded live at the New York Institute of the Humanities, Michael S. Roth, the long-time President of Wesleyan College, explains how he navigates sharp disagreements on campus, what he means by “safe enough spaces,” and how to understand what is happening on campus in relation to our democracy. Michael S. Roth is the 16th president of Wesleyan University, since 2007. Formerly president of California College of the Arts (CCA), Roth is known as a historian, curator, author and public advocate for liberal education. His many books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014); Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness (Yale University Press, 2019); and The Student: A Short History (Yale University Press, 2023). This conversation was recorded with a live audience at the New York Institute for the Humanities, which is directed by Eric Banks and hosted by the New York Public Library. I want to thank Eric Banks for the invitation to speak with President Roth, and the fellows of the New York Institute for a lively discussion included here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad. Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of U.S. Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade (Verso, 2024) tells the shocking story of the AFL-CIO's global anticommunist crusade--and its devastating consequences for workers around the world. Unions have the power not only to secure pay raises and employee benefits but to bring economies to a screeching halt and overthrow governments. Recognizing this, in the late twentieth century, the US government sought to control labor movements abroad as part of the Cold War contest for worldwide supremacy. In this work, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO's anticommunist officials, who, in a shocking betrayal, for decades expended their energies to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers' movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published in Diplomatic History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Remember the bleach drinking episode? Remember ‘alternative facts’? Remember ‘I have the best words’? These elements of the Trump presidency spoke to a fundamental part of his politics: truth and science were not prime among his considerations. Given this, one may assume that academics would have been especially unlikely to be drawn to the Trump presidency.  Yet, in his fascinating book The Academic Trumpists: Radicals against Liberal Democracy (Routledge, 2024), David Swartz outlines a group of public intellectuals who supported, and largely continue to support, Trump. These 109 Academic Trumpists are not marginal to American academia but rather can be found in middle to high-ranking schools and sometimes have backgrounds in elite institutions. Swartz demonstrates however how they cluster in particular disciplines and institutions and make use of a significant network of populist conservative thinktanks. By comparing these Trumpists with 89 conservative professors who are anti-Trump, Swartz is able to show the distinctive political positions the Trumpists adopt, especially concerning ‘liberal’ campus culture and the appeal of Trump as a ‘wrecking ball’. This populist politics and their distinct networks differ them from their conservative peers who see Trump as a threat and fundamentally not conservative. In our conversation we discuss who these academic Trumpists are, the details of their positioning and why, despite everything, they continue to support Trump. We also consider what possibility there maybe for an allegiance between liberal and anti-Trump conservative professors in the US. Your host Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow with research interests in social theory and the history of sociology. He is the author of a number of books, including G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (2024, Palgrave Macmillan) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America (U Chicago Press, 2024), Andrew W. Kahrl uncovers the history of inequitable and predatory tax laws in the United States. He examines the structural traps within America’s tax system that have forced Black Americans to pay more for less despite being taxpayers with fewer resources compared to white taxpayers. Kahrl exposes these practices, From Reconstruction up to the present, Kahrl exposes these practices to describe how discrimination continues to take new forms, even as people continue to fight for their rights, their assets, and their power. Dr. N’Kosi Oates is a curator. He earned his Ph.D. in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at DrNKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the end of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether we have a republic or a monarchy. He replied “A Republic…if you can keep it.” In The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power (Stanford UP, 2021), David M. Driesen argues that Donald Trump's presidency challenged Americans to consider whether the Madisonian system of checks and balances could robustly respond to a president claiming extensive executive power and disregarding traditional processes such as the peaceful transition of power. Driesen notes that Benjamin Franklin and many men in the “founding” generation observed tyrannical government in Europe – and they explicitly included safeguards in the U.S. Constitution to prevent extensive executive power in the United States. In this tradition, Driesen analyzes the chief executive's role in the democratic decline of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey. He argues that an insufficiently constrained presidency is one of the most important systemic threats to constitutional democracy. Driesen urges the U.S. to learn from the mistakes of these failing democracies. Specifically, he sees the United States Supreme Court as enabling the expansion of executive power. Specter of Dictatorship highlights how the Supreme Court’s reliance on and expansion of the legal approach called unitary executive theory threatens the separation of powers in the U.S. Driesen recommends a less deferential approach in which the judiciary checks the executive. The Supreme Court has been acting a if policing presidential power is the threat to democracy – but the real danger for constitutional democracy lies in expansion of executive power. For Driesen, judges and justices should give substantial weight to concerns about democratic erosion. Because autocracy is spreading abroad and presidential power is expanding in the US, Benjamin Franklin’s concern about maintaining democracy is relevant in 2024. Professor Driesen is the thirteenth University Professor at Syracuse University where he teaches constitutional and environmental law. He is a graduate of the Yale Law School and has published several books and numerous articles with leading academic publishers and law reviews. From the podcast: David’s piece on major questions doctrine David’s editorial on the POTUS debate, Victor Orban, and Haitian Immigrants Correction from Susan – the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade were appointed by John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The justices voting in favor of reproductive rights were 5 men appointed by Republican presidents (Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon) and 2 men appointed by Democratic presidents (Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twenty-first-century America isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. William Cooper's How America Works and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the Us Political System (Ad Lib, 2024) explains why. Americans in the twenty-first century are becoming increasingly untethered from both reality and the essential principles and traditions that have shaped the nation’s historic success. A big part of why America isn’t working is because far too many Americans neither know nor care how it’s supposed to work. Cooper explains key aspects of recent US political history to give the background to dangerous developments, including how political groups have reshaped since the 1964 Civil Rights Act; the rise of Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party; the profound impact of the internet and social media; and the threats posed to the electoral system by the growth of extreme polarization and growing irrationality. Cooper shows how these recent developments have their roots in the deeper past, with the establishment of the political system in the first place and all the knocks and tweaks to it along the way. He also reveals how, as a result of increasing politicization, the US Supreme Court is now exacerbating polarization instead of acting as an effective check on executive power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it’s clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what’s missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A different kind of Star Trek television series debuted in 1993. Deep Space Nine