Political Science

"This elegantly written book is an incisive chronicle of contemporary Russian history. . . . Leon Aron has the firsthand observer’s keen eye for the twists of fate and the skilled analyst’s deep knowledge of the interplay of events that brought Putin to, and then well-beyond, the point of no return."

—Fiona Hill, distinguished senior fellow, Brookings Institution; senior director for European and Russian affairs, National Security Council

In Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War, Leon Aron, an acclaimed Russian studies scholar, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow, and Moscow native who was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin’s regime, chronicles the transformation of Russian politics and society under Putin. Through hundreds of Russian-language sources, Aron shows how Putin uses militarist propaganda and sanitized revisionist images of World War II, Stalin, and the Soviet Union to forge a nationalist and loyal core of his regime’s support.

And the “new Russia” suddenly looks a lot like the old USSR.

Dr. Aron’s bold, expert analysis of Russian political culture helps us better understand Russia’s revanchist tendencies, its invasion of Ukraine, and the perilous road ahead. Aron argues that Putin’s actions are driven by the Russian president’s need to ensure his regime’s survival, avenge the fall of the Soviet Union, combat the “America-led West,” and make Russia a superpower again. Putin is now stuck in a vast and savage war that he can neither win nor walk away from. He hopes America and its allies undergo “Ukraine fatigue,” but what if he decides he cannot outwait the West? Aron concludes the book with a detailed scenario of another war in which Putin would bring Russia and the US to the brink of nuclear conflict to scare the West into a “settlement” in Ukraine.

When Donald Trump won the 2024 American Presidential Election, the nation—and world—was shocked. In this critical examination of the events leading up to and following the election, political advisor Scott Ferson goes straight to the source—the American people—to understand how this happened and where we go from here.

In November 2024, the Democrats didn't just lose the election—they lost the voters themselves. In the years and months leading up to the election, a lot of average Joes—enough Joes to swing an election and tilt history’s trajectory—were left looking for confidence and answers in uncertain times. These were the voters who've never chosen a party, who work full-time or overtime just to make ends meet, and who simply want to be able to live the American dream that they were promised. A generation ago, these average Joes would have been a Democrat, by tradition or community or through union organizing. Now, these voters are lost to the Democrats, and, for those in disbelief over the 2024 election, the hard lesson is the Democrats never even tried to win them over.

How the Democrats Lost America explains not only why Kamala Harris and the Democrats lost the 2024 election but the larger disconnect the party has with voters in general, particularly those who don’t hug both coasts or live in select big cities in between.

Through thousands of interviews over the past eight years, Scott Ferson exposes a larger problem facing our democracy: A profound disconnect with the people. By listening to people and understanding their real concerns, Democrats can find the way forward and take the steps to reconnect the people with the American promise of democracy. Democrats have a choice. These everyday voters can be lost and forgotten, or lost and found.

During his first term in office, Donald Trump failed to implement his revolutionary foreign policy agenda. To provide a plausible explanation for the multifaceted nature of Trump’s foreign policy achievements and shortcomings, this book brings together leadership trait analysis and bureaucratic politics to develop a model that frames their interactions and mutual influence.

This book explores the intersection of social equity-related issues with concerns within the field of public administration in Canada. Shifts in public sector governance, populist discourse and political extremism, democratic instability, and super-wicked challenges such as climate change and environmental disasters, demographic transformations (aging society along with increased migration), financial crises, terrorism, housing crises, religious conflicts and racial inequities, dominate the landscape. This book challenges scholars from schools of public administration to use a social equity lens to reimagine and rethink the ways in which public administration is currently practiced, with the goal of abandoning colonial logics that betray social equity. The chapters in this volume include contributions from a diversity of authors, each contributing their unique perspectives on social equity as they relate broadly to their areas of expertise. The authors share a common interest in critically exploring how social equity intersects with their areas of public administration research or practice including concerns with environmental justice, Indigenous rights, education and decolonization.
This book is intended for three audiences: (1) scholars who are also involved in teaching public administration; (2) students of public administration who want to learn more about what they are learning, and why social equity matters to their field of study; and (3) public administrators who are managing public institutions and who may also be involved in training public administrators.

In Civic Synergy: Leading and Managing the Evolution of Smart Cities, readers are invited to explore the transformative journey of urban spaces into dynamic, interconnected smart cities. This comprehensive publication addresses the pressing need for innovative approaches to urban management in the digital age. With technology rapidly reshaping the urban landscape, there is a critical demand for strategic leadership and effective management to navigate this evolution successfully.

This collected edition provides a holistic understanding of the complexities involved in leading and managing smart city initiatives. Authors offer practical insights, theoretical frameworks, and real-world case studies to equip stakeholders with the knowledge and tools necessary to drive sustainable urban development. At its core, Civic Synergy makes a significant contribution to the field of urban management by synthesizing interdisciplinary perspectives and showcasing best practices in smart city governance. By examining the intersection of technology, governance, and urban planning, this collected work offers a fresh perspective on how cities can harness innovation to address pressing challenges and seize opportunities for growth.

This edited collection stands out for its emphasis on civic synergy, highlighting the importance of collaboration and partnership among various stakeholders, including government agencies, businesses, communities, and academia. It underscores the need for collective action and shared responsibility in shaping the future of cities.

What does it mean to trust in a world shaped by violence and inequality? This book investigates the fraught pursuit of democratic policing in Brazil, where trust is both a necessity and a precarious gamble. Marta-Laura Haynes follows police officers and favela residents through patrols, crime scenes, fishing trips, drumming circles, and neighborhood gatherings to reveal how trust is not simply given or earned—but actively performed, negotiated, and also refused. These stories show how trust intersects with local ideas of citizenship, legitimacy, race, and power while also exposing the pervasive and often generative role of mistrust.

Far from being a stable foundation for democracy, trust in this context is a high-stakes wager, shaped by local hierarchies of race, gender, and class. In response, communities develop what Haynes calls “untrusting”: a mode of engagement that refuses blind faith in the state and instead turns mistrust into a form of care, resistance, and survival. By illuminating the contradictions and complexities of trust in Brazil, Untrusting challenges reductive narratives of policing and offers a nuanced perspective on how democratic ideals are contested and reimagined by people on the ground. Challenging the idea that distrust is merely a barrier to progress, Haynes shows how it can be a resource for agency, dignity, and alternative visions of justice.

Examines how artificial intelligence is transforming global influence, offering theoretical insights and practical perspectives on diplomacy, culture, conflict, and governance

Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in the Age of AI brings together leading voices and fresh perspectives to explore how AI is reshaping the landscape of influence in global affairs. Long described as “conjoined twins,” soft power and public diplomacy find new meaning and urgency in a world transformed by digital technologies and generative AI. This timely volume addresses the theoretical gaps that have long challenged public diplomacy scholarship, offering a unique, interdisciplinary lens that connects the superordinate concept of influence with emerging AI capabilities. From bioelectronic measurement of soft power’s impact to AI’s role in narrative warfare and counter-disinformation, the book covers critical terrain for scholars, students, policymakers, and practitioners alike.
The chapters span theory, narratives, culture, governance, and conflict. Readers will find thought-provoking analyses of celebrity influence in elections, generative AI’s role in cultural projection at global events, the network society’s impact on diplomacy, cyber power in conflict zones, and the balancing act between digital diplomacy, transparency, and security.
Featuring contributions from eminent international scholars alongside new voices, the volume pushes the field’s boundaries, offering essential insights for anyone interested in how attraction, persuasion, and power operate in the age of AI. Whether you are a researcher, practitioner, or policymaker, Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in the Age of AI will deepen your understanding of how influence is made, measured, and contested in our rapidly evolving world.

