Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency. Terry M. Moe and William G. Howell. Princeton University Press. 2025.

Rise of the strongman, decline of democracy

The rise of populist and authoritarian leaders has prompted examination of how they navigate societal problems, in particular through centralising power within the executive office. Executive aggrandisement – when elected leaders legally dismantle or weaken checks and balances to concentrate more power within the executive branch – has increased globally, along with the crisis of democracy. Trajectory of Power examines these developments. It considers what has enabled a “strongman president” as Donald Trump builds on the cracks in the rattled administrative and political systems in the US.

As Bill Resh argued recently and Don Moynihan regularly discusses, rule of law and the administrative in the US have been under severe attack. Presidentialisation (ie, the increasing role of the executive in politics and policy processes) has reached a point where “it now threatens to substitute autocracy four our centuries-old system of self-government [in the US]” (12).

The origins of the administrative state

The book begins with an account of constitutionalism, the establishment and rise of the administrative state, and the norms and expectations about the president’s space for exercising executive power. This chapter discusses how the executive politics were set out both in legal terms and in normative ways. Chapter Two presents the “symmetric logic”: the executive needs the administrative state to implement policies and to provide order and welfare to society. At the same time, bureaucracy has been steadily expanding in size (eg, budget, personnel). Over time, the presidents downsized the ever-growing administrative state and centralised decision-making and policymaking authorities. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have made the Executive Office of the President a central node in executive politics: the National Security Council created in 1947, the Domestic Council established in late 1970 by Nixon, Clinton’s National Economic Council in 1993, among others (57-59).

Trump’s 2025 “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies” executive order demonstrated the rise of executive power over regulatory agencies

At the same time, the autonomy of regulatory agencies has been undermined. Systematically employed by Nixon and other presidents, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs have institutionalised its authority over autonomous agencies (62-64). Most recently, Trump’s 2025 “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies” executive order demonstrated the rise of executive power over these agencies, which also has its origins in the backlash against the regulatory state.

When presidents reign supreme

In Chapter Three Howell and Moe trace the ideational and political origins of the asymmetric logic – “antagonism toward the administrative state and presidential power as the primary mean of retrenching the administrative state” (79), as the (Republican) presidents increasingly perceived the administrative state as the “domestic political enemy” (95-98). Building on this ideational account, Chapter Four reflects on the shape and nature of these attacks. It begins by pointing to the “long-standing opposition of free-market conservatives to regulation, spending, and taxes” and “the demand of social conservatives for the defense of their cultural beliefs and values on race, religion, gender, and the family” (113). Yet, how could the executive address its constituency’s concerns while wrestling with the administrative state? The unitary executive theory (UET) posits that “[P]residents reign supreme within the executive branch – and thus, in essence, over the entire administrative state – and they are endowed with exclusive, inherent authority to control everyone and everything within it” (122). The book shows that both Republican and Democrat presidents exploited the UET for unilateral acts: Clinton’s “bombing campaign in Kosovo” (126), the Bush administration’s “extralegal counterterrorism program” (127), and Obama’s “war actions” (130).

Chapter Five notifies us about the current UET extremists who are acting against the “bedrock values of democracy”, which small and gradual acts from both sides of the political spectrum have significantly eroded, given their commitment to deconstruct the “established system” on behalf of “the people”, which is unchecked by democracy and the rule of law (152). Echoing Anti-system Politics, the authors point to the socio-cultural, political, and economic origins of today’s extremism. Like many other jurisdictions, such extremism has risen and become more visible and “noisy”. This can be explained by extreme inequalities, lower economic growth and higher unemployment rates, the loss of ideational anchors that inform programmatic and normative agendas, and everyday failures of decapacitated administrative state.

Chapter Six concludes with an argument that “[T]he UET soon became conservative orthodoxy” (212-213), and such extremism has enabled Trump to ascend as a “strongman president” through incessant attacks on bureaucracy (e.g., cutting funding for research, pressure on bureaucrats, the DOGE experiment with Elon Musk), “weaponising” the judiciary against opponents and instrumentalising it for nepotism, overthrowing the 2020 election, among others.

Unfortunately, Trajectory of Power cautions us that the Congress, the judiciary, the administrative, and the “people” cannot alone be a veto player against the “strongman president”. For instance, the “people” are not knowledgeable about how the democratic system works (226); or Trump’s loyalist appointments can insulate bureaucracy from its natural and legal tendencies to pushback against presidents’ unilateral acts (238-241). The book ends with possible trajectories in a context where one cannot rely on any of these potential veto players: if the “strongman president” cannot deliver, the constituencies may develop alienation as their expectations are not satisfied; or short-term gains address anger and dissatisfaction but with diminishing returns in the future.

