2017 Government Publications and Grants

Appel, Hilary, and Wendy Chuyi Sheng*. "Putin's Renationalizing Campaign: Fighting Corruption or Forcing Officials' Loyalty.” PONARS Policy Memo, no. 483, August 2017.

Abstract: Russia's renationalization campaign was sold as a patriotic, anti-corruption measure, but it was also a means of consolidating power. The restrictions on politicians from holding foreign assets has served to undermine the independence of many prominent political figures and potential defectors, and they enabled the Russian president to pull out from under them a safety net in the West. As a result of this law, officials became more susceptible to the regime and faced more constraints in protecting themselves and their families, should they choose to withdraw their support for the regime and leave the country. This policy memo argues that new restrictions on holding wealth abroad increased political elites' stake in Russia, and in turn contributed to the resilience and endurance of the Putin administration.

Ascher, William. “Keeping the Faith: Policy Sciences as the Gatekeeper.” Policy Sciences, vol. 50, issue 2, 2017, pp. 157-162.

Abstract: An assessment of the criteria for judging public policy analyses as sufficiently rigorous and useful.

Ascher, William. Understanding the Policymaking Process in Developing Countries. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Abstract: An assessment of the questions and indicators that development practitioners need to take into account for constructive interactions with the governments of developing countries, on issues ranging from avoiding policy failures due to distorted implementation, to policies that impose avoidable harm on vulnerable populations. Recommendations for adapting policy initiatives and policymaking institutions to be optimal for developing countries.

Wyeth, George, William Ascher, and Garry Brewer. “Gold and Green Together: Solving the Challenges of Corporate-NGO Partnerships.” Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Ecosystems Committee Newsletter, vol. 20, no. 1, 2017, pp. 8-13. American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources.

Abstract: Summary of the task force report on partnerships between environmental NGOs and corporations, conducted by the Roberts Environmental Center and an international task force co-chaired by Professor Garry Brewer.

Bessette, Joseph M. “"The Imperial Executive in Constitutional Democracy: Exploring the Powers-Duties Distinction.” The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution, edited by Gary Schmitt, Joseph M. Bessette, and Andrew E. Busch, Lexington Books, 2017, pp. 145-166.

Bessette, Joseph M. "More Justice, Less Crime.” Review of Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform, by John Pfaff, and Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration, by David Dagan and Steven Teles. Claremont Review of Books, vol. XVII, no. 3, 2017.

Abstract: A review essay that challenges the arguments of these two books that incarceration rates in the United States can be lowered by large amounts without jeopardizing public safety.

Bessette, Joseph M. and Kenneth P. Miller. "Amending the Amendment Provisions of the Illinois Constitution." An Illinois Constitution for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Joseph E. Tabor, Illinois Policy Institute, 2017, pp. 263-280.

Abstract: This essay examines the provisions of the Illinois Constitution governing amending the Constitution in light of the key principles of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism. It maintains that the current Illinois Constitution makes amendments so difficult to enact that it violates popular sovereignty. It proposes a mechanism for amending the state constitution that would respect popular sovereignty while promoting the rule of deliberative majorities.

Feser, Edward and Joseph M. Bessette. By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment. Ignatius Press, 2017.

Abstract: Drawing upon a wealth of philosophical, scriptural, theological, and social scientific arguments, the authors explain the perennial teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate -- not only to protect society from immediate physical danger but also to administer retributive justice and to deter capital crimes. The authors show how some recent statements by Church leaders in opposition to the death penalty are prudential judgments rather than dogma. They reaffirm that Catholics may, in good conscience, disagree about the application of the death penalty.

Schmitt, Gary, Joseph M. Bessette, and Andrew E. Busch, eds. The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Abstract: Incorporating a variety of perspectives, this volume of original essays examines the critical issue of whether our recent presidents have exceeded their proper constitutional authorities. It analyzes the president's role in the administrative state, as commander-in-chief and as occupant of the modern "Bully Pulpit," and, in separate essays, addresses the relationship of recent presidents to Congress and the courts.

Blitz, Mark. Heidegger's Being and Time & The Possibility of Political Philosophy, with a New Afterword by the Author. Paul Dry Books, 2017

Abstract: Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) challenged earlier thinking about the basic structures of human being, our involvement in practical affairs, and our understanding of history, time, and being. Blitz clarifies Heidegger’s discussions, offers alternative analyses of phenomena central to Heidegger’s argument, and examines the connection between Heidegger’s position in Being and Time and his support of Nazism. As Blitz explains in his new afterword, “When I began to study Martin Heidegger nearly fifty years ago, my goal was to explore the meaning of Being and Time for political philosophy. I wished to discover what it might offer for clarifying the grounds on which the basic concepts and alternatives of political philosophy rest. Would a close reading of it help us understand the questions of justice, freedom, the common good, natural rights, virtue, human happiness, and the philosophic life? These questions are as important today as they were then.” Although Blitz often questions and criticizes Heidegger’s views, he presents them with scrupulous care and clarity. Specialists and students in the areas of political theory, phenomenology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy will find Heidegger’s Being and Time & the Possibility of Political Philosophy an invaluable resource.

Blitz, Mark, ed. “Leo Strauss Course Transcript, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.” Edited and with an introduction by Mark Blitz, with the assistance of Jay Michael Hoffpauir and Gayle McKeen. The Leo Strauss Center, University of Chicago, 2017. Translated into Chinese and published as book, Hermes, 2017.

Blitz, Mark. “Machiavelli’s Common Good.” Review of Machiavelli’s Politics, by Catherine Zuckert. Law and Liberty, August 14, 2017.

Blitz, Mark. “Stand on Tradition: Life, Liberty, and the European Perspective.” Review of The Anglo American Tradition of Liberty, by Joao Espada. Weekly Standard, March 20, 2017.

Busch, Andrew E. "Congressional Representation and Contemporary Critiques." Is Congress Broken? The Virtues and Defects of Partisanship and Gridlock, edited by William F. Connelly, Jr., John J. Pitney, Jr., and Gary J. Schmitt. Brookings/American Enterprise Institute, 2017, pp. 37-56.

Abstract: This chapter examines three possible historical critiques of representation in the contemporary Congress. Federalists, antifederalists, and early twentieth century progressives could have had somewhat overlapping but generally distinct critiques.

Busch, Andrew E. "Fascism in America?" Claremont Review of Books Digital, September 12, 2017.

Abstract: This op-ed takes a historic look at the doctrine of fascism to test it against varying extremist forces operating in America today.

Busch, Andrew E. “Introduction.” The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution, edited by Gary Schmitt, Joseph M. Bessette, and Andrew E. Busch. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 1-4.

Abstract: This introductory essay lays out key contemporary questions regarding presidential power and summarizes each of the chapters in the book, which originated as conference papers at a conference Joe, Gary, and I organized.

Busch, Andrew E. "The Many Consequences of Health Care Failure." Claremont Review of Books Digital, August 10, 2017,

Abstract: This op-ed argued that Republicans' failure to pass a substitute for Obamacare would not only have serious negative political consequences for them but negative political, economic, health, and even national security consequences for the country.

Busch, Andrew E. "Resolved: Political Parties Should Nominate Candidates for the Presidency Through a National Primary: Con." Debating the Presidency: Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive, fourth edition, edited by Richard J. Ellis and Michael Nelson. Sage/CQ Press, 2017, pp. 1985-1993.

Abstract: This is a revised version, taking into account events in 2016, of a chapter appearing in previous editions of this volume. The chapter argues against a national primary mode of presidential nomination on the grounds that it multiplies many of the problems of primary front-loading and might not be within the constitutional authority of Congress to mandate.

Ceaser, James W., Andrew E. Busch, and John J. Pitney Jr. Defying the Odds: The 2016 Elections and American Politics. Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.

Abstract: This book examined the elections of 2016, including political background, Democratic and Republican nomination contests, the general election between Trump and Clinton, congressional and state elections, and political and institutional aftermath.

Schmitt, Gary, Joseph M. Bessette, and Andrew E. Busch, eds. The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Abstract: The volume is based on a conference held in late 2015 bringing together a wide range of notable scholars on the presidency who presented papers on topics such as the presidency and Congress, the presidency and the bureaucracy, presidency and courts, presidential rhetoric, and war powers.

Camp, Roderic Ai. "A Democratic Paradox: More Governability, Less Trust.” Democracy and Its Discontents in Latin America, edited by Joe Foweraker and Dolores Trevizo, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2017, pp. 223-240.

Abstract: This chapter explores multiple policy issues facing Mexico today, and analyzes their impact on its ability to achieve a consolidated, functional democracy.

Camp, Roderic Ai. Mexico: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Abstract: In this outstanding contribution to Oxford's acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know, Roderic Ai Camp gives readers the most essential information about our sister republic to the south. Camp organizes chapters around major themes--security and violence, economic development, foreign relations, the colonial heritage, and more. He asks questions that take us beyond the headlines: Why does Mexico have so much drug violence? What was the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement? How democratic is Mexico? Who were Benito Juárez and Pancho Villa? What is the PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party)? The answers are sometimes surprising. Despite ratification of NAFTA, for example, Mexico has fallen behind Brazil and Chile in economic growth and rates of poverty. Camp explains that lack of labor flexibility, along with low levels of transparency and high levels of corruption, make Mexico less competitive than some other Latin American countries. The drug trade, of course, enhances corruption and feeds on poverty; approximately 450,000 Mexicans now work in this sector. But Camp reveals that President Calderón's recent assault on narcotics smugglers--and the violence resulting from it--may have actually lessened the government's control of parts of the country and national institutions. Brisk, clear, and informed, Mexico: What Everyone Needs To Know offers a valuable primer for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of our neighbor to the South.

Camp, Roderic Ai and William Beezley. Formal Interview, Cecilia G. González Soto, Presidential Candidate of the Labor Party, 1994, video-taped hour long interview for edited digital recording in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, editor, Bill Beezley, Grant from Oxford University Press and the Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Mexico City, February, 2017. Video can be viewed online.

Abstract: In an interview conducted by historian William Beezley and political scientist Roderic Camp, Cecilia Soto González (a leading member of Congress and Mexico’s first female presidential candidate to receive nearly 1 million votes) discusses her work to make government more democratic for its residents.

Camp, Roderic Ai and William Beezley. Formal Interview, Jaime Serra Puche, Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Treasury, 1988-1994, video-taped hour long interview for edited digital recording in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, editor, Bill Beezley. Grant from Oxford University Press and the Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Mexico City, February, 2017. Video can be viewed online.

Abstract: In an interview conducted by historian William Beezley and political scientist Roderic Camp, eminent Mexican economist Jaime Serra Puche discusses his role in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the revised tax law, and the nation's first Anti-Trust Legislation and federal trade commission to enforce it.

Camp, Roderic Ai and William Beezley. Formal Interview, Senator Ernesto Ruffo Appel, first opposition party Governor in Mexico from 1929 to 1989, video-taped hour long interview for edited digital recording in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, editor, Bill Beezley, Grant from Oxford University Press and the Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Mexico City, May, 2017. Video can be viewed online.

Abstract: In an interview conducted by historian William Beezley and political scientist Roderic Camp, Ernesto Ruffo, a senator from Baja California del Norte, discusses his career as a political outsider from Mexico’s north and his unique campaign style, which has been dubbed “Ruffismo.”

Lynch, Frederick R. “Why Trump Supporters Distrust Immigration and Diversity.” New York Times, August 4, 2017.

Bessette, Joseph M. and Kenneth P. Miller. "Amending the Amendment Provisions of the Illinois Constitution." An Illinois Constitution for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Joseph E. Tabor, Illinois Policy Institute, 2017, pp. 263-280.

Abstract: This essay examines the provisions of the Illinois Constitution governing amending the Constitution in light of the key principles of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism. It maintains that the current Illinois Constitution makes amendments so difficult to enact that it violates popular sovereignty. It proposes a mechanism for amending the state constitution that would respect popular sovereignty while promoting the rule of deliberative majorities.

External Grant: Miller, Kenneth P., Smith Richardson Foundation, Domestic Public Policy Program: Laboratories of Democracy: “Texas v. California and the Future of America,” December 2017-November 30, 2018.

Abstract: Political polarization has become a defining feature of domestic policymaking in the United States. At the federal level, polarization creates gridlock because Republicans and Democrats are so evenly matched in Washington, D.C. that often they can disrupt each other's policy initiatives. At the state level, however, polarization is producing different results. Partisan sorting along sectional lines has created a growing number of states that strongly identify as either "red" or "blue." In these states, one party has achieved enough dominance that it can pursue many policy goals without effective resistance by the other side. Driven by rival ideologies, red and blue states are choosing starkly different approaches to a broad range of critical policy challenges. As part of this state-level polarization, the nation's two most populous states, California and Texas, have staked out positions as the leading models of blue and red state governance, respectively. This book will provide new perspectives on these competing models by offering a detailed comparative analysis of these two states. It will explore the historical factors that have caused Texas and California to polarize politically; examine the premises that now guide their approaches to policy; analyze how policy makers apply the competing models to a range of specific domestic policy issues (including fiscal policy, labor law, energy and the environment, health and welfare, criminal justice, immigration, education, and social policies); and draw conclusions about the two systems' comparative advantages and dangers.

Nadon, Christopher. "Leo Strauss' Critique of the Political in a Sinophone Context." Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in the Chinese Speaking World, edited by Kai Marchel and Carl K.Y. Shaw, Lexington, 2017, pp. 151-171.

Abstract: In this article I show how Leo Strauss' critique of Carl Schmitt informs the work of one of China's leading political theorists, Liu Xiaofeng.

Nadon, Christopher. "Self-Restraint in the Executive: Lincoln and Emancipation." The Weekly Standard, March 27, 2017.

Abstract: Using Lincoln as a case study, I show how traditional constitutional checks still require self-restraint in the office of the US President.

Nichols, James H. "Two Traditions of Liberalism.” Review of The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A View from Europe, by João Carlos Espada. Journal of Democracy, vol. 28, no. 1, 2017, pp. 172-175.

External Grant: External Grant: Nichols, James H., Bradley Foundation grant, $25,000, for Bradley Research Fellowships, 2016-2018.
Note: Awarded in 2016 but not included in 2016 Celebration

Funds are awarded by Prof. Nichols to graduate students studying political philosophy at Claremont Graduate University.

Pears, Emily. "Chords of Affection: A Theory of National Political Attachments in the American Founding." American Political Thought, vol. 6, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-29.

Abstract: In this paper I introduce the concept of political attachment as a fundamental problem for political foundings. Political attachments refer to the loyalty, identity, and commitment between an individual and their government. I argue that founders of democratic or republican regimes are often faced with the task of constructing political attachments to ensure that their citizenry will properly support and obey the new government once it is created. I utilize the example of the American founding to identify and describe three distinct theories of how attachments can be purposefully constructed. I then briefly identify how each of these theories was utilized by statesmen in the nineteenth century, and I conclude with analysis of the relative success and failure of each approach, both for the American example and for the construction of regimes more generally.

Pei, Minxin. "China's Return to Strongman Rule." Foreign Affairs, 1 Nov. 2017.

Abstract: This short essay analyzes the process in which Xi Jinping, China's new strongman, consolidated his power at the 19th congress in October 2017 and explores the implications of the return to one-man rule in China.

Pei, Minxin. "The Rise and Fall of the China Model.” Will China's Rise be Peaceful? The Rise of a Great Power in Theory, History, Politics and the Future, edited by Asle Toje, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 163-184.

Abstract: Speculation about the probability of China's conflict with the U.S. assumes continuation of the trends in the last four decades. Such an assumption is questionable because of the internal tensions of China's autocratic development model. This chapter identifies the drivers of China's economic growth for the last four decades and analyses the factors contributing to the erosion of economic dynamism in China. It raises serious questions about the durability of the so-called China Model.

Ceaser, James W., Andrew E. Busch, and John J. Pitney Jr. Defying the Odds: The 2016 Elections and American Politics. Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.

Abstract: The book takes an overview of the 2016 election, including the historical background, the Republican and Democratic nomination contests, elections for Congress and statewide office, and the future of American politics under Trump. In particular it compares and contrasts the 2016 race with the 1992 election.

Connelly, William F., Jr., John Pitney Jr., and Gary J. Schmitt, eds. Is Congress Broken? The Virtues and Defects of Partisanship and Gridlock. Brookings Institute, 2017.

Abstract: A series of essays laying out a Madisonian alternative to the prevailing Wilsonian approach to congressional function and dysfunction.

Pitney, John J., Jr. "Back to the Nixon Future?" Liberty Law Forum, January 17, 2017.

Pitney, John. J., Jr. “I Was a Republican Until Donald Trump Hijacked My Party.” USA Today, May 23, 2017.

Pitney, John J., Jr. "Obama's Legacy: Expectations High." San Diego Union-Tribune, January 27, 2017.

Pitney, John. J., Jr. "Trump the Disloyalist." Politico, July 25. 2017.

Pitney, John J., Jr. "Trump's Fake Science Could Be Lethal." USA Today, January 26, 2017.

Goelzhauser, Greg, and Shanna Rose. "The State of American Federalism 2016-2017: Policy Reversals and Partisan Perspectives on Intergovernmental Relations" Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 47, issue 3, 2017, pp. 285-313.