was set not on a starship but a space station near a postcolonial planet still reeling from a genocidal occupation. The crew was led by a reluctant Black American commander and an extraterrestrial first officer who had until recently been an anticolonial revolutionary. DS9 extended Star Trek’s tradition of critical social commentary but did so by transgressing many of Star Trek’s previous taboos, including religion, money, eugenics, and interpersonal conflict. DS9 imagined a twenty-fourth century that was less a glitzy utopia than a critical mirror of contemporary U.S. racism, capitalism, imperialism, and heteropatriarchy. Thirty years after its premiere, DS9 is beloved by critics and fans but remains marginalised in scholarly studies of science fiction. Drawing on cultural geography, Black studies, and feminist and queer studies, A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space Nine (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) by Dr. David Seitz is the first scholarly monograph dedicated to a critical interpretation of DS9’s allegorical world-building. If DS9 has been vindicated aesthetically, this book argues that its prophetic, place-based critiques of 1990s U.S. politics, which deepened the foundations of many of our current crises, have been vindicated politically, to a degree most scholars and even many fans have yet to fully appreciate. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a practical, evidence-based primer on immigrants and immigration. Each chapter debunks a frequently encountered claim and answers common questions. Presenting the latest findings and decades of interdisciplinary research in an accessible way, Dr. Castañeda and Carina Cione emphasize the expert consensus that immigration is vital to the United States and many other countries around the world. Featuring original insights from research conducted in El Paso, Texas, Immigration Realities considers a wide range of places, ethnic groups, and historical eras. It provides the key data and context to understand how immigration affects economies, crime rates, and social welfare systems, and it sheds light on contentious issues such as the safety of the U.S.-Mexico border and the consequences of Brexit. This book is an indispensable guide for all readers who want to counter false claims about immigration and are interested in what the research shows. Our guest is: Dr. Ernesto Castañeda, who is the director of the Immigration Lab and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University. His books include A Place to Call Home: Immigrant Exclusion and Urban Belonging in New York, Paris, and Barcelona (2018); Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States (2019); and Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration (2024). The Immigration Realities co-author is: Carina Cione, who is a sociologist and writer based out of Baltimore. Their work has been featured by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Trauma Care, El Paso News, and American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies Working Paper Series. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States We Take Our Cities With Us Secret Harvests The Ungrateful Refugee The Translator's Daughter Where Is Home? Who Gets Believed: When the Truth Isn't Enough Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this conversation, we dive into key issues shaping the legal landscape today: the complexities of constitutional interpretation, the evolving role and power of the judiciary, and how corruption can impact government systems. We also explored the critical role that civic education plays in maintaining a healthy democracy. Julia D. Mahoney is the John S. Battle Professor of Law and the Joseph C. Carter, Jr. Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Property Law. Her recent scholarship includes articles on government takings of property, the classical legal tradition in education, and feminism and common good constitutionalism. A graduate of the Yale Law School, she is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the Board of Advisors of the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Show Notes: A Common Good Constitutional Feminism, Julia Mahoney. Law and Liberty | August 2022 Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many scholars and members of the press have argued that John Roberts’ Supreme Court is exceptional. While some emphasize the approach to interpreting the Constitution or the justices conservative ideology, Dr. Kevin J. McMahon suggests that the key issue is democratic legitimacy. Historically, the Supreme Court has always had some “democracy gap” – democratically elected presidents appoint justices that serve for life. As presidents select justices, they attempt to move the Supreme Court in their desired ideological direction while “simultaneously advancing their electoral interests and managing their governing coalition.” Despite these forces, Dr. McMahon argues that past Supreme Courts were still closer to democratic principles. Today’s court is exceptional because the “democracy gap” is severe. A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People (U Chicago Press, 2024) draws on historical and contemporary data to reveal how the long arc of court battles (from FDR to Donald Trump) created this democracy gap. McMahon highlights changes to the politics of nominating and confirming justices, the changes in who is even considered to be in the pool to be a Supreme Court justice, and the increased salience of the Court in elections. Dr. Kevin J. McMahon (he/him) is the John R. Reitemeyer [RightMeyer]Professor of Political Science at Trinity College, and the author of two award-winning books, Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race and Nixon’s Court, both published by The University of Chicago Press. Together with A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other, the three books form a trilogy that interrogates whether 100 years of presidential efforts to shape the high court affect the supreme court’s democratic legitimacy. Dr. McMahon also writes public facing essays in outlets such as US News & World Report and The Conversation. For example, The Presidential Immunity Case & American Democracy, President Biden & the Courage it Takes to Call it Quits, Conservative Justices Polarized on the State of American Politics, and Calls for a Supreme Court Justice to Retire. Susan mentioned a stark New York Times graphic of how 6 senators (CA, NY, TX) represent the same number of voters as 62 senators. 2022 data (but less dramatically presented) is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans agree that their nation’s origins lie in the Revolution, but they have never agreed on what the Revolution meant. For nearly two hundred and fifty years, politicians, political parties, social movements, and a diverse array of ordinary Americans have constantly reimagined the Revolution to fit the times and suit their own agendas. In The Memory of '76: The Revolution in American History (Yale UP, 2024), Michael D. Hattem reveals how conflicts over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—have influenced the most important events and tumultuous periods in the nation’s history; how African Americans, women, and other oppressed groups have shaped the popular memory of the Revolution; and how much of our contemporary memory of the Revolution is a product of the Cold War. By exploring the Revolution’s unique role in American history as a national origin myth, Hattem shows how the meaning of the Revolution has never been fixed, how remembering the nation’s founding has often done far more to divide Americans than to unite them, and how revising the past is an important and long‑standing American political tradition. This interview was conducted by Hannah Nolan, a PhD Candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her work focuses upon the intersection of memory, partisanship, and ethnic identity during the early republic to explore the construction of Irish and American identities in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In June, a presidential debated ended the candidacy of incumbent President Joe Biden. On September 10th, Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump debated in Philadelphia and two flash polls done by CNN and YouGov declared Harris the winner. Political scientists know that debate wins don’t necessarily translate into November victories. Barack Obama lost his first debate and Walter Monday won his. To unpack the impact of this usually September debate, we have two presidential politics scholars and friends of the podcast. The spirited conversation highlights baiting techniques used by Harris, the role of the moderators in fact checking, whether a hand shake shook up Trump, the meaning of “she put out,” and Dr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. We mentioned: Trump speaking 43 minutes to Harris’s 37:41 from New York Times Seth Masket’s “Baiting is the Hardest Part” Trump’s belief that shaking hands is barbaric from Washington Post Transcript of the September 10th POTUS debate from ABC News Julia Azari’s Foreign Affairs article Bret Stephen’s New York Times column Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unlike a flood or fire, a the Farming Crisis of the 1980s did not have a set beginning of ending. Rather, it was a rolling, often invisible, disaster that could be easy to ignore if you lived in towns or cities, even within the West and Midwest. Yet, in places like rural Iowa, the impacts of this complex crisis were devastating and indeed, ongoing even today.  