New Books in Public Policy

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) marked its 60th anniversary. Created amid the optimism and urgency of the civil rights era, HUD embodied a bipartisan commitment to building stronger, more integrated, and equitable cities. How did that vision unfold alongside the music, culture, and politics that shaped urban life?

Street Level, a special audio documentary episode of Soundscapes NYC, explores the intertwined histories of urban policy, housing, and popular culture in the years following HUD’s establishment. Through archival recordings, immersive sound design, and music drawn from the neighborhoods most affected by federal housing decisions, the documentary traces how government policies shaped city life—and how residents responded through creativity, resilience, and community.

Featuring insights from historian and author Bench Ansfield, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Born In Flames, senior career HUD staff members Kent Watkins and John Finch, and public history scholar Kristin Sylvian, Street Level connects policy decisions to lived experience, revealing how federal housing initiatives shaped the urban landscape—and how music and culture helped sustain joy, identity, and perseverance when city life grew more difficult. Part history, part cultural exploration, and part sonic journey, Street Level offers a powerful new perspective on the forces that have shaped America’s cities.

HOST/PRODUCER: Ryan Purcell

WRITER/PRODUCER: Shelagh Little
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Why have so many democracies become more polarized, unstable, and vulnerable to authoritarianism? And why did so many political observers fail to see it coming? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, about her recent article, “Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise”, and its powerful argument that democracy’s current troubles follow a familiar historical pattern. Drawing on classic theories of democratic stability, Berman explains how rising inequality, declining social mobility, polarization, and the erosion of cross-cutting cleavages have undermined even long-established democracies – and what policymakers can do in response. This podcast is part of our regular collaboration with the Journal of Democracy.

Read the transcript here

Guest:

Sheri Berman is Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is one of the leading scholars of democracy, liberalism, and political development, and the author of numerous influential books and articles on the historical foundations of democratic stability and crisis. Professor Berman’s recent article, Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise, published in the Journal of Democracy, explores why rising inequality, polarization, and declining social mobility have left even long-established democracies increasingly vulnerable to instability and authoritarianism. A widely read commentator and public intellectual, Berman’s work bridges academic research and contemporary political debate.

Presenter:

Dr Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of CEDAR.

The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the factors that promote and undermine democratic government around the world and follow us on Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham!
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In Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age (Cambridge UP, 2025), Jonathon W. Penney explores the increasing weaponization of surveillance, censorship, and new technology to repress and control us. With corporations, governments, and extremist actors using big data, cyber-mobs, AI, and other threats to limit our rights and freedoms, concerns about chilling effects – or how these activities deter us from exercising our rights – have become urgent. Penney draws on law, privacy, and social science to present a new conformity theory that highlights the dangers of chilling effects and their potential to erode democracy and enable a more illiberal future. He critiques conventional theories and provides a framework for predicting, explaining, and evaluating chilling effects in a range of contexts. Urgent and timely, Chilling Effects sheds light on the repressive and conforming effects of technology, state, and corporate power, and offers a roadmap of how to respond to their weaponization today and in the future.

You can find more information about Jon at his website: https://jonpenney.com/

Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student and law student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake’s work has been published in top venues such as ACM’s CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
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The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy (Routledge, 2026) explores the political worldviews of progressive American social movements and how they play an increasingly important role in defining social problems, setting the national political agenda, and offering viable policy solutions.

Arguing that the liberal consensus that historically held the United States together politically has broken down, this book demonstrates how new forms of authoritarian and democratic populisms are being offered as alternatives to a rigged capitalist system by an unaccountable oligarchy. It utilises the method of frame analysis to elucidate the political worldview of particular, left-leaning social movements, exploring their historical backgrounds, organizing methods, social grievances, policy solutions, current actions, and future goals. It examines three movements concerned with economic issues, three organizing around identity, and three advocating for change in the domain of public safety. The last chapter focuses on the current political situation in the U.S. and potential futures of democracy. Bringing together lessons from U.S. history and the previous chapters, the book ends with a proposal for how to ensure more democratic and egalitarian outcomes in America as a whole.

As such, it offers an important reference for both academics and activists in the fields of sociology, political science, and policy analysis.
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In 2008, Rachel Canter founded Mississippi First, an education non-profit with the mission of improving educational outcomes for students across the state. Dating back to the 1990s, Mississippi ranked near the very bottom on educational assessment metrics for reading and math. Today, Mississippi’s elementary school students score above the national public average and the eight graders have nearly reached the national public average. For nearly two decades, Rachel has been on the frontlines fighting to improve reading and math outcomes for Mississippi’s public school students. In the process, she has learned that there are no quick fixes, silver bullets, or magical solutions. Improving educational outcomes takes time, accountability, evidence, and institutional support. Rachel and the Progressive Policy Institute have produced a short research paper on this incredibly improvement in outcomes titled “Inside the Mississippi Marathon.” This paper is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of education in America. Whether you are a researcher, policy maker, parent, or student, Inside the Mississippi Marathon charts a path for national improvement in education.

Rachel Canter is the Director of Education Policy for the Reinventing America’s Schools project at PPI. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and History from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 2008, she founded Mississippi First and served as its Executive Director for over 16 years.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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