Across the world, nationalistic populism is on the rise, reshaping economic and political landscapes and creating opposition to existing “establishments” and immigration. In both the United States and Europe, populist leaders exploit economic anxiety and manufacture cultural divisions, directing public resentment toward immigrants and other marginalized communities. Meanwhile, developing countries grapple with poverty, conflict, and climate crises, often created or heightened by the policies of the developed world. These forces drive migration and, in turn, fuel the rhetoric of nationalistic populism. As these dynamics intensify, understanding the intersection between these forces becomes more urgent than ever.

In The Global Intersection of Nationalistic Populism and Immigration, Dr. Jacqueline Murray Brux offers a sweeping examination of how nationalistic populism shapes, and is shaped by, global migration patterns. This compelling study explores the ideological foundations of populism and nationalism, their impact on immigration policies, and the often-overlooked role of developing nations as both sources of migration and victims of global power structures. With in-depth analysis spanning the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Brux unpacks the circular relationship between populist movements and migration crises, shedding light on how misinformation, xenophobia, and economic myths sustain this feedback loop. Based in rigorous research, this volume presents a necessary critique of the forces threatening democracy and human rights worldwide.

Bringing together political analysis, economic research, and firsthand narratives, this study is essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and anyone seeking to understand the global forces driving populism and migration today.

Many social policy texts examine specific social policy debates at a point in time and offer mostly technical interpretations of why existing or amended policies and programs have worked or not worked. In contrast, this text presents a comprehensive historical and political analysis of four policy areas where reform was achieved after many years of neglect.

Using a rich corpus of primary and secondary data, this is the first ever time that these four cases – covering discrete policy debates around young people transitioning from out-of-home care, medically supervised injecting facilities, social security payments for the unemployed, and compulsory income management – have been compared within an organized framework. For each of these policy areas, author Philip Mendes presents the long-term chronology of the public policy debates, the key arguments and evidence presented by researchers and advocacy groups in favour of policy reform, the strategies used by policy advocates, and the contrary arguments presented by governments and other bodies, as well as other factors which may have hindered or enabled policy change. Chronicling these cases where long-standing research evidence in favour of practice and policy reform suddenly achieved implementation and political impact when evidence finally trumped ideology, author Philip Mendes also describes the improved outcomes for disadvantaged groups and the wider community.

Arguing that governments should introduce policy development processes and networks that include active engagement with knowledge from domestic and global research studies, this is critical reading for scholars and policymakers internationally on the dynamics of policy initiatives, outcomes and reform.

Robert Jervis (1940–2021) was a titan in the field of international relations. Part political scientist, part psychologist, part historian, and part policy analyst, he drew on a vast array of theoretical approaches and empirical methods to develop keen and distinctive insights on a wide range of topics. From academic political science to the policy world, the scope of Jervis’s influence is astonishing.

Bringing together top scholars in political science, international relations, and history, this book offers a deep dive into Jervis’s pathbreaking scholarship and its legacy across disciplines. The authors consider how his work reshaped subjects such as nuclear strategy, arms control, deterrence theory, structural realism, diplomatic history, intelligence analysis, and the causes of war. They further discuss Jervis’s leadership on the CIA’s declassification board, which provided a bridge between academics and the intelligence community, and his influence as a public intellectual. The contributors also pay tribute to Jervis as a mentor, colleague, and friend who worked to build and sustain a broad intellectual community. Offering a wide-ranging overview of Jervis’s most important contributions to many fields, this book provides a deep understanding of Jervis’s scholarly work, which continues to inspire new generations of scholars who seek to follow in his footsteps.

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?

Sasikumar Sundaram provides a bold new theory of rhetoric as power politics, demonstrating how non-Western states challenge their silencing within the Western-led international order. He argues that, in the deeply hierarchical international system, states in the lower rungs resort to rhetorical performances in order to be heard. Through anti-imperial and anticolonial rhetorical statecraft, states such as India, Brazil, and China seek to expose and exploit the contradictions in the legitimating principles, norms, and rules of the international system—and, in so doing, pursue and exercise power. Today, as Russia, Europe, and even the United States engage in anti-imperial and anticolonial rhetoric, Sundaram shows why lessons from the non-Western world are crucial to recognizing the dynamics of power politics and global disorder. A bracing challenge to established theories of power in international relations, Rhetorical Powers underscores the need to address enduring forms of silencing within the international order.

Turkey has always had a complicated relationship with the West and the Liberal International Order, owing to its geographic and historical position that straddles geographic divides.


This book explores Turkey’s relationship with the Liberal International Order and its economic, security and political ties. While Turkey’s position within the Liberal International Order has always been challenged internally and externally, events in recent years have resulted in further questioning of its position. This book provides a long-term view of Turkey’s relation to liberal internationalism, demonstrating how the republic emerged simultaneously with the emergence of the first post-First World War version of liberal international order. It demonstrates both the challenges and the opportunities that Turkey’s position within and outside liberal internationalism poses to the future of such forms of liberal internationalism. Crucially, it demonstrates how Turkey’s foreign policy stances are and will likely continue to be closely linked to political developments within the country.

The resurgence of nationalism is one of the most significant developments in European politics over the past 25 years. Few countries have avoided it, with most experiencing a surge in support for parties that espouse anti-immigrant, anti-European Union and anti-globalization views. Led by populist-style leaders, their rhetoric has pervaded political discourse influencing mainstream parties and even, in some countries, gaining power and forming governments.


This book brings together experts to analyse nine countries that contribute specific aspects to the study of nationalism in Europe. What binds them, however, is a view that the nation, however defined, must be reasserted and that core policy issues and challenges should all be seen primarily through the lens of national sovereignty and solidarity, and not – as with the traditional parties – in terms of socio-economic considerations, such as mitigating social risk or promoting market-based distribution.

Even before Boris Johnson’s rollercoaster ride (2019–22), and the ensuing “blink and you missed it” premiership of Liz Truss, the high wastage-rate among Britain’s prime ministers was becoming a cause for concern. Between 1979 and 2007 Britain had just three heads of government: Margaret Thatcher (1979–90), John Major (1990–97) and Tony Blair (1997–2007). Over the next 17 years six politicians followed them in and out of Downing Street.


This book, which straddles more than 30 years of prime ministerial misadventures, poses questions about the underlying factors as well as the specific circumstances for individual departures. Is the role of prime minister just becoming too difficult to perform successfully? If so, why? Has there been a decline in calibre in the candidates holding office? In exploring how the famous entrance to number 10 Downing Street has become a revolving door, the book shines a fresh light on the nature of politics and political office in the UK today.

Socialisme ou Barbarie (1948–67) was a revolutionary group whose members included such major figures such as Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort and Jean-François Lyotard. Its journal of the same name helped inspire France’s May ’68 student-worker rebellion and influenced generations of radicals worldwide. This Anthology, for the first time in print in the English language, restores the collective nature of the group’s adventure, where manual and intellectual workers creatively, and not without profound disagreements, reflected and acted together in anticipation of a non-hierarchical, self-governing society.

The group radically reoriented critical revolutionary theory by affirming how social change emerges through ordinary people’s everyday lives and struggles. In a world divided into two competing bureaucratic-capitalist camps, the autonomous grassroots response to rationalized forms of outside control (State-corporation-trade union-political party) would be workers’ management—a conclusion stunningly confirmed, against traditional Left expectations, by the workers’ revolts of 1953 and 1956 in the East, and by increasingly widespread challenges to established organizational forms in the 1960s in the West.

These texts not only examine the overall crisis of systems of domination, but explore their creative contestation in the workplace, in changing relations between the sexes and between generations, and in movements for national liberation (China, Algeria), to bring out “the positive content of socialism” while remaining clear-eyed about how bureaucratization may be reintroduced into emancipatory struggles.

