The advent of very powerful computers and the Internet have not “changed everything,” but it has created a new communications context within which almost everything we do will be somewhat changed. One of the “things we do” is governance, that is, the way we organize ourselves politically and, as a result of that organization, provide for the individual and public good. In his fascinating book Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology (Princeton UP, 2013), John O. McGinnis examines the promise and peril of advanced computation and Internet communications for our democracy. The former (promise), he says, is great if we think deeply about the impact of the new media on politics and public policy. He proposed that we take the bull by the horns and experiment with new technology so that governance can become both more democratic and more efficient. He suggests a number of ways in which the potential of the new media can be made to do just this. Listen in.

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Over the last several months, I’ve had the pleasure to have a number of political scientists who study education policy on the podcast. Jesse Rhodes, Jeff Henig, and Sarah Reckhow have brought their new books that have focused mainly on the K-12 education system. Andrew Karch offers something different.

Karch has written Early Start: Preschool Politics in the United States (University of Michigan Press, 2013), a deep narrative history and assessment of the policy development behind early childhood education policy. Karch is associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota and has focused much of his research agenda on state policy and federalism. In his new book, he weaves together theories from the study of public policy with an intricate story of early childhood education. The tactical lessons advocates could learn from this book make it a must-read inside and outside of the academy. Ideas like venue shopping and coalition building animate many of the critical junctures studied in the book.

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Christine Trost is program director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies and associate director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Her co-editor is Lawrence Rosenthal, executive director and lead researchers of Center for Right-Wing Studies at Berkeley. The volume includes chapters by scholars such Alan Abramowitz (Emory University), Martin Cohen (James Madison University), Clarence Lo (University of Missouri at Columbia), but also has several chapters written by practitioners, lending the book a varied assessment on the Tea Party. These authors unearth what Trost and Rosenthal call the “stunning” emergence of the Tea Party following the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Chapters situate the Tea Party in its historical context and consider the extent to which this social movement is best understood as emerging from the grassroots or whether it is better placed into the national conservative movement. The collection is informative and deeply readable together and as individual chapters.

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Drew Maciag, author of Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism (Cornell University Press, 2013) spoke with Ray Haberski about the intellectual challenges Burke raised in a time of democratic revolutions and the legacy he left for thinkers who attempted to leverage tradition in the face of political change.  Maciag’s book is well-written and smartly conceived.  His subject spans the entire history of the United States, from the Revolution to the present day, and introduces readers to American thinkers who continue deserve our attention.  He also does an expert job addressing the conflict between liberalism and conservatism by demonstrating the roles historical contingency and personality play in shaping these complicated terms.  Maciag’s book serves a diverse community of readers, from academics looking for smart arguments about political theory to general readers who are interested in origins and development of the poles of American politics.

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Nicco Mele is the author of The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath (St. Martin’s Press, 2013). He is Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard University. Mele writes as a technology expert and as a witness to history. He served as a campaign staffer for the Howard Dean for President Campaign in 2003. He and his colleagues implemented many of the web-based campaign innovations that resulted in President Obama winning the 2008 presidential election and define the modern American political campaign. Mele links that experience with radical social changes brought about by the internet. His title thesis, The End of Big, suggest that big institutions in nearly every sector of our lives (business, government, news) have been eroded and, in some cases, supplanted by smallness. An enthusiast for technology, Mele also cautions against the risks associated with this transformation.

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The American penitentiary model began as not merely a physical construct, but as a philosophical and religious one. Prisoners were to use their time in silence and isolation to contemplate their crimes/sins and to pursue God’s grace. Alexis de Tocqueville’s…

Shannon Gleeson is the author of Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston (Cornell University Press, 2012). Dr. Gleeson is assistant professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. San Jose, CA and Houston, TX are two of the country’s largest gateways for immigrants, and these cases used to explain how immigration policy is implemented at the local level. Gleeson unearths the varied ways political institutions and civic actors accommodate the large number of newcomers and enact worker rights laws. While deeply rooted in theories from sociology, the book’s success in mapping the political players and local politics makes it an important read for political scientists, particularly those interested in interest groups and civil society. Gleeson also draws in the role foreign consulates increasingly play in protecting the rights of migrants.

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Cari Lee Skogberg Eastman is the author of Shaping the Immigration Debate: Contending Civil Societies on the US-Mexico Border (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2013). Eastman earned her doctoral degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This timely new book explores the border region of southern Arizona. Eastman provides an overview of the policy history of immigration in the US as a way to introduce the complexity of border policy and border politics. In particular, she writes about three civic organizations: Humane Borders, No More Deaths, and Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Each has a different view of what US policy should be and they compete to attract attention to the region and address this problem. Eastman takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject that combines varied data collection and analysis. The book has a potentially wide audience, including scholars in political science, communications, and sociology, particularly those who study immigration, social movements, and policy.

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Patrick James is the Dornsife Dean’s Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. A self-described intellectual “fox,” James works on a wide variety of subjects in the study of world politics. But one of his latest books, co-authored with Abigail E. Ruane, breaks even his eclectic mold. The International Relations of Middle-Earth: Learning from the Lord of the Rings (University of Michigan Press, 2012), sheds light on both international-relations theory and Tolkein’s epic fantasy by bringing the two subjects together. Fans, students, and scholars alike will find much of interest — and much to argue about.

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John Buschman is the author of Libraries, Classrooms, and the Interests of Democracy: Marking the Limits of Neoliberalism (Scarecrow Press 2012). Buschman is Dean of University Libraries at Seton Hall University. His book examines the changing place of libraries in democratic society. Once free from advertising, libraries, and other educative institutions, are now awash with commercial marketing. Libraries are now used as a place to market goods and services, a source of revenue for the university, but in exchange for what exactly? The book ponders what we sacrifice when we permit these incursions without question or open debate. Buschman offers a theoretically grounded response that draws on Tocqueville, Habermas, and Dewey, but the book is also rooted in pressing contemporary challenges to the state or higher education today.

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