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Political theory


  • 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.



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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? 



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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....



  • 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. 



  • 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? 



  • 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.