What We Are Reading

Although I have lived in Ohio my entire life, "Remember the Alamo" is a phrase I knew before I could find San Antonio — let alone the state of Texas — on a map. I can still picture my younger brother running around the yard in his cowboy hat with a toy pistol, shouting those words as he defended my imaginary attacks on his "land," which was really just an old wooden fort built by our home’s previous owners. The Texas Revolution is taught to American students as an inspiring point in our nation’s history when colonists braving the frontier took a stand for democracy against Mexican dictatorship. What started as an exploration of tribal lands turned into a fight for the traditional American values of autonomy and freedom. As the Texan authors of "Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth" reveal, however, the Battle of the Alamo was little more than yet another flash in the U.S.'s efforts to maintain the institution of slavery. 

Co-authors Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford revive the story of the Alamo by turning the folklore legend into a sobering recount of what happened on that battlefield in 1836 — and how the promulgation of what the authors label as the "Heroic Anglo Narrative" supported a continuous fight over the Alamo that has lasted over the course of American history. "Forget the Alamo" relates the story of two battles that took place at the Spanish compound; one between the Mexican army led by Antonio López de Santa Anna and the Alamo Defenders (comprised of Texans of Anglo-American and Tejano descent alike) and another between cultures, educators and Lone Star residents over the public portrayal of what the Texas Revolution was really about.

Readers explore characters who have shaped the history of the Alamo: the "heroic" legends, Davy Crockett, James Bowie and William B. Travis; the fiery women of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas fighting over site preservation; big Hollywood names like John Wayne and D.W. Griffith (the director of "The Birth of a Nation"); and even English star Phil Collins' contributions to the museum in Alamo Plaza. Burrough, Tomlinson and Stanford extend the timeline of the Battle of the Alamo beyond that 13-day siege in 1836 into today’s polarized politics, writing with liveliness and a particular, yet successful, style of dry humor that is often lacking in historical works. 

The first section of the book analyzes the details of the Battle of the Alamo itself and the days leading up to it — only without the popular rhetoric framing the story as a traditional American fight for freedom and democracy. Instead, the authors argue that the Texas Revolution broke out because Anglo-American colonists living on Mexican territory rebelled against the laws of the Mexican government prohibiting the institution of slavery (which was what the colony’s economy relied upon). The "Holy Trinity" of San Antonio (Travis, Bowie, and Crockett) was composed of men who perhaps did not fight as valiantly as our history books suggest. What the authors deem an avoidable "single hourlong mismatch" quickly turned into "the great creation myth of Texas" that has only recently begun to get unraveled by other voices with a different understanding of the battle.

The authors dedicate the remainder of their book to the ensuing fight over the preservation of the site and representation of the men who died there. Through glorifying accounts of the battle, ranging from Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett television series to T.R. Fehrenbach’s beloved Lone Star history book (which the authors dub "the Torah of the Heroic Anglo Narrative"), the legend of the Alamo continues to demonize Mexicans for the death of white Americans. Historical preservationists, politicians and school teachers reinforce this "traditionalist" narrative in Texan society — with complete disregard for the Latino community making up a majority of the San Antonio population, many of whom can recall being shamefully discredited as true Americans upon their first elementary school lesson on the battle. Figures of authority distort the definition of who is the unjust invader of foreign lands by ignoring the fact that Americans living in San Antonio in 1836 were living under the legal jurisdiction of the Mexican government. Revisionist scholarship has only gained visibility in recent decades and continues to face formidable backlash from proponents of the "Heroic Anglo Narrative," who deem white Americans as the true victors of the Alamo. 

"Forget the Alamo" is a critical work in understanding how the most recognizable moments in American history directly contributed to generations of prejudice and misinformation. Burrough, Tomlinson and Stanford continue to lift a veil that has hindered our nation’s ability to reconcile with a past built on the notion that white America is entitled to freely take land from others and decimate other communities and cultures in the process. This book calls readers to critically examine the consequences of continuing to let Americans, especially youth, remember the Alamo as it is conveyed in textbooks or on television. The authors’ use of a gripping, animated literary style (while maintaining a certain frankness breaking down the great mystique surrounding the Alamo narrative) makes for an intimate and appealing read. In the midst of our nation’s debate over what should be taught in public schools, and how those subjects should be taught, Burrough, Tomlinson and Stanford’s "Forget the Alamo" is a necessary read for those interested in revisiting American myths that have too easily turned into false realities. 

Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford. "Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of An American Myth." Penguin Books, 2021. ISBN 9781984880116. 416 pages.

