New Books in Political Science

71:39

Margaret O’Mara on the Clintons, Tech, and Memory

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/06/08

We were joined by Professor Margaret O’Mara of the University of Washington, who had a front row seat to the Clinton campaign and went on to become an expert in the history of information technology and Silicon Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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69:43

Courtney Rickert McCaffrey et al., "Geostrategy By...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/06/05

How should executives position a company for growth when the geopolitical future is so uncertain? Recent events in Ukraine and the Middle East and tightening restrictions on international trade and investment are reshaping the global business environment. History shows that any such era of change presents both challenges and opportunities. The authors of ⁠Geostrategy by Design: How to Manage Geopolitical Risk in the New Era of Globalization⁠ (Disruption Books, 2024) use examples, from historical

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94:11

Alex Law, "The Roots of Sociology: Scottish...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/06/02

The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been claimed for sociology. But, what does it mean to say these thinkers were sociologists, or at the very least precursors to the subject? Does it, for example, mean that intellectuals of 18th Century Scotland had the same concerns as we do today? Alternatively, does it mean we should think of sociology as an elite discipline, developed by men who were attached to power, albeit with some often critical insights? In turn, if we accept

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32:02

The Predictable Shock of Brexit: Cultural Dissonance...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/06/01

Was Brexit really a sudden, populist shock, or was the writing on the wall for decades? This week on International Horizons, Eli Karetny sits down with award-winning cultural historian Prof. Iain Quinn to discuss his forthcoming book, Cultural Dissonance: Brexit Reconsidered. Quinn dismantles the narrative that Leave voters were simply misled, arguing instead that the referendum was the inevitable boiling point of a deep, historical distrust in Westminster and the media. From the decline of serious

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72:18

Gary Hoover, "Ladder or Lottery: Economic Promises...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/30

In Ladder or Lottery: Economic Promises and the Reality of Who Gets Ahead (University of California Press, 2026), Gary Hoover asks the reader a simple question: Is our economy a ladder or a lottery? Are people able to control their position on the economic spectrum by their actions? Some argue that, in our market-based economy, if you play by certain rules and make certain choices, you'll achieve upward mobility no matter what economic position you were born into. Drawing on his vast economic

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40:37

India’s 2026 State Elections and Indian Democracy?

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/29

This week on Democracy Dialogues, Maya Tudor speaks with two keen observers of Indian politics, Gilles Verniers and Yamini Aiyar, about what India’s 2026 state elections reveal about the future of the world’s largest democracy. Why did the incumbent government BJP make major gains in some states while struggling in others? Do competitive elections still mean democracy is entirely healthy? And why have places like Tamil Nadu and Kerala remained resistant to Hindu nationalist politics? This episode

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95:06

H. A. Drake, "The Wisdom of the Ancients: Four Ideas...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/28

The Wisdom of the Ancients: Four Ideas That Changed the World (Oxford UP, 2025) is about four cornerstones of modern thought that were put in place by people living in the ancient Mediterranean world. It covers approximately 2,000 years in time (from ca. 1000 BCE to 1000 CE) and spatially moves from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia (roughly, modern Iraq), through Greece and Rome, to the new Germanic states growing in what is now western Europe.The four ideas, as author H. A. Drake

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55:42

The Instigators

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/28

Black women have always been the most relentless instigators for change—building a democracy for all. In The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (And What We Can Learn from Them (Harper, 2026), Atima Omara draws on her political knowledge and expertise, as well as history, to examine how they have responded to failed strategic decisions by movement leaders and the modern Democratic Party in previous elections as a context for the present. She also provides

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0:00

Why Elected Leaders Subvert Democracy

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/27

When we think about threats to democracy, we often imagine dramatic breakdowns—military coups, constitutional crises, or sudden collapses. But today, a common danger is slower and less visible: democratic erosion driven by elected leaders themselves. Across different regions, presidents and prime ministers are weakening institutions, undermining accountability, and reshaping the rules of the game from within. Why is this happening now, and why do voters sometimes tolerate it?In this episode, CEDAR

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3:45

Julia F. Irwin, "Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/26

Catastrophic Diplomacy: US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century (UNC Press, 2023) offers a sweeping history of US foreign disaster assistance, highlighting its centrality to twentieth-century US foreign relations. Spanning over seventy years, from the dawn of the twentieth century to the mid-1970s, it examines how the US government, US military, and their partners in the American voluntary sector responded to major catastrophes around the world. Focusing on US responses to sudden

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0:00

Why Elected Leaders Subvert Democracy

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/26

When we think about threats to democracy, we often imagine dramatic breakdowns—military coups, constitutional crises, or sudden collapses. But today, a common danger is slower and less visible: democratic erosion driven by elected leaders themselves. Across different regions, presidents and prime ministers are weakening institutions, undermining accountability, and reshaping the rules of the game from within. Why is this happening now, and why do voters sometimes tolerate it? In this episode, CEDAR

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46:25

Billionaire Backlash: Can It Help Save Democracy?

