New Books in Political Science

Author Mark Gilbert discusses Italy's transition from fascism to democracy post-WWII, focusing on key figures like Palmiro Togliatti and Alcide De Gasperi. The podcast explores the challenges faced by Italy, the influence of Giulio Andreotti, and the role of Italy in the European project. It also delves into the historical development of democracy in Italy post-war and the resilience of Italian society.

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Director John Torpey spoke with Francesco Ronchi and Udo Zolleis, two European Parliament officials and analysts. With the European Parliament elections taking place shortly after we spoke, they share their insights on the direction that politics in Europe may take in the coming months and years, especially with regard to right-wing nationalist groups. With its unique position as a supranational institution with diverse political parties and the power to elect the president of the Commission, the European Parliament faces important challenges for Europeans to reach consensus in light of war on the continent, immigration, and global economics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Why do international donors brand foreign aid? And what impact does it have on popular attitudes towards them? Join Matthew Winters and Petra Alderman as they talk about soft power, foreign aid branding, and popular attitudes towards USAID and Japan in India, Bangladesh, and Uganda. They discuss whether foreign aid branding works and address several tensions linked to this practice, including branding in the context of unequal North-South power relations and colonial legacies.Matthew Winters is Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois and a recent holder of the Fulbright-University of Birmingham Distinguished Scholar Award at the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham.Petra Alderman is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Leadership for Inclusive and Democratic Politics at the University of Birmingham and Research Fellow at 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 X (Twitter) at @CEDAR_Bham! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