"The World: A Brief Introduction" first struck me as an oxymoronic title. With a globe full of unique histories, varying politics, and contrasting values squeezed into 300 pages, would I find an extraordinarily dense word soup or a book that has to inadequately skim over the modern world to address its broad scope? Or, could Richard Haass, advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, successfully condense global politics in fewer pages than a Harry Potter book? The answer is somewhere in between, with a clear and intelligent analysis of world issues. Still, by its nature, the book has to breeze through topics.

"The World," as Haass explains, has one key goal: helping the reader become globally literate. The book is not written specifically for scholars, but for bright readers whose specialties lay elsewhere and want to speak more knowledgeably about world politics. In order to avoid writing a book thicker than it is wide, Haass keeps history to a minimum, devoting the first section to just the indispensable events. Here, he traces the roots of today’s modern world order back to the institutional upheaval at the end of World War I. After concluding the abridged military and geopolitical evolution of the world, Haass continues with chapters on distinct global issues, from nuclear proliferation to the internet to trade. Each chapter has subsections discussing the relationship between the issue and a specific world region. These pages are not designed to fully encompass every detail, but are jumping-off points covering a topic’s fundamentals. For example, in the chapter on development, he discusses the definition, differences between the developed and developing world, the main strategies for fostering it, and the side-effects of state development in rapid time (such as growing illiberalism in China). He concludes by recommending further readings for those compelled to dig deeper into specifics. Most chapters end with a future outlook, drawing comparisons between topics and analyzing potential developments or challenges. The book is far from dry; while being less like an encyclopedia reduces the amount of information that one chapter can cover, Haass’ fluid writing style makes for a more engaging reading experience.

Although "The World" generally sticks to apolitical explanations rather than analyzing policy, Haass does make an exception by regularly arguing for the benefits of greater global cooperation. Most chapters end up making this point and stressing the importance of international partnership, particularly when it comes to properly functioning global institutions and laws. In such discussions, he does an excellent job pairing data visualizations with the content. Haass covers all the basics of international relations in practice, with introductions to the most vital agreements and treaties. Despite common themes throughout, each chapter is written to stand alone, which is useful for refreshing a single issue or region without having to read the entire book. "The World" stays grounded in its approach, focusing mostly on current global realities rather than analyzing through the lens of political philosophy.

The readability of the book does not prevent it from delivering a diversity of information. Certain sections do go into more detail, but a reader should expect bird’s eye views as opposed to theory and textbook-level analysis of issues. This, however, might be a selling point to someone new to geopolitics or international relations. “Brief” is in the title for a reason, so readers should not expect it to be more than advertised. For anyone looking to solidify their understanding of the globe, "The World" is an excellent place to start. Its value emerges from guiding the reader into further research, not from replacing it.

Richard Haass. "The World: A Brief Introduction." Penguin Books, 2021. ISBN 9780399562419 (ppk). Also available for Kindle.

They are “still grabbing me at the fucking throat,” Tiffany Thomas-Lopez told Amos Guiora while recounting her experience as a survivor of sexual assault at the hands of Larry Nassar. But it was not Nassar who Thomas-Lopez was describing in this conversation. It was another actor essential to the ability of predators like Nassar to continue abusing: the enabler. In "Armies of Enablers," Guiora argues that to provide justice to victims of sexual assault, enabling must be recognized as a criminal act. 

Guiora’s research is deeply rooted in his personal history as the child of Holocaust survivors. His career began with the question, “How did they let this happen?” in the context of bystanders of the Holocaust and later transitioned to contemporary bystanders. "Armies of Enablers," published in 2020, is the latest addition to his study of bystanders and enablers of sexual assault.

I had the privilege of interviewing Professor Guiora when he visited Kenyon, his alma mater. In our conversation (and throughout the book), he often stopped to highlight a specific survivor’s story. Guiora took the time to work one-on-one with survivors, gaining their trust. In "Armies of Enablers," he does not censor survivors’ anger and raw emotions. Guiora says that sharing exactly what survivors say — profanity and all — is essential to truly listening to them. In our conversation, he said that we must “let survivors speak in their own language,” and above all, believe them. The anger and pain of survivors is what motivates him, and it certainly moved me as I read his book. The voices of survivors were just as clear and powerful as Guiora’s voice, which seems fitting given that many survivors have been ignored, manipulated or silenced by enablers of their abuse.

In the first half of the book, Guiora outlines the different guilty actors involved in sexual assault: the predator, the bystander, and the enabler. The predator commits the assault. Bystanders and enablers both facilitate the harm caused by the predator. The bystander witnesses the assault and chooses to do nothing. Oftentimes, the bystander and the victim do not have a previous relationship. The enabler, on the other hand, is an individual who chooses to protect the predator instead of protecting the victim, often allowing the predator to continue to do more harm. 

Guiora explains that to survivors, the enabler’s betrayal can be incredibly hurtful and frustrating. In the context of athletics, a coach is supposed to listen, provide support, and protect their athletes. This can make the betrayal of a coach who backs a predator extremely painful for survivors. Guiora highlights the case of Tiffany Thomas-Lopez, a survivor of Larry Nassar (former physician at Michigan State University). Thomas-Lopez told her trainer, Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, that Nassar had been sexually assaulting her. Instead of protecting Thomas-Lopez, Technor-Hauk protected Nassar and the institution, casting doubt on the report and trying to convince her that the abuse was simply part of the treatment. Thomas-Lopez told Guiora how vulnerable and isolated being ignored made her feel: “Nassar had a fucking army and I had nothing but my talent.” After being ignored by her trainers, Thomas-Lopez continued to be abused by Nassar, and ended up quitting the sport she loved. Teachnor-Hauk’s dismissive, manipulative enabling of Nassar is not an isolated case. Guiora argues that she is part of an “army” of enablers in a variety of contexts, from college athletics to the Catholic Church. These enablers allow countless predators to continue to abuse, producing more and more victims.  

In the second half of the book, Guiora provides a solution, or at least a starting point, to address the wrongdoings of enablers of sexual assault. He outlines existing bystander Duty to Act legislation, arguing that it is a logical precursor to enabler Duty to Act legislation. Guiora tackles the complicated relationship between the law and morality. He sees the law as a codification of society’s morals. In other words, the law and morality are not in conflict but in fact complement each other. 

Guiora believes that we should criminalize the enabler of sexual assault. Doing so would send a clear message: that our society values protecting victims and ending sexual abuse. He outlines certain characteristics of such legislation. Guiora argues that liability should apply to all individuals, not just those in specific societal positions, such as teachers or social workers, who the law designates as “mandatory reporters.” In terms of who should be protected by the law, he believes all victims of sexual assault or abuse should be protected, not just the “most vulnerable” like children, the elderly, or the mentally disabled. He also recommends requiring immediate reporting to stop the abuse as quickly as possible, and limiting exemptions in the law. Guiora seeks to deter enabling by using civil liabilities, fines, and imprisonment to punish people who fail to report. He argues that criminalizing the enabler would punish that person’s negligence, while also deterring future enablers. Guiora’s focus on the enabler in cases of sexual assault reframed the way I see the path towards justice for survivors. Predators would not be able to continue to abuse for years and years were it not for the protection provided by enablers. 

Guiora repeatedly returns to individual survivors like Tiffany Thomas-Lopez and their stories. Through the examination of cases at Michigan State, The Ohio State, USA Gymnastics and the Catholic Church, Guiora’s survivor-centered approach is compelling and deeply moving. Armies of Enablers is an essential read for those looking to educate themselves on sexual assault and legal solutions. Through vivid survivor stories, Guiora illustrates the consequences of inaction, ultimately leaving readers with a clear message: enough is enough. 

Amos Guiora. "Armies of Enablers: Survivor Stories of Complicity and Betrayal in Sexual Assaults." ABA Publishing, 2020. ISBN: 9781641057349. 258 pages.

Although "The Last Days of El Comandante" is not told from the perspective of Hugo Chávez, the late president of Venezuela, and none of the protagonists actually come face-to-face with him, by the end of the novel the reader feels that they know him very well. Author Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a professor of literature who also wrote the premiere biography on Chávez, does a masterful job of showing how in authoritarian states like Venezuela, the all-powerful dictator is omnipresent in the lives of every citizen. Like a good mystery novel, the book switches back and forth between the perspectives of characters who have seemingly nothing in common: Miguel, a retired oncologist; Andreína, an apartment-owner; Freddy, a journalist; María, a little girl; and Madeleine, an American journalist. But slowly and with great suspense, Barrera Tyszka reveals that the common thread in their lives is Chávez, who is increasingly absent from public life as he succumbs to cancer. The English version of this novel, translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey and Jessie Mendez Sayer, was released in 2020.

There are a few reasons why I found this to be a particularly fascinating read as an American. The first is that one of the novel’s biggest themes is charisma. There is much discussion of Chávez’s magnetism; his ability to completely capture the attention of every audience that he speaks to. Living in a time when American politics is dominated by larger-than-life personas with their own accompanying cults of personality, it is useful to read this novel as a case study for how those cults form and operate. The second way that I found this novel useful was to better my understanding of politics in authoritarian states. As someone who has spent my entire life living in a liberal democracy, something I could never wrap my head around was how people could genuinely support strongmen like Chávez — who rig elections and silence dissidents. Barrera Tyszka uses his characters to show how Chávez’s charisma and brand of populism made the previously-downtrodden feel heard, and this allowed them to look past the corruption and malfeasance of his regime.