In When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s (UP of Kansas, 2022), emininet Iowa State historian Pamela Riney-Kehrberg explains the roots, details, and impacts of the farm crisis on 1970s and 1980s Iowa. Riney-Kehrberg focuses in particular on the mental and psychological effects of this slow disaster on family farmers themselves, with an emphasis on the psychic damage caused by farm closure which contributed to a rash of murders, suicides, and mental health crises across the state. Among the first book-length studies of the 1980s Farm Crisis, When a Dream Dies shows how the disconnect between rural and urban America was both caused, and deepened, in the crucible of debt, banking, and bankrupt farms during the Reagan years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the UConn Popcast, and today we offer a political science / popular culture studies view of Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. We situate Swift’s endorsement within the wider moment of popular culture, and consider her long journey from a self-imposed moratorium on political speech to her current position as the most sought-after endorsement in the election cycle. What does the endorsement mean? Why did she do it? And why did she sign her endorsement as from a “childless cat lady”? Our previous discussion of Taylor Swift and politics is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for an in-depth exploration of Professor Cass Sunstein's latest work, Campus Free Speech (Harvard University Press, September 2024).  Together, we'll examine the book’s intriguing take on free speech in academic spaces and the broader implications for constitutional interpretation. Professor Sunstein also delves into the exercise of administrative power, with timely discussions on COVID-era authority and the Supreme Court's decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Gain unique insights from Sunstein on how the Constitution remains a guiding force for the American public in navigating modern challenges. Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the President’s Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom. Professor Sunstein is author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), The Ethics of Influence (2015), #Republic (2017), Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide (2017), The Cost-Benefit Revolution (2018), On Freedom (2019), Conformity (2019), How Change Happens (2019), and Too Much Information (2020). He is now working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, “sludge” (defined to include paperwork and similar burdens), fake news, and freedom of speech. Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey spoke with Olivier Roy, professor of social and political sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and author of The Crisis of Culture: Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms (Oxford University Press, 2024). Roy argues that neoliberal globalization is dissolving not just subordinate cultures but also dominant ones by undermining the tacit understanding that undergird cultures and demanding that those norms be made explicit.  Moreover, Roy discusses how identity politics has come to supplant the norms once implicit in a broader culture, undermining the possibility that people know how to live in society at all. These development reflect the decline of utopian dreams – for better or worse – and the difficulties involved in maintaining social bonds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

School vouchers are often framed as a way to help students and families by providing choice, but evidence shows that vouchers have a negative impact on educational outcomes.  In The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (Harvard Education Press, 2024), Josh Cowen describes voucher programs as the product of decades of work by influential conservatives and wealthy activists to support a vision of America where education is privatized and removed from the public sphere. Far from realizing the purported goal of educational equity, Cowen cites multiple research studies that conclude that voucher programs return poor academic outcomes, including lower test scores on state exams, especially among students who are at greater academic risk because of their race, their religion, their gender identity, or their family's income. The books traces the history of vouchers from it's initial proposal as part of conservative economic policy through its adoption as a method for families to resist school desegregation. Since then, the issue of education "freedom" has been a part of an ongoing culture war waged through policymaking, legislation, and litigation.  Cowen describes the advocacy network that funds research and promotion of vouchers as a way to attain ideological goals related to conservative social policy, not educational outcomes.  Recommended reading:  East of Eden by John Steinbeck Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the great divides in American judicial scholarship is between legal scholars who take the justices at their word and assume that those words define the law and political scientists who dismiss all judicial arguments as smokescreens for partisan bias or wider political forces. Today’s guest has written a book that bridges that divide.  In Rot and Revival: The History of Constitutional Law in American Political Development (U California Press, 2024), Dr. Anthony Michael Kreis uses methods from history, law, and political science to theorize and document how politics make American constitutional law and how the courts affect the path of partisan politics. Understanding American constitutional law means looking at the relationship among dominant political coalitions, social movements, and the evolution of constitutional law as prescribed by judges. For Kreis, constitutional doctrine does not exist in a philosophical vacuum – it is a “distillation of partisan politics.” Rejecting the idea that the Constitution's significance and interpretation can be divorced from contemporary political realities, Kreis uses tools from law, history, and American political development to explain how American constitutional law reflects the ideological commitments of dominant political coalitions, the consequences of major public policy choices, and the influences of intervening social movements. For Kreis, constitutional law is “best understood through the diachronic lens of American Political Development (APD) and the concept of political time. Kreis concludes that the courts have never been—and cannot be—institutions lying outside the currents of national politics. Dr. Anthony Michael Kreis is assistant professor at Georgia State University College of Law where he teaches constitutional law and works at the intersection of law and American Political Development. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Washington & Lee University, respectively, and his PhD from the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. Mentioned: President Lyndon B. Johnson’s March 15, 1965 speech before Congress on voting rights Keith E. Whittington’s Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy and other works Gerald Rosenberg’s The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?  