What are political beliefs and how do we form them? Oliver Traldi, a current John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the James Madison Program, discusses this and more in his recently-published his first book, Political Beliefs: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge, 2024), a textbook which aims to explain the reasons behind political beliefs and disagreements from a philosophical perspective. In this conversation, Oliver delves into the unique contributions of philosophy to the study of political beliefs, the sources of our political ideas, the impact of online discourse and technological advancements on political trust and polarization, the importance of developing personal heuristics for evaluating information, and the challenges of maintaining trust in institutions and experts.Oliver Traldi received his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he specialized in epistemology. After his You can read Oliver's essays and other writings here, and his textbook is available for free here.Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any event does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Over the past several decades, predominantly White, postindustrial cities in America’s agriculture and manufacturing centre have flipped from blue to red. Cities that were once part of the traditional Democratic New Deal coalition began to vote Republican, providing crucial support for the electoral victories of Republican presidents from Reagan to Trump. In How the Heartland Went Red Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics (Princeton University Press, 2024), Dr. Stephanie Ternullo argues for the importance of place in understanding this rightward shift, showing how voters in these small Midwestern cities view national politics—whether Republican appeals to racial and religious identities or Democrat’s appeals to class—through the lens of local conditions.Offering a comparative study of three White blue-collar Midwestern cities in the run-up to the 2020 election, Ternullo shows the ways that local contexts have sped up or slowed down White voters’ shift to the right. One of these cities has voted overwhelmingly Republican for decades; one swung to the right in 2016 but remains closely divided between Republicans and Democrats; and one, defying current trends, remains reliably Democratic. Through extensive interviews, Ternullo traces the structural and organisational dimensions of place that frame residents’ perceptions of political and economic developments. These place-based conditions—including the ways that local leaders define their cities’ challenges—help prioritise residents’ social identities, connecting them to one party over another. Despite elite polarisation, fragmented media, and the nationalisation of American politics, Ternullo argues, the importance of place persists—as one of many factors informing partisanship, but as a particularly important one among cross-pressured voters whose loyalties are contested.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Until 1900, most political parties in the United States chose their leaders – either in back rooms with a few party elites making decisions or in conventions. The direct primary, in which voters select party nominees for state and federal offices, was one of the most widely adopted political reforms of the early twentieth century Progressive movement.Intuitively, the direct primary sounds democratic. Voters directly select the candidates. They have more of say over who will ultimately represent or govern them. But decades of scholarship suggests that direct primaries might not have changed the outcomes of party nominations. The conventional wisdom is that as the strength of the Progressive movement declined and voters paid attention to other issues. Party leaders were able to reassert control over candidate selection. In Reform and Retrenchment: A Century of Efforts to Fix Primary Elections (Oxford UP, 2024), Dr. Robert G. Boatright insists this narrative is incorrect and misleading for contemporary efforts to reform the primary election system in the U.S. because some of the early concerns about primaries are still with us today.The book presents data from 1928-1970 explaining the type of reforms states implemented and their success or failure. Dr. Boatright argues that the introduction of the indirect primary created more chaos than scholars have previously documented. Political parties, factions, and reform groups manipulated primary election laws to gain advantage, often under the guise of enhancing democracy. How does this history impact contemporary plans for reform of the primary system? Many suggested reforms were tried – and failed – during the 20th century. Boatright concludes that despite the clear flaws in the direct primary system, little can be done to change the primary system. Reformers should instead focus on elections and governance. The end of the podcast features his suggestions.During the podcast, Rob mentions Dr. Jack Santucci’s More Parties or No Parties: The Politics of Electoral Reform in America (Oxford 2022).Dr. Robert G. Boatright is Professor of Political Science at Clark University in Worcester, MA and the Director of Research for the National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on the effects of campaign and election laws on the behavior of politicians and interest groups with a particular emphasis on primary elections and campaign finance laws. He is the author or editor of 9 books. Heath Brown and I have interviewed Rob previously on New Books in Political Science: Trumping Politics as Usual:Masculinity, Misogyny, and the 2016 Elections(with co-author Valerie Sperling) and The Deregulatory Moment?: A Comparative Perspective on Changing Campaign Finance Laws. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration of the history of animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its debilitating impact on an already volatile Middle East. It is a detailed roadmap for management and resolution of what increasingly looks like an intractable conflict. Based on years of field research, Fraihat builds a framework that initially could help Saudi Arabia and Iran prevent their conflict from spinning out of control, create mechanisms for communication and travel down a road of confidence building that could create building blocks for a resolution. Fraihat’s book could not have been published at a more critical moment. A devastating coronavirus pandemic has hit both Saudi Arabia and Iran hard. So has the associated global economic breakdown and the collapse of oil markets. The double whammies constitute the most existential crisis the kingdom has faced in at least half a century. They hit Iran particularly hard as it labours under harsh US sanctions. Fraihat offers a roadmap that would allow Saudi Arabia and Iran to ultimately extricate themselves from costly proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and Libya. By providing a detailed roadmap, Fraihat’s book makes a major contribution not only to a vast literature of conflict in the Middle East but also to policymakers in Saudi Arabia and as well as would-be mediators.James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Harmony and Normalization: US-Cuban Musical Diplomacy (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) explores the channels of musical exchange between Cuba and the United States during the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, who eased the musical embargo of the island and restored relations with Cuba. Musical exchanges during this period act as a lens through which to view not only US-Cuban musical relations but also the larger political, economic, and cultural implications of musical dialogue between these two nations. In this first book on the subject since Obama’s presidency, musicologist Timothy P. Storhoff describes how, after specific policy changes, musicians were some of the first to take advantage of new opportunities for travel, push the boundaries of new regulations, and expose both the possibilities and limitations of licensing musical exchange. This ethnography demonstrates how performances reflect aspirations for stronger transnational ties and a common desire to restore the once-thriving US-Cuban musical relationship.Dr. Timothy Storhoff is an orchestra administrator, fundraiser, and ethnomusicologist in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.Emily Ruth Allen (@emmyru91) is a PhD candidate in Musicology at Florida State University. She is currently working on a dissertation about parade musics in Mobile, Alabama’s Carnival celebrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Since coming to power in 2002, Turkey’s governing party, the AKP, has made poverty relief a central part of their political program. In addition to neoliberal reforms, AKP’s program has involved an emphasis on Islamic charity that is unprecedented in the history of the Turkish Republic. To understand the causes and consequences of this phenomenon, Zencirci introduces the concept of the Muslim Social, defined as a welfare regime that reimagined and reconfigured Islamic charitable practices to address the complex needs of a modern market society.In The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty in Turkey (Syracuse UP, 2024), Zencirci explores the blending of religious values and neoliberal elements in dynamic, flexible, and unexpected ways. Although these governmental assemblages of Islamic neoliberalism produced new forms of generosity, distinctive notions of poverty, and novel ways of relating to others in society, Zencirci reveals how this welfare regime privileged managerial efficiency and emotional well-being at the expense of other objectives such as equality, development, or justice. The book provides a lens onto the everyday life of Islamic neoliberalism, while also mapping the kind of political concerns that animate poverty governance in our capitalist present.Gizem Zencirci is an associate professor of political science at Providence College. Her work has been published in journals such as the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and the Journal of Cultural Economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916) transformed how people around the world view the purposes of schooling. This new edition makes Dewey's ideas come alive for a new generation of readers.Nicholas Tampio is a professor of political science at Fordham University. He is the author of Teaching Political Theory: A Pluralistic Approach (2022) and Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).  Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University. He currently sits on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science