From the Editors Archives - Page 62 of 170

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Populism in the Twenty-First Century

An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism

October 2, 2018 • by Cas Mudde

Populism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Russia and the United States but remained almost irrelevant to European politics until the 1990s. Since then, populism has become a major political phenomenon throughout Europe. Today, we live in a “populist Zeitgeist” (Mudde 2004), in which populist parties and rhetoric dominate the ...

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Has Brett Kavanaugh Lost His Mind?

A Lawyer’s Follow-Up to Jeffrey C. Isaac and Peter Dreier

October 2, 2018 • by Bill Barnes

As a trial lawyer of 33 years, watching Brett Kavanaugh’s astonishing opening statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on September 27, my immediate reaction was, “How could he be doing this? In public and on the record! Has he lost his mind?” Kavanaugh is a highly experienced, very smart jurist; ...

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Lessons for Democrats from 1970’s Chile

The striking parallels between the Chilean media polarization leading up to Pinochet’s coup and our current journalistic and political schisms

October 2, 2018 • by Jay Blumler

On September 11th, 1973, Chile’s Popular Unity government led by President Salvador Allende was overthrown by a military coup staged by General Augusto Pinochet. One year earlier, in autumn 1972, I had conducted 25 interviews with media and political personnel in Santiago and Valparaiso. The Catholic University of Chile had ...

Blue Monday

Beyond the Three Faces of Power?

What we can learn from the recent Kavanaugh hearings

October 1, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Politics is about power. And power is everywhere. To locate it is to locate the social agents who have the ability to shape our lives and the processes by which they can do so. Social and political theorists have debated about the concept of power, and the sources and locations ...

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The Paradoxes of Identity Politics

A critique of recognition

October 1, 2018 • by Adam Louis Klein

1. Invention In 1975, Roy Wagner wrote a groundbreaking book called The Invention of Culture arguing, essentially, that the only cross-cultural universal was invention itself: creativity. Wagner’s book initiated a crucial sublation in anthropology -- arguably waiting to happen -- from cultural relativity to the relativity of Culture itself. “Culture,” and all those related notions ...

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The Tragedy of Professor Christine Blasey Ford / The Folly of Judge Brett Kavanaugh

On the presentation of self and the pursuit of justice

September 30, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I was not intending to watch the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings from beginning to end, but Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony on Thursday morning was so compelling that my writing had to wait. I was mesmerized by a truth-teller. Her testimony was an amazing combination of embodied reason and affect. Clearly very ...

The Tragedy of Professor Christine Blasey Ford / The Folly of Judge Brett Kavanaugh

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Brett Kavanaugh Unhinged? Unlikely

Reflections on his testimony and on the need to resist his candidacy

September 29, 2018 • by Peter Dreier

Some reporters, bloggers, and pundits think that during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh just “lost it” and became "unhinged." I disagree. I have no doubt that he was angry and emotional, but his belligerent and partisan comments were also very strategic and calculated. He was not out ...

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The Portable Phallus

An excerpt from Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings

September 28, 2018 • by Mari Ruti

In Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Cost of Everyday Life Mari Ruti interweaves theoretical insight, cultural critique, feminist politics, and personal experience to lift the lid on the prevalence of bad feelings in contemporary everyday life. Emanating from a playful engagement with Freud’s idea of penis envy, Ruti’s autotheoretical ...

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Kavanaugh Unhinged

Quick to anger, defensive, unable to control his temper, and intensely partisan

September 27, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

As I argued a few days ago: today’s hearings on the Ford allegations about Kavanaugh were not primarily about the “justice” or “veracity” of the allegations in a criminal or civil sense. Nor were they primarily about Ford or Kavanaugh. They were about political justice. They were about whether the Kavanaugh confirmation ...

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An Interview with Mari Ruti

Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings

September 27, 2018 • by Mari Ruti and Josh Maserow

In Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Cost of Everyday Life Mari Ruti interweaves theoretical insight, cultural critique, feminist politics, and personal experience to lift the lid on the prevalence of bad feelings in contemporary everyday life. Emanating from a playful engagement with Freud’s idea of penis envy, Ruti’s autotheoretical ...

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Blitzkrieg Baby

Why Paul Virilio’s critiques of warfare, acceleration, and media technologies remain prescient and essential

September 26, 2018 • by Ryan Bishop and Jussi Parikka

Chris Petit’s 1979 film Radio On features a striking opening scene with the camera zooming in on a note with the words: “We are the children of Fritz Lang and Wernher von Braun. We are the link between the 1920s and the 1980s.” The line could have easily been lifted from a ...

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Being and Surrounding

A Review of Gianni Vattimo

September 26, 2018 • by Gabriel Serbu

The imminent end of most life on Earth due to environmental catastrophe is no longer a matter of mythological prophecies or science fiction flicks, but a scientific fact. Yet few scientists speak freely about it as their careers usually depend on external corporate funding. What is needed in the face ...