The accumulation regime

Trajectory of Power reveals the dark origins of executive power and how it has expanded in recent times. While it provides a detailed mix of a historical, actor-based, ideational, and institutional analyses, the book could have incorporated a broader outlook. Firstly, it spends too much ink on individuals that craft the ideational bases of the UET. The book refers to political, economic, and socio-cultural factors enabling the “strongman presidency”, but it misses a deeper debate about the elites, elite circulation, and elite coalitions.

The accumulation regime is cracking down on the administrative state. It does so by eroding further the remaining institutional, agential, ideational, and structural bases of transparency, rule of law, and accountability, the core pillars of democratic governance.

Current populist and authoritarian leaders come with their own elites. The kleptocratic, or oligarchic, elite circulation has become so “dirty” that “corrupt elites” are being replaced by equally “corrupt elites” with self-enrichment and insider trading tendencies. While the “new elite” is trying to replace the “old elite” and without an anchored ideological map, the new elite tries to hijack the administrative state and dismantle the rule of law. Such elite circulation clearly has a politico-economic basis. Replacing the older version of neoliberalism, the accumulation regime is cracking down on the administrative state. It does so by “politicising to depoliticise”, i.e., eroding further the remaining institutional, agential, ideational, and structural bases of transparency, rule of law, and accountability, the core pillars of democratic governance.

This points us to a significant gap in the book’s scholarly framework: bringing together political economy and public policy and administration scholarships. The partial analyses miss a broader picture where the political economic context sets the stage, policy and institutional arrangements define the “decor”, and actors’ interactions on that stage. A broader understanding of the interactions between politico-economic contexts and politics-administration nexus based on cross-fertilisation could have enabled us to empower veto players against the “strongman presidents”.

A must-read for whoever wishes to develop a sense of why and how the core of the executive has become a severe threat to the administrative state and democracy.

Finally, the book tends to treat Democrats as not having a broad impact on the trajectory of power. They do discuss Democrats’ mistakes, but if a system is flawed, and if Democrats are part of it, the book reads as a partisan cry against the allegedly powerful (Republican) president. Still, Howell and Moe guide us through the trajectory of power and notify us about the threats of the “strongman presidency”. The book is therefore a must-read for whoever wishes to develop a sense of why and how the core of the executive has become a severe threat to the administrative state and democracy.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Main image: Rawpixel.com on Shutterstock.

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Reconstruction as Violence in Assad’s Syria. Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp (editors). The American University in Cairo Press. 2025. 

Does reconstruction translate to liberation? 

Reconstruction as Violence in Assad’s Syria edited by Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp, offers a critical and thought-provoking examination of post-war reconstruction in Syria under the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The editors frame reconstruction (the rebuilding of urban landscapes, infrastructures, legal and bureaucratic frameworks relating to housing and land) not as a neutral process restoring function and stability, but as a continuation of violence through political, economic, and social mechanisms. The editors and authors demonstrate how the Syrian government used reconstruction policies to consolidate authoritarian power, reward loyalists, punish opposition communities, and reshape Syrian society after years of civil war.  

The destruction caused by war created opportunities for the regime to redesign cities, confiscate property, alter demographics, and strengthen networks of political and economic loyalty.

Previous studies of reconstruction policies, like the work of Eric Foner and Olivia Mahoney have focused on the US. But Rabbat and Sharp, who both have backgrounds in Islamic architecture focus on Middle Eastern politics, urban transformation, and humanitarian governance, specifically in Syria. In this volume, they bring together architects, urbanists, geographers, and historians to mount a multidisciplinary challenge to the common assumption that reconstruction naturally leads to peace and recovery. Instead, the authors contend, it can be (and has been) deployed as a strategic tool of domination and exclusion.  

Their focus is the Syrian reconstruction process following the devastating civil war that began in 2011. The authors in this volume argue that the Assad regime transformed reconstruction into a political weapon. The destruction caused by war created opportunities for the regime to redesign cities, confiscate property, alter demographics, and strengthen networks of political and economic loyalty. Across ten multidisciplinary chapters, the book argues that efforts directed towards a just peace and liberation must entail real community building, and decolonisation. 

Urban planning and authoritarian control 

One of the central themes of the book is the relationship between urban planning and authoritarian control. Deen Sharp in Chapter Five discuss several laws and policies introduced by the Syrian government, particularly those related to land ownership and redevelopment. These laws enabled the state to seize property from displaced citizens, especially in areas associated with opposition movements. As millions of Syrians became refugees or internally displaced persons, many lost their legal rights to homes and land because they could not provide official ownership documents within the limited timeframes. 

The book highlights the role of crony capitalism in reconstruction. Wealthy businessmen connected to the regime received privileged access to reconstruction contracts and investment opportunities. Reconstruction therefore became not only a political project but also an economic system benefiting regime allies. Instead of addressing the needs of ordinary Syrians, reconstruction primarily served elite interests. It supports the shift toward a political economy that privileges clusters of business elites and regime interest-holders, most of whom are invulnerable to democratic oversight and largely immune to traditional sanctioning by the international community.  