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/26

This week on Democracy Dialogues, host Maya Tudor speaks with her colleague and fellow political scientist Pepper Culpepper about his new book Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy, co-authored with Taeku Lee. They explore how corporate scandals—from industry exposes to data privacy breaches—can become moments of democratic reckoning, mobilizing public outrage against concentrated corporate power. The conversation examines why scandals matter politically,

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51:45

Oscar Winberg, "Archie Bunker for President: How One...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/25

Political historian Oscar Winberg has a fascinating new book titled Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics. This book weaves together quite a few different threads in examining the historical context in which the television show, All In The Family, landed on American television screens. Archie Bunker for President examines why this particular sitcom was a kind of inflection point within U.S. politics, within the media landscape at the time and moving forward,

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33:53

Nathan K. Finney, "Orchestrating Power: The American...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/21

Orchestrating Power: The American Associational State in the First World War⁠ (Cornell University Press, 2025) explores how the expansion of the American state for the First World War reshaped the nature of governance. This wartime state expansion is examined through the creation, structure, activities, and impact of the Council of Defense system on the ability of the United States to mobilize for a significant conflict in a foreign land. Dr. Nathan K. Finney focuses on North Carolina's Council

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41:55

Erica Bornstein, "A Revolution of Rules: The...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/21

Erica Bornstein, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon (and Divisional Associate Dean), has a new book that delves into the regulatory reforms within the nonprofit sector in India. These reforms transpired over more than a decade, and Bornstein spent extended time developing this ethnographic study of not only the changes, but the institutional structures that manage nonprofit organizations and how the various regulatory decisions are made. The research explores the ways in which

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64:12

Hugo Drochon, "Elites and Democracy" (Princeton UP,...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/20

A central paradox of democracies is that they are always ruled by elites. What can democracy mean in this context? Today, it is often said that a populist revolt against elites is driving democratic politics throughout the West. But in Elites and Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2026), Hugo Drochon argues that democracy is more accurately and usefully understood as a perpetual struggle among competing elites—between rising elites and ruling elites. Real political change comes from the

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61:39

Debating the Constitution: On Originalism's Most...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/20

Here in Episode 8 of Season 5, I interview Professor Sherif Girgis. A graduate of Princeton University, the University of Oxford, and Yale Law School, Girgis is a tenured professor of law at the Notre Dame Law School and a Spring 2026 visiting professor at Harvard Law School. A former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito and member of the American Academy of the Arts and Letters, he is co-author of two books: What is Marriage? Man, Woman, A Defense (2012), and Debating Religious Liberty and

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45:41

George Baylon Radics, "Emotional Filipinos: The...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/20

In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States attempted to build a colony in the Philippines in its own image—one fraught with racist notions of what it means to be civilized, developed, and worthy of self-rule. These imported notions of race and modernity left a profound imprint on the nation. More recently, we have seen a menacing rise of Islamic "terrorism," political polarization, populism, xenophobia, and isolationism. Conventional wisdom has attributed this rise to a "failed

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59:09

Inken Von Borzyskowski and Felicity Vabulas, "Exit...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/18

Why do states exit international organizations (IOs)? How often does exit from IOs – including voluntary withdrawal and forced suspension – occur? What are the effects of leaving IOs for the exiting state? Despite the importance of membership in IOs, a broader understanding of exit across states, organizations, and time has been limited. Exit from International Organizations: Costly Negotiation for Institutional Change (Cambridge UP, 2025) addresses these lacunae through a theoretically grounded

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79:30

Carlos Martins, "Fascism: Beyond Hitler and...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/05/18

Carlos Martins joins the New Books Network to discuss his book Fascism: Beyond Hitler and Mussolini (Desassossego, 2022) (in Portuguese Fascismos: Para Além de Hitler e Mussolini), a comparative study of fascist movements across Europe and beyond. Working from a rigorous definition of fascism based on its ideological content, Martins examines eight case studies, analysing these specific manifestations of fascism to identify what they had in common and what separated them.In this conversation, we

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