Why would I want to be my own boss? Bosses suck.

My first podcast interview of 2025 is available now: I spoke to Mark Neocleous about his new book Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police (Verso, 2025). Mark has been a pioneer of critical research on policing for decades, so it was an honor to interview him newbooksnetwork.com/pacification

It's like the national Democratic Party is now the Florida Democratic Party. Half expect them to nominate Charlie Crist next time around. Or Liz Cheney. That'll show 'em.

My inner critic's biggest theme is that I'm an underachiever. The fact that I self-sabotaged my way out of academia certainly feeds this narrative, but it goes back a lot farther, to when I struggled in school despite being the 'smart' kid. But I'm the child of two alcoholics, one of whom...

My latest NBN interview is up: I spoke to the political theorist Begum Adalet about three recent articles that she has written about infrastructure, racialization, and the politics of development newbooksnetwork.com/infrastructu... We spoke about how the green revolution shaped racial formation...

My latest NBN interview is up: I spoke to the political theorist Begum Adalet about three recent articles that she has written about infrastructure, racialization, and the politics of development newbooksnetwork.com/infrastructu... We spoke about how the green revolution shaped racial formation...

I really enjoyed this interview, and look forward to reading the book. Gender needs to be at the center of conversations about nation-building: newbooksnetwork.com/the-states-s...

Feeling good after a solid writing session. May you all tell your inner critics to stfu!

It's LIVE: Political Sociology has its first Starter Pack! Follow us all here: go.bsky.app/QaLr2JG

My latest NBN interview is now available: I spoke to Nick Bernards about his new book Fictions of Financialization (Pluto): newbooksnetwork.com/fictions-of-... The interview is also available on Spotify and other platforms under the New Books in Critical Theory heading

I've got some new followers, and picked up some random people before this, so a quick intro *I have a PhD in polisci (comparative) and wrote a diss on Turkey *I'm interested in Marxism, state space, security, imperialism *I'm a podcast host for the New Books Network

Just had a great chat with Nick Bernards about his new book Fictions of Financialization: Rethinking Speculation, Exploitation and Twenty-First Century Capitalism (Pluto) for the New Books Network. www.plutobooks.com/978074534889... The interview should be available in a few days

"Are you fucking serious???" -- me at each new appointment that Trump announces

❄️Our Holiday Sale is here!❄️ 50% off all books until December 5th! plutobooks.com

Has anyone in psychology written about how attachment styles affect advisor relationships in higher ed? My relationship with my first advisor was definitely a classic case of anxious style (me) and avoidant style (them)...and it was not a good combination at all. Suspect it's a common dynamic.

Opportunity economy was horrible messaging. That kind of shit might have worked during the 90s but felt pretty out of touch for 2024.

Who do I vote for if I want to make all MLMs illegal? Amway and crypto, gone

I CAN'T VOTE ANY HARDER

The main problem with more finance is that it makes more capitalism possible

Writing questions for my upcoming interview with Nick Bernards about Fictions of Financialization for the New Books Network. His critique of the literature on financialization is utterly compelling. I'm looking forward to seeing the critical debate that it sparks: www.plutobooks.com/978074534889...

Tina Weymouth is the most important Talking Head

"but he did electric cars" We paid rich people to buy his cars instead of doing real environmental policy. California's ZEV credit system shuffled $10 billion more to Tesla, ~$1 billion of which was based on battery swap fraud. He got a free pass on safety and environmental regulation for a decade.

I have to constantly remind myself that I do not need to read everything ever written in history about topics tangentially related to the focus of my article before I can write anything

I interviewed Adam Hanieh about his new book Crude Capitalism (Verso) for the New Books Network. We talked about the entanglements between oil, geopolitics, high finance, and ecology, and about how oil came to be in absolutely everything. newbooksnetwork.com/crude-capita...

Had a great chat today with Adam Hanieh about his new book Crude Capitalism (Verso). The book is an outstanding history of the geopolitics, economics, and political ecology of oil. It's also very elegantly written. The interview should be available from the New Books Network in a few days!

i keep seeing all these articles where people are like "finance is completely deterritorialized." nonsense. no matter how complicated, financial assets are still tied to revenue flows deriving from "real" economic activities that are not, in any sense, deterritorialized. it drives me crazy

My latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast is available: I interviewed Sharad Chari about Apartheid Remains (Duke, 2024). We talked about race, capitalism, biopolitics, and resistance in Durban over the longue duree newbooksnetwork.com/apartheid-re...