Another important aspect discussed is demographic engineering. In the Chapter Three “Rethinking Reconstruction Through Informal Settlements”, Valérie Clerc argues that reconstruction policies intentionally reshape the social composition of Syrian cities. Areas previously considered centres of resistance were targeted for redevelopment, often preventing former residents from returning. In this sense, rebuilding becomes a method of permanently altering the political landscape. The book further critiques the international community’s involvement in Syria. It questions whether foreign governments and humanitarian organisations unintentionally legitimise authoritarian practices when participating in reconstruction efforts without demanding political reform or accountability. 

Reconstruction as violence 

A great strength of the volume is its innovative conceptual framework. The phrase “reconstruction as violence” captures the idea that violence does not end when armed conflict declines. Instead, violence may continue through bureaucratic systems, economic exclusion, forced displacement, and state-controlled urban planning. This perspective broadens traditional understandings of post-conflict recovery. Also impressive is the author’s interdisciplinary approach is also impressive. By combining political analysis, urban studies, legal examination, and social theory, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the Syrian situation. The use of case studies and policy analysis strengthens the argument and demonstrates how reconstruction policies operate in practice. Another strength lies in the book’s moral and political critique. It challenges optimistic narratives promoted by governments and international actors regarding post-war rebuilding. Reconstruction is never politically neutral, we are reminded. Decisions about who rebuilds, who returns, who benefits, and who is excluded are deeply connected to power relations. 

Reconstruction is never politically neutral, we are reminded. Decisions about who rebuilds, who returns, who benefits, and who is excluded are deeply connected to power relations. 

However, the book may face criticism from readers seeking a more balanced presentation of the Syrian government’s perspective. While the authors convincingly document authoritarian practices, the book gives more limited attention to the practical challenges faced by a state attempting to rebuild after massive destruction and international sanctions. Because the editors and authors take strong political positions, some may disagree with their arguments. Additionally, the book is academically dense in some sections, especially when discussing legal frameworks and urban governance theories. Readers unfamiliar with Syrian politics or critical theory may find certain chapters difficult 

 Nevertheless, the overall argument remains clear and compelling. It demonstrates that rebuilding processes can reproduce inequality, deepen repression, and institutionalise wartime power structures. The Syrian case becomes an example of how states may weaponise reconstruction for political survival. The work is especially valuable for students and researchers in Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science, Urban Studies, and International Relations. It also provides useful insights for policymakers, humanitarian organisations, and human rights advocates concerned with ethical reconstruction practices in conflict zones. More broadly, the book raises universal questions about justice, memory, displacement, and state power in post-war societies. Although focused on Syria, its arguments may apply to other countries where reconstruction becomes intertwined with political control. 

The book successfully challenges conventional understandings of reconstruction by showing that rebuilding efforts may reinforce political domination, economic inequality, and social exclusion. Through detailed analysis of Syrian policies, urban transformation, and regime strategies, the volume reveals how reconstruction serves as both a political and economic instrument of power. Illuminating the complexities and power dynamics of post-conflict governance. it is an essential resource in both the Syrian context and beyond. 

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Main image: Dr.MYM via Shutterstock. 

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The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition. Volume I: The Ancient World and Christendom and Volume II: The Modern and Contemporary West. Allen C. Guelzo and James Hankins. Encounter Books. 2025.

The role of history in culture wars

Is it possible to write a definitive history of Western Civilisation that is also a positive celebration of its achievements and value? The Golden Thread is a significant new two-volume book on the subject that is both massive (it spans over 2,000 pages and weighs six kilograms) and beautifully produced, containing hundreds of portraits, colour prints, maps and illustrations. Wisely, the authors Allen C. Guelzo and James Hankins do not claim that it is the only such history, but they nevertheless have a clear vision of what they wish to achieve in this impressive venture. While striving to be authoritative, it is also a profoundly political book on multiple levels, all of which make it of interest to academics and its intended student and popular audience.

The woke agenda is supposed to have captured elite higher education institutions (such as Harvard University), according to right-wing commentators and campaigners like Christopher Rufo and the late Charlie Kirk.

Hankins is a distinguished scholar and author of a prize-winning work on Renaissance political thought, formerly of Harvard and now a visiting Professor at the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. Guelzo is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute which is leading the rethinking of American Conservatism as a site of cultural politics. Its reputation goes back to Straussian scholars such as Harry V. Jaffa, and more recently it has been associated with the cultural and populist turn, championed by the Trump administration, against “woke” or progressive liberalism. Central to that project has been the defence of Western Civilisation against the progressive turn which challenges its values and achievements. The woke agenda is supposed to have captured elite higher education institutions (such as Harvard University), according to right-wing commentators and campaigners like Christopher Rufo and the late Charlie Kirk.

