The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

Or, why should ordinary citizens trust unelected experts anymore?

Good evening, my name is Jim Miller. I am a professor of politics and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research, and I have organized, and will be moderating tonight’s panel with the ungainly title, on bureaucracy and its discontents. To discuss the tensions created by professing democracy as ...
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The Administrative State, Its Democratic Deficits, and How to Fix Them in Comparative Historical Perspective

“The Amazon Is Not a Warehouse”

A conversation with Dionéia Ferreira on the Amazonian Transdisciplinary Network

Dionéia Ferreira is a scholar, environmental activist, and community leader in southern Amazonas, Brazil, where she plays a key role in weaving together RETA, the Amazonian Transdisciplinary Network. RETA connects local communities, women leaders, researchers, and legal actors across the territory surrounding the BR-319 highway—a controversial infrastructure project at the ...
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“The Amazon Is Not a Warehouse”

Cooking Noodles on Rikers Island

In their new book, City Time, former inmates David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan take a sociological look at life inside

Not only is Rikers Island geographically isolated—a landmass situated on the East River between the Bronx and Queens—but what happens there is kept out of the public’s sight. Journalists are given limited entry into day-to-day life on the island, which houses the city's largest jail. Now, in City Time: On ...
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Cooking Noodles on Rikers Island

The Vision of Hegemony Driving Israel’s Regional Policy

From “periphery doctrine” to open domination

Over a long twentieth century of regional tussles, Israel’s local foreign policy focus has shifted from preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon toward a campaign for outright domination. The strategy has shattered the Middle East’s fragile and imperfect status quo, the stability of which was closely connected to the ...
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The Vision of Hegemony Driving Israel’s Regional Policy

Serbia’s Popular Protest Movement and Why It Matters

Students have adopted the dynamics of plenums and public assemblies where collective decisions are made without centralized leadership

In recent months, Serbia has witnessed one of the most significant social movements in its entire history—and one of the most important in contemporary Europe led mainly by students. What began as a response to a tragic accident in Novi Sad that left 16 people dead quickly grew into a ...
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Serbia’s Popular Protest Movement and Why It Matters

The Left Needs a Better Defense of Trans People

Stop emphasizing population size and start talking policy

In the opening months of the Trump administration, the full power of the state has been deployed to suppress the rights of trans people to access healthcare, play sports, change their gender marker on official documents, and use public bathrooms, among other attacks. These policies have been critiqued by LGBTQ+ ...
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The Left Needs a Better Defense of Trans People

Paying for College Was Already Stressful. Then Came Trump and DOGE.

A Q and A on today’s higher ed money worries

Urban Matters: Kim, there’s certainly a lot of confusion about the future of the US Department of Education right now. I know you were in Washington earlier this month looking for some answers. But first: For those who haven’t gone through the process—or who have blissfully forgotten what it can be ...
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Paying for College Was Already Stressful. Then Came Trump and DOGE.

In I’m Still Here, a Mother Refuses to Let a Dictatorship Rewrite Reality

Political engagement must not preclude the fullness of life

Put on earrings. Go out for ice cream. Swim. Expose the conditions of torture. For Eunice Paiva, the protagonist of 2024 Brazilian film I’m Still Here, the fight against dictatorship has a rhythm. After being interrogated about her association with communists and terrorists, she must now try to find out where ...
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In I’m Still Here, a Mother Refuses to Let a Dictatorship Rewrite Reality

The Taliban’s Systematic Erasure of Women Is Crippling Afghan Society

The future of Afghanistan depends on the participation of all its citizens, not just half of them

After the Taliban banned girls and women from studying beyond the sixth grade, in 2021, one avenue for education remained open: medical institutions, where they could train to become nurses, midwives, and pharmacists. However, in December 2024, Taliban officials announced that female students would now be barred from attending medical ...
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The Taliban’s Systematic Erasure of Women Is Crippling Afghan Society

Standing Up for the Health of Black Americans

Trump’s proposed budget cuts are definitely cuts to Medicaid—and will be felt hardest by Black Americans

On March 4, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) was censured by his Congressional peers for interrupting President Trump’s joint address to Congress. What was lost in the media coverage of Green’s censure is the content of his comments—he was condemning Trump for projected cuts to Medicaid, which are certain to exacerbate ...
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Standing Up for the Health of Black Americans

Elon Musk’s Cruel Moral Sentiments

What the world’s richest man has yet to learn from his study of the Bible

Elon Musk may or may not be “the world’s richest man” these days, depending on the wildly fluctuating value of his Tesla car company, a target for those protesting Musk’s “move fast, break stuff” approach to downsizing the federal bureaucracy through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  Musk’s savage cuts ...
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Elon Musk’s Cruel Moral Sentiments