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Posts by Polity, Journal of Political Science

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The Invisible Farmworker: Racial Political Economy, Policy Development, and the Second Dimension of Power | Polity: Vol 58, No 2 The US agriculture industry has long been reliant on inequalities that intersect race and political economy. Farm policy further accentuates these inequalities as most farmworkers were excluded from N...

Danny Daneri & Paul Frymer’s “The Invisible Farmworker” shows how race and agribusiness shaped policy to exclude labor protections—from Black and immigrant workers to today’s undocumented farm labor force.@dannydaneri.bsky.social @paulfr.bsky.social
Read it: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

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In “Hyperpolarization, Distrust, and Civil Religions in America Today” Aaron Quinn Weinstein introduces a value neutral model that maps civil religions by political ideology and support for the status quo.
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#CultureWar #PoliticalTheory #Religion

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Alienation and Political Action, Revisited | Polity: Vol 58, No 2 In this paper, I challenge our thinking about affect, and its relationship to politics, agency, and action, through a close reading of the concept of alienation in the fiction of Harlem Renaissance th...

Emma Rodman’s “Alienation and Political Action, Revisited” analyzes Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand to argue that “staying with the trouble” of negative emotions helps generate democratic political action.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#PoliSky #PoliticalTheory

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John Rawls and Liberal Guilt | Polity: Vol 58, No 2 In contemporary political commentary, “liberal guilt” represents a cynical attempt to express moral concern without engaging in genuine and transformative action. This critique, however, overlooks a reading of “liberal guilt” as an expression of a conflict that cannot be worked through, namely a commitment to a suffering other to whom one feels indebted, and an attachment to a specific political arrangement from which one extracts benefits. This ambivalence, I suggest, produces forms of “moral paralysis” or the production of gestures that do not disturb the terms of liberal consensus. My aim is to explore how this contradiction is expressed in liberal thought through a psychoanalytic reading of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. The paper proceeds as follows: first, I will show how Rawls productively uses the work of Melanie Klein to ground guilt-feelings on terms other than those offered by Freud. Here, guilt is an expression of value that begets reparative gestures towards another. However, for Rawls, guilt can be expressed only in compressed and exchange-based terms that permit a return to political equilibrium and consensus. This means Rawls’s subject is endowed with a paranoid attachment to order, which dictates how guilt can be felt and enacted politically in relation to others. I show how this narration of guilt in Rawls’s thought gives theorists leverage to rethink “liberal guilt” as an expression of a contradiction between both paranoid and solidaristic attachments. Last, I show how “liberal guilt” may present itself as a site of political possibility.

Stephen Cucharo’s “John Rawls and Liberal Guilt” reexamines liberal guilt through Rawls. He argues it reflects an ambivalent emotion rooted in conflicting attachments with political potential. @stevecucharo.bsky.social
Read it now: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#PoliSky #PoliticalTheory

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Backlash Blues: Assessing How Political Scientists Conceptualize (or Don’t) Reactionary Force1 | Polity: Vol 58, No 2 This study references 1,211 articles that mention “backlash” in sixteen political science journals to investigate how the term is understood and used in political science. We find that while backlash ...

Erica Townsend-Bell and Zein Murib’s “Backlash Blues” reviews 1,211 articles on “backlash.” They argue the term often leaves impacts on marginalized groups unspecified and needs clearer distinctions. @zeinmurib.bsky.social
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#PoliSky #Backlash

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Triplicates | Polity: Vol 58, No 2

Our April issue features articles on backlash, hyperpolarization, climate movements, & deportation policy—plus an “Ask a Political Scientist” interview with Joan Tronto on care ethics and democracy. Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#NowOut #PoliSky @uchicagopress.bsky.social

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Polity’s April cover #NowOut features artwork by Brian Delozier. The image depicts a figure with rainbow hair, a wide-brim hat, and a vibrant patterned dress gazing toward a glowing skyline. You can read the April issue here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/pol/2026...
#PoliSky #PoliSciResearch

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“If It’s a Lie, It Must Be Important”: An Interview with Anne Norton on Identity, Property, and the Study of Politics | Polity: Vol 58, No 1

This issue’s #AskaPoliticalScientist spotlights Anne Norton, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She reflects on her path into political theory and argues scholarship must be grounded in lived reality—not fleeting trends—to tackle today’s issues. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

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Our latest #AskaPoliticalScientist features Anne Norton, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She shares her political awakening, discusses her work on property, and explains why she values real-world politics over academic trends.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

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A Race and Capitalism Framework to Study Financial Access | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 Racialized economic inequality remains a central concern across the social sciences, yet the role of financial access in reproducing inequality has been comparatively underexplored. Existing scholarsh...

Patricia D. Posey’s “A Race and Capitalism Framework to Study Financial Access” reveals how race and capitalism shape financial access. Three mechanisms—exclusion, extraction, and valuation—perpetuate racial inequality and profit.
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#Race #Capitalism

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Alfredo Gonzalez’s “Logics of Race and Capitalism” reveals that from 1926 to 1940, military service did not guarantee citizenship due to Congressional delays, perpetuating racial inequality.
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#Citizenship #Naturalization #RacialCapitalism

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Logics of Race and Capitalism in the Political Economy of Time: The Case of Military Naturalizations | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 When the US exchanges citizenship rights for military service it is working within a political economy of time, where time is the medium of exchange. This paper argues that military naturalizations in...

In "Logics of Race and Capitalism in the Political Economy of Time," Alfredo Gonzalez shows that Congress deliberately delays non-citizen service members' naturalization, reinforcing racialized inequality. Read it now: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#Citizenship #RacialCapitalism #PoliSky

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Betting on Black: Emergency Management Hedges on the Marginalized | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 Over the last three decades, urban cities and their residents have faced precarity. In the face of late capitalism, several metropolitan cities across the nation but particularly in Michigan, namely D...

Meghan E. Wilson's "Betting on Black" explores how Detroit's emergency managers prioritize fiscal stability over public goods for marginalized communities. She shows how race shapes risk calculation and drives inequality.
Read it: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#Capitalism #UrbanPolitics

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Mapping Theories of Racial Capitalism: From Necessity to Entanglement | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 The concept of “racial capitalism” has re-emerged in recent scholarly and political debates to theorize the role of racism in shaping capitalist social orders. It has been widely taken up by scholars ...

In “Mapping Theories of Racial Capitalism,” Emily Katzenstein critiques the notion that “racial capitalism” is an empty buzzword. She examines the ties between race and capitalism through necessity and entanglement.
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#Capitalism #PoliSky #Race

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Equality, Modernity, and Inclusion in Judith Drake’s Essay in Defence of the Female Sex | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 Judith Drake’s Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (1696) is a unique contribution to early English feminist thought. Both scathingly funny and remarkably erudite, the work wades into a variety of phil...

Mary Jo MacDonald’s “Equality, Modernity, and Inclusion in Judith Drake’s Essay” examines how Drake’s 1696 feminist work argues that sexual differences do not justify excluding women from public life.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#FeministTheory #PoliticalThought #PoliSky

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Which Iphigenia is Sacrificeable? Jean Racine and the Gendered Politics of Desire | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 While it has become both legitimate and commonplace for political theorists to examine plays as texts of political theory, as texts that offer theoretical reflections on political concepts and ideolog...

In “Which Iphigenia is Sacrificeable?” Janice Feng analyzes Jean Racine’s 17th-century play Iphigénie, showing that the desire to die can be a powerful political feeling shaped by gender and patriarchy. Read it here:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#FeministTheory #PoliticalTheory #PoliSky

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Ruled by Women: Gynocratic Disorder in Aristotle’s Sparta | Polity: Vol 58, No 1 Recent years have witnessed the rise of right-wing rhetoric asserting that contemporary liberal democracies have allowed women to control and rule over men. Scholarship has made sense of these anxieti...