"The Last Days of El Comandante" also offers a glimpse into a deeply polarized society, where each citizen’s opinions about the ailing dictator form an important pillar of their identity. You are either a Chávista or a squalid (an insulting name that Chávez gave to his detractors, which they in turn proudly adopted). As one of the few Venezuelans in the middle who does not proclaim allegiance to either side, Miguel finds himself torn between his squalid wife and Chávista brother. The novel also shows how instability at the top of the regime can bleed down and affect even the most basic functions of the state. The senseless murder of María’s mother shows how the state is no longer able to guarantee the safety of its citizens, and Andreína’s story, of having to squat to regain control of her apartment, shows how the state can no longer protect the private property of its citizens. While the novel’s characters are fictional, the problems that they encounter are very real and continue to afflict people in Venezuela and other authoritarian states. The novel exposes one of the greatest weaknesses of these regimes: that they often collapse like a house of cards as soon as the dictator dies.

Alberto Barrera Tyszka, "The Last Days of El Comandante," translated by Rosalind Harvey and Jessie Mendez Sayer. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781477316573 (print) and 9781477321041 (ebook). 248 pages.

Not being a history buff, I thought that ‘83 Kenyon alum Michael Green’s book, "By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783," posed a monumental challenge. When the hefty book arrived in my hands, it pulled me down towards the ground. Your first thought about this book might be that on a bookshelf, it would be an impressive centerpiece; like an encyclopedia, it would make itself known, make its own home, and settle in. 

First thoughts can be deceptive. This award-winning book will not settle on your bookshelf, because it is hard to put down. Green’s argument is compelling: the United States’ foreign policy towards the Asia-Pacific region was not divined; it was the result of careful leaders and policy choices tracing back to 1783. Green identifies five central tensions that the United States has continually faced in this region and that help explain some of the pendulum swings in foreign policy decisions over the past two centuries. 

One of these tensions, for example, is that the United States tends to prioritize the European theater over the Asia-Pacific theater for its foreign policy strategy. During an interview with me, Green mentioned that he personally dealt with that tension. His early interests centered around the NATO alliance and Western Europe. After graduating from Kenyon, he hoped to study the bagpipes with a Watson Fellowship, but when that fell through, he heard of an opportunity through the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) program and headed to Japan. Through this program, Green found himself drawn towards Japan and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, which turned his attention away from Western Europe. 

The other four tensions involve difficult choices for U.S. policy makers: 1) whether to focus policy on continental versus maritime issues; 2) where to draw America’s “Forward Defense Line” (that is, the line the U.S. would defend); 3) whether to focus on self-determinism of sovereign states versus universalistic democratic norms, and 4) whether to promote protectionism or free trade. Nowadays, we see some of these tensions playing out, such as the shift to protectionist policies towards China under the Trump administration and continuity of that policy under the Biden administration. These shifts in strategy have real consequences for the United States’ position abroad. 

Green views international relations through a realist lens, which focuses on the balance of power between states and the future security in relation to other countries. Although his analysis begins over 200 years ago, his argument is relatively easy to follow, thanks to the book’s chronological structure. Like the policy makers at the time, readers are able to see how past realist-oriented leaders made decisions that had ramifications for later decision makers. 

In the first part of the book, “The Rise of the United States,” readers learn how the “seeds of strategy” were planted early in U.S. history and cultivated by later actors, blossoming into the first “grand strategy” under President Theodore Roosevelt. Not only did Roosevelt set the United States up as the judge of the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific in the 1905 peace agreement between Russia and Japan, but Roosevelt understood that the United States needed to be militarily prepared in the Pacific. 

Roosevelt’s successor, President Taft, abandoned Roosevelt’s carefully crafted grand strategy towards the region to pursue a “Dollar Diplomacy” approach towards China and also “needlessly antagon[ized] Japan.” This departure angered Roosevelt so much that he privately rebuked Taft in letters. It would take until the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt to return to an era of American “grand strategy” in the Asia-Pacific region.

Green’s book fascinates the reader with compact biographies of all the major players and thinkers involved in the foreign policies. The biographies are all very digestible. They are not bite-sized, leaving you wanting more. They are not grand courses, leaving you stuffed before you are finished. 

Take Humphrey Marshall for example. From the middle of landlocked Kentucky, Marshall became an important thinker and naval leader for the United States’ vision for the Asia-Pacific region. During the 1850s, Marshall became the U.S. commissioner (diplomat) to the Qing dynasty in China. Marshall employed an activist approach, arguing that in order to keep the balance of power, the United States needed to take an active role in keeping order in China. This stance departed from the existing, less-active strategy favored by influential American merchants. As a result, it made him unpopular: “at odds with the American merchants, the State Department, and even the Qing…” Accounts like this stand out, stick in the reader’s memory, and connect historical figures to Green’s argument about ongoing tensions in policy-making.