Defending the study of Western Civilisation

Hankins and Guelzo weigh into this debate to defend the concept and pedagogical value of studying Western Civilisation. For them, this tradition is composed of the interweaving of Ancient Greek culture, Hellenised Roman culture and the Christianised Greco-Roman culture of the high Middle Ages. The first volume sets out this tradition through an account of the art, philosophy, political ideas and literature of two millennia from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE to the beginning of the Reformation in 1517. Of course, the story goes back further to include the Homeric tradition of Greek literature, which no such history could exclude.

This is not just a history of political ideas in the traditional Leo Strauss sense; but more so a list of great books from Greece to the present with a contextual narrative of development followed by one of decline and decadence which for conservatives are the characteristics of modernity. As such, it is a story of the philosophical and theological sources of our political world and the challenges they currently face. It is interesting that the point of departure in the Greek world is the defeat of Persia at Marathon: a civilisational contest that is supposed to have opened the peculiarly western alternative of liberty and political self-government, especially in the context of the US war in the Persian Gulf.

For Guelzo and Hankins, alternative histories have their place, but are a danger when they displace the study of Western Civilisation in the academy or perpetuate a critical climate that undermines the achievements of the West

The second volume begins with the birth of the modern nation state following the Reformation and concludes with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the final confrontation with another emerging civilisational confrontation with Islamism represented by Al-Qaeda and most especially the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The story of Western Civilisation is bookended by confrontation with Persia or Iran – and consciously opts for Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations (2002) model of contemporary Global politics as a renewed period of civilisation conflict over Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992) which was supposed to be the story of 1991 and the triumph of the US and liberal democracy over the USSR and communism.

Guelzo and Hankins celebrate and defend Western Civilisation against Peter Frankopan’s displacement of it in his influential The Silk Roads (2015), a global history which looks beyond the west. Frankopan argues that Western Civilisation is constituted by the engagement and impact of more ancient civilisational cultures such as Persia or China. For Guelzo and Hankins, these alternative histories have their place, but are a danger when they displace the study of Western Civilisation in the academy or perpetuate a critical climate that undermines the achievements of the West as an object of enquiry and especially as a political project.

Conservatism from Burke to Vance

The authors set out this conservative agenda in a manifesto style introduction and foreground it throughout the two volumes. They cite Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the first explicitly conservative political theorist, as an exemplar of the type of conservatism the books support. They call for a return to a Burkean ethos in face of the “woke” progressivism currently rupturing modernity with its ideal of modernism and the principle of permanent progress that seeks to undermine and relinquish the traditional values that underpin their view of the modern west.

Their civilisational story challeng[es] the increasingly dominant voice of inward-looking Christian Nationalism […] celebrating many of the features of classical liberal constitutional politics that the Christian Nationalists want to turn their backs on.

This overt political dimension to the narrative links the celebration of Western Civilisation to the attacks of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice-President J.D. Vance on what they see as a decadent Europe that is failing to defend itself from immigration and cultural dilution. Guelzo and Hankins’ history chimes with strands of new Conservatism, such as post-liberalism and some variants of Political-Catholicism. More subversively, their civilisational story contributes to the debate within new conservativism by challenging the increasingly dominant voice of inward-looking Christian Nationalism – which focuses on isolationism and patriarchal paternalist politics – and thus by celebrating many of the features of classical liberal constitutional politics that the Christian Nationalists want to turn their backs on. The book makes a partisan case in this struggle for a new conservatism.

The political purpose behind this otherwise traditional, even old-fashioned book is what gives it much of its interest to contemporary scholars of politics. The book is well written and researched, and in its own terms, no more controversial than any other such sweeping book although it downplays the dark side of the story such as slavery and colonialism. There are plenty of other narrative histories of the West as a geographic space, a cultural unit and philosophical and theological civilisation (like Josephine Quinn’s and Tom Holland’s, for instance), but The Golden Thread is worth reading if you have plenty of time (and very strong wrists!).

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: Terracotta Classical Greek oinochoe (jug), Mid-4th century BCE. Open access courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Rogers Fund, 1925.

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Capitalism at the Limit: A Political Ecology of a World in Crisis. Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen. Polity. 2025.

ZÖ: To begin, I would like to ask about the motivation behind your recent book. It was first published in 2024 and recently translated into English. Why did you feel the need to write this book, Capitalism at the Limit, at this particular moment?

UB: Before Capitalism at the Limit, together with Markus Wissen, I published The Imperial Mode of Living, which came out in German in 2017 and was later translated into many languages, including English, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. Around 2020, in the context of COVID-19 and the beginning of the war in Ukraine, we felt the need to write a book that would diagnose the present conjuncture, building on our earlier work on the imperial mode of living, which focused on its conceptual foundations and ecological modernisation, largely in the Global North.

To reproduce our lives in the Global North and increasingly also in the Global South, people rely on cheap labour and cheap nature ‘elsewhere’

So, we start the new book with a description of the climate crisis and how it is deepening. What we see now is that the project of ecological modernisation, which was very much at the core of the first book, is increasingly under pressure from right-wing, anti-ecological projects.

