New Books in Public Policy

Who truly controls immigration law in the United States? Though common sense might suggest the U.S. Congress, legal scholars Adam B. Cox and Cristina M. Rodríguez argue that the president is in fact the immigration policymaker-in-chief.In this interview, we speak with co-author Rodríguez about their new book The President and Immigration Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), which shifts our attention away from court-based immigration regulation and toward the power dynamic between Congress and presidential administrations. The book details the historical construction of the “shadow immigration system” that has enabled the executive branch to fundamentally shape immigration policy through its discretionary enforcement of the law. Rodríguez walks us through the three constitutive elements of this system: a deportation legal regime, state capacity and bureaucracy, and a boom of unauthorized immigration in the latter half of the twentieth century. This interview also delves into the role of local and state police, different visions of immigration enforcement between the Obama and Trump administrations, and the potential for reform of the current immigration system. With the continued push and pull forces of global migration spurred by humanitarian crises and economic incentives, this work sheds new light on who holds the reins of power in this ongoing policy debate.Jaime Sánchez, Jr. is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at Princeton University and a scholar of U.S. politics and Latino studies. He is currently writing an institutional history of the Democratic National Committee and partisan coalition politics in the twentieth century. You can follow him on Twitter @Jaime_SanchezJr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

India’s urban slums exhibit dramatic variation in their access to basic public goods and services—paved roads, piped water, trash removal, sewers, and streetlights. Why are some vulnerable communities able to secure development from the state while others fail?Author Adam Michael Auerbach, Assistant Professor at the School of International Service at American University, Washington D.C, explores the this question in his book, Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Good Provision in India’s Urban Slums (Cambridge UP, 2019)Drawing on over two years of fieldwork in the north Indian cities of Bhopal and Jaipur, the book’s theory centres on the political organization of slums and the informal slum leaders who spearhead resident efforts to petition the state for public services—in particular, those slum leaders who are party workers. The book shows that the striking variation in the density and partisan distribution of party workers across settlements has powerful consequences for the ability of residents to politically mobilize to improve local conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Hannah Walker’s new book, Mobilized by Injustice: Criminal Justice Contact, Political Participation, and Race (Oxford UP, 2020), brings together the political science and criminal justice disciplines in exploring how individuals are mobilized to engage in political participation by their connection to the criminal justice system in the United States. The fusion between these two academic disciplines, and the focus of their respective studies in this area, answers some questions that are often omitted or passed over by the individual disciplines given the kinds of questions posed by each discipline. Thus, the topics and issues explored in Mobilized by Injustice focuses on political mobilization, advocacy, and activism, often beyond the issue of voting, to tease out how individuals who have been incarcerated or their friends and relatives are involved in the political system. The American criminal justice system is often seen as imposing the “prison beyond the prison” in how formerly incarcerated individuals are constrained and limited in their lives after they leave prison, including limits on voting rights in many states, limits on access to federal policies, and the myriad other ways in which these citizens are essentially marginalized with our society. Walker’s research digs into these constraints and also the stigmatization that individuals experience because of incarceration. At the same time that she is trying to discern how these individuals respond within the political system itself, Walker is also trying to get at how communities are impacted by the criminal justice system, exploring the ways in which this system can be particularly corrosive in certain communities.The research explores political participation by a number of different and often intersecting groups, specifically the individuals who have been incarcerated or directly experienced the criminal justice system, and those who have proximate contact with that system, through their family member’s direct experience. Within these two umbrella groups, Walker also digs into distinctions across racial groups (white, black, Latinx) and across socio-economic categories (examining class distinctions in this context). Mobilized by Injustice finds interesting results in the multi-method research approach, discerning different kinds of political involvement that is not captured by questions about whether an individual does vote or can vote. Rather, the research highlights that those with proximal contact with the criminal justice system have lower barriers to political engagement, which may lead them more naturally into politics because these individuals find themselves working as advocates for their family member who is incarcerated. Those who have been incarcerated face a variety of higher barriers, both structural and psychological, and they often need more support to engage in politics, because of the “dignity deficit” they may suffer because of societal stigmatization.Mobilized by Injustice: Criminal Justice Contact, Political Participation, and Race will likely be of interest to those who study political science, criminal justice, sociology, public policy, social science methodology, and race and class.Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Since the dawn of the industrial age, we have unleashed a bewildering number of potentially harmful chemicals. But out of this vast array, how do we identify the actual threats? What does it take to prove that a certain chemical causes cancer? How do we translate academic knowledge of the toxic effects of particular substances into understanding real-world health consequences? The science that answers these questions is toxicology.In The Alchemy of Disease: How Chemicals and Toxins Cause Cancer and Other Illnesses (Columbia University Press), John Whysner offers an accessible and compelling history of toxicology and its key findings. He details the experiments and discoveries that revealed the causal connections between chemical exposures and diseases. Balancing clear accounts of groundbreaking science with human drama and public-policy relevance, Whysner describes key moments in the development of toxicology and their thorny social and political implications.The book features discussions of toxicological problems past and present, including DDT, cigarettes and other carcinogens, lead poisoning, fossil fuels, chemical warfare, pharmaceuticals—including opioids—and the efficacy of animal testing. Offering valuable insight into the science and politics of crucial public-health concerns, The Alchemy of Disease shows that toxicology’s task—pinpointing the chemical cause of an illness—is as compelling as any detective story.John Whysner was formerly an associate clinical professor of environmental health sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. A board-certified toxicologist, he has consulted for the International Agency for Research on Cancer and federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and was director of biomedical research for the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, Executive Office of the President.Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

