New Books in Political Science

In an era of globalized education, where ideals of freedom and inquiry should thrive, an alarming trend has emerged: foreign authoritarian regimes infiltrating American academia. In Authoritarians in the Academy, Sarah McLaughlin exposes how higher education institutions, long considered bastions of free thought, are compromising their values for financial gain and global partnerships.

This groundbreaking investigation reveals the subtle yet sweeping influence of authoritarian governments. University leaders are allowing censorship to flourish on campus, putting pressure on faculty, and silencing international student voices, all in the name of appeasing foreign powers. McLaughlin exposes the troubling reality where university leaders prioritize expansion and profit over the principles of free expression. The book describes incidents in classrooms where professors hesitate to discuss controversial topics and in boardrooms where administrators weigh the costs of offending oppressive regimes. McLaughlin offers a sobering look at how the compromises made in American academia reflect broader societal patterns seen in industries like tech, sports, and entertainment.

Meticulously researched and unapologetically candid, Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025) is an essential read for anyone who believes in the transformative power of education and the necessity of safeguarding it from the creeping tide of authoritarianism.

Sarah McLaughlin is a senior scholar of global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Everyone feels it. Cultural and political life in America has become unrecognizable and strange. Firebrands and would-be sages have taken the place of reasonable and responsible leaders. Nuanced debates have given way to the smug confidence of yard signs. How did we get here?
In Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump" (Random House, 2025)
Context (Random House, 2025), historian Molly Worthen argues that we will understand our present moment if we learn the story of charisma in America. From the Puritans and Andrew Jackson to Black nationalists and Donald Trump, the saga of American charisma, Worthen argues, stars figures who possess a dangerous and alluring power to move crowds. They invite followers into a cosmic drama where hopes are fulfilled and grievances are put right—and these charismatic leaders insist that they alone plot the way.
The story of charisma in America reveals that when traditional religious institutions fail to deliver on their promise of a meaningful life, people will get their spiritual needs met in a warped cultural and political landscape dominated by those who appear to have the power to bring order and meaning out of chaos. Charismatic leaders address spiritual needs, offering an alternate reality where people have knowledge, power, and heroic status, whether as divinely chosen instruments of God or those who will restore national glory.
Through Worthen’s centuries-spanning historical research, Spellbound places a crucial religious lens on the cultural, economic, and political upheavals facing Americans today.

Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist.

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An Arendt expert has arrived at Arendt-obsessed Recall This Book. Lyndsey Stonebridge discusses her widely praised 2024 We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience. Lyndsey sees both radical evil and the banality of evil at work in Nazi Germany and in the causes of suffering and death in Gaza today. She compares the moral idiocy of authoritarians (like the murderous Nazis and those who are starving Gaza) to that of philosophers who cannot hear the echoes of what they are doing.

Lyndsey and John discuss Arendt’s belief in the fragile ethics of the Founding Fathers, with its checks and balances and its politics based not on emotion but cool deliberation. Arendt could say that “The fundamental contradiction of [America] is political freedom coupled with social slavery,”” but why was she too easy on the legacy of imperial racism in America, missing its settler-colonial logic? Arendt read W. E. B. DuBois (who saw and said this) but perhaps, says Lyndsey, not attentively enough.

Lyndsey is not a fan of Jonathan Glazer's Zone of Interest, because it makes the evil banality of extermination monstrous all over again (cf. her"Mythic Banality: Jonathan Glazer and Hannah Arendt.") Responsibility is crucial: She praises Arendt for distinguishing between temptation and coercion.

Mentioned in the episode:

Various books by Hannah Arendt come up:

Recallable Books

Read transcript here.

