“What the Foucault !?!” (The Fourth Edition of “Waiting for Foucault”)

On Structure and Event

Here's some intellectual diversion from the impending nuclear catastrophe: It's from the forthcoming "What the Foucault !?!"(The fourth edition of "Waiting for Foucault") Structure on one hand, agency and contingency on the other, are not opposed historical determinants in the sense that they exclude one another. On the contrary, each is ...
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“What the Foucault !?!” (The Fourth Edition of “Waiting for Foucault”)

What Are the Costs of Libertarianism?

Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains, Revisited

Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (New York: Viking Press, 2017.) Democracy in Chains, historian Nancy MacLean's account of James McGill Buchanan and public choice economics, has caused an unusual stir in the few months since its publication. You may have followed the lengthy ...
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What Are the Costs of Libertarianism?

Trump, Nukes, and Democracy at its Limit

The whole world is watching

In the history of political thought there have been many rationales offered for democracy as an ideal of self-government, just as there have been many criticisms of the very idea of democracy. One of the most cogent rationales is the simple idea that regular democratic elections make political power accountable, because ...
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Trump, Nukes, and Democracy at its Limit

Three Values of Anger

Chapter Five from ‘Sing the Rage’ by Sonali Chakravarti

—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider Anger, like other emotions, is closely related to a cluster of affective predispositions, including resentment, sadness, and frustration. Insisting on a narrow definition of anger misses the way these emotions often overlap; conversely a broad interpretation of the emotions, writ large, lacks analytical specificity. Cutting through these ...
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Three Values of Anger

One out of Four Older Workers Lack Employer Provided Health Insurance

July Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today reported a 3.2% unemployment rate for workers age 55 and older in July, no change from June. While the low unemployment rate may indicate a healthy labor market for older workers, it doesn't tell us about job quality. Only 76% of older workers obtain health insurance through their ...
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One out of Four Older Workers Lack Employer Provided Health Insurance

We Are Swarming, Again.

Thoughts on William Connolly’s new book, Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming

‘Swarming’ has a rich and complex history in political and philosophical literatures. That history percolates in political theorist William Connolly’s recent book Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming in which he proposes a ‘Politics of Swarming,’ and even resonates in his writing style. The question of ‘swarming’ intersects ...
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We Are Swarming, Again.

How Buddhism and Marxism Can End Our Suffering

Interdependence as a Response to Global Crisis

Terry Gibbs, Why the Dalai Lama is a Socialist: Buddhism and the Compassionate Society (Plymouth, UK: Zed Books, 2017). Distributed in the United States by the University of Chicago Press. Paper: 19.95.  "I’m not going to argue in this book that we all need to be Buddhist Marxists," writes Terry Gibbs in ...
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How Buddhism and Marxism Can End Our Suffering

What’s Next for the Health Care Debate?

A Demand for Process and Transparency

While the Senate was voting on the motion to proceed with the straight repeal plan that would eliminate coverage for millions of Americans, I was in the exam room of my doctor’s office, and using my newly-acquired Medicaid for the first time. How did I feel? Suffice it to say that ...
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What’s Next for the Health Care Debate?

Hungarian ‘Exceptionalism’

Reflections on Jeffrey C. Isaac’s Illiberal Democracy

This piece is part of the discussion generated by Jeffrey C. Isaac’s piece, Illiberal Democracy.  Is it possible to have an increasingly flourishing autocratic regime in the European Union? After all, the Union was built on liberal democratic values, as a community with “ever closer” cooperation. Member states of the European Union ...
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Hungarian ‘Exceptionalism’

Illiberal Democracy and Conceptual Clarity

Report from a Debate

This piece is part of the discussion generated by Jeffrey C. Isaac’s piece, Illiberal Democracy.  This May 8 in Berlin -- a date and place whose symbolism cannot be mistaken -- the Hertie School of Governance launched the 2017 issue of the Governance Report. This year’s issue is devoted to the topic of ...
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Illiberal Democracy and Conceptual Clarity

The Imaginal Politics of Empire

Thoughts on the images in the new Canadian passport

I. Imaginal Politics In 2013, the Canadian government redesigned Canada’s passports. The thirty-one pages that were until recently covered in faint maple leaves now boast images of two European explorer ships and one sailboat, five war memorials, two trains, one grand waterfall, two groups of policemen, hockey and football players with their ...
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The Imaginal Politics of Empire