Abstract: Unified Republican Party control of the federal government after the 2016 election brought a reversal of several Obama administration policies, especially those adopted via executive and administrative action in areas such as immigration, energy, the environment, and LGBT rights. The 2016 election also prompted a reversal of partisan perspectives with respect to federal-state relations, as Republicans in Washington moved to preempt state discretion in various areas, whereas Democrats in state capitols challenged the legality of presidential actions and resisted federal efforts to constrain state and local discretion. In this essay, we discuss these themes through an analysis of developments in 2016 and early 2017 regarding health care, immigration, education, marijuana, and energy and environmental policy. We also consider key U.S. Supreme Court decisions affecting the contours of state policymaking.

Karch, Andrew, and Shanna Rose. "States as Stakeholders: Federalism, Policy Feedback, and Government Elites.” Studies in American Political Development, vol. 31, issue 1, 2017, pp. 47-67.

Abstract: Politicians and program administrators played a central role in early studies of policy feedback but have largely been superseded by a focus on mass publics. This article attempts to revive and reorient the study of elite feedback effects by investigating, in the context of American federalism, whether and how national programs can influence the incentives and resources of state government officials. It examines four case studies in which national officials adopted a new program and subsequently tried to alter it by diminishing the states' administrative role, reducing the financial resources available, or terminating the program. State-level actors emerged as critical stakeholders and strongly resisted national efforts to reform unemployment insurance and Medicaid, but neither the Sheppard-Towner Act nor general revenue sharing generated strong elite-level feedback effects. This variation suggests that timing (i.e., the political, economic, and administrative context), policy design (financial generosity, administrative discretion, duration of authorization, and coalition potential), and their interaction can prompt or discourage government elites to mobilize

Rossum, Ralph. "Can the Supreme Court Check Abuses of Executive Power?" The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution, edited by Gary Schmitt, Joseph M. Bessette, and Andrew E. Busch, Lexington Books, 2017, pp. 75-104.

Abstract: The Obama administration has displayed a consistent willingness to disregard the rule of law and instead enforce its policies by executive fiat and decree. On numerous occasions, President Barack Obama has either engaged in unilateral actions to circumvent or ignore the will of Congress to advance his policy goals, or he has refused to defend, suspended, delayed, or waived portions of the laws he is charged to enforce. His actions stand in sharp contrast to his statements during the 2008 campaign vigorously denouncing President George W. Bush for what he called extreme and indefensible assertions of executive power: "The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president." More importantly, they also raise a serious question concerning our constitutional order: Can the other branches rein in the Obama administration's abuses of power? This paper focuses on one of those branches, the Supreme Court, and asks how effective has it been in checking executive overreach. It concludes that the Court has an important role to play in checking the overreach of the Obama administration and that it has played that role rather well by repeatedly invalidating presidential actions that exceed constitutional or statutory authority. Yet, in addition to the Obama administration's "sins of commission," there are also its "sins of omission" to consider, and when it comes to President Obama's unilateral policymaking through executive inaction, the Court, for reasons spelled out below, has little if any role to play.

Shields, Jon A. Review of Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics, by Mark A. Smith. Journal of Church and State, vol. 59, issue 4, 2017, pp. 707-709.

Shields, Jon A. "When College Classrooms become Ideologically Segregated, Everyone Suffers," NBC THINK, November 8, 2017.

Shields, Jon A. Review of To Whom Do Children Belong: Parental Rights, Civic Education, and Children's Autonomy, by Melissa Moschella. Review of Politics, vol. 79, issue 4, 2017, pp. 735-737.

External Grant: Shields, Jon A. Koch Foundation, $16,000 award to co-teach a new course with Phil Zuckerman, a sociologist at Pitzer, 2017-2018.

The course will assign books by authors who have been disinvited from college campuses. It will be offered for the first time next fall and will be cross listed at CMC and Pitzer.

Shaffer, Greg, James Nedumpara, Aseema Sinha, and Amrita Bahri, "Equalizing Access to the WTO: How Indian Trade Lawyers Build State Capacity.” The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, edited by David B. Wilkins, Vikramaditya S. Khanna, and David M. Trubek, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 631-671.

Abstract: This article explains the impact of India's engagement with the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on both the Indian state and on the WTO itself. In each case, it explains the role of Indian lawyers within the larger transnational context. In engaging with globalization and the WTO, India has transformed itself. The Indian state has moved toward a new developmental state model involving a stronger emphasis on trade, greater government transparency, and the development of public-private coordination mechanisms in which the government plays a steering role. The analysis shows that it has done so not as an autonomous policy choice, but rather in light of the global context in which the WTO and WTO law form an integral part. Reciprocally, the article displays the ways that India has built legal capacity to attempt to shape the construction, interpretation, and practice of the trade legal order. Indian private lawyers play increasing roles, although they remain on tap, not on top.

