Do dead bodies have human rights?

This is one of many fascinating questions Adam Rosenblatt asks in his compelling new book Digging for the Disappeared: Forensic Science After Atrocity (Stanford University Press, 2015)

Rosenblatt, a faculty member at Haverford College, doesn’t try to recount the emergence of forensic science  in investigating mass violence.  Instead, he’s really interested in examining the political, ethical and philosophical questions that surround the study of dead bodies in the aftermath of atrocities.  His book is a thought examination of these questions.  He considers how the interests of the various constituents of forensic investigations often clash.  He thinks about the way in which dead bodies become political footballs.  He considers how to balance the sometime competing claims of religion, lawyers and politicians to human remains.  And he asks how best to recognize the rights of the dead. Digging for the Disappeared is a rich, introspective and thoughtful treatment of an increasingly important subject.

“What exactly is liberalism?” The independent scholar Edwin van de Haar tackles this important question in his new book Degrees of Freedom: Liberal Political Philosophy and Ideology (Transaction Publishers, 2015). Setting the record straight, van de Haar explains how the history of liberalism should be viewed as an ongoing struggle for individual freedom. The importance that liberals place on freedom helps explain why they tend to create dynamic political/economic orders that change the status quo in ways not predetermined by centralized plans or ideological blueprints. To help readers better understand the diversity and boundaries of liberalism, van de Haar divides liberal thought into three main variants–Classical, Social, and Libertarianism. Unlike previous works on liberalism, he devotes considerable attention to how each of these variants tends to conceive of international affairs and defines the optimal global order. He also explains how liberal thought differs from conservatism and the mistakes authors almost always make when they use the term “neoliberal” to critique global capitalism.

While readers may not agree with all of van de Haar’s arguments, they will benefit from grappling with Degrees of Freedom. Employing cogent prose and an easy-to-follow framework, he explains why liberal thought remains an important and relevant subject for all citizens of the world. Taking on some of liberalism’s fiercest critics, van de Haar also reminds readers that liberal thought can still serve as a blueprint for creating societies consistent with the goals of freedom, justice, equality, and personal fulfilment.

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Douglas L. Kriner and Andrew Reeves have written The Particularistic President: Executive Branch Politics and Political Inequality (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Kriner is associate professor of political science at Boston University; Reeves is assistant professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis

In the midst of a presidential election in which every candidate claims to want to serve the entire country, can we believe them? Are presidents servants of the nation or do they pursue much more narrow constituencies? Kriner and Reeves argue that, rather than governing as universalists, presidents are particularistic, adhering to the electoral and partisan goals of re-election and advancing their party. They show this with evidence on presidential decisions on base closure, trade, and disaster relief.

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Jessica Baldwin-Philippi is the author of Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2015). She is an assistant professor of new media at Fordham University. Baldwin-Philippi’s book fits into a larger Oxford series on Digital Politics which has been featured on the podcast in the past. She uses an ethnographic approach focused on understanding how political campaigns in 2010 had incorporated various technologies. She also collects original data on specific digital strategies, especially social media. But the book is not just about technology; Baldwin-Philippi tries to understand how campaigns shape citizenship and democracy through the tools they use.

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David Sehat is an associate professor of history at Georgia State University. His book The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible and the Our Politics Inflexible (Simon and Schuster, 2015) is part narrative history, part political analysis. Beginning with George Washington’s administration to the 2012 Congressional budgetary crisis, Sehat provides a long sweep of the continual conflicts over the meaning of the U.S. constitution and the intent of the founders. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton represented two different interpretations and set the course for subsequent debates over first principles that by Lincoln’s time escalated into civil war. The differences revolved largely on the role of the federal government, states rights and the limits of economic freedom. After the Civil War and as America faced becoming a modern nation the founders as a standard of ideals went into eclipse. The oppositional rhetoric of the American Liberty League to Roosevelt’s New Deal, and constitutional reinterpretation, once again turned to the founders. Modern political rivals have continued to call on the legacy of the founders to support their arguments and making them a test of political orthodoxy. Martin Luther King’s civil rights campaign, the Reagan Revolution, and the Tea Party movement drew from the founders with radically different understandings of the past and the future. Liberals pointed to changing nature of constitutional governance arguing for context and adaptation. Conservatives held to a static and binding view of the constitution asserting original intent. Arguments that found their way to the Supreme Court. Sehat argues that conflict over the intent of the founders, and the meaning of the constitution, has kept the nation paralyzed in dealing with the present. By asking what the founder’s would do, we foreclose productive debate.

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Ronald P. Formisano has written Plutocracy in America: How Increasing Inequality Destroys the Middle Class and Exploits the Poor (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015). Formisano is the William T. Bryan Chair of American History and professor emeritus of history at the University of Kentucky.

Are those in the United States living in a plutocracy? Formisano offers a full-throated “definitely, yes.” His wide-ranging book explores the nature of inequality, the role political institutions play in perpetuating inequality, and several ways to change the status quo. Plutocracy in America is a provocative read about the status of the country today.

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In this interview Gerard Russell talks about his vivid and timely new book Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East (Basic Books, 2014). Russell’s experience as a British diplomat in a rapidly changing region gives the book remarkable breadth, providing a valuable insight into the lives of minority communities from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Egypt: Mandaeans, Yazidis, Zoroastrians, Druze, Samaritans, Copts and Kalasha. Russell’s account pays particular attention to the circulation of stories, symbols and practices between these groups and reveals a history or extraordinary diversity and interdependence. His journey through this symbolic ecosystem, struggling to survive in its lands of origin, leads him eventually to diaspora communities in America and Europe. Is this the final domain of these forgotten kingdoms?

Gerard Russell’s account of these colorful pasts, precarious presents and unknown futures will be of interest to scholars of religion, culture, the Middle East, and a wider non-specialist readership.

Martha Joynt Kumar has recently published, Before the Oath: How George W. Bush and Barack Obama Managed a Transfer of Power (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015). She is professor of political science at Towson University.

The race to become the president has become never-ending campaign on months and months of advertisements, debates, and public rallies. Once elected, the new president has just 11-weeks to get ready to govern. That is the subject of Before the Oath. The book provides a broad look at past presidential transitions, but the real fun is the inside stories of the hand-off of power between the Bush and Obama administrations.

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Politics has been a part of many films, since the beginning of the industry over 100 years ago. These include movies with political subjects, such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to films with political underpinnings, such as The Hurt Locker. In Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films (Routledge, 2015) and our interview, Elizabeth Haas discusses the history of politics in film and points out how current events have shaped their development. In addition to how movies during the Production Code era tended to downplay politics, she reviews the changes that led movies to take a greater political tone. She also discusses documentaries and films released after September 11, 2001, as well as disaster and post-apocalyptic films and their importance as political statements.

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New Subaltern Politics: Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press, 2015), edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy, is a wonderfully rich and theoretically coherent collection of texts that critically assess the legacies of Subaltern Studies through research into political movements in India today. The case studies range from students at elite higher education institutes shoring up their privilege, to queer activism in Kolkata, to Dalit villagers fighting land grabs, and the studies’ richness allows for a really nuanced relational understanding of subalternity, hegemony and the state that make the book a truly conceptually and ethnographically innovative collection.

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