New Books in Public Policy New Books Network

In this episode of our occasional series, Postscript, we focus on the Supreme Court’s recently published decisions in two cases, about guns and abortion, but more about how the Executive and Judicial branches of government function in the United States. Constitutional Law scholar (and New Books in Political Science co-host) Susan Liebell takes us through Garland v. Cargill, which focused on the Trump Administration’s implementation of a prohibition against bump stocks for rifles following the deadly shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2017. Liebell, a published expert on the Second Amendment and the long history of gun regulation in the United States, explains the thrust of the case, which is only tangentially connected to the Second Amendment, but calls into question the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm’s (ATF) expertise, particularly in context of the majority opinion’s decision that the ATF was not using its administrative power correctly. The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, may signal the Supreme Court’s inclinations towards Chevron deference, which is also before the Court this term in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
Liebell, also an expert on abortion access, reproductive health regulation, and citizenship, explains the Court’s unanimous decision in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, focused solely on the question of standing, and whether the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine actually qualified to bring the case since there was no clear injury that had been sustained in the suit they brought before the District Court in Amarillo, Texas. Thus, the drug Mifepristone, which was to be banned nationwide in the initial court ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, was not banned as a result of this lawsuit brought by the Food and Drug Administration. This case, not dissimilar from Garland v. Cargill, focuses on procedural questions more than it focuses on other issues. And the unanimous decision is about that legal procedure, not about the FDA, or the process to through which drugs are brought to market in the United States, or about the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s indictment of the process for prescribing mifepristone. Our conversation threads through these cases, and others (like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and District of Columbia v. Heller) that set the foundation for these cases to come forward.
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In recent years, philanthropy, the use of private assets for the public good, has come under renewed scrutiny. Do elite philanthropists wield too much power? Is big-money philanthropy unaccountable and therefore anti-democratic? And what about so-called "tainted donations" and "dark money" funding pseudo-philanthropic political projects? The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified many of these criticisms, leading some to conclude that philanthropy needs to be fundamentally reshaped to play a positive role in our future.
In What is Philanthropy For? (Bristol University Press, 2023), Rhodri Davies examines why it's important to ask what philanthropy is for, as it has shaped our world for centuries. Considering the alternatives, including charity, justice, taxation, the state, democracy, and the market, he explores the pressing questions that philanthropy must tackle to be equal to the challenges of the 21st century.
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If ancient Kyoto stands for orderly elegance, then Tokyo, within the world’s most populated metropolitan area, calls to mind–– jam-packed chaos. But in Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City (Oro Editions, 2022), Professor Jorge Almazán of Keio University and his Studio Lab colleagues ask us to look again—at the shops, markets, restaurants and tiny bars in back alleys, side streets and underneath highway bridges and rail lines. Within walking distance of a commuter rail station, small wood frame detached houses on tiny lots define a cohesive neighborhood. The order underlying a seemingly chaotic cityscape makes for an eminently livable city. Finishing this remarkable study, the reader may ask—have we been overlooking under-utilized space in my town? Why not little houses on small lots? Why can’t we walk to a shop around the corner? If Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities opened your eyes, then consider Emergent Tokyo. With Dr. Almazán as our guide, Tokyo has much to teach.
James Wunsch, Emeritus Professor of Historical Studies, Empire State College (SUNY)
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Is involuntary psychiatric treatment the solution to the intertwined crises of untreated mental illness, homelessness, and addiction? In recent years, politicians and advocates have sought to expand the use of conservatorships, a legal tool used to force someone deemed “gravely disabled,” or unable to meet their needs for food, clothing, or shelter as a result of mental illness, to take medication and be placed in a locked facility. At the same time, civil liberties and disability rights groups have seized on cases like that of Britney Spears to argue that conservatorships are inherently abusive.
Conservatorship: Inside California's System of Coercion and Care for Mental Illness (Columbia UP, 2023) is an incisive and compelling portrait of the functioning—and failings—of California’s conservatorship system. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with professionals, policy makers, families, and conservatees, Alex V. Barnard takes readers to the streets where police encounter homeless people in crisis, the locked wards where people receiving treatment are confined, and the courtrooms where judges decide on conservatorship petitions. As he shows, California’s state government has abdicated authority over this system, leaving the question of who receives compassionate care and who faces coercion dependent on the financial incentives of for-profit facilities, the constraints of underresourced clinicians, and the desperate struggles of families to obtain treatment for their loved ones.
This book offers a timely warning: reforms to expand conservatorship will lead to more coercion but little transformative care until government assumes accountability for ensuring the health and dignity of its most vulnerable citizens.
Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is a Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His general area of study is in the areas of social construction of experience, identity, and place. He is currently conducting research for his next project that looks at nightlife and the emotional labor that is performed by employees of bars and nightclubs. To learn more about Michael O. Johnston you can go to his website, Google Scholar, Twitter @ProfessorJohnst, or by email at johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu.
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If you’ve ever worked with dementia patients before, you know how unique and bizarre the experience can be, and how little the stereotypes actually hold up to the experience. Even knowing about the diagnosis often does little to help us in caring for people, and many caregivers find themselves getting sucked into behavioral loops of their own. This is because your brain is not wired to deal with the altered form of reality that dementia patients inhabit. Evolution has not equipped us to deal with these dynamics.
Unpacking all this is our guest today, Dasha Kiper in her book Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain (Random House, 2023). Having both worked with dementia patients and run support groups for caregivers, she’s seen patterns play out over countless situations, and has mapped the cognitive landscape of people working to take care of those afflicted with the disease. In a series of engaging and provocative essays, she’s able to elucidate our limitations, the various neurological traps we are often tempted to fall into, hopefully offering caregivers some clarity on themselves and just how far from reality this work often takes them.
Dasha Kiper is the consulting clinical director of support groups at an Alzheimer’s organization, and holds an MA in clinical psychology from Columbia University.
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People before Markets:: An Alternative Casebook (Cambridge UP, 2022) presents twenty comparative case studies of important global questions, such as 'Where should our food come from?' 'What should we do about climate change?' and 'Where should innovation come from?' A variety of solutions are proposed and compared, including market-based, economic, and neoliberal approaches, as well as those determined by humane values and ethical and socially responsible perspectives. Drawing on original research, its chapters show that more responsible solutions are very often both more effective and better aligned with human values. Providing an important counterpoint to the standard capitalist thinking propounded in business school education, People Before Markets reveals the problematic assumptions of incumbent frameworks for solving global problems and inspires the next generation of business and social science students to pursue more effective and human-centered solutions.
Robin Steiner is an economic anthropologist based in Miami, FL. His published work explores economic development, labor, and citizenship in Oman and the Arab Gulf. He teaches in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. Robin can be reached at rsteiner@fiu.edu. 
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