An Excerpt from Fear City

New York’s Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics

Kim Phillips-Fein’s gripping narrative history, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis And The Rise Of Austerity Politics, has received high praise from a wide ensemble of interested and prominent voices. For instance, James K. Galbraith says: “This revealing narrative of New York’s transformation from working-class social democracy to the glittering home ...
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An Excerpt from Fear City

The Risks of Others

Imperial Nostalgia and Technologies of the Financial Imagination

In late 2014, the East India Company opened a new luxury tea and coffee store at the Royal Exchange in the City of London. Today’s East India Company does not, however, present itself as a tea shop named after the corporation whose officers Adam Smith charged with crafting a “perfectly destructive” system ...
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The Risks of Others

Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

Introduction to #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One

A note from the author: This seems like a good time to follow up Jeffrey Goldfarb’s column of last week by posting the Introduction to my new Public Seminar book, #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One, which is available from Public Seminar as a free download here. "I merely took the energy it takes to pout, ...
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Thinking Politically in the Age of Trump

#AgainstTrump

A re-invitation to read Jeffrey C. Isaac’s Notes from Year One

With the Donald Trump now virtually declaring, “L'Etat, c'est moi,” in his attempts to avoid possible indictment, I can think of no better time than now to highlight Public Seminar’s second book, Jeffrey C. Isaac’s brilliant #AgainstTrump: Notes From Year One (for a free download click here). The book was officially published to coincide with Adam Michnik’s visit ...
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#AgainstTrump

Authoritarianism and the Cultic Dynamic

Traumatic Narcissism in American Politics Today

I spent thirteen years of my life, including all of my thirties, as a fervent devotee of an Indian guru. I lived communally and worked full-time in the guru’s organization, until one day, after a long process I now know was me slowly coming out of dissociation, it dawned on ...
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Authoritarianism and the Cultic Dynamic

The Corporate Outer Circle Goes to Washington

Trump and the Divided Politics of the Corporate Elite

Trump’s background in business is, by now, very familiar: Trump owns and manages the Trump Organization, a privately held real estate and development conglomerate. The Trump Organization’s control over billions of dollars in assets and thousands of employees make Trump a member of what sociologists call the corporate elite. These ...
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The Corporate Outer Circle Goes to Washington

Bill Clinton’s Symphony of Hypocrisy and Rage

Remembering Monica Lewinsky

I used to love Bill Clinton (known in our household for years as The Big Dog) and now I just want someone to get him off the stage. Two days ago, in an interview with The Today Show's Craig Melvin about a new thriller co-written with James Patterson, former president William Jefferson ...
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Bill Clinton’s Symphony of Hypocrisy and Rage

The Election of Donald Trump and the Great Disruption in the News and Social Media

Pablo J. Boczkowski and Zizi Papacharissi’s introduction to Trump and the Media

Donald Trump's election as the 45th President of the United States came as something of a surprise -- to many analysts, journalists, and voters. The New York Times’s The Upshot gave Hillary Clinton an 85 percent chance of winning the White House even as the returns began to come in. What ...
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The Election of Donald Trump and the Great Disruption in the News and Social Media

Changing Social Norms

An Introduction to Social Research Spring 2018 edition

Since Social Research is a quarterly journal and each of its issues is focused on a single theme, we must plan long in advance of publication and invite authors a year or two before an issue appears. As a consequence, we cannot hope to be timely, although sometimes -- almost by chance ...
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Changing Social Norms

Sabotaging the “Summit”

Trump and the North Korean Summit Meeting

It is not unreasonable to ask whether Donald Trump and his hapless band of congressional allies are purposefully sabotaging the operations of the United States government, or are simply so incompetent that they cannot help stumbling into both dysfunction and ridicule by sheer misfortune. In all likelihood, it is a ...
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Sabotaging the “Summit”

Comments on The Arc of Protection

Toward a New International Refugee Regime

The Arc of Protection identifies major shifts in the international refugee regime, diagnoses current problems, and proposes principles to undergird reforms. The book seeks to renegotiate the existing “grand bargain” between the global South and the global North, in which the global South keeps most refugees bottled up in return for ...
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Comments on The Arc of Protection