Silvia Fedi’s “Ruled by Women” links modern right-wing fears of female dominance to ancient Greek anxieties about gynocracy. She analyzes Aristotle’s Politics to argue these fears frame democracy as reliant on patriarchy. Read it: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#FeministTheory #PoliSky

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Blue Moon | Polity: Vol 58, No 1

Our January issue highlights feminist theory's return, 3 excellent research articles, our Racial Capitalism Symposium series, & an “Ask a Political Scientist” interview w/ Anne Norton. @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Read it: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
#PoliSky #NowOut #PoliSciResearch

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Polity | Vol 58, No 1

Our January issue cover #NowOut features artist Peggy Watson’s “Worm Moon, March.” The image depicts a radiant full moon rising into the night sky, as earth worms wriggle below in the soil. You can read the January issue here:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/pol/58/1
#PoliSky #PoliSciResearch

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Asaf Yakir and Doron Navot’s “Right-Wing Populist" article argues that right-wing populism in Hungary and Israel breaks from neoliberalism by rejecting bureaucracy and subverting institutional independence. Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/pol...
#Populism #Neoliberalism #PoliSky

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Forty Years Later | Polity: Vol 57, No 4

Adam Przeworski’s “Forty Years Later” revisits "Capitalism and Social Democracy" and links past economic and electoral constraints on the working class to today’s right‑wing coalition targeting democratic institutions.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #WorkingClass #PoliSky

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Forty Years Later | Polity: Vol 57, No 4

Adam Przeworski’s article “Forty Years Later” reviews and reassesses his predictions about capitalism and democracy and reflects on the implications of the current capitalist revolution in the United States.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #SocialDemocracy #PoliSky

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The Class Constraints on Social Democracy | Polity: Vol 57, No 4

Vivek Chibber’s “The Class Constraints on Social Democracy” draws on Przeworski to contrast revolutionary and electoral socialists and analyzes parties’ organizational power to explain electoral outcomes beyond policy effects. Read it: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #WorkingClass #PoliSky

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The Thesis of the Inevitability of Reformism: Fiction and Occlusion | Polity: Vol 57, No 4

August H. Nimtz’s “The Thesis of the Inevitability of Reformism” revisits Adam Przeworski’s argument on how far elections can produce reforms in social democracies, using historical cases to examine the question.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #PoliSky #SocialDemocracy

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Dylan Riley’s “The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy” examines Adam Przeworski’s work through the relationship between social surplus and universal suffrage.
Read Riley’s insights here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #PoliticalTheory #Suffrage #Capitalism #PoliSky
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The Minimalist Marxist: How Adam Przeworski United Political Science with Democracy as Free and Fair Election | Polity: Vol 57, No 4

Natasha Piano’s “The Minimalist Marxist” reflects on Adam Przeworski’s impact, arguing his study of Marxist ideology advanced research methods and encouraged a more holistic merging of subfields. Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #PoliticalTheory #PoliSky #Marxism

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In “Capitalist Democracy and Socialist Strategy,” Yves Winter assesses Adam Przeworski’s arguments on capitalism, the limits of private ownership, and then applies those lessons on how to revive political participation. Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.... #Socialism #PoliSky

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Polity | Vol 57, No 4

In this issue’s #ClassicsRevisited, six authors revisit Adam Przeworski’s 1985 book "Capitalism and Social Democracy," offering forty-year reflections including a response from Przeworski himself. Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/pol/2025... #Capitalism #PoliticalTheory #PoliSky

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Right-Wing Populist Re-Politicization and the “Hollowing Out” of the Neoliberal State | Polity: Vol 57, No 4 Abstract Our paper investigates how right-wing populists in positions of power affect neoliberal economic policies and institutions. First, we review neoliberalism’s historical development since the 1...

Asaf Yakir and Doron Navot’s “Right-Wing Populist Re‑Politicization and the Hollowing Out of the Neoliberal State” analyzes how Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu undermine economic policies and independent institutions. Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #Populism #PoliSky

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In “When Parents Govern”, Jacob Garrett reports a study of over 100 citizens on school decision councils, finding that active participation fosters publicly oriented choices often at the expense of personal preferences.
Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... #CommunityEngagement

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