Denouncing racism and celebrating diversity have become central to progressive politics. For many on the left, it seems, social justice would consist of an equitable distribution of wealth, power and esteem among racial groups. But as Adolph Reed Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels argue in this incisive collection of essays, the emphasis here is tragically misplaced. Not only can a fixation with racial disparities distract from the pervasive influence of class, it can actually end up legitimising economic inequality. As Reed and Michaels put it, “racism is real and anti-racism is both admirable and necessary, but extant racism isn’t what principally produces our inequality and anti-racism won’t eliminate it”.

No Politics but Class Politics gathers together Reed and Michaels’s recent essays on inequality, along with a newly commissioned interview with the authors and an illuminating foreword by Daniel Zamora and Anton Jäger. These writings eschew the sloppy thinking and moral posturing that too often characterise discussions of race and class in favour of clear-eyed social, cultural and historical analysis. Reed and Michaels make the case here for a genuinely radical politics: a politics which aspires not to the establishment of a demographically representative social elite, but instead to economic justice for everyone.

Foreign Policies of Illiberal States examines how the Russian war on Ukraine affects the functioning of different models of international society. Focusing on the two spheres of governance and security, it analyses the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has significantly reframed many issues of global politics, including the feasibility of multilateralism under war conditions.

The academic debate around the issue as it pertains to the two countries is shaped by a number of arguments. Indonesia’s position is one of logic and the effective functioning of global organisations, symbolised by President Widodo’s peacemaking efforts in visits to Kyiv and Moscow. Russia's approach is overwhelmingly defined by security considerations, framing the military intervention against Ukraine as part of a broader confrontation with the Euro-Atlantic West. The hyper-securitisation of Ukraine by Russia was paralleled by efforts to de-securitise relations with the global South by shifting their fulcrum from the war to generalised and routinised socio-economic issues. Based on these positions, it could be said that a multi-order world is taking shape, where multilateralism is unlikely to be controlled only by the major powers.

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Socialism is a yearning for justice, community, and the greater realization of human potential. Cornel West calls it, “the best accessible and reliable treatment we have of what socialism is, was, and should be.”

Understanding Socialism is a plainspoken text that disarms false narratives, confronts past failures, and offers a path to a fresh and modern understanding of socialism, by outlining what democracy in the workplace could look like.

Wolff not only explains what socialism is and has meant to its various proponents, he also looks at the transition from feudalism to capitalism as a model to help us visualize an evolution from our current socioeconomic state.

Understanding Socialism explores how socialist theory was used and applied to help shape the histories of countries such as Russia and China, and beyond. Wolff also analyzes the successes and defeats of those countries, the world's reactions to them, and how they offer important lessons for the building of a democratic, worker-controlled 21st-century socialism.

A powerful collection of testimonies from Palestinians facing genocide and displacement in Gaza with hope and resistance.

Displaced in Gaza aims to raise global awareness of how violent displacement has impacted the lives of Palestinians—students, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, educators, and those who already survived the Nakba of 1948. In Gaza, 2.3 million Palestinians have been subjected to starvation, mass destruction, and targeted killing. Yet they endure.

This book is a commitment to the longstanding Palestinian tradition of storytelling, documenting both the horror of the genocide and the resilience of the Palestinian people. The stories in this collection are not merely accounts of suffering, they are assertions of humanity, resistance, hope, and the unbreakable bond that ties Palestinians to their homeland.

Displaced in Gaza is a collaboration between the American Friends Service Committee and the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies at Universiti Malaya.

We live in an age of disinformation, misinformation, and outright lies. The modern world blasts us with information, talking points, spin, advertising, and attempts to persuade. But what are we to believe and whom should we trust?

Examining the history of propaganda and disinformation in war, politics, polling, media, entertainment, cults, advertising, science, medicine, today’s media landscape, and even in our personal interactions, Disinformation and You: Identify Propaganda and Manipulation helps you spot and counter the seductive and deceptive tactics to influence individual behavior. It provides helpful suggestions and tips for identifying disinformation and fighting back against manipulation and censorship.

Engaging and useful, this book’s helpful topics include …

We are in an era marked by rapid geopolitical shifts and evolving security challenges, the need for a comprehensive understanding of intelligence failures and strategic surprises has never been more critical. In this important work, Frederic Lemieux analyzes intelligence failures and strategic surprises in geopolitical contexts, offering historical and contemporary case studies, exploring causes and consequences, and providing insights into improving intelligence practices and understanding future geopolitical challenges.

Bridging the gap between academic theory and practical intelligence analysis in the context of modern geopolitical instability, Lemieux features in-depth case studies spanning over eight decades, from the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 to the recent Hamas Attack in 2023. Recounting not only the events but also dissecting the types and sources of intelligence failures and their broader geopolitical implications, this historical breadth provides readers with a diverse range of scenarios to understand the evolution and recurring patterns of intelligence oversights. By exploring how technological advancements such as artificial intelligence can mitigate human cognitive biases, Lemieux presents a forward-looking perspective on intelligence practices. Operating under the premise that understanding past failures is crucial for improving future intelligence operations, this study demonstrates how we can re-shape international relations and emphasizes the importance of adapting intelligence analysis to the changing nature of global threats.

A timely work which integrates insights from political science, psychology, history, and technology, this text provides intelligence professionals, policymakers, scholars, and students with a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between intelligence, decision-making, and geopolitical dynamics.

We have all experienced the benefits of dialogue when we openly and thoughtfully confront issues. We have also experienced the frustration of interminable discussion that does not lead to progress. Co-Laboratories of Democracy enable large, diverse groups to dialogue and generate positive results. Many group processes engender enthusiasm and good feeling as people share their concerns and hopes with each other. Co-Laboratories go beyond this initial euphoria to:

Discover root causes; Adopt consensual action plans; Develop teams dedicated to implementing those plans; and Generate lasting bonds of respect, trust, and cooperation.Co-Laboratories achieve these results by respecting the autonomy of all participants, and utilizing an array of consensus tools including discipline, technology and graphics that allow the stakeholders to control the discussion. These are explained in depth in a book authored by Alexander N. Christakis with Kenneth C. Bausch: Co-Laboratories of Democracy: How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom to Create the Future (Information Age, 2006).Co-Laboratories are a refinement of Interactive Management, a decision and design methodology developed over the past 30 years to deal with very complex situations involving diverse stakeholders. It has been successfully employed all over the world in situations of uncertainty and conflict. On Cyprus, for example, it has been used to bridge the divide between the Turkish and Greek factions on the island. It is currently being employed on that island to help Palestinian authorities organize their government.Co-Laboratories in one day can draw together a diverse group of people on an issue, elicit authentic feelings and respectful listening, generate agreed upon language, and identify leverage points for effective action. Participants will be able to generate a consensual action plan. Co-Laboratories generate real respect, understanding, and cooperation among participants and do it rapidly.

This book is a timely and systematic analysis of Russian hybrid warfare with a particular focus on Russian cyberespionage and cyberwarfare. It especially analyzes Russian policy from the election of President Vladmir Putin in 2000 to date.

It takes a long term, long lens, view of Russian policies and actions internationally and domestically, fundamentally questioning the relationship and boundaries between active measures, espionage, cyberespionage, and hybrid warfare.

Riling up the Base argues that stereotypes (especially those relating to immigration, race/ethnicity, and gender), not policies, secured Trump’s election win and the ongoing support he enjoys.

From his 2015 campaign announcement through his presidential term and in his time out of office, Donald Trump has used stereotypes as a routine feature in his rhetoric. This book defines them as a crucially important strategy for attracting, retaining, and energizing voters. Covering topics like persuasion, agenda setting, critical race theory, and semiotics, the authors use a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to unpack how Trump motivates his base.

This book provides a full aggregate explanation of the seemingly mesmerizing attachment and adoration his core supporters feel by explaining the way seemingly disparate theories work both alone and together to expose the mechanisms at play.