The Omen is a biopic about JD Vance

#polisky Democracy and Empire is a great book that deserves a wide readership in political theory and comparative politics. Provides really interesting ideas about how to think about imperialism in historical democratization research, where it is largely an absent presence

Absolutely heartbroken to learn of Dikembe Mutombo's untimely passing. A story: one day in 2010, I got the most random phone call to my office at Morehouse. It was Dikembe's personal assistant, asking if I'd be willing to meet at his office to talk about the D.R. Congo. Obviously I said yes. (1/n)

I had a great conversation with Inés Valdez about her new book Democracy and Empire for the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. We spoke about how imperial social relations shape demands for popular sovereignty in the US and Europe newbooksnetwork.com/democracy-an...

This is one of the most viciously racist things I've seen a member of Congress say in years.

Just conducted a great interview with Inés Valdez about her book Democracy and Empire (Cambridge 2023) for the New Books Network. I can't wait to share it with everyone in a couple of days!

My latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview is up! I spoke to Laura Robson about her book Human Capital, which examines how the desire to treat refugees as disposable migrant laborers has shaped the international refugee regime: newbooksnetwork.com/human-capital

All I have been able to think since the debate has been, why did anyone think that Biden was a good choice in the first place? I didn't buy any of the strategic arguments for nominating him in the first place. Ppl were like, "he'll just serve one term." And then what??? Nobody has any answers

My latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview has posted! I spoke to William Conroy about his recent articles on the necessity/contingency debate in racial capitalism research, spatializing social reproduction theory, and whether capitalism has an outside: newbooksnetwork.com/race-social-...

As a grad student I grew frustrated with trying to squeeze my comparative-historical research into the quasi-experimental straightjacket. Turns out I wasn't alone. I interviewed Damon Mayrl and Nick Wilson about their new edited volume After Positivism, which rethinks why and how to do CHA

So much state capacity research is about trying to find *the indicator* that measures *what the state really is (and absolutely nothing else).* This just strikes me as kind of silly now. Like, you don't encounter *just states* in the wild, you encounter complex social formations w/ porous boundaries

The biggest problem I have with the methods education that I received is how case and variable selection are portrayed as starting points, b/c you have to do a *ton* of research to decide on how to identify the boundaries of your cases, categorize them, and decide what you even have a case of

Conjunctures are just critical junctures for Marxists (or, critical junctures are just conjunctures for normies)

Our (@derekcrim.bsky.social) book *The End of College Football*--a polemic against the exploitation and harm of the sport grounded in interviews with former players--is available to preorder on the @uncpress.bsky.social website for 30% off with code 01UNCP30. uncpress.org/book/9781469...

ah yes, the special kind of cognitive impairment that only ever negatively affects your ability to remember to pay alimony. you know the one.

One thing that I struggle with when I write (especially if it's about something that has been marinating for a long time) is the hidden expectation that I will get everything down all at once. It leads to disappointment and self-judgment when that inevitably doesn't happen.

So much talk of violent protests, but as I wade through 1,000s of news stories and social media posts, virtually all of the violence I'm seeing is directed at the people protesting against genocide and calling for Palestinian liberation.

I want to write Agnew's "The Territorial Trap" but focusing on comparative politics

It's so interesting to me that right-wing political ads for congressional campaigns in my area don't mention the Republican Party at all. In fact, in one ad Rand Paul (endorsing a candidate in this district) starts by saying "both parties are attacking America."

"That guy knows how to FIRE A GUN, he should be in CONGRESS" -- People in a normal, healthy democracy

Geographers (esp urban geographers) are having methodological conversations about how to do comparative social science that political scientists and sociologists should really be paying attention to. Lots of interesting proposals for how to do comparison without the illusion of experimental control

The major fault line in comparative social science is between people who think States and Social Revolutions is bad because it tries too hard to be positivist(/quasi-experimental), and people who think it is bad because it's not positivist enough