Military Missions in Democratic Latin America was first published in 2016. It offered an examination of the new roles the military had begun to handle in recent years. Its author, David Pion-Berlin, is a widely known scholar of civil-military relations in Latin America. In this book, he went beyond traditional civil-military relations to consider the... Continue Reading →
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last night. She was a symbol of the left in America for her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and her historic role on the United States Supreme Court. But she was not always an icon of the left. She was considered a moderate voice on the Court in... Continue Reading →
There is an old debate among political theorists regarding the meaning of Machiavelli’s political works. A careless reading of The Prince and Discourses on Livy give the impression they are written by two entirely different authors. Or perhaps it is the same person in two different points of their life with entirely different notions of... Continue Reading →
Early in my life I was drawn to power to impose my ideas onto the world. It was only natural to believe leaders were able to change organizations, businesses or even geopolitics to their whim. But I found my implicit sense of power was entirely wrong. There is a tradeoff between authority and influence. Leadership... 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 →
There are few political scientists who command the influence of Samuel P. Huntington. His 1968 publication of Political Order in Changing Societies transformed every discussion of political modernization. His work Clash of Civilizations began as a response to Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama made an enormous impact on political scholarship. He... Continue Reading →