In the early twentieth century, public health reformers approached the task of ameliorating unsanitary conditions and preventing epidemic diseases with optimism. Using exhibits, they believed they could make systemic issues visual to masses of people. Embedded within these visual displays were messages about individual action. In some cases, this meant changing hygienic practices. In other situations, this meant taking up action to inform public policy. Reformers and officials hoped that exhibits would energize America's populace to invest in protecting the public's health. Exhibiting Health is an analysis of the logic of the production and the consumption of this technique for popular public health education between 1900 and 1930. It examines the power and limits of using visual displays to support public health initiatives.Jennifer Lisa Koslow is an associate professor of history and director of the Historical Administration and Public History program at Florida State University in Tallahassee. She is the author of Cultivating Health: Los Angeles Women and Public Health Reform (Rutgers University Press).Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. She teaches and writes about health behavior in historical context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Discourse in wealthy Western countries about refugees tends to follow a familiar script. How many refugees is a country morally required to accept? What kinds of care and support are host countries required to provide? Who is responsible to maintaining the resulting infrastructure? What, ultimately, is to be done with refugees?Many of these questions assume that states are morally required to rescue refugees. Rarely does the discourse consider the role of wealthy Western countries in creating the conditions under which a refugee crisis emerges. More importantly, we often overlook the role of wealthy Western countries in designing the systems that refugees must navigate in order to access support and assistance; as it turns out, these systems are often complex, inefficient, unfair, and haphazard.In No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis (Oxford UP, 2020), Serena Parekh argues that the refugee crisis needs to be understood as two crises: one crisis focused on the moral responsibilities of wealthy Western countries in hosting refugees, and another having to do with the obstacles and impediments that refugees confront in accessing assistance.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood (Cambridge University Press, 2020) a brilliant but shocking account of the criminalization of all aspects of reproduction, pregnancy, abortion, birth, and motherhood in the United States. In her extensively researched monograph, Michele Goodwin recounts the horrific contemporary situation, which includes, for example, mothers giving birth shackled in leg irons, in solitary confinement, even in prison toilets, and in some states, women being coerced by the State into sterilization, in exchange for reduced sentences. She contextualises the modern day situation in America’s history of slavery and oppression, and also in relation to its place in the world. Goodwin shows how prosecutors abuse laws, and medical professionals are complicit in a system that disproportionally impacts the poor and women of color. However, Goodwin warns that these women are just the canaries in the coalmine. In the context of both the Black Lives Matter movement, and in the lead up to the 2020 Presidential election, her book could not be more timely; Not only is the United States the deadliest country in the developed world for pregnant women, but the severe lack of protections for reproductive rights and motherhood is compounding racial and indigent disparities.Jane Richards is a doctoral candidate in Human Rights Law at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include disability, equality, criminal law and civil disobedience. You can find her on twitter @JaneRichardsHK where she avidly follows the Hong Kong’s protests and its politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Today's guest is psychologist and behavioral scientist, Wendy Wood. She is currently a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California, and a visiting professor at the INSEAD Business School in Paris.Wendy has spent much of her career studying what she considers the very building blocks of behavioral change, something we all know as habits. Angela Duckworth describes her as “the world's foremost expert in the field.” And according to Adam Grant, she is “widely recognized as the authority on the science of habits,”We'll explore her research and recent book, Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)Colin Miller and Dr. Keith Mankin host the popular medical podcast, PeerSpectrum. Colin works in the medical device space and Keith is a retired pediatric orthopedic surgeon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Gene Ludwig cares. The former banker, government regulator, and serial entrepreneur cares deeply about the hollowing out of the American middle class over the past several decades, not least of all in his hometown of York, PA. So he gathered the country's best and brightest in 2019 for a conference at Yale Law School to come up with specific policy proposals that can reverse that process.The details of what has happened make for difficult but necessary reading. In The Vanishing American Dream: A Frank Look at the Economic Realities Facing Middle- and Lower-Income Americans (Disruption Books) the policy proposals to rebuild the middle class are divided into those at the federal level, and those at the local level.Many readers will find the former typical and expected, but the latter constitute the most engaging part of the book. Both sorts of policies will be hard to implement given the country's current state of division, but Ludwig does not back down from the challenge.Gene Ludwig is the founder of the Promontory family of companies and Canapi LLC, the largest financial technology venture fund in the United States. He is the CEO of Promontory Financial Group, an IBM company, and chairman of Promontory MortgagePath, a technology-based, mortgage fulfillment and solutions company.Daniel Peris is Senior Vice President at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh. Trained as a historian of modern Russia, he is the author most recently of Getting Back to Business: Why Modern Portfolio Theory Fails Investors. You can follow him on Twitter @HistoryInvestor or at http://www.strategicdividendinvestor.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Democratic socialism is on the lips of activists and politicians from both the left and the right. Some call it extremism; some call it common sense. What are we talking about?At a time when the capitalist experiment has made fewer people richer than ever before and seems to be well on the way to killing the planet, a new generation is reassessing old-fashioned principles of community. Millions are looking to democratic socialist values-much as they are now championed by the Squad's Green New Deal and once were espoused by FDR's New Deal-to address economic inequalities and environmental devastation.An Inheritance for Our Times: Principles and Politics of Democratic Socialism (OR Books) is a reader that includes original essays in the form of both personal accounts and intellectual arguments from activists and theorists (including Bernie Sanders) advocating a democratic socialist outlook.Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker is managing editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture. He is the editor of seven books, his most recent being Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy (with Michael J. Thompson) and The Political Thought of African Independence.Michael J. Thompson is Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University. His most recent books include The Specter of Babel: A Reconstruction of Political Judgment as well as the forthcoming, Twilight of the Self: Cybernetic Society and the Eclipse of Autonomy.Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy