Daniel Shea and Nicholas F. Jacobs, "The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America" (Columbia UP, 2023)
The widening gulf between rural and urban America is becoming the most serious political divide of our day. Support for Democrats, up and down the ballot, has plummeted throughout the countryside, and...
24 Nov 202353min
Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel, "Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States" (Polity, 2023)
Russia and Ukraine have alternative histories and alternative destinies. After the Soviet Union collapsed - depending on who you spoke to – they were either a single people artificially divided and de...
24 Nov 202356min
Boris Heersink, "National Party Organizations and Party Brands in American Politics" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Political Scientist Boris Heersink’s new book guides the reader through over a century of politics and national parties in the United States. Heersink’s work is both qualitative and quantitative and a...
23 Nov 202350min
Marika Sosnowski, "Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Since 2012, ceasefires have been used in Syria to halt violence and facilitate peace agreements. However, in Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria (Cambridge University Press...
21 Nov 202340min
The US State Department and Ever-Changing Global Politics
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Bill Russo. Assistant Secretary Russo commented on the role of the...
21 Nov 202332min
The Future of the Rural-Urban Divide: A Discussion with Nicholas F. Jacobs and Daniel M. Shea
The town/countryside split has always been a feature of democratic Western politics and has impacted party choice. The advent of rust belts may have added a layer of complexity and may help explain wh...
20 Nov 202340min
Leonard Grob and John K. Roth, "Warnings: The Holocaust, Ukraine, and Endangered American Democracy" (Cascade Books, 2023)
Old friends--one a Jew, the other a Christian--Leonard (Lenny) Grob and John K. Roth are philosophers who have long studied the Holocaust. That experience makes us anxious about democracy, because we ...
20 Nov 20231h 6min
Erin Baggott Carter and Brett L. Carter, "Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
A dictator's power is secure, the authors begin in this muscular, impressive study, only as long as citizens believe in it. When citizens suddenly believe otherwise, a dictator's power is anything but...
19 Nov 20231h 14min