This book has a wide appeal to different audiences. For anyone with an interest in foreign policy, it is an essential read. For me, having studied Japanese at Kenyon for three years, "By More than Providence" was enlightening, as my prior knowledge of the United States involvement in the Pacific was limited to Perry’s “Black Ships” forcibly opening Japan. Green’s book showed the buildup to that event, as well as the foreign policy strategy that followed, putting an event in its historical context. Even if foreign policy is not your interest, I would recommend this book. You do not need a background in realist concepts to understand and enjoy it. Like the biographies scattered throughout the text, these scholarly concepts are readily digested. 

In addition to conveying his passion for the region and his incredibly personable demeanor, Green conveyed in our interview an important message that he hoped readers would take away. Referencing Humphrey Marshall, the naval officer from landlocked Kentucky, Green emphasized that anyone can have an impact on the world stage. This message shines through dozens of biographies and stories in the book. Pick up a copy of "By More Than Providence" and let yourself be enveloped in Green’s writing.

Michael J. Green is professor and chair of Contemporary Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy and Director of Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. "By More than Providence" earned the 2018 Silver Medal for the Council of Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Book Award. 

Michael J. Green, "By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783." New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.  760 pages. ISBN 9780231180436 (ppk) $30. Also available in cloth or ebook formats. 

My blind optimism has rarely served me well in political science classes, yet I like to think that the pinnacle of American democracy is that U.S. citizens have the right to vote in every local, state and national election. Where authoritarian regimes forbid their people from choosing who sits in government and makes policy, American citizens are encouraged to rush to the polls for every election. Ideally, voters make well-informed, uncoerced decisions to produce a government that genuinely reflects the nation’s interests. 

In "Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government," political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels upended my notion of the responsible voter and prompted me to re-evaluate how I approach my vote. Over the course of nearly 16 years, Achen, professor of social sciences and politics at Princeton University, worked on this book with his former student Bartels (now chair of public policy and social science at Vanderbilt), exploring the difference between democracy as a theory and democracy in its application.

Each semester, my political science classes return to this question: Is democracy truly the best form of government? To address that question, "Democracy For Realists" shifts the focus from our institutions to the basis of democracy itself: the average American voter. As the title suggests, Achen and Bartels encourage readers to face the reality of human behavior. Democratic elections have little to do with issues, and everything to do with party attachments, social identity and the strength of group influence. As more Americans begin to question the legitimacy of our voting system (a concern that came to a head on January 6, 2021) and the importance of going to the polls, "Democracy for Realists" is an essential contribution to our society’s understanding of how our leaders discern which populations will support particular platforms, and whether or not serious campaign efforts are needed to win the trust of those voters.   

Achen and Bartels reexamine the “folk theory” of democracy embraced by political scientists for the latter half of the 20th century, which asserts that elections reflect the will of the majority accurately, thus implying that the issue positions of our representatives are ours to begin with. Most of their book recounts how voters actually behaved over the past 100 years and takes readers through key electoral events ranging from a pro-life to pro-choice shift in the Democratic Party, to FDR’s landslide victory at one of the lowest points in U.S. history, to — a personal highlight — a spike in shark attacks along the New Jersey coast that cost Woodrow Wilson nearly 10 percentage points in the 1916 presidential election in surrounding beach counties. 

With these historical examples, Achen and Bartels explore how instant gratification and risk aversion motivate voters’ decisions, regardless of which policies are on the table. Election results are essentially toss-ups, dependent on the health of the economy, policy platforms of the competing parties, and external events outside of the candidates’ control. For example, in chapter 8, they review psychology research demonstrating how group norms influence humans, including racial and ethnic prejudices that often infiltrate political behavior.  

The discrepancy between our perceived realities (instilled from early childhood as our families and immediate communities defined our social identities) and our genuine knowledge of a candidate’s performance and policy positions holds serious consequences for our representative democracy. Completely contradicting my prior idea of how elected leaders operate, Achen and Bartels write that “there is little or no electoral incentive for presidents to promote myopic voters’ well-being during much of their time in office” (170). This is because voters tend to focus on immediate concerns (e.g., the economy’s current condition), so incumbents seeking reelection are seldom held accountable for what they did early in their terms of office.

After the 2016 election, the authors added an afterword that reflects on voting procedures from the primaries to the general election, the cultivation of demagoguery in the United States, and the stark reality that perhaps Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was exactly the result we should have expected if we understood the political power of a shared identity. Trump’s strength predominantly came from non-college-educated, working-class, White Americans, while Hillary Clinton attracted the highly-educated demographic and various minority groups.  Both candidates had bases of support willing to overlook their candidates’ ethical issues in order to vote identities that the political parties strongly reaffirmed. A favorable vote distribution in the Electoral College and a unified, loyal Republican Party ultimately determined  Trump’s victory, but only by “minuscule margins, ... that could have easily gone the other way” (339).