Sinha, Aseema. Globalizing India: How Global Rules and Markets are Shaping India’s Rise to Power, South Asia Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Abstract: India’s recent economic transformation has fascinated scholars, global leaders, and interested observers alike. In 1990, India was a closed economy and a hesitant and isolated economic power. By 2016, India has rapidly risen on the global economic stage; foreign trade now drives more than half of the economy and Indian multinationals pursue global alliances. Focusing on second-generation reforms of the late 1990s, Aseema Sinha explores what fascinated global integration in a self-reliant country predisposed to nationalist ideas. The author argues that globalization has affected trade policy as well as India’s trade capacities and private sector reform. India should no longer be viewed solely through a national lens; globalization is closely linked to the ambitions of a rising India. The study uses fieldwork undertaken in Geneva, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Washington, DC, interviews with business and trade officials, alongside a close analysis of the textile and pharmaceutical industries and a wide range of documentary and firm-level evidence to let diverse actors speak in their own voices.

Sinha, Aseema. "Political Economy of India." Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science, edited by Sandy Maisel, Oxford University Press, 2017.

Abstract: This is an annotated bibliography paper of 10,000 words. I organized all relevant citations into themes related to the political economy of India and provided abstracts for each citation. It was a lot of work and took quite a lot of time.

Sinha, Aseema. "Understanding Change and Continuity in India's Foreign Policy." Review of The US Pivot and Indian Foreign Policy: Asia’s Evolving Balance of Power, by Harsh V. Pant and Yogesh Joshi, India at the Global High Table: The Quest for Regional Primacy and Strategic Autonomy, by Tersita C. Schaffer and Howard B. Schaffer, and The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, edited by David M. Malone, C. Raja Mohan, and Srinath Raghavan. International Affairs, vol. 93, issue 1, 2017, pp., 189-198.

Abstract: This was a review essay of three prominent books on Indian foreign policy. Implicitly, if not explicitly, the books reviewed here open the way for a much-needed new paradigm of foreign policy analysis. Although none move towards building a new framework for understanding India's changing orientation, they are suggestive of the need for one--I suggest some elements of what such a framework would look like in this article.

Sinha, Aseema. "Understanding India as a Rising Power: An Open Economy and Interdependence Framework.” The World Financial Review, February 15 2017.

Abstract: This was an article commissioned for a prominent financial magazine. The article put India's recent foreign policy decisions into a larger context explaining how global ambitions and the logic of globalization has begun to shape its interests and strategies.

Thomas, George. The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind. Cambridge University Press, paperback, 2017.

Abstract: This book examines the ideas of the founders with regard to establishing a national university and what those ideas say about their understanding of America. It offers the first study on the idea of a national university and how the founders understood it as an important feature in an educational system that would sustain the American experiment in democracy. Their ideas about education suggest that shaping the American mind is essential to the success of the Constitution and that this is something that future generations would need to continue to do.

Thomas, George. "Reframing Constitutional Law: Liberalism, Public Justification, and Same-Sex Marriage." Review of Beyond Race, Sex, and Sexual Orientation: Legal Equality without Identity, by Sonu Bedi, and Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage, by Stephen Macedo. Polity, vol. 49, no. 2, 2017, pp. 301-323.

Thomas, George. “Can Liberal Democracy Survive Capitalism?” Critical Review, vol. 29, issue 4, 2017, pp. 530-544.

Abstract: Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy captures the unique blend of politics and economics, along with a particular culture and civil society, that are characteristic of liberal democracy. Commercial and economic activity have been so crucial to liberal democracy that it has often been characterized as “commercial republicanism,” and Schumpeter referred to it with justification as “bourgeois democracy.” Schumpeter’s view, which is too often characterized as simply elitist, can be situated in the realist tradition, offering a helpful corrective to simplistic understandings of democracy, such as populist understandings, that are at odds with the promise of liberal democracy. Yet while Schumpeter thought that capitalism would collapse under its own contradictions, and wondered if democracy could survive without it, today global capitalism looks unstoppable. It is bourgeois democracy that looks fragile, not because of the collapse of capitalism, as Schumpeter predicted, but because of its success. Can liberal democracy survive if global capitalism undermines the middle class on which it depends?