Cotton, Central Asia and the New Great Game
On this episode, rural sociologist Dr. Irna Hofman explores how Tajikistan’s cotton fields illuminate shifting power dynamics in Central Asia, historically and in the present. She discusses how the So...
10 Mar 202544min
Postscript: All talk and no action? How political scientists respond to racism and authoritarianism?
After the murder of George Floyd, the United States had the largest protests in the nation’s history. Other public and private responses included corporations, organizations, and communities making po...
10 Mar 20251h 2min
"Steadfast Democrats" Five Years Later: A Conversation with Chryl N. Laird
Today I’m speaking with Chryl Laird, Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. We are discussing her co-authored book with Ismail White, Steadfast Demo...
10 Mar 20251h 4min
Abby Innes, "Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Why has the United Kingdom, historically one of the strongest democracies in the world, become so unstable? What changed? Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail (Cambridge UP, 2023) demonst...
9 Mar 20251h 31min
Coup Attempts and Democratic Resistance: Lessons from Brazil
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 ...
8 Mar 202535min
Jørgen Møller and Jonathan Doucette, "The Catholic Church and European State Formation, AD 1000-1500" (Oxford UP, 2022)
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 ...
8 Mar 202549min
Christian Gerlach, "Conditions of Violence" (de Gruyter, 2024)
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) ...
6 Mar 202536min
Jeffrey A. Lenowitz, "Constitutional Ratification Without Reason" (Oxford UP, 2022)
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 rep...
4 Mar 202557min