I will admit that reading Achen and Bartels’ research, and immediately understanding their point, was a difficult task. Perhaps this is because the many factors that actually determine America’s voting patterns are not at all what I thought they were, and because this is a work of scholarship for a sophisticated reader.  Nevertheless, this is an essential read for those (like me) who are struggling to grasp the intensity of an American divide that seems to invade almost every aspect of our social and political lives. 

As our generation fights to increase voter turnout and accessibility, and learns how (and how not) to build campaigns of our own, I strongly urge you to pick up Achen and Bartels’ "Democracy for Realists" as a tool to gain perspective on our democratic system at-work and on the deeper psychology of voting. Anyone old enough to vote in this country would greatly benefit — and consequently think deeper about their responsibilities at the polls — from reading Achen and Bartels’ account of real democracy at work and why our country is struggling to maintain the legitimacy of our electoral system.

Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, "Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government." Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. 408 pages. ISBN: 9780691178240 (ppk), $18.95. Ebook available.

In March 2020, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to one of the most catastrophic economic disruptions in world history. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of businesses shut down, and with these shutdowns, hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs. Among its many lessons, the pandemic showed us the fragility of the global economy and the economic insecurity faced by workers.

COVID-19 did not, however, suddenly make workers and their families insecure. Instead, economic insecurity has been increasing for decades due to a gradual shift of financial risk from employers and the government to employees. In the 2019 revised edition of his 2006 book "The Great Risk Shift," Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker terms this gradual shift of economic risk “the great risk shift.” He makes the case — through a seamless combination of moving anecdotes from ordinary working people and hard-hitting arguments — that workers have become more insecure in employment, family, retirement, and health care due to structural change in the economy and deliberate policy changes. This book is especially relevant today in light of recent unionization efforts at Amazon, inflationary pressures on working-class budgets, and a potential recession on the horizon.

Before writing this book, Hacker was best known for his scholarship on health policy, particularly his development of the public option in the Affordable Care Act. He wrote books on a variety of topics related to social policy, including his New York Times bestseller written with political scientist Paul Pierson, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class." Therefore, "The Great Risk Shift," although ambitious in scope, is right up Hacker's alley in terms of his previous work.

Hacker makes a compelling case that the “great risk shift” is real and that the government should take on greater responsibility to address the problem. The structure of the economy has changed significantly since the 1970s. Gone are the days of good-paying manufacturing jobs that employed workers their entire working lives and offered a stable, middle-class income with a secure retirement income and health benefits. Today, with the rise of the service and gig economy (e.g., Uber drivers), employment is more sporadic and of less duration, and as a result, health and retirement benefits tied to specific employers are much less dependable. In addition, in an effort to lower labor costs to increase their competitiveness in a globalized economy, employers have cut benefits and transferred more of the financial burden of benefits onto employees. Finally, middle-class wage stagnation combined with the rising cost of essentials like health care and education over the past few decades has made two-income households increasingly essential for maintaining family income, leading more women into the workforce. Yet even though a two-income household reduces the risk of family income dropping to zero, it increases the likelihood and frequency of family income shocks.

Although impersonal economic forces certainly played a role in the great risk shift, the main villains of Hacker’s story are those he terms “personal responsibility crusaders,” conservatives who for decades pushed for less government involvement in health care, retirement, and family policy in the name of promoting a national ethic of “personal responsibility” for economic well being. In his characteristically punchy prose, Hacker writes:

"The Personal Responsibility Crusade is all about putting more 'skin in the game' — making people more responsible for the management and finance of the major economic risks they face. More skin means we reap the rewards when the game goes well. More skin also means we bear the losses when the game goes badly" (27).

Examples of the personal responsibility crusade include the push for the partial privatization of social security during the Bush administration and the fierce resistance to the Affordable Care Act, although the movement emerged far earlier, during the Reagan years. 

Unlike personal responsibility crusaders, Hacker convincingly advocates for a role for government in areas like health care, for the sake of greater risk pooling and coverage of pre-existing conditions. However, I think Hacker too quickly dismisses conservatives’ concern about big government. One does not have to be a personal responsibility crusader to believe that government largesse crowding out the private sector could be harmful, not only to the economy but to the welfare state that relies on a robust economy to provide its benefits. Policymakers should consider public-private solutions that pool risk broadly but do not rely so heavily on the government. For example, I do not think Hacker’s idea of a Medicare part E (Medicare for everyone), where Medicare gradually phases out private insurance companies, is politically feasible, given the power health insurance companies have in the political system. In my mind, a more realistic solution would be something like Germany’s system of highly regulated non-profit insurance companies that compete with each other for customers. 