ZÖ: Since your new book builds on the concept of the “imperial mode of living”, could you briefly explain what you mean by it?

UB: The main argument is that all political and economic dynamics at the global, national, and regional levels are inscribed in everyday life. To reproduce our lives in the Global North and increasingly also in the Global South, people rely – via the market and commodities like cell phones, clothes, industrialised food, or cars – on cheap labour and cheap nature “elsewhere”. And elsewhere can mean the Global South, but it can also mean places closer to home.

But the argument is more complex than that. The imperial mode of living also operates through discourses that justify why it is acceptable that people possess and use, for instance, a cell phone or why they “need” to have a car. These discourses tend to obscure the living and working conditions behind production, as well as the way nature is accessed and often destroyed, for example when lithium, copper, or fossil fuels are extracted.

It is a very Gramscian question: the question of hegemony. Hegemony means that there must be a material form of consent. People participate in and reproduce the imperial mode of living rooted in a specific mode of production and patterns of consumption, both of which depend on exploitative labour relations and ecological destruction.

ZÖ: How do you see your approach contributing to existing Gramscian understandings of hegemony?

UB: We argue that a Gramscian approach needs to take into account the biophysical basis. Gramsci already has an understanding of materiality in the sense of structures. Historical materialism (the Marxist theory that holds that ideas and social institutions develop only as the superstructure of a material economic base) offers a very strong understanding of the historical development of power-shaped and domination-shaped structures, which today shape the conditions of action. And these structures have to do with exploitation of humans and nature. Our contribution with the book, and with the concept of the imperial mode of living, is to really link political ecology to Gramscian thinking.

Additionally, there is a current of Gramscian thinking which is very cultural, which interprets hegemony mainly in terms of ideas, discourse, and contestations within civil society understood as a separate sphere, and in a way moves away from Gramsci as a Marxist. And this is why we insist that the imperial mode of living is not just a form of consciousness; it is rather a material and lived practice.

ZÖ: In the book you suggest that social crises can no longer be adequately managed within capitalism. Could you elaborate on that?

UB: We do not argue that capitalism will collapse in five, ten, or fifteen years. Historically, imperial capitalism had relatively easy access to global and often cheap resources. We call this externalisation, one of the mechanisms through which the imperial mode of living is reproduced. A limit is the ecological and particularly the climate crisis itself. For many years in the Global North, people assumed that the climate crisis mainly affected the Global South. But now it increasingly interferes with everyday life, the economy, and society in the Global North.

The rise of authoritarianism is closely connected to the failure of liberal and social-democratic politics to address social insecurity, migration, and economic restructuring

In the past, capitalism has repeatedly managed to overcome crises. Think of the crisis of liberal capitalism after 1929, or the crisis of Fordism in the 1970s, when neoliberalism emerged. The neoliberal project ultimately prevailed and re-stabilised capitalism with a new international division of labour and the rise of countries like China. We argue that since around 2010 this formation has also entered a deep crisis. We do not see the emergence of a new dynamic accumulation regime or a new stable mode of regulation.

ZÖ: In the book, you describe the current socio-ecological condition as a “monstrous normality”. How does this normalisation relate to the rise of authoritarian political responses?

UB: One often, rightly made argument is that the rise of authoritarianism is closely connected to the failure of liberal and social-democratic politics to address social insecurity, migration, and economic restructuring. The far right has been able to take advantage of this situation.

Many people feel excluded after decades of neoliberal restructuring, which was often supported by social-democratic parties themselves. There is a powerful image described by Arlie Hochschild: the metaphor of the waiting line. Workers feel that they have been waiting patiently in line to reach a better life. But suddenly they perceive that migrants or other groups move ahead of them in the queue, supported by the welfare state. The feeling then becomes: “they are overtaking me”. These perceptions are linked to broader experiences of inequality. For example, workers in relatively well-paid sectors, such as automobile workers at companies like Volkswagen may still be considered part of a labour aristocracy. Yet many of them fear that their production model is no longer sustainable. So, we also need to acknowledge that racism exists within society itself. It does not only come from above; it also exists at the level of everyday attitudes.

Additionally, and this is often overlooked in critical debates, we argue that the failure of a green capitalist project is also an aspect of the rise of the far right. The green capitalist project was often socially very unjust and triggered fear: What will happen to my car with a combustion engine? What will happen to my heating system? What will happen to my job in traditional industries? The far right exploits this situation by claiming that the established parties represent and stabilise “the system” which goes wrong, and do not challenge economic elites. In reality, far-right parties rarely confront economic power. But rhetorically they present themselves as the voice of “ordinary people.”

ZÖ: In the last chapter of the book, you propose socialisation as an alternative. How does this challenge dominant market- and growth-oriented approaches?

