New Books in Political Science

New Books Network
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Social Sciences
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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

  1. 1d ago

    Cyanne E. Loyle, "Escaping Justice: Impunity for State Crimes in the Age of Accountability" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

    Now more than ever, the international community plays a central role in pressing governments to hold themselves to account. Despite pressure to adhere to global human rights norms, governments continue to benefit from impunity for their past crimes. In an age of accountability, how do states continue to escape justice? Escaping Justice: Impunity for State Crimes in the Age of Accountability (Cambridge UP, 2025)presents a theory of strategic adaptation that explains the conditions under which governments adopt transitional justice without a genuine commitment to holding state forces to account. Cyanne E. Loyle develops this theory through in-depth fieldwork conducted over the last ten years in Rwanda, Uganda, and Northern Ireland. Research in each of these cases reveals a unique strategy of adaptation: coercion, containment, and concession. Using evidence from these cases, Loyle traces the conditions under which a government pursues its chosen strategies and the outcomes of transitional justice. Our guest is Professor Cyanne Loyle, who is the Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor of Political Science at Penn State University and a Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    30 min

  2. 1d ago

    Infrastructure, Nickel, and the Politics of Polyalignment in Indonesia

    Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia’s own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country’s changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    43 min

  3. 2d ago

    Why Democracy’s Troubles Should Come as No Surprise

    Why have so many democracies become more polarized, unstable, and vulnerable to authoritarianism? And why did so many political observers fail to see it coming? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, about her recent article, “Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise”, and its powerful argument that democracy’s current troubles follow a familiar historical pattern. Drawing on classic theories of democratic stability, Berman explains how rising inequality, declining social mobility, polarization, and the erosion of cross-cutting cleavages have undermined even long-established democracies – and what policymakers can do in response. This podcast is part of our regular collaboration with the Journal of Democracy. Read the transcript here Guest: Sheri Berman is Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is one of the leading scholars of democracy, liberalism, and political development, and the author of numerous influential books and articles on the historical foundations of democratic stability and crisis. Professor Berman’s recent article, Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise, published in the Journal of Democracy, explores why rising inequality, polarization, and declining social mobility have left even long-established democracies increasingly vulnerable to instability and authoritarianism. A widely read commentator and public intellectual, Berman’s work bridges academic research and contemporary political debate. Presenter: Dr Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of 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 Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

  4. 4d ago

    Gareth Doherty, "Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design" (U Virginia Press, 2025)

    Landscape architecture is at a crossroads. The ability to draw upon interdisciplinary perspectives and generate insights from the combined vantage points of design, environmental studies, and the social sciences puts it in a prime position to address the most pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and social inequality. Its current reliance on digital and technological solutions, however, has increasingly caused landscape architects to lose sight of the ways in which humans actually use spaces. And while landscapes are designed all over the world, the discipline remains inordinately centered on the Global North. Dr. Gareth Doherty's Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design (University of Virginia Press, 2025) alters that long-standing paradigm through real-life examples that provide tools for practitioners to engage more deeply with multidimensional, diverse landscapes and the communities that create, live in, and use them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    1h 4m

  5. 4d ago

    Jeremy J. Holland, "The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy" (Routledge, 2026)

    The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy (Routledge, 2026) explores the political worldviews of progressive American social movements and how they play an increasingly important role in defining social problems, setting the national political agenda, and offering viable policy solutions. Arguing that the liberal consensus that historically held the United States together politically has broken down, this book demonstrates how new forms of authoritarian and democratic populisms are being offered as alternatives to a rigged capitalist system by an unaccountable oligarchy. It utilises the method of frame analysis to elucidate the political worldview of particular, left-leaning social movements, exploring their historical backgrounds, organizing methods, social grievances, policy solutions, current actions, and future goals. It examines three movements concerned with economic issues, three organizing around identity, and three advocating for change in the domain of public safety. The last chapter focuses on the current political situation in the U.S. and potential futures of democracy. Bringing together lessons from U.S. history and the previous chapters, the book ends with a proposal for how to ensure more democratic and egalitarian outcomes in America as a whole. As such, it offers an important reference for both academics and activists in the fields of sociology, political science, and policy analysis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    33 min

  6. 4d ago

    Jonathan Daly, "The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior" (Stanford UP, 2025)

    He’s been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes’ personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War. Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    1h 17m

  7. 5d ago

    Alena Ledeneva, "Russian Pendulum: Paradoxes, Practices and Patterns" (UCL Press, 2026)

    Alena Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at the University College London and a founder of the Global Informality Project. Her research focuses on informal practices, and she has written several Russia-focused books, including Russia’s Economy of Favours, How Russia Really Works and Can Russia Modernise. The Global Informality has also published 3 volumes of its Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. Alena is here today to talk about her new book Russian Pendulum: Paradoxes, Practices and Patterns (UCL Press, 2026), which has been shortlisted for the 2026 Pushkin House Book Prize. Adam Quinn is a Glasgow-based researcher whose work focuses on activism, social movements and state-society relations in the Post-Soviet space.  Alena’s new book: art, music, text in a new UCL Press book in open access: Russian Pendulum: here The accompanying music: Delphian Records classical album The System Made Me Do It composed by Benjamin Woodgates: here And a brilliant review of the music: here Plus, a nice mention in the BBC sounds for dark: here Enjoy the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    1h 18m

  8. 5d ago

    Alex Boodrookas, "Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf" (Stanford UP, 2026)

    In 1975, Kuwaiti workers orchestrated arguably the most powerful citizen-led movement for noncitizen rights in the history of the Persian Gulf. Their efforts built on decades of wide-ranging struggle over the meanings and outlines of citizenship. During the twentieth century, anticolonial nationalists, pro-democracy reformers, feminists, and labor organizers joined forces to fight for a more equitable citizenship regime. In so doing, they won a remarkable series of victories: political independence, constitutional rights, and oil nationalization, reshaping not just Kuwait, but the global petroleum order. Comrades Estranged reframes the history of labor activism, citizenship, and decolonization in Persian Gulf by centering the history of social movements—especially organized labor. In Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf (Stanford University Press, 2026), Alex Boodrookas traces how workers and their allies shaped the world-historic transformations witnessed across the region: the consolidation of British sovereignty, formation of autocratic states, inrush of hydrocarbon wealth, onset of decolonization, and rise of both mass migration and mass politics. But unions failed to incorporate noncitizens into their movement, and as Boodrookas argues, this fatally undermined the movements' strength. The contradictions of nationalist and internationalist visions proved insurmountable. Comrades Estranged thus sheds light on both the power, and the limits, of citizenship and the nation-state as the framework for political action. Dr. Alex Boodrookas is Assistant Professor of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Dr. Ahmed AlMaazmi is Assistant Professor of History at the United Arab Emirates University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

    54 min
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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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