New Books in European Politics

Live from the Frontline Club in London, Ctrl Alt Deceit is back for its second season. Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones host a fascinating discussion on the myriad threats to democracy, particularly in light of Trump's re-election. Joined by Gabriel Gatehouse is an award-winning BBC journalist and broadcaster, formerly International Editor of Newsnight and host of the award winning podcast The Coming Storm. And Connor Tomlinson is a commentator and writer, contributing to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Courage Media and presenting the Deprogrammed podcast at the New Culture Forum. He previously hosted Tomlinson Talks on LotusEaters.com In this provocative and timely discussion, big ideas collide as our panel tackles the fault lines shaking the foundations of the democratic world. As power shifts, authoritarianism rises, and ideological battles intensify, is liberal democracy collapsing under its own contradictions—or is it still the best system we’ve got? From Silicon Valley’s techno-libertarian ambitions to the push for a return to a more rigidly defined Western identity, our panel will explore the competing visions for the future. Has democracy been hijacked by global institutions that sideline voters? Was the dream of a liberal world order always doomed to fail? And if democracy is in decline—what comes next? Producer: Pearse Lynch Exec Producer: Lucinda Knight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did Britain become a global superpower? Historian and classicist Ian Morris thinks geography has a lot to do with it. Prof. Morris discusses his latest book, Geography is Destiny: Britain and the World: A 10,000 Year History, which traces the long history of Britain's complex relationship with the European continent. He draws surprising parallels between characters ranging from the Roman Britons and Nigel Farage, to the Papacy and the European Union. Prof. Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor in History at Stanford University, as well as the author of the critically acclaimed Why the West Rules—for Now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony ('86) discusses the Enlightenment, the American Founding, his latest book: Conservatism: A Rediscovery, and Conservatism's past and future. Dr. Hazony is the President of the Herzl Institute, based in Jerusalem, and the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a public affairs institute based in Washington D.C., which recently hosted the popular National Conservatism Conference in Miami, FL. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born in Somalia, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a women’s rights activist, free speech advocate, and New York Times bestselling author. She joins the show to discuss her new book, Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights. [Note: This conversation includes discussion of sensitive topics related to sexual violence.] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Today’s 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find the attempt to link the two baffling and outrageous," writes Hans Kundnani in Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (Oxford UP, 2023). Yet, he does so - taking the reader on a historical journey through the development of European identity from Christendom to the coincidence of the Enlightenment and the development of colonialism to the pan-European movement that grew out of the first world war and peace project (or was it?) that emerged from the second. Not only is pro-Europeanism “analogous to nationalism - something like nationalism but on a larger, continental scale," Kundani argues, but the EU itself has “become a vehicle for imperial amnesia" thereby promoting and privileging “whiteness”. Hans Kundnani is a fellow at the Open Society Foundations Workshop, an associate scholar at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and a visiting scholar at the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research. From 2018-22, he was a full-time researcher at Chatham House, including as director of the Europe Programme. Before that, he was a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, the Transatlantic Academy, and the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he published The Paradox of German Power. *The author's own book recommendations are Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006 - first published in 1956) Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the twenty4two newsletter on Substack and hosts the In The Room podcast series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across the globe, democracy is in crisis - in the UK alone, it has been rocked by Brexit, the pandemic and successive attempts by governments to bypass legal norms. But how did this happen, and where might we go from here? Jonathan Sumption cuts through the political noise with acute analysis of the state of democracy today - from the vulnerabilities of international law to the deepening suppression of democracy activism in Hong Kong, and from the complexities of human rights legislation to the defence of freedom of speech. Timely, incisive and wholly original, Challenges of Democracy: And the Rule of Law (Profile Books, 2026) applies the brilliance of 'the cleverest man in Britain' to the most urgent and far-reaching political issue of our day. Jonathan Sumption is a British judge and historian, who served as a Supreme Court Justice for six years. He is the author of the Sunday Times Bestseller Trials of the State, Law in a Time of Crisis, and Divided Houses, which won the 2009 Wolfson History Prize. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Post-liberalism is all the rage on the American right, finding a common cause between legal theorists like Adrian Vermeule and Patrick Deneen and rising political stars like J.D. Vance, the serving vice president. In the UK, on the other hand, the movement has been pioneered by left-wing thinkers seeking to return lost working-class voters to the Labour Party and return the party itself to its non-urban, communitarian and patriotic roots. In Against Post-Liberalism: Why ‘Family, Faith and Flag’ is a Dead End for the Left (Polity, 2025), Paul Kelly explores this post-liberal strain and concludes that it offers "capitalism without social mobility". "Liberalism is not everything but it’s not supposed to be," he writes. "It doesn't give an account of the meaning of life or the point of the universe. What it does offer is a way of negotiating social change and, hopefully, of ensuring that the burdens of that change fall reasonably equitably on everyone across generations. It looks to the future. It does not lock us into some nostalgia for a world gone by or frustrate our engagement with a future of necessary change". Paul Kelly is Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics. Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who writes and podcasts at 242.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Liberalism may feel as though it has been around forever - as the "dominant ideology of the modern west" - but not even its advocates and detractors can agree what it is. Political sophisticates ask whether it is classical-, social-, ordo- or neo-liberal while American main street associates it with socialism. Yet a new generation of "post-liberal" thinkers know liberalism well enough to want to give it upi or, in most cases, go back to a time - real or imagined - before it took hold.In the US, these political philosophers are mostly Catholic conservatives. In the UK, with one prominent exception, they are largely left-wing Anglicans. In both countries, they tend to be religious and yearn for pre-globalisation communitarian, familial and patriotic certainties.  "Where liberals believe political authority is derived from individuals consenting to be ruled, for post-liberals it comes from serving the common good," writes Matt Sleat in Post-Liberalism (Polity, 2025). His book explores the ideas of the likes of Chad Pecknold, Gladden Pappin, Sohrab Ahmari and post-liberalism's two standout thinkers: Adrian Vermeule and Patrick Deneen.Matt Sleat is Reader in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield.*The author's book recommendations were Power and Powerlessness: The Liberalism of Fear in the Twenty First Century by Edward Hall (OUP Oxford, 2025) and Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press, 2022). Click here to see the full reading list.Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who writes and podcasts at 242.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Edirne was a bustling center linking Istanbul to Ottoman Europe. It was also the capital of Edirne Province—among the most religiously diverse regions of the Ottoman Empire. But by 1923, the city had become a Turkish border town, and the province had lost much of its non-Muslim population. In The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders (Stanford UP, 2025), Jacob Daniels explores how one of the world's largest Sephardi communities dealt with the encroachment of modern borders. Using Ladino, French, English, and Turkish sources, Daniels offers a new take on the ways in which ethno-religious minorities experienced the transition "from empire to nation-state." Rather than tracing a linear path, Edirne Jews zigzagged between the Ottoman Empire and three nation-states—without moving a mile. And by maintaining interstate Sephardi networks, they resisted pressure to treat the shifting border as a limit to their zone of belonging. Ultimately, proximity to the border would undo Edirne's Jewish community, but the way this ending came about—local Jews were rarely killed or deported—challenges common assumptions about state borders and Jewish history. By studying Jewish encounters with the nation-state alongside the emergence of modern borders, Daniels sheds light on both phenomena. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The imposition of Communist ideology was a misfortune for millions in Eastern Europe, but never for Dennis Deletant. Instead, it drew him to Romania. The renowned historian’s association with the country and its people dates back to 1965, when he first visited. Since then, Romania has made Dennis appreciate the value of shrewd dissimulation, in the face of the state’s gross intrusion in the life of the individual. This vivid memoir charts his first-hand experience of the Communist era, coloured by the early 1970s surveillance of his future wife Andrea; his contacts with dissidents; and his articles and BBC World Service broadcasts, which led to his being declared persona non grata in 1988.  In Search of Romania (Hurst, 2022) also considers how life went on under dictatorship, even if it was largely mapped out by the regime. How did individual citizens negotiate the challenges placed in their path? How important was the political police, the Securitate, in maintaining compliance? How did dissent towards the regime manifest? How did all this affect the moral compass of the individual? Why did utopia descend into dystopia under Ceaușescu? And how has his legacy influenced the difficult transition to democracy since the collapse of Communism? Roland Clark is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Liverpool, a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, and the Principal Investigator of an AHRC-funded project on European Fascist Movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Chella Ward talked with Kamran Khan about linguistics, citizenship and belonging. The conversation travelled from the 2001 Northern riots in the UK, to the Prevent policy, all the way to more recent adjustments to the Nationalities and Borders Bill. Khan is currently the director of the MOSAIC research group on multilingualism and an associate professor of language, social justice and education. He also wrote the book “Becoming a Citizen: Linguistic Trials and Negotiations in the UK”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since 2014 more than 32,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. As the EU and its member states have been increasingly prioritising migration deterrence over human life, civic organisations have stepped in and are carrying out search and rescue operations. SOS Humanity is one of these organisations. Janna Sauerteig joins us to talk about the work SOS Humanity and other civilian search and rescue organisations do, the obstacles they face from member states and the EU, the role of the so-called “Libyan Coast Guard”, the ways in which deadly policies are part of the European global and democratic crisis, and possible solutions. The data about deaths