UB: One important point is that we want to avoid the common individualistic argument that “if people simply behaved properly, we would save the world”. From a political ecology perspective, the key question is how we organise provisioning systems. This also raises questions about norms, orientations, and capitalist accumulation imperatives and power relations. Our argument is that the investment function in the key sectors, including energy, housing, mobility, and infrastructure, needs to be socialised. In these sectors, the main problem is the private control over investment decisions and the concentration of economic power, which is closely linked to the imperative of growth and capitalist accumulation. What we propose implies something like an eco-socialist strategy, because it really questions the power of capital. This could involve taxation, forms of devaluation of capital, and different forms of socialisation.

Note: This interview gives the views of the participants and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: SL-Photography on Shutterstock.

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The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West. A.J.A. Woods. Verso. 2026.

There are certain books that, apart from filling a very important gap in the literature, cover ground that should have been covered by others long ago. That applies to A.J.A. Woods’ new book, The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy, which finally provides some much-needed answers to the wider circulation of some of the worst antisemitic and anti-communist sentiment seen in contemporary politics. Earlier work by Martin Jay, Jack Jacobs, Joan Braune, Jérôme Jamin and John E. Richardson had already identified parts of this history, but Woods’s book is distinctive in giving the conspiracy theory a full intellectual history of its own.

Cultural Marxism is a far-right, antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents Western Marxism as being deliberately responsible for modern progressive movements and political correctness.

Written through an intellectual-historical lens, and drawing on archival research and critical theory, Woods traces how the Frankfurt School was turned from a body of difficult social theory into a portable enemy-image for the far right.

The Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

For readers who are not familiar, the “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory is, at its core, a far-right, antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents Western Marxism as being deliberately responsible for modern progressive movements and political correctness. The conspiracy theory posits that a group of Jewish philosophers who fled Germany in the 1930s and established themselves at Columbia University devised an unorthodox form of Marxism that took aim at Western cultural and Christian values — working, so the theory goes, to corrode society from the inside out. Nowhere was this more starkly illustrated in Britain than in March 2019, when then-Conservative (now Reform UK) MP Suella Braverman delivered a speech at a meeting of the right-wing Bruges Group think tank and declared that “as Conservatives, we are engaged in a battle against Cultural Marxism.” Braverman subsequently refused to apologise or revise her language, an episode that captures precisely the kind of mainstreaming this book is concerned with.

The phenomenon is explained in depth by Woods, who dives deep into the origins, starting in the 1960s, before going on to analyse the LaRouche movement and its sustained attacks on the Marxists of the Frankfurt School. The historical background Woods constructs is one of the book’s strengths — it resists the temptation to treat “Cultural Marxism” as a purely modern, internet-born phenomenon and instead roots it in decades of deliberate ideological groundwork, showing that what might appear to be fringe rhetoric was in fact carefully cultivated long before it found its way into mainstream parliamentary speeches. As an opening chapter it does a lot of work to establish the historical architecture of the conspiracy.

The roots of Trumpism and the New Right

In Chapter Two the analysis shifts to the New Right as a political force. The New Right refers to a late 20th-century current of conservative and far-right thought that sought to remake politics around markets, national identity, and strong opposition to socialist projects. Woods manages to integrate the think tank territory effectively to explain the development of political thought and how conservatism came to be infected by corrosive elements. That said, while this is primarily a discussion of historical strands, the treatment of the New Right represents something of a missed opportunity. It does not fully engage with the very early debates around far-right mainstreaming in the US – debates that matter because they explain how far-right elements were able to infiltrate liberal conservatism and gradually normalise some of the most authoritarian ideas that have since entered the mainstream. The New Right’s ideological trajectory deserves more space than it receives here, because understanding that trajectory is inseparable from understanding everything that follows.

‘Woke’ has been stripped of its original political meaning and recoded as a far-right shorthand for moral and cultural decline […] used to delegitimise minorities and any social demand that falls outside the far right’s preferred image of order.

This point becomes even more relevant in Chapter Three, which follows the thread from the New Right to the Tea Party and traces how those ideas re-entered the Republican Party. The most striking observation in this chapter is the argument that the Tea Party’s disappearance as a formal movement has in no way diminished its influence — quite the opposite. Its ideological legacy continues to shape the direction of the Republican Party under Trump, with the most extreme anti-communist narratives now being adopted openly in the media. The Tea Party was absorbed and that absorption is what made it so effective. Woods handles this well, and the chapter serves as a convincing bridge between the historical sections and the more contemporary analysis that follows.

