New Books in Political Science

This episode features a conversation with historical anthropologist Lisa Mitchell and political theorist Hari Ramesh whose recent books make a case against anti-state thinking in social and political theory. We discussed the need to move beyond frameworks emphasizing either subordination to the state or revolt against the state in order to better understand how marginalized and oppressed groups can use the state as a means to enact transformative justice aimed at greater social equality. As Lisa and Hari point out, this requires moving beyond theories of deliberative democracy that rest on conceptions of rational communication. Instead, they argue for the need to consider the role of embodied practices, such as pulling the emergency chain on trains or blocking road traffic, and instances of “positive coercion,” such as Reconstruction Era laws and the U.S. Civil Rights Act, in expanding the parameters of democratic participation. Through Lisa’s account of what she calls a “materialist genealogy of collective action” in India and in Hari’s readings of B.R. Ambedkar, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the NAACP’s legal brief on Brown v. Board of Education, we come to understand the state as a complex terrain of power with different pressure points that allows for novel forms of relationality and maneuver. In the process, we also see political collectives, not as fixed identity groups, but as the product of shifting coalitions.
Guests
Lisa Mitchell: Professor or History and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Hari Ramesh: Assistant Professor of Government, Wesleyan University
References
Lisa Mitchell, Hailing the State: Indian Democracy Between Elections (Duke University Press, 2023)
Hari Ramesh, Harnessing the State: Oppressed Groups and the Pursuit of Radical Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2026)
John Dewey: philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer who was one of the most prominent American scholars of the twentieth century.
B.R. Ambedkar, “States and Minorities” (1947)
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Partha Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed (2004)
Jurgen Habermas: philosopher and social theorist whose work addressed notions of communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Adhaar card: 12-digit unique identification number tied to biometric data and demographic information issued to residents of India
Telengana movement: a decades-long political and social campaign for the creation of a separate state out of the Telugu-speaking region of Andhra Pradesh in India, which culminated in the formation of Telangana as India’s 29th state on June 2, 2014.
Iris Marion Young: political theorist and socialist feminist who focused on the nature of justice and social difference.
Sally Haslanger: philosopher and feminist theorist who work on the social construction of categories, especially of gender and race.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The national parks are loved by many Americans and visitors from around the world. Yet, few realize how often these landscapes and their history have been shaped by questions answered in the courts. With more than 3,500 lawsuits involving the National Park Service, litigation has shaped and defined the character of the parks. Litigation has determined how land can be added to national parks, answered questions about treaty and free speech rights on park land, and settled numerous other disputes that have helped determine what the parks look like today. In her new book National Parks and the Supreme Court: Groundbreaking Legal Battles (University of Nevada Press, 2026), Carla Chung Mattix examines five landmark Supreme Court cases involving national parks over the course of nearly a century. These cases provide readers with a new lens to understanding the parks and help them understand the role of the courts in the nation's public lands. In this episode, Mattix, who was an attorney for the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of the Solicitor for 25 years, discusses her new book and the Court's influence on the national parks.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How has Yoweri Museveni remained in power for four decades – and what happens when he is gone? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Mesrob Vartavarian about three important books on Uganda and his argument that the country has become a "militarised family state". Their discussion explores whether Museveni's durability rests on coercion, patronage and political manipulation or negotiation with powerful social institutions; how far today's system reflects deeper patterns in Uganda's history – and whether a political order increasingly dependent on Museveni, his family and the military can survive him.
Mesrob Vartavarian is an independent scholar based in the United States whose research focuses on democracy, authoritarianism, state formation, nationalism and political change, with a particular interest in Africa and the Middle East. Mesrob’s work examines how political orders are constructed and maintained, and the relationship between formal institutions, social structures and political power. His recent review essay, "Coercion, co-optation and kinship: Uganda's militarised family state" in the Journal of Modern African Studies, brings together three major studies of contemporary Uganda to examine the durability and transformation of Yoweri Museveni's rule.
Dr Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of 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 Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham!
Transcript here

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the United States, hundreds of thousands of elected and appointed officials serve more than 50,000 subnational governments, making important decisions about services ranging from education to infrastructure to policing. The provision of critical city services shapes citizens’ everyday lives. Supposedly, local politicians are the elected representatives closest to the people they serve, but are they actually accountable to their constituents? Justin de Benedictis-Kessner shows that they are not: local elections routinely fail to punish bad politicians or reward strong performers. The Fog of Accountability: How Institutions Keep Voters from Holding Their Local Governments Accountable argues that this is because urban politics is defined by minimally effective competition, complex institutions that confuse voters, and a lack of effective media coverage. These institutional features combine to stymie even well-intentioned voters and make accountability difficult. Fixing these problems is challenging, but, as de Benedictis-Kessner shows, change is possible if we can enable citizens to reclaim and assert their political power.
Justin de Benedictis-Kessner is the Emma Bloomberg Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His work has received the Clarence Stone Emerging Scholar Award and the Norton Long Young Scholar Award from the American Political Science Association, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science Advances.
Host Ursula Hackett is the Churchill Associate Professor of U.S. Politics at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Her award-winning book, America’s Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State is published with Cambridge University Press.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Agnes Heller loved being part of the Budapest School--and she hated being part of any school. In his 2019 In Memoriam piece, John explored her ambivalence about intellectual camaraderie, its virtues and its vices.
This experiment in reading Public Books articles aloud--akin to Books in Dark Times and Recall This Story and Recall This B-Side--follows on from JP's earlier Hannah Arendt articles and 2026 article about the Pope and AI. You can consult the footnotes on Agnes Heller and read a transcript by heading back to the article in its original 2019 form here.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.