Search

Begin New Search Political Geography United States of America Publication Year within 3 Years

61. American Populism, American Personhood

Author:
Colin Anthony MacNairn
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Current American populism—an endogenous product of liberal capitalism— functions less as an interruption of liberal democracy than as the political form through which its contradictions are expressed. Starting from that premise, this essay traces how citizens, rendered economically superfluous and politically abstracted, reach for meaning through affective grievance—grievance that populism captures, reroutes, and converts into allegiance. By placing C.B. Macpherson’s critique of possessive individualism in dialogue with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s analysis of moral incapacitation, A.N. Whitehead’s insights on simplified ideals, and Kant’s republican account of public right, this essay reconstructs the mechanisms by which structural dispossession is transformed into cultural antagonism. Through political-theoretical argument augmented with empirical illustrations, this essay provocatively demonstrates that American populism’s emotional economy reinforces the very structure it claims to resist and why any democratic renewal ought to begin with a reconstruction of personhood itself
Topic:
Politics, Capitalism, Populism, Donald Trump, Illiberal Democracy, Critical Democratic Theory, and New Democratic Theory
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

62. The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism with Marjorie Feld 4/9/26

Author:
Marjorie Feld
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism with Professor Marjorie Feld (4/9/26) Throughout the twentieth century, American Jewish communal leaders projected a unified position of unconditional support for Israel, cementing it as a cornerstone of American Jewish identity. This unwavering position served to marginalize and label dissenters as antisemitic, systematically limiting the threshold of acceptable criticism. In pursuit of this forced consensus, these leaders entered Cold War alliances, distanced themselves from progressive civil rights and anti-colonial movements, and turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in Israel. In The Threshold of Dissent, Marjorie N. Feld instead shows that today’s vociferous arguments among American Jews over Israel and Zionism are but the newest chapter in a fraught history that stretches from the nineteenth century.
Topic:
Human Rights, Leadership, Zionism, Jews, and Antisemitism
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and United States of America

63. Race, Resistance, and the Criminalization of Speech under Trump with Vince Warren (4/16/2026)

Author:
Vince Warren
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Free speech is a lofty principle taught in American schools but not consistently protected when racial minorities collectively dissent against government practices. Vince Warren addresses the contemporary manifestations of these longstanding tensions between law on paper and enforcement in practice.
Topic:
Race, Minorities, Donald Trump, Resistance, Free Speech, and Criminalization
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

64. US-PRC Defense Relations: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Author:
David Finkelstein, Thomas J. Christensen, and Elizabeth Wishnick
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
April 15, 2026 — One of the less illuminated dimensions of the US-PRC relationship is that between its two militaries. Over the course of four decades, the Pentagon and the People's Liberation Army have gone from Cold War partners to strategic competitors. David Finkelstein provided historical and strategic context for understanding how the two militaries came to the place they are in today, and why it matters for the future of the bilateral relationship and the Indo-Pacific region. Speaker: David Finkelstein, Distinguished Research Fellow for National Security Affairs, CNA Introduction by: Thomas J. Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations; Director, China and the World Program, Columbia University Moderator: Elizabeth Wishnick, Adjunct Senior Research Scholar, WEAI; Senior Research Scientist, CNA
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Bilateral Relations, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

65. When do voters stop caring? Estimating the shape of voters' utility functions

Author:
Aleksandra Conevska and Can Mutlu
Publication Date:
06-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
In this paper, we address a longstanding puzzle over the functional form that better approximates voter utility from political choices. Though it has become the norm in the literature to represent voter utility with concave loss functions, for decades scholars have underscored this assumption’s potential shortcomings. Yet there exists little to no evidence to support one functional form assumption over another. We fill this gap by first identifying electoral settings where the different functional forms generate divergent predictions about voter behavior. We then assess which functional form better matches observed voter and abstention behavior using Cast Vote Record (CVR) data that captures the anonymized ballots of millions of voters in the 2020 U.S. general election. Our findings indicate that concave loss functions fail to predict voting and abstention behavior, and it is the reverse S-shaped loss functions, such as the Gaussian function, that better match voter behavior.
Topic:
Politics, Voting, and Voting Behavior
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

