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New Books in Political Science

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

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00:47:52

Conspiracy: The History of a Political Obsession with...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/10/06

Pundits, scholars, and the general public alike have argued that conspiratorial thinking is the greatest threat to liberal democracy. In Conspiracy: The History of a Political Obsession (Harvard UP, 2026), Dr. Nicolas Guilhot, however, challenges us to see conspiracy theories as a sign of the public’s desperation in light of liberal democracy’s failures. Conspiracism is widespread across the political spectrum, as citizens struggle with their disenfranchisement. How are we to imagine the future at

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01:12:30

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/10/05

What is Russia? For two centuries, observers inside and outside the country have tried to answer that question, and most of them have looked west. The familiar story holds that Peter the Great pulled a backward Muscovy toward Europe and that Catherine the Great finished the job by declaring Russia a European state.In The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Michael Khodarkovsky looks south and east instead. He argues that Russia is best

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00:42:12

Beyond Incremental Reform: Rethinking the United...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/10/03

As the United Nations faces mounting geopolitical tensions, financial pressures, and new global challenges, what would meaningful reform actually look like? In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Fellow Peter Hoffman speaks with economist and Global Governance Forum Executive Director Augusto López-Claros about the UN’s record of achievements and shortcomings, the limits of past reforms, and the prospects for more fundamental institutional change. They discuss Security Council reform, the

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01:07:39

Rhetorical Powers: How Rising States Shape...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/10/02

Recent years have seen a striking resurgence of anti-imperial and anticolonial rhetoric on the international stage, from Global South to Global North and from the Left to the Right. Why do states deploy these forms of rhetoric in global politics? How do practitioners from the so-called non-Western world differ in their use and performance of rhetoric, and in what ways do they shape international order?In Rhetorical Powers: How Rising States Shape International Order(Columbia UP, 2026)Sasikumar

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01:04:43

How to Stay Human Forever: On America's Digital...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/30

Many Americans have a constant dread of impending doom. Glued to the screens of our computers and smartphones, we sense that some total catastrophe is just around the corner. But what if our anxiety stems from an event that’s already completely destroyed an old world? What if the real cataclysm was the introduction of those computers and smartphones, and our current political, cultural, and social crisis is just our way of merely dealing with the fallout?So argues the political theorist James

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01:00:37

Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey's...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/29

The Kurdish-populated Wan/Van Province is a major smuggling hub between Turkey and Iran. Kurdish smugglers cross this 180-mile-long land border, transporting everyday consumer goods—fuel, tobacco, sugar, and tea—as well as more illicit goods, and the province supports the financial, technical, and labor capacities that sustain these smuggling economies. As the Turkish state has enacted increasingly punitive anti-smuggling laws, smuggling has also become a site of contentious politics. Smuggling Law:

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00:34:30

The Return of the Great Powers with Brendan Simms...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/29

From the dawn of the modern era to the end of the Cold War, global history was defined by rivalries between Great Powers. In the West, this meant the struggle for supremacy in Europe and the Americas, while in the East, it encompassed those vying for control over the successor states to Genghis Khan’s empire. Between 1989 and the year 2000, Great Power rivalry temporarily gave way to globalization, with liberal democracy on the march and national chauvinism seemingly in retreat. But events of the

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00:55:52

Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/29

Great Power Diplomacy. The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger(Princeton UP, 2025) is acaptivating history of diplomacy—and an urgent reminder of why we need to revive its lost arts to survive in a dangerous era of great power competition. From the beginning of time, human societies have found themselves confronted by enemies too numerous or ferocious to defeat solely by force of arms. In these dramatic moments, wise leaders have turned to diplomacy to rearrange the gameboard in

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00:29:23

Compromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Postconflict...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/29

When an election turns violent and neither side will concede, why is the usual answer to put both sides in the same government?Alex Noyes has spent nearly two decades asking whether that reflex works. Compromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Post-Conflict Power Sharing in Africaout in 2026 from the University of Pennsylvania Press, draws on more than 120 interviews with senior politicians and stakeholders in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Togo to give an unsettling answer.Power sharing can advance democratic

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00:52:56

Democracy on the Edge: The Trump Elections and the...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/26

In Democracy on the Edge, leading political scientists John Kenneth White and Matthew R. Kerbel unravel the elections of 2020, 2022, and 2024 to show how each represented a flashpoint in the reordering of political priorities and electoral coalitions. The consequences have the potential to redefine our politics and shape our democracy for years to come. In 2020, American voters temporarily removed an authoritarian leader, only for this leader to instigate an insurrection attempt on January 6, 2021

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00:56:32

Driven to Their Knees: Humiliation in Contemporary...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/25

Humiliation pervades our politics, from images of stripped Palestinian men in Gaza to mocking chants at MAGA rallies. It suffuses pictures and videos, speaks through bodies as well as words, and is expressed by those with too much power as well as by those with too little. In Driven to Their Knees, Roxanne Euben takes readers from conflicts in the Arabic-speaking world to America’s divided public square, advancing a theory of humiliation rooted in the ways people articulate and enact it. Euben

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01:16:21

Aristotle Kallis, "Iconic Fascism: The Excess of...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/24

In Iconic Fascism: The Excess of Destruction and Creation in Interwar Radical Right-wing Politics(Bloomsbury, 2026)Aristotle Kallis uncovers the paradox at the heart of fascist politics: the simultaneous obsession with destroying and creating powerful symbols. This book demonstrates how fascists were simultaneously some of history's most passionate icon-lovers and most ruthless icon-breakers, wielding symbolic excess as both weapon and worship in their revolutionary project. Through a sweeping

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00:57:36

The Nature of Freedom: On the Republican Tradition...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/23

What is freedom? Benjamin Constant and Isaiah Berlin divided the answers to that question into two categories: the positive conception of the ancients (freedom to participate in political life) and the negative conception of the moderns (freedom from external constraints). But what if this dichotomy is a false one?My guest on Madison’s Notes thinks so. So in Episode 6 of Season 6, I interview the political philosopher, Philip Pettit. The L.S. Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values at

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00:55:41

The American Right in Ferment: A Conversation with...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/21

Even as Donald J. Trump keeps his tight grip on the Republican Party, conservative ranks are rife with sharpening tensions on both domestic and foreign-policy matters. I discuss this subject with Matthew Continetti, columnist for The Wall Street Journaland author of The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism(Basic Books, 2022). Conservative thinkers and political figures have different answers to festering questions such as how aggressively American should assert its role in the

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00:51:10

Stefano Recchia, "Strategies for Approval: Building...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/20

When powerful states go to war, why do they bother asking permission? In Strategies for Approval: Building Support for Military Intervention at the UN Security Council (Yale University Press, 2025), Stefano Recchia argues that the answer reveals something surprising about how power actually works.Drawing on hundreds of declassified documents and more than fifty interviews with senior diplomats, among them Andrei Kozyrev, Brent Scowcroft, and Colin Powell, Recchia shows that money and muscle are

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00:35:59

Brian L. Porto, "Twin States, Different Paths: The...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/19

At first glance, New Hampshire and Vermont seem like mirror images. Separated only by the Connecticut River, the oft-termed "Twin States" share a common history, relatively small populations, and heavily mountainous and forested landscapes dotted with small towns. Yet despite their similarities, they have evolved strikingly different political cultures, with Vermont prizing cooperation and community and New Hampshire celebrating independence and freedom from government. Perhaps nowhere is this

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01:23:45

Lily Geismer on the Democratic Party in the 1990s

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/16

In this episode, hosts Lee Vinsel and Ben Waterhouse, along with producer Joe Forte, chat with historian Lily Geismer. Their conversation covers the evolution of the Democratic party, what it means to study political science as history, and a bit about how a scholar’s work can emerge from their personal experience and identity. Lily is Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and the author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party (2015) and Left

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00:34:26

Why Voters Support Politicians Who Undermine Democracy

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/14

Why do so many citizens continue to support politicians who undermine democracy? And why have nationalist appeals become such a powerful tool for democratic backsliding? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Filip Milačić about his new book, Abandoning Democracy for the Nation(Cambridge UP, 2026). Drawing on evidence from Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Israel and Turkey, Milačić argues that democratic erosion is often driven not simply by populism or polarization,

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01:08:24

Nora Fisher-Onar, "Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism,...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/14

Contesting Pluralism(s):Islamism, Liberalism and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond(Cambridge UP, 2024) challenges a widespread tendency to limit studies of Turkish - and Muslim - politics to 'Islamist vs. secularist' or 'Islam vs. democracy' debates. Instead, Nora Fisher-Onar's innovative argument centers on coalitions for and against pluralism. Retelling Turkey's story from the late Ottoman Empire to the present as a tale of pluralizing vs. anti-pluralist coalitions, this book offers an

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47:14

Michael E. Neagle, "Chasing Bandits: America's Long...

New Books in Political Science ·

2026/09/11

While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security has long been a part of US history.Drawing on six case studies, Professor Michael E. Neagle spotlights the commonalities of how the United States has leveraged popular understandings of "bandits" to justify incursions abroad as well as rally popular and political support at home.Chasing Bandits:

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