in the Mediterranean mentioned in the podcast are from the Missing Migrants Project. We also mentioned the evidence that migrants and even Black residents are rounded up from North African cities and dumped in the desert; this is from a 2024 investigation by El Pais (in Spanish) and Lighthouse Reports (in English). Transcript of episode here. Guest: Janna Sauerteig is Mobilization and Advocacy Manager at SOS Humanity. Their latest report “Borders of (In)humanity”, published this May, demonstrates the connection between the EU’s migration externalisation policies and human rights violations in the Central Mediterranean, namely through EU and bilateral cooperation with Libya and Tunisia in the field of search and rescue. The report is based on survivors’ testimonies which collected by SOS Humanity. Presenter: Licia Cianetti is Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham and Founding Deputy 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2009, the body of a former president of the Republic of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, was stolen from his grave. The Time of the Cannibals reconsiders this history and the public discourse on it to reconsider how we think about conspiracy theory, and specifically, what it means to understand conspiracy theories “in context.” The months after Papadopoulos’s body was stolen saw intense public speculation in Cyprus, including widespread expressions of sacrilege, along with many false accusations against Cypriots and foreigners positioned as his political antagonists. Davis delves into the public discourse on conspiracy theory in Cyprus that flourished in the aftermath, tracing theories about the grave robbery to theories about the division of Cyprus some thirty-five years earlier, and both to longer histories of imperial and colonial violence. Along the way, Davis explores cross-contextual connections among Cyprus and other locales, in the form of conspiracy theories as well as political theologies regarding the dead bodies of political leaders. Through critical close readings of academic and journalistic approaches to conspiracy theory, Davis shows that conspiracy theory as an analytic object fails to sustain comparative analysis, and defies any general theory of conspiracy theory. What these approaches accomplish instead, she argues, is the perpetuation of ethnocentrism in the guise of contextualization. The Time of the Cannibals: On Conspiracy Theory and Context (Fordham UP, 2024) asks what better kind of contextualization this and any “case” call for, and proposes the concept of conspiracy attunement: a means of grasping the dialogic contexts in which conspiracy theories work recursively as matters of political and cultural significance in the long durée. Elizabeth Anne Davis is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. Her research and writing, grounded in the European horizons and the Ottoman history of the Greek-speaking world, focus on the intersections of psyche, body, history, and power. She is also the author of Bad Souls: Madness and Responsibility in Modern Greece (2012, Duke Press) and Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (2023, Duke Press). Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, development studies, hope studies, and ecological anthropology. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historic quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfurt, had to be rebuilt almost completely. They are now centers of peace and civility that attract millions of tourists, but the stories they tell about places, peoples, and nations are selective. They are never the whole story. These old towns and their turbulent histories have been key sites in Europe’s ongoing theater of politics and war. Exploring seven old towns, from Frankfurt and Prague to Vilnius in Lithuania, the acclaimed writer Marek Kohn examines how they have been used since the Second World War to conceal political tensions and reinforce certain versions of history. Uncovering hidden stories behind these old and old-seeming façades in The Stories Old Towns Tell: A Journey through Cities at the Heart of Europe (Yale University Press, 2023), Dr. Kohn offers us a new understanding of the politics of European history-making—showing how our visits to old towns could promote belonging over exclusion, and empathy over indifference. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I’m speaking with Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus on her 2020 book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2020). Bullshit is a feature of both democracies and dictatorships alike, but it takes different forms. In democracies, while citizens enjoy the freedom of speech and the right to vote, a range of forces often conspire to limit their real power in favor of competing elites. The political and economic elite’s toolkit includes the art of bullshit—the persuasive use of language without regard for truth. Whether meritocratic or populist, elites alike have mastered this form of manipulation, amplified by modern tools of dissemination and authority. To help us understand the challenges that bullshit poses to democratic citizens, I’m pleased to welcome Hélène Landemore. Hélène Landemore is a professor of political science at Yale University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For three years following the Russian Revolution, the small South Caucasian country of Georgia was a democracy, but Stalin later ordered the Red Army to invade and to bring the country back under Russian rule. Communist attacks on political opponents, trade unions, cooperatives, and even the church sparked resistance, and an armed uprising broke out across the nation in 1924. It was swiftly crushed, with massacres of thousands, including hostages. Social Democratic and Labor parties across Europe reacted with shock and indignation. Soviet opponents began to describe communism as “red fascism” and their own movement as “democratic socialism.” What followed—including Socialist support for the creation of NATO—resulted from the Georgian uprising and its aftermath. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine a century later, the long-forgotten Georgian experience examined in The August Uprising, 1924: The Georgian Anti-Soviet Revolt and the Birth of Democratic Socialism (McFarland, 2025) seems more relevant than ever. The website for this book is here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Founded in 1932, the Pērkonkrusts ("Thunder Cross") was the largest and most prominent right-wing political party in Latvia in the early twentieth century. Its motto--"Latvia for Latvians!"--echoed the ultranationalist rhetoric of similar movements throughout Europe at the time. Unlike the Nazis in Germany or the Fascists in Italy, however, the Pērkonkrusts never succeeded in seizing power. Nevertheless, in her book Thunder Cross: Fascist Antisemitism in Twentieth-Century Latvia (U Wisconsin Press, 2025) holocaust historian Paula A. Oppermann argues that the movement left an indelible mark on the country . The antisemitism at the core of the Pērkonkrusts' ideology remained a driving force for Latvian fascists throughout the twentieth century, persisting despite shifting historical and political contexts. Thunder Cross is the most comprehensive study of Latvia's fascist movement in English to date, and the only work that investigates the often neglected continuities of fascist antisemitism after World War II. Formulated as an empirical case study, this book draws on international and interdisciplinary secondary literature and sources in seven languages to broaden our understanding of fascism, antisemitism, and mass violence from Germany and Italy to the larger European context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A podcast from Cornell University’s Brooks School of Public Policy Center on Global Democracy About the Podcast Each week, co-hosts Rachel Beatty Riedl and Esam Boraey bring together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the challenges and possibilities facing democracy around the world. Produced by Cornell’s Center on Global Democracy, Democratic Dialogues bridges academic research with real-world debates — from democratic backsliding and authoritarian resurgence to civic resistance, renewal, and reform. We look at new books, groundbreaking articles, and the ideas reshaping how we understand and practice democracy today. Listen on YouTube, NBN, or wherever you get your podcasts. Episode 1 Pathways of Democratic Backsliding, Resistance, and (Partial) Recoveries This week, we feature an episode with Kenneth Roberts, Jennifer McCoy, and Murat Somer, joining co-hosts Rachel Riedl and Esam Boraey to discuss their collaborative article, “Pathways of Democratic Backsliding, Resistance, and (Partial) Recoveries,” recently published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Together, they unpack how democracies don’t collapse overnight, but instead erode through different pathways — from executive aggrandizement to elite collusion — and how societies can resist or even partially recover. The conversation examines how these dynamics unfold in contexts as varied as Latin America, Turkey, Hungary, and the United States, and what practical lessons citizens and policymakers can draw today. This is an essential conversation for understanding how democracies falter, and how collective action, civic mobilization, and institutional renewal can push them back from the brink. Books, Links, & Articles “Pathways of Democratic Backsliding, Resistance, and (Partial) Recoveries,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2025) Jennifer McCoy & Murat Somer, Pernicious Polarization and Its Global Impact Kenneth Roberts, Populism, Political Mobilization, and the Latin American Left Rachel Beatty Riedl, Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Institutions in Africa Upcoming Episodes Our next episode features Susan C. Stokes (University of Chicago) discussing her book The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies. Stay tuned for an in-depth conversation on why democratic leaders sometimes turn against the institutions that empower them — and what can be done to safeguard democracy in an era of uncertainty. Subscribe and follow us on YouTube and social media for new releases every month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why are illiberal governments able to retain support? How are they defeated at election time? And how do (and should) governments driven by a desire to undo illiberalism proceed? For all interested in elections, democracy, accountability and representation Poland provides much food for thought. We have seen two important elections in the country in the past couple of years with contrasting outcomes. Those two elections can be placed within a wider and deeper story of the fate of democracy in Poland and indeed a broader story about the challenges facing liberal democracy in Europe today. Stanley Bill is Professor of Polish Studies at the University of Cambridge and Ben Stanley is an associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, SWPS University in Warsaw. Tim Haughton is Professor of Comparative and European Politics and a Deputy Director of CEDAR at the University of Birmingham. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do we mean when we talk about antisemitism? A thoughtful, vital new intervention from the award-winning historian. For most of history, antisemitism has been understood as a menace from Europe’s political Right, the province of blood-and-soil ethno-nativists who built on Christendom’s long-standing suspicion of its Jewish population and infused it with racist pseudo-science. Such threats culminated in the nightmare of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The landscape is very different now, as Mark Mazower argues in On Antisemitism: A Word in History (Penguin Press, 2025). More than four-fifths of the world’s Jews now live in Israel and the United States, with the former’s military dominance of its region guaranteed by the latter while the loudest voices decrying antisemitism see it coming from the Left not the Right. Mazower clearly and carefully shows us how we got here, seeking to illuminate rather than blame. Very few words have the punch of ‘antisemitism’ and yet no term is more liable to be misunderstood in ways affecting free speech and foreign policy alike. On Antisemitism is a vitally important attempt to draw a line that must be drawn. Mark Mazower is the Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University. Roland Clark is a Reader in Modern European History at the University of Liverpool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices