Democratic Backsliding I don’t like to write about American politics. Anything I say becomes interpreted through the lens of partisanship rather than as political theory. At the same time, it’s become difficult to discuss the global decline of democracy without mentioning the United States. Of course, it does help to limit the discussion to specific... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Samet's Looking for the Good War headlines this week's collection of new books on democracy. This week's list features a diverse group including works on international relations, history, and philosophy. Moreover, each author approaches their subject from different perspectives. Nonetheless, the works contribute to different topics that involve debates surrounding democratic thought. Of course, don't... Continue Reading →
Joshua Yaffa joins the podcast to discuss his new book Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia. He is a correspondent for The New Yorker based primarily in Moscow, Russia. ‘What would you prefer? Would you prefer that this boy, Vasya, die because he couldn't get dialysis? Would you prefer that this girl,... Continue Reading →
Compromise and Ambition Where do we draw the line between politics and the other parts of our life? It’s funny how anybody focused on politics distinguishes only between the political and everything else. The compartmentalization does not extend into economic, religious, and other social aspects of the world. For the political thinker the line is... Continue Reading →
Introduction This week features books on polarization, American history, corruption, privatization, and philosophy. A few books like Democratic Resilience and Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin offer more academic reads, while American Kleptocracy and The Privatization of Everything look to reach a broader audience. Finally, Diana Schaub's His Greatest Speeches will appeal to history buffs and scholars alike. In the meantime, don't miss the... Continue Reading →
Zoltan Barany is the Frank C. Erwin, Jr. Centennial Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Armies of Arabia: Military Politics and Effectiveness in the Gulf. The last time, and luckily this hasn't really happened since 1990, there was minimal resistance from the Kuwaiti and the... Continue Reading →
Armies of Arabia Early in the book, Armies of Arabia, Zoltan Barany writes, “Perhaps the most important and conspicuous attribute that all Arab armies in republics and monarchies share is their remarkable ineffectiveness on the battlefield.” This is where most of us need to start. Barany seeks to understand why the Gulf monarchies field ineffective... Continue Reading →
Introduction The 1619 Project highlights the list of democracy books this week. It focuses on topics of inclusion essesntial for a democratic society. The Afro-Indigenous History of the United States also explores some of the same themes of inclusion through an examination of marginalized groups. Other books include topics such as dictators and populism. I have... Continue Reading →
Amory Gethin is a PhD candidate at the Paris School of Economics and a research fellow at the world Inequality Lab. He is a coeditor (along with Clara Martinez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty) of Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities: A Study of 50 Democracies, 1948-2020. Indeed, the moderation of left-wing party’s economic policy proposals in the... Continue Reading →
Thomas Piketty is best known for the publication of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It changed how the intellectual community thought about the problem of inequality. Despite the fact it may not have changed many opinions, it is one of the most influential books on economics in the past quarter century. It provided a language... Continue Reading →
