New Books in Political Science

As Brazil moves toward trying former president Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup against democracy, the United States grapples with constitutional challenges from the new administration as well. Are these two cases of democratic backsliding comparable?  In this episode of International Horizons, John Torpey speaks wit

Generations of social scientists and historians have argued that the escape from empire and consequent fragmentation of power - across and within polities - was a necessary condition for the European development of the modern territorial state, modern representative democracy, and modern levels of prosperity. The Catho

Mass violence comes not only from states, but also from people. By analyzing mass violence as social interaction through survivor accounts and other sources, Conditions of Violence (de Gruyter, 2024) presents understudied agents, aims and practices of direct violence and ways of action of those under persecution. Sound

Constitutional Ratification Without Reason (Oxford UP, 2022) focuses on constitutional ratification, the procedure in which a draft constitution is submitted by its creators to the people or their representatives in an up or down vote determining implementation. Ratification is increasingly common and routinely recomme

There are many books giving advice about research methods on the market, but The Art and Craft of Comparison (Cambridge UP, 2019) is the first monographic marriage of comparative and interpretive methods. In this episode of the special series New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science, two of its authors, J

Part of what makes the challenges that collectively are called the “environmental crisis” so difficult is that the vocabulary we deploy in thinking and discussing the issues emerged under social conditions that are far removed from our present. The familiar idiom of nation states, borders, jurisdiction, and so on seems