Chapter Four draws the connections between the techniques used to mainstream the conspiracy theory and similar linguistic manoeuvres by far-right ideological currents, most notably the anti-woke narrative and the vilification of Critical Race Theory. This chapter is the strongest in the book. Trumpism takes centre stage in Woods’ analysis, and the timing of publication gives it a particular urgency. It accurately captures the ways in which buzzwords are manufactured and historical concepts deliberately distorted during periods of far-right mainstreaming. For example, the term ‘woke’ has been stripped of its original political meaning and recoded as a far-right shorthand for moral and cultural decline. In this form, it operates as an elastic accusation, used to delegitimise minorities and any social demand that falls outside the far right’s preferred image of order. The chapter manages something that is genuinely difficult — it traces the mechanics of how language is weaponised in politics without becoming purely abstract, keeping the argument grounded in specific political developments. Woods is at their best here.

Attacks on DEI and human rights

The conclusion skilfully brings together the book’s key findings to link them directly to what the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk have done. Woods draws on those historical developments around the vilification of concepts like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (or DEI) to impose the most aggressive rollback of rights seen in US politics in recent decades. Worryingly, this rollback has openly targeted minorities and people of colour. The connection to the historical context established in earlier chapters is eye-opening. It makes clear just how grave are the threats democracy is currently facing, and how deep the foundations of this project run. Some have pointed to the partial closure of DOGE after January 2026 as evidence of failure, but Woods’ argument focuses on how this damage is a product of a decades-long project tied directly to the New Right and Republicanism. Both have sought to infiltrate and reshape conservatism, turning it into a vehicle for the kind of politics that treats entire categories of people as expendable.

An essential read for anyone interested in US conservatism, the politics of political language, and the authoritarian tendencies currently reshaping the West.

The book is excellent, and its only real weakness is the absence of a more direct and sustained engagement with far-right mainstreaming as it has unfolded across Europe. Beyond the British case of Braverman, the European dimension of this phenomenon, which has its own distinct dynamics, is largely left unaddressed. Though worth noting, this gap does not significantly diminish what is otherwise a sharp, well-researched, and timely piece of work. The book is an essential read for anyone interested in US conservatism, the politics of political language, and the authoritarian tendencies currently reshaping the West. It fills a genuine gap in the literature, and does so without flinching.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Reading Wars. Don Herzog. LSE Press. 2026.

Resurging censorship

Late in the 2025 autumn semester at Texas A&M University, administrators decided to clamp down on curricula outside of their defined established norms. After months of relentless attacks by President Trump against transgender identity during his 2024 presidential campaign and signing of an Executive Order in The White House on Inauguration Day (20 January 2025) to proclaim the existence of two and only two genders – male and female, the emboldened conservative leadership at Texas A&M forced Martin Peterson – a professor of philosophy and ethics – to remove The Symposium by Plato (387 BCE) from his syllabus.

Why? In The Symposium the ancient Greek philosopher (who founded The Academy, the first higher learning institute in world history for the purpose of seeking truth) not only characterised homosexuality as a constituent phenomenon of humanity. He also declared “in times past our nature was not the same as it is now, but otherwise…there were three kinds of human being and not two as nowadays, male and female. No, there was also a third kind, a combination of both genders.” Rather than allow students to consider Plato and his postulation, the university banned the text and forbade the faculty from introducing any literature unsupportive of gender binarism.

Herzog examines how elites maintain hegemony by denying rival groups education and the power to read and publish words of dissenting opinion, and illuminates the varied dynamics behind the suppression of knowledge.

In a new and engaging monograph Reading Wars (2026), Don Herzog examines how elites maintain hegemony by denying rival groups education and the power to read and publish words of dissenting opinion, and illuminates the varied dynamics behind the suppression of knowledge. Herzog, professor of law at The University of Michigan, succeeds in portraying how, despite centuries of egalitarian progress, the battle over books, articles and pamphlets remains relevant. The book complements the new, expanding scholarship on the politics of knowledge control including Dangerous Ideas by Eric Berkowitz (2021), Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (2022) and Free Speech by Jacob Mchangama (2025).

Suppressed abolitionist literature

From the initial chapter (“Stop The Presses!”), Herzog examines the plight of institutional critics and their battle to issue written dissent. By the 1830s, African chattel slaves, whom had been stripped of their identities, culture and language, had languished on plantations in The South for more than two-hundred years (1619). After the American Revolution (1775-1783), opponents of slavery became more vocal with each passing decade. In 1832, Elijah Lovejoy launched the St. Louis Observer and published articles critical of slavery and slaveholders – a less than welcome development in the slave state of Missouri. After a mob destroyed his office and threatened his life, he relocated to Illinois (a free state) and continued his diatribes against slave power in the Alton Observer.

As the US had been founded on a compromise to permit slavery, many citizens both north and south demanded either restrictions or the complete stifling of anti-slavery publications to preserve the union. This was a case of censorship for the supposed “greater good.” The intrepid Lovejoy refused to relent, and another angry mob appeared, and he would lose his life in a murderous assault for his ideals. Thirty years before the American Civil War (1861-1865), the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights in the American Constitution (1791), which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” had begun to buckle under political division and intolerance (9-13).