Correction: Justices Sotomayor and Kagan were nominated by President Obama and Justice Jackson was nominated by President Biden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kaitlin Sidorsky’s new book, All Roads Lead to Power: The Appointed and Elected Paths to Public Office for US Women (University Press of Kansas, 2019), is an extremely well written and important analysis of women in public life and public service. This book combines qualitative and quantitative research to examine appointed and elected state positions, particularly in regard to gender, and concludes that there are quite a few women in appointed positions, an area not usually the focus of research and analysis of women and power. Sidorsky notes that women in appointed positions on boards and commissions at the state and local level see themselves not in political positions but instead working in capacities to accomplish goals, serve the public, and continue along their career paths. In the way many of these women conceptualize their work in these positions, this is not necessarily about political ambition, as Sidorsky’s research discovers, but because this public work is usually connected to the individual office holder’s personal or professional life. This research will be of particular interest to those who study women and politics, political representation, and questions of politics and power. This is an excellent study and analysis, enlightening in both the data compiled and the assessment of the data within our understanding of appointed and elected positions, politics, and power. Lilly J. Goren is Professor of Political Science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). You can follow her on twitter @gorenlj Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine (NYU Press, 2024) digs into the experiences of young Jewish Americans who engage with the Palestine solidarity movement and challenge the staunch pro-Israel stance of mainstream Jewish American institutions. The book explores how these activists address Israeli government policies of occupation and apartheid, and seek to transform American Jewish institutional support for Israel. Author Oren Kroll-Zeldin identifies three key social movement strategies employed by these activists: targeting mainstream Jewish American institutions, participating in co-resistance efforts in Palestine/Israel, and engaging in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns. He argues that these young people perceive their commitment to ending the occupation and Israeli apartheid as a Jewish value, deeply rooted in the changing dynamics of Jewish life in the twenty-first century. By associating social justice activism with Jewish traditions and values, these activists establish a connection between their Jewishness and their pursuit of justice for Palestinians. In a time of internal Jewish tensions and uncertainty about peace prospects between Palestine and Israel, the book provides hope that the efforts of these young Jews in the United States are pushing the political pendulum in a new direction, potentially leading to a more balanced and nuanced conversation. Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting lecturer at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter and IG: @robbyref Website: www.robertomazza.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the past several decades, American society has experienced fundamental changes - from shifting relations between social groups and evolving language and behavior norms to the increasing value of a college degree. These transformations have polarized the nation's political climate and ignited a perpetual culture war.  In a sequel to their award-winning collaboration Asymmetric Politics, Grossmann and Hopkins draw on an extensive variety of evidence to explore how these changes have affected both major parties. In Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics (Cambridge UP, 2024), they show that the Democrats have become the home of highly-educated citizens with progressive social views who prefer credentialed experts to make policy decisions, while Republicans have become the populist champions of white voters without college degrees who increasingly distrust teachers, scientists, journalists, universities, non-profit organizations, and even corporations. The result of this new "diploma divide" between the parties is an increasingly complex world in which everything is about politics - and politics is about everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political Scientist E.J. Fagan, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, once worked at a think tank, and has long been interested in the intersecting work of think tanks and politics. Thus, The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics (Oxford UP, 2024) is an outgrowth of Fagan’s academic research and experience. Think tanks, by their very nature, are generally creating information, knowledge, policy ideas, and the like, with the intention of influencing the policy that is made by elected officials. Those who work at think tanks are generally experts in particular policy areas, and they produce information. Think tanks are not academic institutions, and they are not part of political parties either. They are private organizations that can have policy influence on parties, candidates, and policy development. In The Thinkers, Fagan pays close attention to four think tanks that he explains are the most partisan among the hundreds of think tanks: the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Center for American Progress, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. There are many other think tanks, and Fagan explains that these four have had the most direct engagement in developing policy that is then taken up by elected officials (members of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, the president and White House advisors, as well as governors and state-level elected officials.) The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics assesses the role of think tanks within partisan politics and the connections between these organizations and the policy outcomes we often see in presidential administrations and in Congress. The book also highlights a significant finding, that the rise of think tanks has contributed to the polarization within American politics. Fagan has the data to support this finding, noting that the increased influence of the think tanks, the issue areas where they are directing their work and research, and the increased polarization over the past few decades. The Thinkers teases out the connection between lawmakers and neutral experts—who tend to be academics doing research at colleges and universities, and those working at think tanks, who have interpolated between these two groups. This is an important part of the research on think tanks and how they operate, especially the think tanks that are more partisan and working closely to influence policy outcomes. Given the current focus on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, we also discussed how this is an example of the way that the more partisan think tanks engage in the policy development process, and how they hope to influence politicians and elected officials. The Thinkers is a fascinating study of American think tanks and their role and place within our political system. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chicago is a city with extreme concentrations of racialized poverty and inequity, one that relies on an extensive network of repressive agencies to police the poor and suppress struggles for social justice. Imperial Policing: Weaponized Data in Carceral Chicago (University of Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the role of local law enforcement, federal immigration authorities, and national security agencies in upholding the city’s highly unequal social order. Collaboratively authored by the Policing in Chicago Research Group (PCRG), Imperial Policing was developed in dialogue with movements on the front lines of struggles against racist policing in Black, Latinx, and Arab/Muslim communities. The members of PCRG are Andy Clarno, Enrique Alvear Moreno, Janaé Bonsu-Love, Lydia Dana, Michael De Anda Muñiz, Ilā Ravichandran, and Haley Volpintesta. Imperial Policing analyzes the connections between three police “wars”—on crime, terror, and immigrants—focusing on the weaponization of data and the coordination between local and national agencies to suppress communities of color and undermine social movements. Topics include high-tech, data-based tools of policing; the racialized archetypes that ground the police wars; the manufacturing of criminals and terrorists; the subversion of sanctuary city protections; and abolitionist responses to policing, such as the Erase the Database campaign. Andy Clarno is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Black Studies and coordinator of the Policing in Chicago Research Group at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research examines racism, capitalism, colonialism, and empire in the early 21st century, with a focus on racialized policing and struggles for social justice in contexts of extreme inequality. Michael De Anda Muñiz is an Assistant Professor in the Latina/Latino Studies Department at San Francisco State University. His research interests include culture, art, community engagement, space, and resistance. Ilā Ravichandran is an assistant professor of legal studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Dr. Ravichandran’s research interests include science, knowledge, technology, biopolitics, policing, surveillance, counterinsurgency, state, queerness & Black studies. Timi Koyejo is a graduate student in urban studies at the University of Vienna. He has worked professionally as a researcher at the University of Chicago and as an urban policy advisor for the City of Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the shadow of recent turmoil, Join the Conspiracy: How a Brooklyn Eccentric Got Lost on the Right, Infiltrated the Left and Brought Down the Biggest Bombing Network in New York (Fordham University Press, 2024) transports readers to a pivotal moment of division and dissent in American history: the late 1960s. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and a nation grappling with internal conflict, this compelling narrative follows the life of George Demmerle, a factory worker whose political odyssey encapsulates the era's tumultuous spirit. From his roots as a concerned citizen wary of his country's leftward tilt, Demmerle's journey takes a dramatic turn as he delves into the heart of radical activism. Participating in iconic protests from the March on Washington to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Demmerle's story is a whirlwind of political fervor, embodying the struggle against what was perceived as imperialist war and racial injustice. His transformation is marked by alliances with key figures of the time, including Abbie Hoffman and an eventual leadership role within an East Coast Black Panther affiliate. Yet, beneath his radical veneer lies a secret: Demmerle is an FBI informant. Join the Conspiracy reveals Demmerle's complex role in a society at war with itself, where his deepening involvement with the radical left and a bombing collective forces him to confront his loyalties. The narrative, enriched by a rare trove of period documents, candid photos taken from inside the radical movement, and underground art – more than a hundred of which are included in the book – not only charts Demmerle's saga but also reflects the broader story of a nation struggling to find its moral compass amidst chaos. As Demmerle navigates the dangerous waters of political extremism, readers are invited to ponder the price of ideology, the nature of loyalty, and the fine line between activism and betrayal. This book is not just a recounting of historical events but a vibrant portrait of a man and a movement that sought to reshape America. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weight of justices who self-describe as originalists.  In Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (Yale UP, 2024), Jonathan Gienapp examines the theory and describes how it falls short of achieving the interpretive authority that it claims.  Gienapp asserts that we need to reconstruct 18th century legal arguments as they were originally understood before judging them, while originalists reject historical understanding in favor of a more pliable textualist approach that allows them to impose their modern legal perspectives onto the past.  This "have your cake and eat it too" methodology allows originalists to claim the authority of the Founders while simultaneously discounting anything that those same Founders may have said, done, or understood that doesn't appear among the approximately 7500 words of the Constitution itself.   This book speaks directly to originalists with a challenge to make a fundamental choice between recognizing how our modern constitutional practices distort the original constitution and embrace them for the modern fiction that they are, or recover the original Constitution that the Founders actually knew.  Author recommended reading:  The Interbellum Consitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (Yale UP, 2024) by Alison L. LaCroix Related resources:  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn Edwin Meese speech to the American Bar Association in 1985 Constitutional Faith by Sanford Levinson New Books Network interview with Jonathan Gienapp, when Derek Litvak spoke with him in 2019 about The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard UP 2018). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are familiar with the idea of a formal representative, and perhaps the idea of a formal political representative readily comes to mind. Roughly, this is someone who has been selected by an official process to hold a political office where he or she is tasked with promoting, advocating, and speaking for a constituency. However, we are also familiar with informal representatives: those who speak for a constituency but are not appointed by formal processes. Once again, the idea of an informal political representative is probably familiar: rock stars and other celebrities commonly claim to “speak for” others with respect to distinctively political matters, and they are understood by the public to (informally) represent a constituency. Of course, there are lots of ways in which informal political representation can go wrong. Surprisingly, the topic has not been thoroughly theorized. Until now. In Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation (Harvard University Press 2024), Wendy Salkin develops an intricate framework for thinking about informal political representation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Unexpected Revolutionaries: How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Manuela Moschella investigates the institutional transformation of central banks from the 1970s to the present. Central banks are typically regarded as conservative, politically neutral institutions that uphold conventional macroeconomic wisdom. Yet in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, central banks have upended observer expectations by implementing largely unknown and unconventional monetary policies. Far from abiding by well-established policy playbooks, central banks now engage in practices such as providing liquidity support for a wide range of financial institutions and quantitative easing. They have even stretched the remit of monetary policy into issues such as inequality and climate change. Dr. Moschella argues that the political nature of central banks lies at the heart of these transformations. While formally independent, central banks need political support to justify their policies and powers, and to obtain it, they carefully manage their reputation among their audience selected officials, market actors, and citizens. Challenged by reputational threats brought about by twenty-first-century recessionary and deflationary forces, central banks such as the Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank strategically deviated from orthodox monetary policies to preempt or manage political backlash and to regain public trust. Central banks thus evolved into a new role only in coordination with fiscal authorities and on the back of public contestation. Eye-opening and insightful, Unexpected Revolutionaries is necessary reading for discussions on the future of the neoliberal macroeconomic regime, the democratic oversight of monetary policymaking, and the role that central banks canor cannotplay in our domestic economies. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An Amazon # 1 top release Kindle book during its debut, The Power of Community: A 45 Day Action Plan to Stop Trump from Turning Our Democracy into His Autocracy (PI Press, 2024) by psychoanalyst Dr. Karyne Messina, is a comprehensive guide designed to enhance public understanding of democratic processes and individual participation using psychoanalytic insights. The book provides a daily plan filled with reflective exercises and action-oriented tasks to empower readers to actively protect and participate in their democracy, especially considering modern political challenges and threats. We the people have the power to preserve our democracy, and this book provides the solutions anyone willing to put in the time to do it. From writing social media posts to volunteering at the polls, The Power of Community explains what's at stake and how we can all do our part. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the years following World War II, the New York intellectuals became some of the most renowned critics and writers in the country. Although mostly male and Jewish, this prominent group also included women and non-Jews. Yet all of its members embraced a secular Jewish machismo that became a defining characteristic of the contemporary experience. Write like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals (Princeton University Press, 2024) examines how the New York intellectuals shared a uniquely American conception of Jewish masculinity that prized verbal confrontation, polemical aggression, and an unflinching style of argumentation. Dr. Ronnie Grinberg paints illuminating portraits of figures such as Norman Mailer, Hannah Arendt, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Mary McCarthy, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, and Irving Howe. She describes how their construction of Jewish masculinity helped to propel the American Jew from outsider to insider even as they clashed over its meaning in a deeply anxious project of self-definition. Along the way, Dr. Grinberg sheds light on their fraught encounters with the most contentious issues and ideas of the day, from student radicalism and the civil rights movement to feminism, Freudianism, and neoconservatism. A spellbinding chronicle of mid-century America, Write like a Man shows how a combative and intellectually grounded vision of Jewish manhood contributed to the masculinization of intellectual life and shaped some of the most important political and cultural debates of the postwar era. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality (Basic Books, 2020), Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. With the stunning popularity of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Americans are embracing the class politics of socialism. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America look like? The editor of Jacobin magazine, Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing, and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age. Kirk Meighoo is Public Relations Officer for the United National Congress, the Official Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago. His career has spanned media, academia, and politics for three decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scholars often narrate the legal cases confirming LGBTQ+ rights as a huge success story. While it took 100 years to confirm the rights of Black Americans, it took far less time for courts to recognize marriage and adoption rights or workplace discrimination protections for queer people. The legal and political success of LGBTQ+ advocates often depended upon presenting sexual and gender identities as innate – or “immutable” to fit legal categories. Conservatives who oppose LGBTQ+ equality often argue that sexual and gender identity is something that can be taught. They use the offensive language of “grooming” and contagious “gender ideology” that corrupts susceptible children. In Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Joanna Wuest unpacks how a biologically based understanding of gender and sexuality– based on arguments from the “natural sciences and mental health professions” – became central to American LGBTQ+ advocacy. Her book is both a “celebratory and cautionary” story about the costs of relying on science to win impressive victories for queer rights. The book interrogates the “LGBTQ+ rights movement, the scientific study of human difference, and the biopolitical character of citizenship that formed at the nexus of the two.” As LGBTQ+ advocates brought “science to bear on civil rights struggles,” they transformed American politics and the epistemology of identity politics more broadly.”  Dr. Joanna Wuest is an incoming Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University and a sociolegal scholar specializing in sexual and gender minority rights, health, and political economy. Her book, Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement, received an Honorable Mention for the Society for Social Studies of Science's 2024 Rachel Carson Prize and was featured on a recent episode of Radiolab. During the podcast, we mentioned: Joanna’s article with Dr. Briana S. Last, “Agents of scientific uncertainty: Conflicts over evidence and expertise in gender-affirming care bans for minors” in Social Science & Medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination in Chicago. Lilly and Susan talk to two presidential politics scholars to unpack the political impact of the convention. When the Republicans convened in Milwaukee, the presidential race was a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The four of us took stock of the race back in June and discussed calls for Biden to leave the race – but a shocking debate performance in late June rattled party faithful and donors. In June, few seemed enthusiastic about Vice President Harris as the person to take on Donald Trump. But on July 21st, President Joe Biden not only announced he was withdrawing. Biden endorsed Harris and she quickly and adroitly established herself as the only candidate. After a few weeks of strong campaigning with her VP Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris and the Democrats went into the 4-day convention. Meena, Dan, Susan, and Lilly have a spiritied discussion! Dr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. We mentioned former Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan endorsing Harris at the DNC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tactical Air Power and the Vietnam War: Explaining Effectiveness in Modern Air Warfare (Cambridge UP, 2023) introduces a much-needed theory of tactical air power to explain air power effectiveness in modern warfare with a particular focus on the Vietnam War as the first and largest modern air war. Phil Haun shows how in the Rolling Thunder, Commando Hunt, and Linebacker air campaigns, independently air power repeatedly failed to achieve US military and political objectives. In contrast, air forces in combined arms operations succeeded more often than not. In addition to predicting how armies will react to a lethal air threat, he identifies operational factors of air superiority, air-to-ground capabilities, and friendly ground force capabilities, along with environmental factors of weather, lighting, geography and terrain, and cover and concealment in order to explain air power effectiveness. The book concludes with analysis of modern air warfare since Vietnam along with an assessment of tactical air power relevance now and for the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is part #3 of a the (ir)Rational Alaskans, a Cited Podcast mini-series that re-examines the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In the last episode of the (ir)Rational Alaskans, Riki Ott, Linden O’Toole, and thousands of other Alaskan fishers won over $5 billion in punitive damages against Exxon for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In our finale, while Ott and O’Toole wait for their cheques, Exxon fights back with a legal and academic appeal. In that appeal, they marshal some of the most-respected scholars of our generation. The (ir)Rational Alaskans is a partnership with Canada’s National Observer. You can also read about this story in Jacobin. For a full list of credits, and for the rest of the episodes, visit the series page. Programming Note: This marks the end of our returning season, the Rationality Wars. We will back with another season shortly, sometime this fall. If you want to catch that season, make sure to stay subscribed to our podcast feed (Apple, Spotify, RSS). You can also stay updated by following us on X (@citedpodcast), and you can contact us directly at info [at] citedmedia.ca if you have any questions or any feedback. Finally, if you are impatient and just itching for more content, check out some of our other episodes, like: the other episodes in this season, if you joined up late; the episodes from last season, especially America's Chernobyl; or some of the highlights from our other podcast, Darts and Letters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 'We Want Better Education!': The 1960s Chicano Student Movement, School Walkouts, and the Quest for Educational Reform in South Texas (Texas A&M UP, 2023), James B. Barrera offers a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the educational, cultural, and political issues of the Chicano Movement in Texas, which remains one of the lesser-known social and political efforts of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This movement became the political training ground for greater Chicano empowerment for students. By the 1970s, it was these students who helped to organize La Raza Unida Party in Texas. This book explores the conditions faced by students of Mexican origin in public schools throughout the South Texas region, including Westside San Antonio, Edcouch-Elsa, Kingsville, and Crystal City.  Barrera focuses on the relationship of Chicano students and their parents with the school systems and reveals the types of educational deficiencies faced by such students that led to greater political activism. He also shows how school-related issues became an important element of the students' political and cultural struggle to gain a quality education and equal treatment. Protests enabled students and their supporters to gain considerable political leverage in the decision-making process of their schools. Barrera incorporates information collected from archives throughout the state of Texas, including statistical data, government documents, census information, oral history accounts, and legal records. Of particular note are the in-depth interviews he conducted with numerous former students and community activists who participated or witnessed the various "walkouts" or student protests. "We Want Better Education!" is a major contribution to the historiography of social movements, Mexican American studies, and twentieth-century Texas and American history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the mid-nineteenth century, public officials, reformers, journalists, and other elites have referred to “the labour question.” The labour question was rooted in the system of wage labour that spread throughout much of Europe and its colonies and produced contending classes as industrialization unfolded. Answers to the Labour Question explores how the liberal state responded to workers’ demands that employers recognize trade unions as their legitimate representatives in their struggle for compensation and control over the workplace. In Answers to the Labour Question: Industrial Relations and the State in the Anglophone World, 1880–1945 (University of Toronto Press, 2024), Dr. Gary Mucciaroni examines five Anglophone nations – Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States – whose differences are often overlooked in the literature on political economy, which lumps them together as liberal, “market-led” economies. Despite their many shared characteristics and common historical origins, these nations’ responses to the labour question diverged dramatically. Dr. Mucciaroni identifies the factors that explain why these nations developed such different industrial relations regimes and how the paths each nation took to the adoption of its regime reflected a different logic of institutional change. Drawing on newspaper accounts, parliamentary debates, and personal memoirs, among other sources, Answers to the Labour Question aims to understand the variety of state responses to industrial unrest and institutional change beyond the domain of industrial relations. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2003, in a ruling that bordered on poetic, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Lawrence v. Texas that sexual behavior between consenting adults was protected under the constitutional right to privacy. This was a landmark case in the course of LGBTQ+ rights in the Untied States, laying the groundwork for cases like 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges. Yet, this case did not emerge out of nowhere.  In Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement (U Texas Press, 2023), University of North Texas history professor Wesley Phelps argues that behind each successful court case stands a litany of failures, challenges, and individual human stories, each of which laid the groundwork for these landmark successes. By tracking the long history of queer activism in Texas during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Phelps shows how the long road toward greater LGBTQ+ civil rights was paved with hard work by hundreds of activists, lawyers, and allies. No movement exists in a vacuum, and Before Lawrence v. Texas provides a roadmap showing how historical change really occurs.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, New York State was a hotbed of change. Cities grew as immigrants arrived from Europe and African Americans trekked up from the South. Corporations grew in power and women fought for the right to vote. In political speeches, muckraking journalism, and expert reports, New Yorkers argued out the issues of what came to be called The Progressive Era—a period of social and political and change that sparked a range of reform movements. The era and its causes loomed large in New York State, and the reforms fought out and enacted in New York were central to the Progressive Era nationwide. In Progressive New York: Change and Reform in the Empire State, 1900-1920: A Reader (SUNY Press, 2024), Bruce Dearstyne has gathered a wealth of documents that bring to life the issues, ideas and passions of this important era. Dearstyne has written widely on New York State history and worked in many capacities to document and explore the history of the Empire State. He was a professor at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, where he still serves as an adjunct professor. Host Robert W. Snyder is Manhattan Borough Historian and professor emeritus of journalism, and American Studies at Rutgers University. His latest book, When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers, is due out in March 2025 from Cornell University Press. Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as it appears to be today then, Jason Blakely argues in his new book Lost in Ideology: Interpreting Modern Political Life (Agenda Publishing, 2023), this may not be because we are like travellers guided by old maps of the political world but because we make the mistake of thinking that our maps are the worlds in which we live and act politically. When we read them as if they are reality, rather than a representation of it, we get lost. If you like this episode of New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science then you might also be interested in others in the series, including Jason and Mark Bevir talking about their Interpretive Social Science, and James C. Scott, who passed away shortly before this episode was recorded, discussing his Against the Grain. Jason recommends Charles Taylor’s sequel to The Language Animal, Cosmic Connections, and Jon Fosse’s novelistic exploration of the human condition, Septology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, explores the rise of a specific type of political leader and what this means for our politics. The book works through debates over the existence of a political class, arguing this ‘class’ is homogenised along lines of characteristics, attitudes, and behaviours, and carefully analysing potential defences of the political class. However, in presenting the intrinsic case, as well as an extensive and detailed range of other cases, against the political class the book presents a powerful critique of how politics is currently organised. Concluding with a range of practical suggestions for change, including quotas, randomised selection of representative, and changes to how politics is organised, the book will be essential reading for anyone concerned with who is in charge of society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Clinton won the Latino vote in a “landslide,” Barack Obama “crushed” Mitt Romney among Latino voters in his reelection, and, four years earlier, the Democratic ticket beat the McCain-Palin ticket by a margin of more than two to one. But those numbers belie a more complicated picture. Because of decades of investment and political courtship, as well as a nuanced and varied cultural identity, the Republican party has had a much longer and stronger bond with Hispanics. How is this possible for a party so associated with draconian immigration and racial policies? In The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump (Ecco, 2020), historian and political commentator Geraldo Cadava illuminates the history of the millions of Hispanic Republicans who, since the 1960s, have had a significant impact on national politics. Intertwining the little understood history of Hispanic Americans with a cultural study of how post–World War II Republican politicians actively courted the Hispanic vote during the Cold War (especially Cuban émigrés) and during periods of major strife in Central America (especially during Iran-Contra), Cadava offers insight into the complicated dynamic between Latino liberalism and conservatism, which, when studied together, shine a crucial light on a rapidly changing demographic that will impact American elections for years to come. Tiffany Jasmin González is an AAUW Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate of History at Texas A&M University. Her research centers on the 20th-century US, Latinx history, American politics, social movements, borderlands, and women & gender. Her dissertation, Representation for a Change: Women in Government and the Chicana/o Civil Rights Movement in Texas. You can follow Tiffany on Twitter @T_J_Gonzalez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political Scientist Heath Brown’s new book, Roadblocked: Joe Biden's Rocky Transition to the Presidency (UP of Kansas, 2024), examines the presidential transition between the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration in late 2020 and into 2021. Presidential transitions are not all that frequent, since presidents who are re-elected do not need to go through a transition to their second term. Thus, while there have been over forty presidents, there have been far fewer transitions. And until January 6, 2021, the history of transitions has been marked by the peaceful change of power between presidents and parties. While Brown is not focusing on January 6, 2021, he is analyzing the unique transition between Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden, and their respective administrations, and how that particular transition did not necessarily reflect the institutional norms of previous presidential transitions. Roadblocked tells two stories about the roadblocks. There were the external roadblocks, which came from the various ways in which the transition from Trump to Biden was stymied by members of the Executive branch, including the Director of the Government Services Administration (GSA) and the legal process of ascertainment, as well as principals who were uncooperative with the incoming team. There were also internal roadblocks within the Biden transition team itself, which also contributed to the rocky start of the new administration. Brown delineates the oddity of how the transition itself works—which is generally secretive and private. There are general discussions of transitions in political science and history, in terms of what is supposed to happen during this process, when those leaving positions and those entering positions generally sit side by side to learn the ins and outs of the position from the person holding that position. But the Biden transition also took place during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis, before vaccines were available, so much of the transition was virtual, another twist to the already complicated process. The areas where the Biden transition team met with the most difficulty from the outgoing administration was with regard to the budgeting process and the Office of Management and Budget, and with the Intelligence, Foreign Policy, and Defense sectors. The appointees who ran these parts of the Executive branch were the least cooperative, and generally dismissive of the incoming Biden appointees. For the rest of the Executive branch, which is vast, there was generally good cooperation at most levels. In terms of the internal difficulties, there were great concerns about technological vulnerabilities and the potential for hacking. This led to a kind of fragmented dynamic within the transition team, since there was a lot of siloing and not a lot of coordination. Given the abbreviated timeline, the general secrecy that goes on with presidential transitions, and the fact that much of this transition was taking place virtually, with members of the team distributed around the country (as well as in other countries), this all contributed to an internal discombobulation in terms of the transition. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This June 2020 episode, originally part of a Global Policing series, was Recall this Book's first exploration of police brutality, systemic and personal racism and Black Lives Matter. Elizabeth and John were lucky to be joined by Daniel Kryder and David Cunningham, two scholars who have worked on these questions for decades. Many of the mechanisms that create an oppressed and subordinated American community of color can seem subtle and indirect, despite the insidious ways they pervade housing law (The Color of Law), education (Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together, Savage Inequalities) and the carceral state (The Condemnation of Blackness, The New Jim Crow, Locking Up Our Own). Although there is plenty of subtle racism in policing as well, there can be a brutally frontal quality to white-power policing: just look at the racial disparity in the stubbornly astronomically number of fatal shootings by police. David and Daniel ask how much of the current system of racial and class disparity can be traced back to slavery or to subsequent 19th century racial logic, and howw much arises from the confluence of other forces. The conversation notes the widespread white participation in 2020 protests–did we ever expect to hear Mitt Romney chanting “Black Lives Matter”?– and what this might suggest about the possibilities for actual change. It also touches on the roles of the media and institutions such as police unions and the erosion of federal oversight of local police departments. Mentioned in this episode: Klansville, USA (cf. the PBS show of the same name that drew heavily on the book; and an interview David did on the topic of today’s Klan) Kerner Commission Report (1968) Ethical Society of Police (cf. this compelling local post-Ferguson PBS documentary that speaks with St. Louis African-American police officers) Recallable Books Walter Johnson, “The Broken Heart of America” (2020) James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time” (1963) Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Between the World and Me” (2015) Listen and Read Here: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space (Policy Press, 2024) examines the connections between race, place, and space, and sheds light on how they contribute and maintain racial hierarchies. Dr. Miguel Montalva Barba focuses on the White residents of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which, according to the Cooks Political Report Partisan Voting Index, is the most liberal district in the state and 15th in the United States of America. The book uses settler colonialism and critical race theory to explore how self-identified progressive White residents perceive their gentrifying neighborhood and how they make sense of their positionality. Using the extended case method, as well as in-depth interviews, participant observation, content analysis and visual/media analysis, the author reveals how systemic racialized inequality persists even in a politically progressive borough. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who was James Madison? Why were his Notes on Government so valuable to the American founding? Did James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington all achieve what Sheehan calls “Civic Friendship”? Colleen Sheehan joins Madison’s Notes to discuss her seminal works on James Madison: The Mind of James Madison: The Legacy of Classical Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Colleen Sheehan is a former Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. A former, longtime member of the Villanova University faculty, she is currently a professor of politics and ethics in the Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983 (Simon & Schuster, 2018), by Marc Ambinder, is a history of US-Soviet Relations under Ronald Reagan and an exploration of nuclear command and control operations. Ambender weaves together accounts of military exercises, false alarms, and espionage to tell the story of how close the U.S. and the former Soviet Union came to nuclear war in 1983. The Brink is a narrative-style book that also details the evolution of U.S. nuclear war decision-making practices, continuity of government planning, and U.S. interactions with NATO and allies in during the 1980s. Beth Windisch is a national security practitioner. You can tweet her @bethwindisch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the draft majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health was leaked, the media, public officials, and scholars focused on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They noted Justice Alito’s strident tone and radical use of originalism to eliminate constitutional protection for reproductive rights. My guest today has written a book that asks us to also notice over 140 footnotes in the majority opinion and dissent. Are these notes part of the law? In his new book, The Supreme Court Footnote: A Surprising History (NYU Press, 2024), Dr. Peter Charles Hoffer insists that these notes are significant. The footnotes reveal the justices' beliefs about the Constitution's essence, highlight their controversial reasoning, and expose “vastly different interpretations of the role of Supreme Court Justice.” Using a comprehensive qualitative analysis, The Supreme Court Footnote, offers a history of the evolution of footnotes in US Supreme Court opinions and a thoughtful set of case studies to reveal the particular ways that the footnote has affected Supreme Court decisions. Hoffer argues that justices alter the course of history through their decisions and the footnote is the way in which they push their own understanding of the Constitution. Eight case studies show how the footnote has evolved over time. He begins with Chisholm v. Georgia in 1792 and ends with Dobbs v. Jackson case in 2022. Using Dred Scott, Viterbo v. Friedlander, Muller v. Oregon, United States v. Carolene Products, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, and District of Columbia v. Heller, Hoffer demonstrates how the footnotes reflect the changing role of the Supreme Court justice and the manner in which they interpret the Constitution. Dr. Hoffer looks back in order to look forward. He offers a study of the footnote that is relevant to contemporary debates over the Supreme Court, methods of interpretation, and politics.  Dr. Peter Charles Hoffer is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia. Hoffer went to University of Rochester and Harvard and has taught at Ohio State, Notre Dame, and UGA (since 1978). He has written books on the Supreme Court, the Federal Court System, infanticide, impeachment, abortion, early American history, slave rebellions, and historical methods. During the podcast, we mentioned: Anthony Grafton’s The Footnote: A Curious History (Harvard, 1999) My NBN conversation with Laura F. Edward’s on her book (The People and their Peace), originalism and domestic violence The University of Kansas’s Landmark Law Series Peter’s book Reading Law Forward: The Making of a Democratic Jurisprudence from John Marshall to Stephen G. Breyer (University of Kansas, 2023) The June 2024 recording of Justices Roberts and Alito on godliness Susan’s “Sensitive Places?: How Gender Unmasks the Myth of Originalism in District of Columbia v. Heller” (Polity, 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices