New Books in Political Science

Maria Dimova-Cookson's new book Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty (Routledge, 2019) offers an analysis of the distinction between positive and negative freedom building on the work of Constant, Green and Berlin. The author proposes a new reading of this distinction for the twenty-first century. The author defends the idea that freedom is a dynamic interaction between two inseparable, yet sometimes fundamentally, opposed positive and negative concepts – the yin and yang of freedom. Positive freedom is achieved when one succeeds in doing what is right, while negative freedom is achieved when one is able to advance one’s wellbeing. In an environment of culture wars, resurging populism and challenge to progressive liberal values, theorizing freedom in negative and positive terms can help us better understand the political dilemmas we face and point the way forward.Maria Dimova-Cookson is Associate Professor in Politics at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, UK.Yorgos Giannakopoulos (@giannako) is a currently a Junior Research Fellow in Durham University, UK. He is a historian of Modern Britain and Europe. His published research recovers the regional impact of British Intellectuals in Eastern Europe in the age of nationalism and internationalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In Litigating the Environment: Process and Procedure Before International Courts and Tribunals (Edward Elgar, 2023), Dr Justine Bendel scrutinises how international courts and tribunals may respond procedurally to an ever-growing list of environmental disputes. In a time of environmental crisis, she lays crucial groundwork for strengthening the application of international environmental law, a topic of increasing relevance for global civil society.Putting into perspective the practices of various international courts and tribunals, Dr Bendel works within the constraints of the existing judicial framework to sharpen international environmental justice and governance. She provides judges and litigators with tools that they can use when confronted with environmental disputes, to extract the best practices in the interest of improving environmental litigation for each phase of a judicial procedure.In this podcast, Dr Bendel discusses the complexity of multiple legal, regulatory and guidance frameworks insofar as international environmental law is concerned. She explains how it is highly likely that the subject matter of an environmental dispute will cover common areas or resources that affect global or multilateral interests, which inevitably adds a political dimension to any dispute resolution when it comes to areas that transcend national jurisdictions. Dr Bendel explores how typically bilateral proceedings under international law might be expanded to accommodate the interests of other states – and non-state actors such as international non-governmental organisations – through creatively and flexibly adapting procedures that already exist before international courts and tribunals, including dispute resolution and non-compliance procedures. Now is the time, she says, for international courts and tribunals to be used to resolve environmental disputes and to make authoritative legal determinations on protecting the planet and its precious resources.Alex Batesmith is a Lecturer in Legal Profession at the School of Law, University of Leeds, UK. His research focuses on lawyers, their professional self-identity and their motivations, and how these shape the institutions and the discipline in which they work. He has a particular interest in, and practitioner experience of, international criminal law and transitional justice. Twitter: @batesmith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In the lead-up to every election cycle, pundits predict that Latino Americans will overwhelmingly vote in favor of the Democratic candidate. And it’s true—Latino voters do tilt Democratic. Hillary Clinton won the Latino vote in a “landslide,” Barack Obama “crushed” Mitt Romney among Latino voters in his reelection, and, four years earlier, the Democratic ticket beat the McCain-Palin ticket by a margin of more than two to one. But those numbers belie a more complicated picture. Because of decades of investment and political courtship, as well as a nuanced and varied cultural identity, the Republican party has had a much longer and stronger bond with Hispanics. How is this possible for a party so associated with draconian immigration and racial policies?In The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump (Ecco, 2020), historian and political commentator Geraldo Cadava illuminates the history of the millions of Hispanic Republicans who, since the 1960s, have had a significant impact on national politics. Intertwining the little understood history of Hispanic Americans with a cultural study of how post–World War II Republican politicians actively courted the Hispanic vote during the Cold War (especially Cuban émigrés) and during periods of major strife in Central America (especially during Iran-Contra), Cadava offers insight into the complicated dynamic between Latino liberalism and conservatism, which, when studied together, shine a crucial light on a rapidly changing demographic that will impact American elections for years to come.Tiffany Jasmin González is an AAUW Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate of History at Texas A&M University. Her research centers on the 20th-century US, Latinx history, American politics, social movements, borderlands, and women & gender. Her dissertation, Representation for a Change: Women in Government and the Chicana/o Civil Rights Movement in Texas. You can follow Tiffany on Twitter @T_J_Gonzalez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

How do micro-interactions of resistance, fighting and dialogue shape larger patterns of peace and conflict? How can nonviolent resistance, conflict transformation and diplomacy be analysed in micro-detail? Exploring these questions in The Micro-Sociology of Peace and Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Dr. Isabel Bramsen introduces micro-sociology to Peace Research and International Relations.Breaking new methodological, empirical and theoretical ground, Bramsen develops a novel theoretical and analytical framework for analysing micro-dynamics of peace and conflict. The book features chapters on the methods of micro-sociology (including Video Data Analysis) as well as analytical chapters on violence, nonviolence, conflict transformation, peace talks and international meetings. It is at once broad and specific, analysing a wide variety of phenomena and cases, while also introducing very specific lenses to analysing peace and conflict.Presenting a highly practical and micro-detailed approach, The Micro-Sociology of Peace and Conflict will be of use to students, researchers, practitioners, activists and diplomats interested in understanding and addressing contemporary conflicts. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Territory is one of the central political concepts of the modern world and, indeed, functions as the primary way the world is divided and controlled politically. Yet territory has not received the critical attention afforded to other crucial concepts such as sovereignty, rights, and justice. While territory continues to matter politically, and territorial disputes and arrangements are studied in detail, the concept of territory itself is often neglected today. Where did the idea of exclusive ownership of a portion of the earth’s surface come from, and what kinds of complexities are hidden behind that seemingly straightforward definition?The Birth of Territory (U Chicago Press, 2013) provides a detailed account of the emergence of territory within Western political thought. Looking at ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and early modern thought, Stuart Elden examines the evolution of the concept of territory from ancient Greece to the seventeenth century to determine how we arrived at our contemporary understanding. Elden addresses a range of historical, political, and literary texts and practices, as well as a number of key players—historians, poets, philosophers, theologians, and secular political theorists—and in doing so sheds new light on the way the world came to be ordered and how the earth’s surface is divided, controlled, and administered.Stuart Elden is Professor of Political Geography at Durham University.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. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Amid the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2021 and the escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait, the geopolitical balance of power has changed significantly in a very short period. If current trends continue, we may be witnessing a tectonic realignment unseen in more than a century.In 1904, Halford Mackinder delivered a seminal lecture entitled "The Geographical Pivot of History" to a packed house at the Royal Geographical Society in London about the historic changes then taking place on the world stage. Britain was the great power of that historical moment, but its political, military, and economic primacy was under serious challenge from the United States, Germany, and Russia. Mackinder predicted that the "heartland" of Eastern Europe held the key to global hegemony and that the struggle for control over this region would be the next great conflict. Ten years later, when an assassin's bullet in Sarajevo launched the world into a calamitous war, Mackinder's analysis proved prescient.As esteemed historian Jeremy Black argues in Rethinking Geopolitics (Indiana UP, 2024), the 2020s may be history's next great pivot point. The continued volatility of the global system in the wake of a deadly pandemic exacerbates these pressures. At the same time, the American public remains divided by the question of engagement with the outside world, testing the limits of US postwar hegemony. The time has come for a reconsideration of the 120 years from Mackinder's lecture to now, as well as geopolitics of the present and of the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Does the Labour Party’s 2024 election victory spell the end of the United Kingdom’s foreign policy interest in Asia? And how will its ‘progressive realism’ foreign policy paradigm shape its democracy promotion efforts in this region? Listen to Ben Bland as he talks to Petra Alderman about the UK’s post-Brexit tilt towards Asia, the new Labour government’s foreign policy priorities, and the tensions the ‘progressive realism’ paradigm might pose to the UK government’s democracy promotion activities in Asia. While Ben and Petra discuss these issues from a regional perspective, they focus more closely on what this means for the UK’s relations with Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).Ben Bland is the director of the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House. His research focuses on the nexus of politics, economics and international relations in Southeast Asia, as well as China’s growing role in the broader region and the contours of US-China strategic competition.Petra Alderman is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Leadership for Inclusive and Democratic Politics at the University of Birmingham and Research Fellow at CEDAR.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 X (Twitter) at @CEDAR_Bham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Political Scientist Heath Brown’s new book, Roadblocked: Joe Biden's Rocky Transition to the Presidency (UP of Kansas, 2024), examines the presidential transition between the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration in late 2020 and into 2021. Presidential transitions are not all that frequent, since presidents who are re-elected do not need to go through a transition to their second term. Thus, while there have been over forty presidents, there have been far fewer transitions. And until January 6, 2021, the history of transitions has been marked by the peaceful change of power between presidents and parties. While Brown is not focusing on January 6, 2021, he is analyzing the unique transition between Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden, and their respective administrations, and how that particular transition did not necessarily reflect the institutional norms of previous presidential transitions.Roadblocked tells two stories about the roadblocks. There were the external roadblocks, which came from the various ways in which the transition from Trump to Biden was stymied by members of the Executive branch, including the Director of the Government Services Administration (GSA) and the legal process of ascertainment, as well as principals who were uncooperative with the incoming team. There were also internal roadblocks within the Biden transition team itself, which also contributed to the rocky start of the new administration. Brown delineates the oddity of how the transition itself works—which is generally secretive and private. There are general discussions of transitions in political science and history, in terms of what is supposed to happen during this process, when those leaving positions and those entering positions generally sit side by side to learn the ins and outs of the position from the person holding that position. But the Biden transition also took place during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis, before vaccines were available, so much of the transition was virtual, another twist to the already complicated process.The areas where the Biden transition team met with the most difficulty from the outgoing administration was with regard to the budgeting process and the Office of Management and Budget, and with the Intelligence, Foreign Policy, and Defense sectors. The appointees who ran these parts of the Executive branch were the least cooperative, and generally dismissive of the incoming Biden appointees. For the rest of the Executive branch, which is vast, there was generally good cooperation at most levels.In terms of the internal difficulties, there were great concerns about technological vulnerabilities and the potential for hacking. This led to a kind of fragmented dynamic within the transition team, since there was a lot of siloing and not a lot of coordination. Given the abbreviated timeline, the general secrecy that goes on with presidential transitions, and the fact that much of this transition was taking place virtually, with members of the team distributed around the country (as well as in other countries), this all contributed to an internal discombobulation in terms of the transition.Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Over the past fifteen years in Mexico, more than 450,000 people have been murdered and 110,000 more have been disappeared. In Sovereignty and Extortion: A New State Form in Mexico (Duke UP, 2024), Claudio Lomnitz examines the Mexican state in relation to this extreme violence, uncovering a reality that challenges the familiar narratives of “a war on drugs” or a “failed state.” Tracing how neoliberal reforms, free trade agreements, and a burgeoning drug economy have shaped Mexico’s sociopolitical landscape, Lomnitz shows that the current crisis does not represent a tear in the social fabric. Rather, it reveals a fundamental shift in the relationship between the state and the economy in which traditional systems of policing, governance, and the rule of law have eroded. Lomnitz finds that power is now concentrated in the presidency and enforced through militarization, which has left the state estranged from itself and incapable of administering justice or regaining control over violence. Through this critical examination, Lomnitz offers a new theory of the state, its forms of sovereignty, and its shifting relation to capital and militarization.In this episode, host Richard Grijalva and Claudio Lomnitz discuss the long gestation of what became Sovereignty and Extortion, the challenges of writing for a broader public discussion, the affordances and responsibilities of a writer in a public-facing institution like El Colegio Nacional, the central ideas and arguments animating Sovereignty and Extortion, and the prospects facing president-elect Claudia Shienbaum Pardo's tenure in confronting the issues Lomnitz raised in these lectures. They also discuss the kind of traction that this work has produced in Mexico and the possibilities for collective, collaborative work that the topic warrants.  Claudio W. Lomnitz is Campbell Family Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is the author of several books in English and Spanish, including Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in Mexican National Space (Univ. of California Press, 1992), Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2001), Death and the Idea of Mexico (Zone Books, 2014), and Nuestra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation (Other Press, 2021). In 2021, he was named a member of El Colegio Nacional in Mexico City. Sovereignty and Extortion gathers the cycle of inaugural lectures he delivered at the Colegio, which was published in Spanish in 2022 by Ediciones Era as El tejido social rasgado.Richard A. Grijalva is a scholar of Mexican and Mexican American Studies based in Austin, TX. From 2022-2024 he was an ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow with the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Who was James Madison? Why were his Notes on Government so valuable to the American founding? Did James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington all achieve what Sheehan calls “Civic Friendship”? Colleen Sheehan joins Madison’s Notes to discuss her seminal works on James Madison: The Mind of James Madison: The Legacy of Classical Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government (Cambridge University Press, 2019).Colleen Sheehan is a former Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. A former, longtime member of the Villanova University faculty, she is currently a professor of politics and ethics in the Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and LeadershipMadison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science