In addition, I think there are policies addressing the great risk shift that could achieve bipartisan support in the future. As the composition of the Republican Party changes with greater numbers of rural, working-class voters, there could be an opportunity to pursue bipartisan predistributive policies (as opposed to redistributive policies) that increase worker power without increasing taxes or spending. Such policies include laws making it easier to form unions and bargain on wages across entire sectors of the economy, a higher minimum wage, and requirements for labor representation on corporate boards.

In a conversation with our "Politics of the Welfare State" seminar sponsored by the Kenyon Center for the Study of American Democracy (CSAD) this spring, Hacker discussed such a possibility:

"We have to think about policies that I call predistribution, these are policies that often don’t involve taxes or spending but involve changes in market power, and I think there is actually sincere Republican support for policies that curtail power at the top," he said.

"In this kind of narrow division, it's very hard to see pressure for that kind of cross-partisan and cross-class coalition forming, but I would say if I were working on the Republican side to say, ‘how can we get Republicans to sign up for a true economic populism?’ I would focus on predistribution. I would tie in antitrust–stuff to revive rural America and worker power of some sort."

Solving the problem of the great risk shift will be difficult, both because of the scope of the policy areas involved and the political compromises that solutions may require. However, regardless of one's ideology, Jacob Hacker’s "The Great Risk Shift" is worth a read for its acute examination of one of the defining economic trends of our era. 

Jacob S. Hacker. "The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream," 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. 264 pages, ppk or ebook. ISBN: 9780190844141, $17.95.  

The United States Senate is unique for many reasons. Speaking about the Senate’s function, George Washington thought of it as the “saucer” that cools legislation from the House of Representatives. Under the modern process of filibuster, we might instead call the Senate a freezer, because any senators can use the filibuster, the right to keep debate going, to delay (and block) the Senate’s business. Recently, Senate Democrats failed in their attempt to remove the filibuster for voting rights legislation, leaving their party’s priority legislation frozen in place. How do political scientists explain the persistence of a legislative rule that stymies the majority will?

For the minority party, the filibuster preserves their rights, but for the majority party, the filibuster is a threat to advancing their agenda. James Wallner, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, and an expert on the theory and practice of democracy, takes a close look at the filibuster in his 2017 book, "On Parliamentary War." Wallner gives us an overview of some of the historical developments of the filibuster, in addition to a new perspective on the battle between the two major parties to curb the filibuster.             

Wallner opens the book with an overview of filibuster reforms. The earliest successful reform in 1975 lowered the number of senators required to “break” a filibuster, from 67 to 60, while allowing for a minority of senators to put a stop to legislation or nominations without actually conducting the filibuster. The (failed) 2005 reform and the (successful) 2013 reform, initiated by different parties attempted to eliminate the filibuster for non-Supreme Court nominees, while the 2017 reform extended that to Supreme Court nominees. Although these reforms were of different scales and had various purposes, they had a point in common — the legislative filibuster remains intact. Since the goal of the majority party is to pass legislation to advance its agenda, this begs the question: why would the majority circumvent itself when it can do otherwise?

Previous studies offered two possible explanations. One suggests that the minority party yields to some of the majority party’s requests so that the filibuster would be kept intact. The other argues that the majority party fears retaliation from the minority party, mainly because the majority party knows that they cannot be in the majority forever. 

Wallner offers a third reason that is based on predictive behavior, known as the “bargaining model.” In this model, the willingness of the majority party to abolish the filibuster depends on how big of a threat the minority party can pose. If the threat is small, the cost of removing the filibuster is low, so the majority party might proceed to do it, and vice versa. Thus, the “bargaining model” could be seen as a combination of the previous two explanations, and it is more of a “predictive” model rather than a “deterministic” model.

Wallner demonstrates the strength of the bargaining model by applying it to the 2005 and 2013 filibuster reforms. First, in the case of the 2005 reform, Democrats were in the minority, and they had used the filibuster to block many of President Bush’s judicial nominees. The Republican majority wanted to stop this, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had signaled that he might force the Senate to lower its threshold for a cloture vote (a vote to end a filibuster), if necessary. In essence, Frist was calling for the so-called “nuclear option.” However, the threat that the Democratic minority posed in 2005 was rather high: if the Senate GOP pursued this path, Senate Democrats would retaliate by forcing a vote on the minimum wage bill and the Social Security bill. This was a serious threat, since it would force everyone “on the record in opposition to the policies,” while “divert[ing] public attention from the battle over judicial nomination.” Since the GOP would have to be careful in defending their majority in 2007, in the end, they had to back down from the nuclear option, since the consequences of an “up-or-down” vote might be bad for them.

