There is a necessary divide between political philosophy and political science. Politics as a philosophy examines political concepts as pure abstractions detached from the actual practice of politics. It helps to understand democracy, populism, and liberalism as concepts. But politics as a science examines its practice in the real world. Political science relies on data,... Continue Reading →
Political science uses Viktor Orbán as a caricature. He is thrown around as a stock example of democratic subversion. The criticism is warranted but few political scientists have gone beyond surface level analysis to understand The Orbán Regime in Hungary. It is not enough to laundry list the undesirable policies and laws his government have... Continue Reading →
I find it difficult to read the classics of political science. It is easier to read contemporary scholars. I am certain some will believe this means the classics are dense or contemporary scholarship has regressed in its complexity. But that is not it at all. It all comes down to the context of the scholarship.... Continue Reading →
Let us get past the surface level topics which Continental Divide revolves. It is easy to become distracted in Lipset’s depiction of Canada and America. He recognized both societies had undergone dramatic change throughout the twentieth century that transformed their political images. The book is now thirty years old. It’s almost as old as I... Continue Reading →
There is no more important work in comparative politics in the last ten years than Competitive Authoritarianism. Its ideas completely disrupted conceptual expectations about democracy. Some of the intellectual currents existed before its publication. Indeed, Levitsky and Way had published an article which outlined their ideas as early as 2002 in the Journal of Democracy.... Continue Reading →
It is impossible to study the subject of democracy without coming across Huntington’s Third Wave. It is a landmark study of democratization. Moreover, it has a scholarly thoroughness which is rarely matched. Every author has a distinctive style. Dahl has an awkward optimism. Fukuyama has a teacher’s approach where he tries to bring complex subjects... Continue Reading →
It took me just three days to read Cas Mudde’s Far Right Today. It is a short book which numbers just 180 pages before the notes begin. Yet it feels longer but not in a bad way. It feels as though Mudde has offered an extended seminar on far right politics. He breaks down the... Continue Reading →
I grew up outside the two-party system in the United States. As early as sixth grade, I rejected both political parties so I could support a third-party presidential candidate. Like most children, I followed my father’s direction who struggled with his own political identification. But for over a decade a large part of my identity... Continue Reading →
Larry Diamond is the intellectual conscience of democracy scholarship. Perhaps this assessment is unfair. He is among the great intellectual minds among scholars of democracy living today. Yet his legacy is not necessarily theoretical but rather moral. He has challenged leaders around the world to live up to the standards of liberal democracy. Writing in... Continue Reading →
Francis Fukuyama established his reputation with the publication The End of History and the Last Man, but it is his two-volume work on political order which is his masterpiece. It is this work which realizes ambitions which were implied but never attempted in his earlier writings. And both its achievements and flaws originate from his... Continue Reading →