66. Starr Forum: The Future of US-China Relations

Author:
Nicholas Burns and Yasheng Huang
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Starr Forum: The Future of US-China Relations | Tuesday, February 17, 2026 Speakers: Nicholas Burns is the Goodman Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the founder and faculty chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project and a faculty affiliate at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Burns worked in the United States government for over three decades, serving six presidents and nine secretaries of state. Most recently, he served as the US ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 2021-2025, leading public servants from forty-eight US government agencies at the US mission to China in overseeing one of America's most important bilateral relationships. Moderator: Yasheng Huang is the Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also serves as the faculty director of the MIT-China Program at the Center for International Studies. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an associate dean of MIT Sloan’s GlobalPartnership programs and its Action Learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Huang is the author of 11 books in both English and Chinese and of many academic papers. His most recent book, “The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to its Decline”, was a 2023 Best Book of the Year by Foreign Affairs magazine.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

67. Focus on Eurasia: Putin’s War Against the West

Author:
John J. Sullivan, Carol Saivetz, and Elizabeth Wood
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Focus on Eurasia: Putin’s War Against the West: A Conversation with the Former US Ambassador to the Russian Federation | Monday, March 16, 2026 Speaker: Ambassador John J. Sullivan is the former US deputy secretary of state and former US ambassador to the Russian Federation. His career spans four decades in public service in prominent diplomatic and legal positions under five US presidents. He is a non-resident distinguished senior fellow with the National Security Law Program as well as a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington DC and New York offices. He co-leads the firm’s National Security practice. Co-chairs: Carol Saivetz is a senior fellow in the MIT Security Studies Program at the Center for International Studies (CIS). She is the author and contributing co-editor of books and articles on Soviet and now Russian foreign policy issues. Elizabeth Wood is Ford International Professor of History at MIT. She is the author most recently of Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine as well as articles on Vladimir Putin, the political cult of WWII, right-wing populism in Russia and Turkey, and US-Russian Partnerships in Science. She is the faculty director of the Center’s MIT-Ukraine Program and co-faculty director of the MIT-Eurasia Program.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Populism, Vladimir Putin, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eurasia, Ukraine, and United States of America

68. Geopolitics of the Strait of Hormuz

Author:
Nader Habibi, Ali Kadivar, Caitlin Talmadge, and Dafna Rand
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Geopolitics of the Strait of Hormuz | Monday, March 30, 2026 In a rapidly evolving region, gain clarity beyond the headlines. Panelists: Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of Practice in the Economics of the Middle East, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University Ali Kadivar, Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies, Boston College; Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University Caitlin Talmadge, Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT; Faculty Affiliate, Center for Nuclear Security Policy, MIT Security Studies Program Dafna Rand, Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow, Center for International Studies; Former US Assistant Secretary of State Moderator: Richard Nielsen, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT; Faculty Director, MIT-MENA, MIT Center for International Studies; Affiliate, MIT Security Studies Program and MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society This event is sponsored by the MIT-MENA Program.
Topic:
Geopolitics, Trade, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Persian Gulf, United States of America, and Strait of Hormuz

69. From Vietnam to Campus Encampments & Anti-Ice Protests: A Legal History of Federal Cases On Student First Amendment Rights

Author:
Jacob Blau
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Students who have been silenced for their participation in recent protests should be aware of a deep legal history that has seen federal courts grapple with and protect the concept of student free speech.
Topic:
Protests, Free Speech, 2023 Gaza War, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States of America, Palestine, Vietnam, and North America

70. Minnesota’s Perfect ICE Storm

Author:
Zoe Carver
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
As Minneapolis once again becomes the center of national protests, a dive into the state’s recent history of racial tensions and police violence reveals just why the North Star City has come head-to-head with the executive branch.
Topic:
Protests, Police Brutality, Immigration Policy, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Political Geography:
North America, Minnesota, and United States of America