Political theory

Can the Left Take Back Identity Politics?

by Umut Özkırımlı

Recovering the liberatory potential of identity politics means going back to the term's source—the Combahee River Collective—and recognizing its radical roots and embrace of coalition-building and politics.

Do Any Critics of "Marxism" on the Right Actually Know What it Is?

by Ben Burgis

The most prominent public intellectuals on the right-wing internet love to attack a version of Marxism that bears little connection to reality. Even Marxists should want better critics. 

Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94

Communitarianism, an effort to reconcile the principles of individual rights and collective responsibility, was Etzioni's biggest contribution in a wide-ranging career as a public intellectual. 

Forum: Is "Equal Opportunity" the Wrong Goal?

by Christine Sypnowich

A political philosopher introduces a forum on inequality and justice by arguing that the focus on opportunity at the expense of equalizing outcomes will inevitably allow significant inequality to continue. 

What's Driving J.D. Vance?

by Gabriel Winant

J.D. Vance rose to fame through a book that was heavy on popular psychology and self-help tropes while skirting systemic analysis of poverty and social change. As the Senator now careens hard to the right, a historian decides to evaluate him on his own terms. 

Neoliberalism: Why is the Market Involved in Your Hallway Hangout?

by John Patrick Leary

A guide for teens and others to start thinking about how the big political and economic systems we live under shape our lives. Hint: it's about the conflicts between capitalism and democracy.

The Anti-Populist Dilemma

by Jan-Werner Müller

From Turkey to Hungary to Israel, forming a lasting coalition of parties against a right-wing authoritarian populist has proven easier said than done. 

Melvin Rogers: How Black Thinkers Remade America's Political Traditions

From Douglass to DuBois, African American intellectuals have pushed for the theory of American republicanism to wrestle with the conflict between racial domination and political equality. 

Democracy v. The People: Jan-Werner Muller on Populism

by Alberto Polimeni

A leading historian and theorist of populism looks beyond psychology or brainwashing as explanations for the appeal of such movements, but still focuses on the ways elites can better lead the people instead of what people may want. 

Angelo Codevilla: An Unknown Intellectual Leader of Today's Far Right

by Daniel Luban

The recently deceased political theorist's life helps to explain how a cast of conservative power brokers could move from the War on Terror neoconservatism to the Tea Party to Trumpism. 

Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion" at 100

Concern about what happens to democracy when a society buried in information gives up on the truth and embraces alternate realities is nothing new. What does the work of Walter Lippmann tell us today? 

Barbara Ehrenreich's Legacy is More than "Nickel and Dimed"

by Lynne Segal

The late writer's contributions to keeping a current of socialist radicalism in the feminist movement deserve recognition, too. 

Can We Do Better than Liberal Democracy?

by Adam Gopnik

Critic Adam Gopnik examines two recent books on alternatives to representative democracy that respond to the recent use of institutions by power-seeking authoritarians. 

Fanaticism May be Alarming, but It's Not New

by Zachary R. Goldsmith

The term "fanatic" evolved from a value-neutral name for participants in Roman religious cults to describe someone with dangerous and erroneous beliefs in religion and then in modern politics. Philosophers from Kant to Burke show the need to pull back from such absolute judgments of our adversaries. 

Explaining the Complexities of the Great Vibe Shift

by Tom F. Wright

As pundits invoke the nebulous concept of "vibes" to try to explain and predict incoherent and emotionally volatile politics, it's worth considering how the outdated (but not very old!) concept of charisma has served the same role. 

"Last Man Standing" – Michael Brenes on Francis Fukuyama and the Return of History

Presented with the manifest failure of a peaceful global liberal order after the end of the Cold War, Fukuyama now simply argues that people have failed classical liberalism. 

What's Really New about the "New" American Right?

by John Ganz

There's something familiar about a secular nationalist movement that mobilizes property owners through a narrative of national decline and the promise of controlling or purging enemies of a unified people through force, recently described in a Times op-ed. If only there were a word for it....

Authoritarianism Isn't Just About Personality Cults

Recent books on "strongmen" reduce the problem of authoritarianism to the phenomenon of charismatic leadership and ignore many of the structural factors contributing to democratic collapse. 

Gramsci's Gift

by Alan Wald

As the political thought of the Italian marxist is increasingly used and misused in popular discourse, including in right-wing attacks on "cultural Marxism," has the time come for this generation's biography of Antonio Gramsci? 

The Thrill of Teaching Mill

by Samuel Goldman

Mill was prescient in focusing attention not only on the restriction of speech by the state, but on the cultural and social obstacles to dissenting opinion.