New Books in Political Science

• Rahul Rao, "The Psychic Lives of Statues: Reckoning with the Rubble of Empire" (Pluto Press, 2025)

  From Cape Town to Bristol and Richmond, statues have become sites of resistance and contestation of our imperial past and postcolonial present. The Psychic Lives of Statues by Rahul Rao offers an insightful exploration of these global controversies, demonstrating that beneath their surface lie deeper struggles over race, caste, and the politics of decolonisation. Rao takes readers on a journey through South Africa, England, the US, Ghana, India, Australia, and Scotland, revealing how statue controversies have dramatically rearranged the canon of anticolonial political thought. By examining these debates through a personal and literary lens, Rao addresses the multifaceted issues of justice, cultural memory, and belonging. The Psychic Lives of Statues (Pluto Press, 2025) examines both the toppling of colonial statues and the raising of postcolonial ones, demonstrating that the statue form as a medium of representation and a bid for immortality is by no means obsolete. Engaging with artists, scholars, and activists, Rao provides fresh perspectives on how societies grapple with and reinterpret the past and present through iconography. About the Author:  Rahul Rao is a Reader in International Political Thought in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, and Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London. He is the author of two books – Third World Protest: Between Home and the World (2010) and Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality (2020), both published by Oxford University Press. He is a member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective. About the Host:  Stuti Roy has recently graduated with an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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• Bryan Caplan, "Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing" (Cato Institute, 2024)

  Economist Bryan Caplan has written—and artist Ady Branzei has illustrated—this new graphic novel about housing regulation (if ‘novel’ can be applied to an imaginative essay on a nonfiction topic), Build Baby Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation (Cato Institute, 2024). The thesis of the work is that regulation has driven up the cost of housing and ‘manufactured scarcity.’ Regulation is always well intentioned but often ill considered, as Caplan shows, and every benefit—‘free’ parking, zoning restrictions, environmental considerations—is provided by a hidden cost to the consumer and the tax-payer, disproportionately born by the poor (ironically the people they are supposed to be helping). This conversation touched on other areas where free-market principles conflict with government interventions: bike lanes, environmental policy, immigration, and public education, especially at the taxpayer-supported university, a topic that Bryan Caplan discussed last time he was on the New Books Network, in his 2018 interview with Editor-in-Chief Marshall Poe when they discussed his earlier book, The Case Against Education. Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute; his blog on Substack is called Bet on It. Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; his dissertation is a forthcoming book, published by Brepols: Dantiscus: Diplomat and Traveller in Sixteenth-Century Europe. He is a regular host on the New Books Network also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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• Luca Trenta, "The President's Kill List: Assassination and Us Foreign Policy Since 1945" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

  Investigative reporter Bob Woodward once noted that assassination was the Scarlett letter of American politics because targeted killings challenge the image of the United States as a liberal democracy and the driving force behind a rules-based international order. In his new book, Luca Trenta documents how assassination and assassination attempts have been a persistent feature in US foreign policy. The US government has relied on a variety of direct methods as well as more indirectly laying the groundwork for local assassins.  Using primary documents and interviews, The President’s Kill List meticulously documents how policymakers decided on assassination and the level of Presidential control over these decisions. The book analyzes the evolution of assassination policies and reveals how successive administrations - through private justifications and public legitimations - ensured that assassination remained an available tool. The podcast includes insightful comments on assassination and the Trump administration. The paperback is coming out in May 2025. Dr. Luca Trenta is an Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies at Swansea University. His previous publications include an earlier book, Risk and Presidential Decision-making: The Emergence of Foreign Policy Crises (Routledge, 2016) and he hosts Out of the Shadows, interviewing authors and experts in intelligence and covert operations. In his public-facing scholarship, Dr. Trenta has appeared in a History Channel documentary called Secret Wars Uncovered (2020) and he regularly contributes to and collaborates with media outlets such as the BBC. Mentioned: Joseph Burkholder Smith, Portrait of a Cold Warrior (1976) John Frankenheimer, The Manchurian Candidate (1962) The Ford-Colby-Kissinger meeting is at page 35 here and Luca’s story about the meeting is here “Family Jewels” document of CIA employee responses to James Schlesinger asking to report activities outside CIA charter (1973) Rebecca Sanders, Plausible Legality: Legal Culture and Political Imperative in the Global War on Terror (2018) The Church Committee Report (Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (1976) Hugh Wilford, The CIA: An Imperial History (2024) Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (2008) Tim Weiner, The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century (2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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• Matthew Fuhrmann, "Influence without Arms: The New Logic of Nuclear Deterrence" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

  How does nuclear technology influence international relations? While many books focus on countries armed with nuclear weapons, this volume puts the spotlight on those who have the technology to build nuclear bombs but choose not to. These weapons-capable countries, such as Brazil, Germany, and Japan, have what is known as nuclear latency, and they shape world politics in important ways. Matthew Fuhrmann navigates a critical yet poorly understood issue by offering a definitive account of nuclear latency. He identifies global trends, explains why countries obtain nuclear latency and analyzes its consequences for international security. Influence Without Arms presents new statistical and case evidence that nuclear latency enhances deterrence, provides greater influence, and triggers conflict and arms races. The book offers a framework to explain when nuclear latency increases security and, when it incites instability, generates far-reaching implications for deterrence, nuclear proliferation, arms races, preventive war, and disarmament. Our guest is Matthew Fuhrmann, the Cullen-McFadden Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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• Martin Spychal, "Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act" (U London Press, 2024)

  The 1832 Reform Act was a landmark moment in the development of modern British politics. By overhauling the country’s ancient representative system, the legislation reshaped constitutional arrangements at Westminster, reinvigorated political relationships between the center and the provinces, and established the political structures and precedents that both shaped and hindered Britain’s slow lurch towards democracy by 1928. Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act (U London Press, 2024) leads to a fundamental rethinking of the 1832 Reform Act by demonstrating how boundary reform and the reconstruction of England’s electoral map by the little-known 1831–1832 boundary commission underpinned this turning point in the development of the British political nation. Eschewing traditional approaches to the 1832 Reform Act, it draws from a significant new archival discovery­­—the working papers of the boundary commission—and a range of innovative quantitative techniques to provide a major reassessment of why and how the 1832 Reform Act passed, its impact on reformed politics both at Westminster and in the constituencies, and its significance to the expansion of the modern British state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

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