Meanwhile, when Democrats were in the majority in 2013, they faced GOP filibusters on President Obama’s nominees. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had also warned the Senate that he was willing to use the nuclear option. In turn, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated, as early as 2011, that he might proceed to repeal Obamacare as soon as the GOP returned to the majority. This was not a serious threat, however, because Reid “only proposed using the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for motions to proceed to legislation, not for the legislation itself,” so Obamacare would still have been protected in that situation. Furthermore, McConnell’s threat was undermined by the fact that if the GOP were to be in the majority in the future, he also would want to utilize the nuclear option. Thus, in this case, the GOP minority “fail[ed] to threaten any adverse or concrete retaliation to increase the costs of going nuclear,” and since Democrats had the vote, they successfully changed the filibuster rule in 2013.

Wallner’s model offers a new look at the filibuster in the Senate. This is useful for those who want to understand how the Senate conducts its business. By knowing the “players” and their possible “actions,” serious readers will deepen their understanding of the strategic considerations involved in the political parties’ Senate floor fights, past, present or future.

James I. Wallner, 2017. "On Parliamentary War: Partisan Conflict and Procedural Change in the U.S. Senate." Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 264 pages. ISBN 978-0-472-12324-7 (Ebook), $59.95. Also available in cloth. 

Children stand on metal toilets to speak to each other through vents. The psyches of men corrode as they spend twenty-three hours a day in complete isolation, their food shoved through metal grates. These conditions violate the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisons created in honor of Nelson Mandela. They are happening in the United States’ "corrections" system. 

Clinical psychiatrist Dr. Christine Montross challenges the efficiency and morality of this system in her book "Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration" where she gives a first hand account of performing competency-to-stand-trial evaluations. She tells the reader of the teenage boys who spoke into their cell vents in a desperate attempt to connect with another, even if that communication was in the form of an echo. Her recount of people’s stories demands that readers reflect on their views about punishment, cruelty, and individual freedom, as they are confronted with the underlying truth behind their prejudices towards criminals. As Montross says, "it is easier to live a free life while others live in cages if we see those who are caged as utterly distinct from ourselves" (79). 

"Waiting for an Echo" is broken into three parts, challenging each part of the current correctional system and one’s perspective of it. The first part makes the reader reevaluate their perception of who a criminal is, and why people end up in the system. Underscoring her point, Montross gives examples of individuals who exhibit very similar abnormal behavior, but are met with different outcomes based on whether they were taken to jail or a mental hospital. In my interview with her, she explained that her work in psychiatric hospitals made her aware of how often her patients came in contact with police and "when I would talk with my patients it was so frequently not due to any kind of criminal intent, but rather due to untreated symptomatology." This realization catalyzed her interest in corrections as she saw "that there was not a bright line between the people that were my patients and the people in the jails or prisons." She humanizes the people that we characterize as evil. 

The second part draws attention to the conditions of modern prisons and jails. Making the reader question their definition of "cruel and unusual punishment," especially regarding solitary confinement. Montross asks why the resounding opinion on punishment in the U.S. considers the state taking a person’s time and hope as more ethical than inflicting physical pain. "How is it, exactly, that we came to believe that ravaging one’s life is less cruel than ravaging one's body?" (193). Montross’ background in psychiatry gives invaluable insight into what is occurring in the human mind when faced with solitary confinement. She focuses especially on the juvenile mind and the long-term effects on the brain when subjected to extended time in penitentiary. And yes, solitary confinement is a punishment used on children.

In the final part of the book, Montross presents the reader with alternative forms of incarceration used in much of Scandinavia. She describes the outcomes and facts of their effectiveness in contrast to the American system. But what does it mean for a prison to be effective? Montross argues that much of the current system was born out of fear with the goal of punishment, not rehabilitation. Concern for morality vanishes from the conversation as soon as the public is afraid. To make their constituents happy, elected representatives make "tough on crime" or "war on drugs" their campaign slogans and impose laws on  people they know nothing about. 

Are drug addicts criminals? Or hospital patients? Should the man screaming in the streets about conspiracy theories be jailed for disorderly conduct, and then sequestered to solitary confinement for his continual violent outbursts? Or should he be placed in a mental health facility? The answer changes drastically depending on whether people view the man as a threat or as sick. Ironically, the level of risk the man poses after he is released back into society also depends on whether he remained untreated while being further traumatized, or was properly rehabilitated and medicated. Waiting for an Echo is an essential read for the study of American democracy as it confronts these major questions about human rights and individual liberty.

Christine Montross, "Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration." New York: Penguin Books, 2021.  ISBN: 9780143110668. $18/ppk. Also available in other formats. 352 pages.