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In Containing Decolonization: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma (Manchester University Press, 2025), historian Matthew Bowser examines British imperialism in late colonial Burma (from roughly 1929 to 1948) to study how imperialists attempted to protect their strategic and economic interests after decolonization: they did so by supporting ethnonationalism. This process resembles the Cold War tactic of “containment,” and the book makes a crucial contribution to the study of modern imperialism by demonstrating the continuity between “containment’s” late- and “neo”-colonial manifestations. For Burma/Myanmar, it also explores the origin of the present-day military junta’s racial regime: it emphasizes the protection of the ethnoreligious majority from ethnic minority insurgency. The Rohingya people are currently suffering a genocide because of this racial regime. As the country endures civil war against the junta, this book highlights how ethnonationalists in the late colonial period first promoted this racial regime to seize power and prevent revolution, a process supported by British imperialists for their own ends.

Matthew Bowser is Assistant Professor of Asian History at Alabama A&M University.

Brad H. Wright is a historian of Latin America specializing in postrevolutionary Mexico. PhD in Public History. Asst. Prof. of Latin American History at Alabama A&M University.

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Michel Foucault's thought, Maddalena Cerrato writes, may be understood as practical philosophy. In this perspective, political analysis, philosophy of history, epistemology, and ethics appear as necessarily cast together in a philosophical project that aims to rethink freedom and emancipation from domination of all kinds. The idea of practical philosophy accounts for Foucault's specific approach to the object, as well as to the task of philosophy, and it identifies the perspective that led him to consider the question of subjectivity as the guiding thread of his work. Overall, in Michel Foucault's Practical Philosophy: A Critique of Subjectivation Processes (SUNY Press, 2025) Cerrato shows the deep consistency underlying Foucault's reflection and the substantial coherence of his philosophical itinerary, setting aside all the conventional interpretations that pivot on the idea that his thought underwent a radical "turn" from the political engagement of the question of power toward an ethical retrieval of the question of subjectivity.

Maddalena Cerrato is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

YouTube Channel here

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Historians have well described how US immigration policy increasingly fell under the purview of federal law and national politics in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It is far less understood that the rights of noncitizen immigrants in the country remained primarily contested in the realms of state politics and law until the mid-to-late twentieth century. Such state-level political debates often centered on whether noncitizen immigrants should vote, count as part of the polity for the purposes of state legislative representation, work in public and publicly funded employment, or obtain professional licensure.
Enacted state alienage laws were rarely self-executing, and immigrants and their allies regularly challenged nativist restrictions in court, on the job, by appealing to lawmakers and the public, and even via diplomacy. Battles over the passage, implementation, and constitutionality of such policies at times aligned with and sometimes clashed against contemporaneous efforts to expand rights to marginalized Americans, particularly US-born women. 

Often considered separately or treated as topics of marginal importance, Disparate Regimes: Nativist Politics, Alienage Law, and Citizenship Rights in the United States, 1865–1965 (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Dr. Brendan A. Shanahan underscores the centrality of nativist state politics and alienage policies to the history of American immigration and citizenship from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. It argues that the proliferation of these debates and laws produced veritable disparate regimes of citizenship rights in the American political economy on a state-by-state basis. It further illustrates how nativist state politics and alienage policies helped to invent and concretize the idea that citizenship rights meant citizen-only rights in law, practice, and popular perception in the United States.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals the nuances of censorship in the age of the internet.

She identifies 3 types of censorship: fear (threatening punishment to deter the spread or access of information); friction (increasing the time or money necessary to access information); and flooding (publishing information to distract, confuse, or dilute). Roberts shows how China customizes repression by using friction and flooding (censorship that is porous) to deter the majority of citizens whose busy schedules and general lack of interest in politics make it difficult to spend extra time and money accessing information. Highly motivated elites (e.g. journalists, activists) who are willing to spend the extra time and money to overcome the boundaries of both friction and flooding meanwhile may face fear and punishment. The two groups end up with very different information – complicating political coordination between the majority and elites.

Roberts’s highly accessible book negotiates two extreme positions (the internet will bring government accountability v. extreme censorship) to provide a more nuanced understanding of digital politics, the politics of repression, and political communication. Even if there is better information available, governments can create friction on distribution or flood the internet with propaganda. Looking at how China manages censorship provides insights not only for other authoritarian governments but also democratic governments. Liberal democracies might not use fear but they can affect access and availability – and they may find themselves (as the United States did in the 2016 presidential election) subject to flooding from external sources. The podcast includes Roberts’ insights on how the Chinese censored information on COVID-19 and the effect that had on the public.

Foreign Affairs named Censored one of its Best Books of 2018 and it was also honored with the Goldsmith Award and the Best Book in Human Rights Section and Information Technology and Politics section of the American Political Science Association.

Susan Liebell is associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She is the author of Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution: Science for Citizenship (Routledge, 2013).

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What are the prospects for democracy in Syria? Is this the right question to ask? What do we need to better understand about Syria’s new leader, its civil society, and the challenges it faces in a new era for Syria? Join Rana Khoury, Daniel Neep, and Emily Scott for this special joint episode of the Localization in World Politics and People, Power, Politics podcasts.

Rana B. Khoury is assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her work explores conflict processes, civil action, and humanitarianism, particularly in the Middle East and Syria. Her book, Civilizing Contention: International Aid in Syria’s War, is forthcoming from Cornell University Press and available for pre-order here.

Daniel Neep is nonresident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He is interested in conflict and state-building, as well as processes of political, institutional, and social transformation in the Middle East, in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. His book A History of Modern Syria is forthcoming with Penguin Books and is available for pre-order here.

Check out their contributions to the Journal of Democracy Special Section, Syria After Assad, can be found here!

Emily K. M. Scott is Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham and co-host of the Localization in World Politics Podcast. Her most recent publication, “Negotiating for Autonomy: How Humanitarian INGOs Resisted Donors During the Syrian Refugee Response” can be found here.

The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the factors that promote and undermine democratic government around the world and follow us on Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham!

Click here for a transcript of this episode

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought a tragic close to a thirty-year period of history that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reopening of Russia to the West after six decades of Soviet isolation. The opening lasted for three tumultuous decades and ended with a new closing, driven by the Ukrainian war, the imposition of Western sanctions, and the Russian responses to them.

In Perfect Storm: Russia's Failed Economic Opening, the Hurricane of War and Sanctions, and the Uncertain Future (Oxford University Press, 2025), Russia analyst Thane Gustafson reinterprets the story of Russia's failed opening to the West, focusing on its economic, technological, and social aspects, and the role they played in its ultimate failure. These parallel events are essential for understanding what happened and what went wrong. Yet they have received much less attention than the military and geopolitical aspects of the current conflict. Gustafson tells the story of the West's entry into Russia, the arrival of Russians into the West, and the conflicting emotions and responses these aroused on both sides, contributing to the ultimate breakdown of relations and the unprecedented hurricane of Western sanctions. The book concludes with an examination of possible futures under a new generation of leaders.

A measured and nuanced account of the evolution of Russia's economic relations with the world, Perfect Storm illuminates the longer history of Russia's opening to the West, from its achievements and disappointments to the complexity of the post-invasion sanctions regime and Russia's responses to them.

Thane Gustafson is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He is the author of many books, including Klimat (2021), The Bridge (2020), and Wheel of Fortune (2012).

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Lindsey N. Kingston’s new book, Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship, and Rights (Oxford UP, 2019) interrogates the idea of citizenship itself, what it means, how it works, how it is applied and understood, and where there are clear gaps in that application. This is a wide-ranging, rigorously researched examination of citizenship, statelessness, and human movement. And it is vitally relevant to contemporary discussions of immigration, supranationalism, understandings of national borders, and concepts of belonging. Not only does Kingston delve into theoretical concepts of citizenship and statelessness, she also integrates analyses of various kinds of hierarchies of personhood in context of these broader issues. The research also includes explorations of nomadic people, indigenous nations, and "second class" citizens in the United States within this theoretical framework of citizenship and statelessness. This careful and broad analysis defines the novel idea of ‘functional citizenship’, which is both theoretical and practical in considering citizenship and statelessness in our modern world. Fully Human focuses on the promises and protections that are outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, unpacking the protection gaps and difficulties that have become clearer and more acute in this era of globalization and security concerns, and highlighting some of the key problems with the current human rights regimes that are in place.

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