The definitive history of the US labor movement’s complicity in Zionist settler colonialism, and a call for today’s labor militants to organize in solidarity with Palestinians.

US trade unionists are often told to keep quiet and remain neutral on Palestine because “Palestine has nothing to do with unions” and “weighing in” only distracts from struggles for better working conditions. 

No Neutrals There makes a timely and critical intervention against that pervasive sentiment by recounting the history of the US labor movement’s century-long involvement in the struggle for Palestine. Scholar Jeff Schuhrke convincingly demonstrates that unions in the United States have never been silent or neutral on the question of Palestine. In fact, they have played a key role—in the initial Zionist colonization of Palestine, the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948, supporting US foreign policy commitments to Israel, and the ongoing suppression of the Palestinian liberation movement.

In his compelling telling of this history, Schuhrke conclusively shows that US unions helped build and maintain the state of Israel, and also shines a light on important exceptions to this rule: instances of US labor solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle that point the way forward for today’s labor movement.

A provocative analysis of the deadly conflicts that devastated countries and communities far from Moscow and Washington.

Transforming battlegrounds in Africa, Asia, and Latin America into veritable wastelands, surrogate wars in the Cold War era left behind a legacy of collective trauma and social conflict that have persisted into the present. In this ambitious work, Alfred W. McCoy uses a bottom-up, outside-in approach to offer a new perspective on the longest, most consequential conflict in modern world history.

McCoy offers an intimate portrait of covert operatives and young antiwar protesters, humanizing the history of the Cold War—a history that has too often been told in terms of economic growth, nuclear arsenals, or diplomatic ententes.

By showing how otherwise ordinary individuals helped end a global conflict that threatened nuclear holocaust, McCoy offers important lessons for a younger generation facing climate change even as the great powers devote humanity’s scarce resources to a “new cold war.”

Climate Assemblies are capturing the imagination of people interested in how citizens can participate in decision-making to address the climate and ecological crisis. Traditional institutions are struggling to cope with the challenges of a climate-changed world.

Climate Assemblies are new civic institutions that include a cross-section of the public in deliberation to influence environmental policy, governance, public discourse and collective action. With the rapid spread of this approach to public engagement, practice has developed well in advance of research. This book addresses that gap by analysing the internal and external dimensions of climate assemblies and how they interact.

It brings together 25 authors to offer novel perspectives, critical insights and practical reflections based on original research about paradigmatic cases at local, national, transnational and global levels. The book investigates the state of the field, reflects on the hope and hype about this growing phenomenon, and proposes ways to improve climate assemblies so that they can make a difference in a climate-changed world.

Richard D. Wolff masterfully explains why Karl Marx’s analysis of class struggle is fundamental to a proper understanding of capitalism and explores how to build a more sustainable democratic society.

Class struggle is everywhere, and it influences everything and everyone in our society. Marx is the person who first explained this struggle systematically. For Marx, capitalism signified not the end of history, but rather the latest phase of human development that leads ordinary people to rid themselves of “all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew."

Marx’s theories are deeply prescient and relevant in our efforts to understand and cope with the crises of our time. Every day, we see more evidence that the capitalist system is both undermining itself and those whose labor it depends on, as Marx predicted.

Understanding Marxism is an essential resource for looking at the power and usefulness of Marx’s criticism of the capitalist economic system—and how we can move beyond it to a truly sustainable and democratic society based on workers’ self-management.

“Why does capitalism fail us?” Richard D. Wolff walks readers through this pressing question in a brilliant takedown of an economic system that benefits the few at the great expense of the many.

Understanding Capitalism explores the different definitions of what capitalism is and is not, and dissolves the many myths that, Wolff argues, are designed to confuse and disorient us. Wolff doesn’t simply identify the crises and harms manufactured by capitalism, he details a path forward by outlining alternative economic models that combat the exploitation and oppression inherent in capitalism.

Capitalism oftentimes feels as permanent as the sky above. Understanding Capitalism shows that our current economic system is only as strong as the ordinary people who enable its existence, and that capitalism’s demise requires an organized, collective effort by those who can identify its vulnerabilities and limitations, but also understand that another world is indeed possible.

Remember the pots hammered by spoons from high Manhattan windows, and parades of cars and pick-up trucks holding dear the medical professionals responding to covid-19. This book is part of that chorus, that march, to express appreciation for the giving of care. And beyond doctors and nurses, bless their hearts, to mothers caring for their babies, for captains for their teams, for the soon-to-be widowers for their wives and teachers for their students, but also for the ranchers for their cattle and the contemplative world for our environment. This is a book to think more closely of the support for care, individual as it so often will be, to be woven more closely together in a paradigm of care.

Care is always prominent. Care for others, of the family, care for those of the tribe, care for animals and homes and gardens and properties, self-care. And the purse. Even without teaching, compensation, or legislation, care survives, but even with these helpings, it falls short of the need. We live in a crisis of care. Thinking explicitly and beyond health care. There is no mechanism of state and conscience that delivers care to all the venues of need, and seldom in the amounts needed. The reservoirs of care are far from empty, but at a mark that needs topping up. There is need for care advocacy, a care ethic, a paradigm. This book is about that paradigm.

A care paradigm may bring comfort and recovery more fully to the people and organic creations of the world. The paradigm hears the moan of indifference. It draws upon the eyes of the heart. The paradigm is about how we see the need for care. The care paradigm, the grand beholding, is manifest in how we provide for others, how we nurture them, give succor, how we are disposed, and are not, to sacrifice to relieve their hurt. It is not only caring for those visibly needing care, unable to care for themselves, but caring for all. It is having a disposition that the hurts, large and small, that all of us carry, arouse concern and appreciation from and for each individual, the community and the world.

Written during a genocide, After Savagery reveals the ethical bankruptcy of “Western philosophy” and how it undergirds the erasure of the colonized.

The death toll in Gaza continues to rise―a cold, lifeless number representing entire communities crushed under the weight of settler colonialism.

What remains of the theories we use to understand our world? With lyrical and lucid fury, Hamid Dabashi exposes the racist roots of Western philosophy, demanding that readers overcome its pernicious phantom of relevance. Rather than perceiving “the West” as giving carte blanche to Israel, Dabashi insists that Israel must be understood as its quintessence.

If Israel is the West and the West is Israel, then Palestine is the world and the world is Palestine. Holding to glimmers from revolutionary works of literature and film, Dabashi argues, in grief and love, that the wretched of the earth need poetry after barbarism—and that Palestine is the site of a liberated imagination.

Challenging the notion that populism is an anomaly in European politics, this book argues that the main threat to democracy is the exclusionary nature of European democratic traditions.

Drawing on decolonial studies, feminist theory, psychoanalysis, and democratic theory, the book reveals how liberal democracy in Europe promotes a fantasy of equality while its politics enacts the exact opposite. By exposing these injustices, the book makes a bold case: populism is not our main problem (or solution), but simply another facet of the ills of liberalism. The book is essential reading for understanding the future of democracy in Europe.

What is it? The Public Administration Genome Project (PAGP) is a grand attempt to digitally “map” and then usefully employ the full set of topics, variables, and interrelationships that comprise and involve all of the “genes” that make up public administration. It is based on the highly regarded and useful Human Genome Project.

Why do it? Like the world in general, the P. A. world is becoming more diverse and complicated. Hence, few administrators can be expected to know, much less remember, the many relevant strategies, external forces and related impacts that might be part of a particular situation. There thus is a need for a comprehensive, logic-based, readily accessible system (called “COMPASS”) to help in finding and elaborating on such topics, variables, and interrelationships.

What is in the book? It starts with a broad overview of the whole PAGP. It then turns to an elaboration of both the basic and then the more comprehensive analogies with the human genome; the Human Genome Project; and other related concepts (like catalysis and evolution).

These are followed by a set of new and seemingly unconnected subjects: (a) norms for citizens and public administrators, and (b) semantic and syntactic analyses. Then come some interesting and diverse case studies, and comparisons of such to theories.

All these set the scene for development of procedures for contributing to and using COMPASS, the information and guidance system which is the central product of the PAGP. The whole concept of the PAGP subsequently is revisited through an example that encompasses all of its major elements and processes.

The last part of the book focuses on future directions, asking questions like “Is the PAGP (and COMPASS) an impossible dream or a much needed reality?”

A timely and rigorous analysis of a half-century of American policymakers' shifting perceptions of Iran, and how they have driven US-Iran relations.

US–Iran hostility has endured for longer than the Cold War. Momentous geopolitical shifts, changing leaderships, and evolving domestic priorities have not fundamentally altered this antagonistic relationship. Standard explanations pin the blame for this enduring hostility on Iran and its leaders' revolutionary ideology and policies at odds with the United States and the West. While Iran bears significant blame for a deeply adversarial relationship—the country often engages in dangerous and repressive activities—this book demonstrates that "it's them, not us" accounts cannot alone explain America's posture toward this complicated but critically important country. Drawing on original interviews with former government officials, oral histories, memoirs, congressional hearings, archival material, and the author's own participation in dozens of Iran-related track two meetings, Dalia Dassa Kaye deftly explores how America's Iran policy is made, the people who make it, and the underlying ideas and perceptions that inform it. Dassa Kaye looks back at US policy toward Iran over the past four decades to help us look ahead, offering wider lessons for understanding American foreign policymaking and providing critical insights at a pivotal time of heightened military tensions in and around the Middle East.

Gabrielle Appleby is a professor of constitutional law at the UNSW Faculty of Law & Justice and is currently a Professorial Research Fellow at the Pro Vice Chancellor Society at UNSW (Sydney). She researches and teaches in public law, with her areas of expertise including the role, powers and accountability of the Executive; parliamentary law and practice; the role of government lawyers; the integrity of the judicial branch; and First Nations constitutional recognition. She is the Director of The Judiciary Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, the constitutional consultant to the Clerk of the Australian House of Representatives and a member of the Indigenous Law Centre. Gabrielle was the founding editor of Australia’s national public law blog, AUSPUBLAW (www.auspublaw.org). In 2015–2018, Gabrielle was a Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery Project, Law, Order and Federalism, looking at the effects of the High Court’s chapter III jurisprudence on State government law and order policy development. In 2016–2017, she worked as a pro bono constitutional adviser to the Regional Dialogues and the First Nations Constitutional Convention that led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Her books include Australian Public Law (4th ed., 2024); The Judge, The Judiciary and the Court: Individual, Collegial and Institutional Judicial Dynamics in Australia (2021); Judicial Federalism in Australia (2021); The Role of the Solicitor-General: Negotiating Law, Politics and the Public Interest (2016); The Critical Judgments Project: Re-reading Monis v The Queen (2016); and The Tim Carmody Affair (2016). Gabrielle has also spent time working for the Queensland Crown Solicitor and the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office.
Megan Davis is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Society (PVCS) at UNSW Sydney and a UNSW Scientia Professor. She holds the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law and the Whitlam Fraser Harvard Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University and is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. She has also been appointed a Penn Carey Law Bok Visiting International Professor, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (Penn Carey Law). Professor Davis is a renowned constitutional lawyer and public law expert, specialising on Indigenous peoples and the law, the constitutional recognition of First Nations and democracy. Professor Davis is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She is an Acting Commissioner of the NSW Land and Environment Court. She has been the leading Australian lawyer on constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples for two decades and designed the Referendum Council’s deliberative process that led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. From 2022 to 2023, she served on the Referendum Working Group, the Referendum Engagement Group and the Attorney General’s Constitutional Expert Group. She was a member of the Prime Minister’s Referendum Council (2015–2017) and the Prime Minister’s Expert Panel on the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution (2011–2012). She is the Co-Chair of the Uluru Dialogue – the group of First Nations leaders who led the Uluru Statement from the Heart work. Professor Davis was a Commissioner on the QLD Commission of Inquiry into Youth Detention Centres in 2016, and was the Chair and author of ‘Family is Culture’, an inquiry into NSW Aboriginal Children in Out of Home care (2017–2019). She is a globally recognised expert in Indigenous peoples legal rights and was elected by the UN Economic and Social Council as an expert member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2011–2016). Professor Davis was also appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous peoples twice (2017–2022). Professor Davis is a Sydney Peace Prize Laureate for the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart and was awarded a 2024 PeaceWomen Award by the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF). In 2023, Professor Davis was named on TIME Magazine’s TIME NEXT100 list of the Next Generation of Global leaders. She was also named Marie Claire ‘Powerhouse of the Year’ in 2023. She is a previous Overall Winner of the AFR Women of Influence (now AFR Women of Leadership) awards in 2018 and was previously named on the AFR Annual Cultural Power list and AFR’s Australia’s top 5 Legal Powerbrokers list.

A shockingly intimate look at the world of honor killings, as seen through the eyes of both the perpetrator and the victim.

What drives a person to murder their sister, mother, or daughter? What is life like in a society in which women are imprisoned for their own “protection,” while their potential killers walk free?

In this powerful and affecting book, writer and journalist Lene Wold offers a rare window into the world of “honor killings”—the controversial practice that sees more than five thousand women murdered at the hands of close relatives each year, all to restore their family’s reputation. Wold spent more than five years in Jordan, visiting prisons and mosques, reviewing newspapers and judicial archives, and interviewing imams, village elders, and other locals to understand these violent acts. But she also spoke with the killers themselves, including a man who murdered his mother and daughter and attempted to kill his other daughter. In Inside an Honor Killing, Wold shares what she learned, weaving a shocking tale of honor killing told from the perpetrato's’ perspective as well as the victim's.

This timely book explores the rocky trajectory of US environmental history and policy from pre-European settlement to the present. It includes underreported aspects of early history, and the first in-depth synthesis of the framing and outcomes of the groundbreaking environmental laws of the 1970s.

The narrative traces the political polarization that has affected the lag in US progress against climate change, compared with Europe. Concluding with the 2024 election of Donald Trump, the Afterword considers the dramatic events in the new administration. This authoritative but readable account shows how the US has arrived at its current position, and concludes withpathways for reducing polarization and achieving lasting regulatory reform.

This book uses ordinary citizens’ opinions of military intervention as a lens to examine state-society dynamics and identity formation in Chad.

It offers a fresh perspective by highlighting how local actors, not just elites, shape fractured identities through their engagement with political and military events. The book reveals the complex domestic and international effects of state interventions as seen in other African contexts such as Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda. By shifting focus to everyday perspectives, it presents a groundbreaking approach to understanding identity as a shared, evolving process between citizens and elites.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Responsibility and accountability are key concepts in global development, and no less so in the case of South-South cooperation (SSC). This book illustrates how donorship responsibility and accountability are being debated, negotiated and operationalised in the context of Southern rising powers’ development cooperation.

The book examines how Southern powers justify and improve the performance of their global development efforts to multiple audiences at home and abroad. Through a multi-site and multi-scalar tracing of diplomatic and domestic foreign policymaking processes in Brazil, China and India, the book depicts Southern powers’ integration in the donorship regime where they simultaneously engage and contest existing donor accountability norms.

This book provides an accessible and engaging introduction to British political history, by exploring 12 key crises from the early 20th century to the modern day. Taking each crisis in turn, chapters investigate the following crucial questions:

• What’s at stake in the crisis?

• Who was able to frame and shape the debates and narratives around the crisis?

• How was the crisis eventually resolved?

Developing a nuanced account of crisis, the book shows how narrations of events as crises can be used to promote particular political changes. Taken together the crises will familiarise readers with key themes in British politics and the events that have shaped the current shape of politics within the UK.

This book uses a biographical approach to explore the Labour Party's relationship with European integration, moving beyond simple 'pro' or 'anti' labels to showcase the complexity of views that have existed.

Its positioning within the 'biographical turn' emphasizes the importance of formative experiences in shaping such viewpoints - held by both familiar figures and more underappreciated voices. Taking a broad view of Labour history, the book covers the roots of Labour’s diverse thinking on integration from the 1920s to the recent past. Its significant intervention in the fields of Labour Party history, European integration studies, and history through biography, helps provide essential historical context for understanding Labour's current European policies.

Few countries serve as a more useful case study for understanding the global tension between liberal and illiberal conceptions of democracy than Poland. Under the populist Law and Justice (PiS) –led government, a large part of the Polish electorate welcomed the party's "Good Change"—as it described its program—despite accusations of democratic backsliding. PiS offered voters neglected by previous governments a combination of economic redistributionism and cultural traditionalism, supplemented with narratives of bolstering Poland's national prestige and sovereignty. Yet after eight years of success, it was defeated in the October 2023 elections by a "pro-democratic" coalition. The history of PiS shows both the strengths and weaknesses of democratic illiberalism as a challenge to liberal democracy.

Bill and Stanley analyze the course and causes of the party's successes and failures. The authors deftly outline PiS's assault on democratic institutions, its paradigm-changing redistributive programs, cultural backlash agenda, politics of history, and the reasons for its fall from power. Poland's democracy has proven resilient to the specter of autocratization, but its future development under a new government raises fresh questions. This essential book considers what the rise and fall of Poland's illiberal government reveals about the future of liberal democracy and its ongoing transformations in the twenty-first century.

The intensified securitization of the borderlands between Europe and the Middle East/North Africa over the past decade has turned the Mediterranean Sea into a graveyard. This book delves into the most vulnerable, yet understudied, area of the EU's anti-immigrant security regime: the port cities in border zones on major refugee routes. Turam shifts the predominant focus from the global scale of fear to the urban scale of native–migrant solidarity in Greece and Sicily—Europe's two major entrance points in the East and Central Mediterranean. Building upon a rapidly growing scholarship on emotional geographies and affective geopolitics, Turam brings emotions to the center and emphasizes their role in forming, transforming, contesting, interrupting, and even evading the securitization of migration. Within the context of rising racism, nativism, and Islamophobia, readers will discover surprising and inspiring acts of day-to-day resistance to securitization empowered by a sense of safety and local trust, as well as cooperation between municipalities, pro-migrant locals, and asylum-seekers. Uncovering how racialized migrants become the catalyst of transformation from the violent legacy of borderlands to peaceful resistance, the ethnography reveals how intense emotions affect pro-migrant practices, contribute to the formation of safe places, and open the way for dynamic Black and Muslim migrant activism and solidarity at Europe's racial borders.

"War is too important to be left to the generals," declared French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau over a century ago. But which civilians, exactly, play the most important roles in controlling the armed forces? When civilian control is studied, the focus is typically on those in the upper echelons of the executive branch: presidents, prime ministers, or defense secretaries. Yet, because civilians in the executive may be tempted to hide problems or use the military in controversial ways, researchers must extend Clemenceau's dictum: if war is too important to be left to the generals, civilian control is too important to leave with the executive. This book aims to understand the similarities and differences among the world's democracies regarding the role of legislatures in democratic civil-military relations. Drawing on over a dozen cases from across the globe, the authors examine how most legislatures face capability and motivational impediments to conducting truly robust oversight and propose realistic reforms to strengthen military accountability to elected officials and the public—the heart of the civil-military relationship.

How do nationalist beliefs shape and influence American foreign policy? What are the contemporary implications of America's long-standing engagement in the Asia Pacific? This book unearths the varied processes underpinning the relationship between nationalism and the formulation of foreign policy, highlighting the central function of leaders' nationalist beliefs in the history of America's international behavior. By developing a novel theoretical framework and drawing on original archival research and methods of process-tracing, Paparella shows how presidents' nationalist beliefs can influence distinct foreign policy attitudes that have underpinned important foreign policy decisions and turning points in the Asia Pacific. By putting nationalism back on center stage, Paparella makes a strong case for looking at this history as a complex succession of interactions—between states, but also between leaders—that are highly contingent and shaped by the nationalist views of the leading US decision-makers over time. This thoughtful study provides scholars and students with an interpretative key to understand the multifaceted role of the United States in the Asia Pacific, as well as policy recommendations to overcome the security and the credibility challenges posed by the rise of China in the region today.

In the years following the Arab Spring, a number of Islamist insurgent groups conquered swaths of territory across the Middle East and North Africa and began governing civilian populations. These groups have been faced with the complexities of administering justice, collecting taxes, and providing public services such as health care and education. How do Salafi-Jihadist armed groups, which typically claim to be committed to ideological purity, approach administration, and what does this reveal about rule by insurgent forces?

This book is a groundbreaking comparative exploration of Salafi-Jihadist governance, drawing on in-depth case studies of the Islamic State in western Iraq and eastern Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in northwestern Syria, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in southern Yemen. Marta Furlan examines rebels’ experiments in ruling, considering issues such as the treatment of non-Muslims, the extent of civilian participation, the use of coercive measures, and the scope of social and political change. She assesses whether there is a single model of Salafi-Jihadist governance, the degree to which ideology and doctrine inform the behavior of rebel rulers, and the similarities and differences between Salafi-Jihadists and other nonstate armed groups. Offering a window into the inner workings of government and civilian life under Islamist power, Inside Salafi-Jihadist Governance sheds new light on rule by nonstate groups more broadly.

At the time Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the 39th president of the United States, the Democratic Party had been enjoying a half-century of sustained electoral advantage. It had long controlled Congress and dominated measures of party identification. When Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976, 40% of Americans called themselves Democrats and another 12% told survey takers they leaned towards the party. To win the election of 1976, Carter just needed to hold the voters that started out on his side. Nearly fifty years later, American politics has inverted itself. Close electoral competition is the norm, and politics are at a stalemate. Brady and Parker call the existing deadlock the era of party parity, an age of division unseen since the late-nineteenth century. This book explains this profound shift in electoral politics. Drawing on fresh datasets and long-running surveys, the authors trace the decline of the Democratic majority and consider how this decline differed from past realignments. They show why modern American presidential elections are always close and argue that the rise of Donald Trump largely reinforced preexisting trends. Their work represents a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on party identification and realignment.

The first war of America's existence as an independent state was fought against the Shawnee, the Miami, and other Ohio River Valley tribes in the Northwest Indian War of 1790–95. The war provides a window into how US conquest of the continent would proceed through the next century and comprise a central element of US foreign policy into the future. Szarejko examines why the United States first engaged in this war to secure its claim to the Old Northwest and how the reverberations of the war extend far beyond the process of settlement. In focusing on US strategy during the war—its reliance on military bases to project power and a nascent counterinsurgency doctrine—Szarejko expertly traces the patterns established by this conflict throughout American political history and demonstrates how that military victory continues to be legitimized today through local commemorations of the war. This innovative book argues forcefully against the conventional claim that early US foreign policy was isolationist, brings Indigenous politics more fully into the realm of international relations, and allows researchers in several scholarly fields to better understand the nature of American conquest.

The introduction of gender quotas has significantly increased women’s representation in national legislatures—not only in democracies but also in many autocracies. To what extent has the growing number of women in authoritarian legislatures granted them more power and influence? What conditions help or hinder women’s political participation under autocratic regimes? And what does the role of women tell us about the politics of authoritarianism today?

Drawing on a decade of fieldwork and a vast data set collected across the Middle East and North Africa, Marwa Shalaby develops a new theory of women’s political representation in authoritarian regimes. She examines the dynamics of women’s political inclusion in three Arab monarchies, Morocco, Jordan, and Kuwait, with varying levels of quota implementation and where the strength and capacity of political parties differ widely. Shalaby demonstrates that the degree to which individual parties have been institutionalized plays a significant role in women’s legislative behavior and political power. Parties play integral roles in recruiting, cultivating, supporting, and elevating female candidates in contexts where women have been excluded from existing networks of power, in nondemocratic systems as well as democracies. Although the introduction of quota systems has expanded women’s numerical presence, the absence of institutionalized parties has limited their ability to gain influence. Nuanced and incisive, Varieties of Power offers grounded, comparative insights into the study of gender and politics, political representation, and authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa.

At the end of the Reagan administration, American public opinion polls showed there were no discernible differences based on political party in response to the question, "Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?" However, in the early 1990s, a partisan gulf between conservatives and liberals emerged around environmental issues. Today, half as many Republicans self-identify as environmentalists when compared to Democrats. Political stagnation on climate action, in turn, has led to a growing number of Americans of all ages who experience ecological grief (known as solastalgia) and eco-anxiety (a chronic fear of environmental doom). These emotions emerged in response to the existential distress associated with living in a world of relentless environmental damage and irreversible ecological losses: a world of wounds.

This book offers an antidote to political frustration and hopelessness. Nancy J. Manring provides an indispensable analysis of the multi-decade, conservative war against American environmentalism and maps out realistic strategies for rebuilding a bipartisan environmental movement. Nurturing authentic hope, in contrast to blind optimism or false promises, begins with an unflinching look at both planetary and political realities. Choosing authentic hope is an ongoing process that requires emotional honesty, courage, and action. This forceful book serves as both a tool for change and a spirited scholarly intervention.

The world's attention has often turned to Lebanon in moments of crisis, including, recently, during the Beirut Port Explosion in 2020 and the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Less told is the story of how such major events, and other predicaments from Lebanon's long history, have mobilized a thriving network of activists whose lived experiences of multiple crises have shaped their politics, belonging, and vision of Lebanon's future. Crisiswork presents a story of Lebanon through the lens of activist lifeworlds, showing how, amid crisis, both political structures and everyday life become a terrain of generative possibility.

Through an ethnographic investigation into the relationship between crisis and political imagination, Yasemin İpek examines activism as an open-ended process, looking at the diversity of experiences that leads to ambivalent political engagements. She follows a range of self-identified activists—including unemployed NGO volunteers, middle-class consultants, and leftist entrepreneurs—as their crisiswork, and response to contradictory pressures, leads them to new ways of being and acting. Crisiswork demonstrates how class-based and other inequalities on local and global scales affect the lived realities and political imaginations of activists. It provides an innovative analytical framework for understanding the complex political and social struggles against crises in the global South.

The oldest ideas are the best. This book is a defense of an ancient way of thinking about international politics: realism. Patrick Porter, a scholar of international relations, defends the realist approach to understanding the world by addressing head-on the most robust critiques of the tradition. Drawing from a wide literature, Porter restages three prominent criticisms of realism: that it is immoral, unrealistic, and provincial. In erudite, clear, and at times morbidly funny prose, Porter makes the case that realism is, in fact, everything its critics believe it is not: moral in its commitment to securing the polity and its interests in a world where there is no higher government; realistic and the best starting point for explaining how human groups tend to behave; and practical for use by everyone, everywhere, including beyond the Euro-Atlantic.

From Thucydides to Kautilya to Machiavelli, realists claim that the world is an inherently dangerous place defined by the shadow of conflict, whether we like it or not. As the 21st century grapples with multiple interlocking crises concerning economic dislocation, climate change, and war, we need realism now more than ever. This book is for readers who are looking for sensible guidance on how to work within that reality and survive in an increasingly hostile world.

Historical analogies are often utilized to frame and formulate foreign policies, illuminate issues of war and peace, and mobilize support for particular political programs. The historical record, however, can be distorted in a variety of ways, leading to overly simplistic, misleading conclusions that impair sound policy and scholarship. This danger is most imminent and palpable when there exists premature academic consensus, pressure to conform to political orthodoxy, intellectual complacency, and cognitive resistance to alternate interpretations of historical episodes. We must be especially vigilant to guard against these pitfalls when deliberating one of the most high-stakes topics in global politics: the alarming potential for military conflict between the United States and China.

Past precedents and parallels regularly inform analyses of China's relations with the US. By highlighting serious errors of commission or omission in popular narratives and scholarly studies concerning international relations in general and Sino-American relations in particular, Steve Chan challenges commonly accepted "lessons of history" and cautions against the misuse and misunderstanding of the past in examining China's rise and its implications for international peace and stability. This far-reaching book presents alternative, overlooked historical accounts that are highly pertinent to Sino-American relations today, making it essential for researchers and students of international affairs.

Chinese Encounters with America tells the stories of twelve women and men whose American experiences transformed their lives and influenced China’s trajectory, with a particular focus on the period after Beijing and Washington established full diplomatic relations in 1979. Each chapter recounts how these Chinese citizens interpreted America and adapted their understanding to bolster China’s quest for modernization.

Their professions range from diplomacy, business, and science to sports, education, and the arts, but their distinctive stories are united by shared questions: Why did they go the United States, and why did they return to China? What difference did their encounters with America make in their lives and careers? What do their experiences tell us about the complexities of Sino-American interactions?

At a time when US-China relations are contentious, this book challenges the idea that American and Chinese interests and values are incompatible. It shows that personal encounters have been instrumental in finding common ground, even when there are differences and disagreements. Through vivid and engaging profiles, Chinese Encounters with America offers a fresh, nuanced understanding of the world’s most pivotal relationship.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Mohammed El-Kurd has written a new Discourse on Colonialism for the twenty-first century.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley

Perfect Victims is an urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal―an ode to the steadfastness of a nation.

Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial.

Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El-Kurd refuses a life spent in cross-examination. Rather than asking the oppressed to perform a perfect victimhood, El-Kurd asks friends and foes alike to look Palestinians in the eye, forgoing both deference and condemnation.

How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple demand: dignity for the Palestinian.

The political turmoil in Libya—which has claimed more than 20,000 lives and frustrated international partners since 2011—is an immensely complex struggle for power with a dizzying array of participants. How did Libya’s “Arab Spring” devolve into civil war after the removal of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi?

Ruining Revolution examines Libya’s descent into chaos, pinpointing the roles of Islamist and Salafi forces. Focusing on two key but underestimated movements, the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and Libyan Salafi Madkhalis, Inga K. Trauthig argues that ideological groups have been of greater importance than previously assumed. She maps out crucial junctions in Libya’s recent history, tying in these movements’ pasts, to show how Islamist and Salafi forces have stoked instability. Although the 2011 Libyan revolution was not religious, these groups proved surprisingly well-equipped to capitalize on social and political fissures and to attract international support.

Featuring deep research and rigorous analysis, this book draws on a range of sources, including in-depth interviews and propaganda shared on social media. Ruining Revolution illuminates the dynamics that have shaped contemporary Libya—with significant policy implications for regional engagement—and offers broader insight into the underlying workings of a range of radical groups.

In scarcely a century, Salafism has transformed Sunni Islam. Claiming to be a revival of the purest form of Islam, this movement promotes ultraconservative social and religious norms and rejects all non-Sunni religious groups. In Egypt, its influence has grown to the point of reshaping mainstream conceptions of the faith. How did such a deep religious transformation sweep through Egypt so rapidly? What is the significance of Salafism for the country’s political scene, both before and after Hosni Mubarak fell from power in 2011?

Twilight of the Saints examines the history of Salafism in Egypt from its 1920s emergence in Cairo’s scholarly circles through the present day, shedding new light on the movement’s shifting relationship to politics. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews, Stéphane Lacroix illustrates how Salafism redefined what it means to be Muslim for Egyptians. He emphasizes the factors that distinguish the Salafis from the Muslim Brotherhood, despite their parallel trajectories. The Salafis, who initially shunned oppositional politics, were looked upon more favorably by the authorities, who perceived a greater threat from their Islamist counterparts. Lacroix explores how Salafism influenced the dynamics of the 2011 revolution and the democratic transition that ended with the army’s takeover of the country, as well as how it has fared since. Twilight of the Saints offers an in-depth, authoritative understanding of the relationship of Salafism, politics, and authoritarianism in Egypt, with significant implications for the wider Muslim world.

The worldwide spread of the internet has revolutionized communication at a harrowing cost: the relentless commodification of attention. Algorithm-driven capitalism extracts profit from not only physical bodies but also the emotional and creative labor of internet users. This economic system alienates us from our inmost selves and gives us only a gnawing longing that cannot be satiated—a spiraling collective mental health crisis. The exchange is deeply unequal: we pay attention and receive alienation.

Aarushi Bhandari offers a new way to understand the political economy of attention, combining quantitative analysis and personal narrative to critique the role of information and communications technologies in global society. Ranging across levels, from international development policy to online social movements through individual internet users, she examines how these technologies have fostered a host of unequal exchanges. Pervasive inequalities—between richer and poorer countries, between progressive social movements and the reactions against them, and between technological elites and the online population—now reinforce one another, with far-reaching consequences. Along the way, Bhandari shares her own journey as a chronically online millennial woman growing up among the Kathmandu elite in a dominant-caste Hindu family during the Nepali Civil War. A bold and incisive critical analysis, Attention and Alienation also considers how to reclaim the potential of the internet and design new systems that prioritize collective well-being.

How can Public Policy scholarship contribute to transformational societal change?

In this collection of essays, previously published in Policy & Politics, the authors explore different avenues towards more transformational Public Policy research. This includes being braver in what questions we ask; more inclusive in the actors we study and audiences we speak to; and more diverse in our theories and methods. The chapters address issues such as crises, democracy, participation, disasters, and paradigm change.

This book is essential reading for academics involved in Public Policy and Politics, and those invested in the improvement of our societies during turbulent times.

For centuries, Russian imperialism has shaped the fate of its neighbours, from the tsarist conquests to Soviet domination and today’s relentless aggression. This book exposes the Kremlin’s enduring ambition to control its periphery, dismantling the myths used to justify its actions – from claims of shared history to the weaponization of security and culture. It reveals how Russia has sought to subordinate neighbouring states, and how these nations have resisted, asserting their sovereignty in defiance of Moscow’s pressure.


In this incisive and compelling analysis of Russia’s enduring imperial mindset, Donnacha Ó Beacháin sheds critical light on how history, politics and power continue to collide in Ukraine and beyond, and why breaking the cycle of domination is vital for global security. It is essential reading for grasping the complexities of the current geopolitical crisis.

Despite Nigeria’s critical position in African security, academics and policymakers globally often overlook the gravity of its security challenges. This book examines Nigeria’s survival and its implications on international security.

It uses the Nigerian case to contribute to a broader understanding of how great powers relate with small powers, such as most African states. The Nigerian case contributes to the body of literature that integrates small/minor powers into realist studies in International Relations. The empirical and theoretical contributions offer insights for developing more effective policies to address the security challenges outlined in the book.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Tianjin was the diplomatic capital of the Middle Kingdom, where foreign consuls met Chinese dignitaries, and a hub of commerce and culture. Yet in the eyes of foreigners, the city remained provincial. After the tumult of the Boxer Rebellion, however, Tianjin transformed, when a little-known international political project turned it for a time into one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world.

Pierre Singaravélou tells the story of Tianjin’s emergence as a transnational metropolis, arguing that the city’s experience challenges conventional narratives of the origins of globalization. He focuses on the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, when a number of imperial powers established an international military government that sought to modernize the city and its environs. Under its reign, people from all over the West and Asia flocked to Tianjin, in a whirlwind of commercial and cultural exchange. This provisional government embarked on ambitious public works and public health projects, attempting to transform not only the city’s infrastructure but also its residents’ behavior—all while the imperial powers seized large foreign concessions. Singaravélou traces the many tensions of the global city: between accommodation and resistance for Tianjin’s residents, between colonization and internationalization within the provisional government, and between cooperation and competition among the imperial powers. Bringing together global and local perspectives, Tianjin Cosmopolis offers a new vantage point on the imperial globalization of the early twentieth century.

The EU’s international environment is increasingly characterized by power politics, great-power rivalry, ideological contestation and war. This has challenged the liberal-internationalist identity that has been at the heart of the EU since its birth. This book examines how the EU has responded to these new realities. It analyses the introduction of a flurry of concepts including European sovereignty, strategic autonomy, civilization, responsibility and strategic compass, and asks whether these signal a reconsideration of foreign policy objectives, a new strategic orientation or possibly a paradigm shift.

The book develops a theoretical framework on policy paradigms, worldviews, grand strategy, strategic narratives and the drivers of institutional change followed by chapters on the anti-liberal challenge, the evolution of the EU framework of ideas, the search for grand strategy and strategic autonomy, the response to Russian aggression and imperial thinking, and continuity and change in EU unity, working groups, green leadership and strategic communication.

The wit and wisdom and more wit from America’s best-known economist, personal finance expert, actor, writer and political commentator.

Ben Stein, a polymath famous and beloved for his iconic movie and tv roles, bestselling books and humorous writings and tv commentary, shares his views on love, money, politics and living the American Dream and how you too can lead an informed, politically sane, healthy, wealthy, and happy life full of love and family.

In his keen, perceptive, informative and always entertaining style, Stein shares his views on a life well lived and lessons learned, how to make the most of your money, prioritizing your family, and explores American culture and politics, the humorous, the heartbreaking, and the maddening.

In this collection of the best of Ben Stein’s Newsmax DREEMZ columns, Stein shares his passionate opinions, stark warnings and thoughtful, sensitive musings on such varied topics as:

• Love, Humor, Forgiveness, and Dogs
• Why Mistakes Happen When Government Gets Too Big
• The Miracles of Modern Life
• Why All’s Fair in Politics and War
• Life's Cornerstones and Curveballs
• Why Anger and Hate Have No Place in Public Life
• The Economics of Love
• Why We Owe a Debt of Gratitude to Servicemen and Women
• TV's Brave New Reality: A United America
• Why the Government is Not Responsible for Your Success - You Are
• America: Why I Cherish this Unbelievable Gift
• And why “These Are Not the End Times”

The World According to Ben Stein offers honest insights, humor and hope from one of the great humorists on political economy and how life works in this nation.

Resulting from a collaborative approach, Doing Democracy in "Third Places" presents the results of multi-site ethnographic research in seven Quebec civil society organizations. It reports on observations, analyses and comparisons of a diversity of innovative citizenship education practices aimed at young people in these “third places”, i.e. socialization spaces different from school and family.

Focusing on the presentation of case studies, the book reveals the diversity of formative experiences offered to young Quebecers. The pooling of case analyses leads to a fruitful reflection on education for democratic citizenship through a plurality of citizen experimentation practices rooted in the defense of children’s rights, feminist social action, the community movement, alterglobalism and municipal and school public action.

With its original conceptual vocabulary and qualitative methodological approach, this book will help to push back the geolinguistic and disciplinary boundaries that often separate research currents closely or remotely related to the social and political engagement and participation of young people. Written in an accessible style, it is aimed at a wide audience, including youth organization staff, graduate students, the youth policy sector and anyone interested in the issues surrounding youth citizenship in the 21st century.