New Books in Political Science

In this episode, hosts Lee Vinsel and Ben Waterhouse, along with producer Joe Forte, chat with historian Lily Geismer. Their conversation covers the evolution of the Democratic party, what it means to study political science as history, and a bit about how a scholar’s work can emerge from their personal experience and identity. Lily is Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and the author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party (2015) and Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality (2022). She teaches contemporary history and is a key participant in a group of scholars working to rethink and revitalize our approach to political history of the United States. One product of those collaborations has been her edited volume, with Brent Cebul, Mastery and Drift: Professional Class Liberals since the 1960s (2025). This conversation was recorded in July of 2026.

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Why do so many citizens continue to support politicians who undermine democracy? And why have nationalist appeals become such a powerful tool for democratic backsliding? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Filip Milačić about his new book, Abandoning Democracy for the Nation (Cambridge UP, 2026). Drawing on evidence from Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Israel and Turkey, Milačić argues that democratic erosion is often driven not simply by populism or polarization, but by political leaders convincing citizens that the nation itself is under threat. The discussion explores why democratically minded voters sometimes accept attacks on democratic institutions, whether this argument travels beyond the cases in the book, and what lessons it offers for those seeking to defend democracy.
Transcript here
Guest:
Filip Milačić is a Senior Researcher for Democracy and Society at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's Democracy of the Future officein Vienna, visiting professor at the Central European University and a Research Affiliate at CEU's Democracy Institute. His research focuses on nationalism, democratic backsliding and resistance, political identity and party politics, with a particular emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He is the author of Abandoning Democracy for the Nation, a new book exploring the relationship between nationalism and democratic erosion. Through his academic research and policy work, Milačić examines the forces shaping the future of democracy and the challenges facing democratic societies today.
Presenter:
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!

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Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond (Cambridge UP, 2024) challenges a widespread tendency to limit studies of Turkish - and Muslim - politics to 'Islamist vs. secularist' or 'Islam vs. democracy' debates. Instead, Nora Fisher-Onar's innovative argument centers on coalitions for and against pluralism. Retelling Turkey's story from the late Ottoman Empire to the present as a tale of pluralizing vs. anti-pluralist coalitions, this book offers an alternative explanation for major outcomes from elections and coup d'etats to revolutions. Here, cross-camp alliances pit those who are willing to coexist with 'Other(s)' against those who champion a unitary, national project in which everyone speaks, believes, looks, and loves as they do. Drawing on a rich array of primary and secondary data, Fisher-Onar introduces an analytical framework for capturing causal complexity in political contestation. This study rejects Orientalist exceptionalism, rereading the relationship between political religion, pluralism, and populism via a framework that travels across and beyond the Muslim-majority world.

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While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security has long been a part of US history. Drawing on six case studies, Professor Michael E. Neagle spotlights the commonalities of how the United States has leveraged popular understandings of "bandits" to justify incursions abroad as well as rally popular and political support at home.

Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror (UNC Press, 2025) puts recent manhunts for such figures as Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi into deep historical context. For more than a century, Americans have designated some enemies as bandits, but chasing them has yielded mixed results.

Dr. Michael Neagle is director of history and political science at Nichols College, where he is also co-chair of the terrorism studies program.

Dr. Jacob Hagstrom is an army veteran and author of America's Favorite Warlord (Pen and Sword, 2026).
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Political Scientists William Howell and Terry Moe have a new book out that explores how the United States constitutional system has given way to the establishment of a kind of strongman presidency, disconnected in many ways from the constraints designed to keep the American president from becoming autocratic or dictatorial. Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency (Princeton UP, 2025) traces the expansion of the administrative state in the United States, which transpired during much of the 20th century, particularly earlier in the 20th century with the sizeable increase of the Executive branch and development of a more complex governmental bureaucracy. Howell and Moe were drawn to this project because of what they saw as the crisis of democracy in the United States, with the vast extension of presidential power and the rise of the “strongman” presidency. In noting that those who pursue the presidency are by nature power seekers, the argument in Trajectory of Power is not to deny the president’s power, particularly not the powers sketched out within the constitutional structure, but to focus on the ways in which certain presidents have grabbed at more power, and, in a variety of instances, have also broken laws along with having broken norms and traditions.

Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency traces the ways in which, over the course of the 20th century, there was a certain symmetry in the ways that both Democratic and Republican presidents operated as the head of the administrative state, facing the same constraints and incentives while in office. But this symmetry starts to diverge in the latter half of the 20th century and has substantially diverged in the 21st century. Part of the historical discussion focuses in on the ways in which the Republican Party became more radical, especially in its opposition to the growth and expansion of the administrative state that had come out of the New Deal and had continued to expand in pursuit and implementation of more progressive ends, like civil rights, environmental regulations, disability rights, and the like. As we discuss in the podcast, a variety of legal and structural theories and frameworks are developed by advocates within the conversative movement during this time, in the 1970s, to provide an avenue for shifts in the way that the president operates within the Executive branch, and the ways that conservative justices can approach court decisions. Thus, the Unitary Executive Theory and Originalism are constructed so as to provide both the Executive and the Court with more power. This concept of the Strongman Presidency evolves from this idea of the unitary executive, who need not be constrained by the legislature nor the courts, and can essentially function freely – or fully unconstrained – as the leader of the Executive branch, which is a vast and complex bureaucracy. This is at odds with the structure that the Framers established in 1787, which put limits on the president’s power. Howell and Moe note that the Republicans who were elected to the presidency needed a theory to promote their political objectives, which was to undermine and dismantle the broader administrative state in the United States.

The evolving results of this asymmetrical approach to the powers of the presidency and the Executive branch is that the United States is perilously close to losing its democracy. With ongoing attacks on the rule of law, the undermining of the electoral system, and an unfettered president, the United States is experiencing what is known as democratic backsliding.

Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency is a clearly written and important analysis of American democracy, the evolution of the presidency and the Executive Branch, the growth and development of the administrative state in the U.S., and the ways in which the two parties have approached the presidency over the past century.

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social
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