Political theory

• 
• 6/4/2023
  

  Can the Left Take Back Identity Politics?

  by Umut Özkırımlı

  Recovering the liberatory potential of identity politics means going back to the term's source—the Combahee River Collective—and recognizing its radical roots and embrace of coalition-building and politics.

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  5/31/2023
  

  Do Any Critics of "Marxism" on the Right Actually Know What it Is?

  by Ben Burgis

  The most prominent public intellectuals on the right-wing internet love to attack a version of Marxism that bears little connection to reality. Even Marxists should want better critics. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/1/2023
  

  Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94

  Communitarianism, an effort to reconcile the principles of individual rights and collective responsibility, was Etzioni's biggest contribution in a wide-ranging career as a public intellectual. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  5/10/2023
  

  Forum: Is "Equal Opportunity" the Wrong Goal?

  by Christine Sypnowich

  A political philosopher introduces a forum on inequality and justice by arguing that the focus on opportunity at the expense of equalizing outcomes will inevitably allow significant inequality to continue. 

• 
• SOURCE: N + 1
  4/20/2023
  

  What's Driving J.D. Vance?

  by Gabriel Winant

  J.D. Vance rose to fame through a book that was heavy on popular psychology and self-help tropes while skirting systemic analysis of poverty and social change. As the Senator now careens hard to the right, a historian decides to evaluate him on his own terms. 

• 
• SOURCE: Teen Vogue
  3/14/2023
  

  Neoliberalism: Why is the Market Involved in Your Hallway Hangout?

  by John Patrick Leary

  A guide for teens and others to start thinking about how the big political and economic systems we live under shape our lives. Hint: it's about the conflicts between capitalism and democracy.

• 
• SOURCE: Project Syndicate
  3/13/2023
  

  The Anti-Populist Dilemma

  by Jan-Werner Müller

  From Turkey to Hungary to Israel, forming a lasting coalition of parties against a right-wing authoritarian populist has proven easier said than done. 

• 
• SOURCE: Harvard Gazette
  10/27/2022
  

  Melvin Rogers: How Black Thinkers Remade America's Political Traditions

  From Douglass to DuBois, African American intellectuals have pushed for the theory of American republicanism to wrestle with the conflict between racial domination and political equality. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/12/2022
  

  Democracy v. The People: Jan-Werner Muller on Populism

  by Alberto Polimeni

  A leading historian and theorist of populism looks beyond psychology or brainwashing as explanations for the appeal of such movements, but still focuses on the ways elites can better lead the people instead of what people may want. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  10/12/2022
  

  Angelo Codevilla: An Unknown Intellectual Leader of Today's Far Right

  by Daniel Luban

  The recently deceased political theorist's life helps to explain how a cast of conservative power brokers could move from the War on Terror neoconservatism to the Tea Party to Trumpism. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  9/16/2022
  

  Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion" at 100

  Concern about what happens to democracy when a society buried in information gives up on the truth and embraces alternate realities is nothing new. What does the work of Walter Lippmann tell us today? 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  9/15/2022
  

  Barbara Ehrenreich's Legacy is More than "Nickel and Dimed"

  by Lynne Segal

  The late writer's contributions to keeping a current of socialist radicalism in the feminist movement deserve recognition, too. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  9/5/2022
  

  Can We Do Better than Liberal Democracy?

  by Adam Gopnik

  Critic Adam Gopnik examines two recent books on alternatives to representative democracy that respond to the recent use of institutions by power-seeking authoritarians. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/20/2022
  

  Fanaticism May be Alarming, but It's Not New

  by Zachary R. Goldsmith

  The term "fanatic" evolved from a value-neutral name for participants in Roman religious cults to describe someone with dangerous and erroneous beliefs in religion and then in modern politics. Philosophers from Kant to Burke show the need to pull back from such absolute judgments of our adversaries. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  7/5/2022
  

  Explaining the Complexities of the Great Vibe Shift

  by Tom F. Wright

  As pundits invoke the nebulous concept of "vibes" to try to explain and predict incoherent and emotionally volatile politics, it's worth considering how the outdated (but not very old!) concept of charisma has served the same role. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  6/27/2022
  

  "Last Man Standing" – Michael Brenes on Francis Fukuyama and the Return of History

  Presented with the manifest failure of a peaceful global liberal order after the end of the Cold War, Fukuyama now simply argues that people have failed classical liberalism. 

• 
• SOURCE: New Statesman
  6/9/2022
  

  What's Really New about the "New" American Right?

  by John Ganz

  There's something familiar about a secular nationalist movement that mobilizes property owners through a narrative of national decline and the promise of controlling or purging enemies of a unified people through force, recently described in a Times op-ed. If only there were a word for it....

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/11/2022
  

  Authoritarianism Isn't Just About Personality Cults

  Recent books on "strongmen" reduce the problem of authoritarianism to the phenomenon of charismatic leadership and ignore many of the structural factors contributing to democratic collapse. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  4/4/2022
  

  Gramsci's Gift

  by Alan Wald

  As the political thought of the Italian marxist is increasingly used and misused in popular discourse, including in right-wing attacks on "cultural Marxism," has the time come for this generation's biography of Antonio Gramsci? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Week
  3/21/2022
  

  The Thrill of Teaching Mill

  by Samuel Goldman

  Mill was prescient in focusing attention not only on the restriction of speech by the state, but on the cultural and social obstacles to dissenting opinion.