Translating the Bible for the masses

In Chapter Two “Reading Bibles, and Burning Them,” Herzog compellingly highlights the contentious row between The Vatican and its dissenters in early 16th century England over whether the Bible ought to be translated for commoners to read and study. According to The Church, the masses, who remained largely illiterate, semi-literate and/or poorly educated, would likely misinterpret scripture and thus commit sins. William Tyndale disagreed. After completing a degree at Oxford, mastering seven languages and pursuing advanced studies at Cambridge, Tyndale translated The Bible from Hebrew and Greek in 1525, and copies of the banned translation pierced the borders of England and Europe from Antwerp – his selected city of exile. For his academic rebellion, the courts of The Holy Roman Empire under Charles V found Tyndale guilty of heresy for espousing views contrary to Catholic doctrine, and the Oxford scholar lived his final months in prison prior to being burned at the stake – a precursor to the fate of Elijah Lovejoy for the same devotion to free thought three hundred years later (33-40).

From the spike of printed words critical of the status quo on both sides of the Atlantic, financial and cultural elites fiercely opposed societal liberalisation.

After two subsequent, reinforcing chapters (“Censoring Protestants” and “Keeping Black People from Reading”) exploring how Protestants and Catholics in England and Europe and pro-slavery and anti-slavery coalitions in the US sparred to attain narrative supremacy, Chapter Five (“Spreading the Word(s): Britain”) and Chapter Six (“Spreading the Word(s): America”), detail the rise of the middle classes and their thrust to expand access to literature and democratise religious and political knowledge in the emerging public sphere.

No democracy without a free press

While the 1832 Reform Act enfranchised large segments of the English working class, a multitude of other formal and informal schools reduced illiteracy and ushered in an age of mass consumption of newspapers, magazines and books (108-111). In the US, both the proliferation of public schools and libraries and the noble effort by the Freedmen’s Bureau to empower former slaves through education (1865-1872) widened the concept of “We The People.” From the spike of printed words critical of the status quo on both sides of the Atlantic, however, financial and cultural elites fiercely opposed societal liberalisation (113-114, 129-135). In the final pages of the book, Herzog briefly surveys the religious right-wing agenda to ban books in counties across the US and offers insight into the threats to freedom of thought (138-141 and 153-162).

In his essay “Freedom and the Colleges” (May 1940), Cambridge philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) wrote:

As soon as a censorship is imposed upon the opinions which teachers may avow, education ceases to serve this purpose and tends to produce, instead of a nation of men [and women], a herd of fanatical bigots.

From that standpoint, Professor Peterson resigned from Texas A&M and joined the faculty of another college due to imposed censorship and the elimination of Women’s and Gender Studies programs at the university. In academia, the dual filing of federal lawsuits (again on specious grounds) and withholding of critical funds from top American universities by the Trump administration successfully forced many colleges to alter their curriculums and settle out-of-court. For the institutions of higher learning that capitulated, it constituted a victory for intellectual tyranny and a cravenly permitted abridgement of the First Amendment. For anyone seeking to review the contested space of the written word and its political implications from the Renaissance to the present day, Reading Wars delivers a lively account on a subject at the core of fundamental human rights and free societies.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Don Herzog will launch the book at an LSE event on Tuesday 9 June. Book now.

Read an article by Don Herzog about the book published on LSE Impact.

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The Sage Handbook of Decolonial Theory. Jairo I. Funez-Flores, Ana Carolina Diaz Beltran, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sandeep Bakshi, Agustin Lao-Montes and Flavia Rios (editors). Sage. 2025.

Decolonisation and deflection

“Decolonisation” has entrenched itself firmly on the psyche of academics and practitioners since Tuck and Yang’s seminal 2012 article, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor”. In the article, they argue that the “language of decolonization has been superficially adopted into education and other social sciences, supplanting prior ways of talking about social justice, critical methodologies, or approaches which decentre settler perspectives”. But Tuck and Yang’s call for re-centring decolonisation into its original context of resistance against violent oppression remains unheeded in the context of Eurocentric discourse on colonialism and its remnants across the world. As I have also argued, decolonisation stems from actual acts of violent resistance, or in the words of Frantz Fanon, “evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it.” There is a danger that the word can be used to deflect. Safe in academia, it can abstract the violent colonisation and oppression that continues today in the form of illegal wars, ethnic cleansing and lack of Indigenous reconciliation.

This handbook consciously attempts to de-link decolonial theory from its origins in the Frankfurt School and other conventional academic perspectives.

The Sage Handbook of Decolonial Theory, edited by Jairo I. Funez-Flores, Ana Carolina Diaz Beltran, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sandeep Bakshi, Agustin Lao-Montes and Flavia Rios, is an attempt to contradict this deflection. Its approach to this is to disrupt “conventional understandings of “society” by showing how entangled structures of power cannot be sufficiently examined by ignoring the global linkages established by racial capitalism, colonialism and heteropatriarchy.” It does so using a multidisciplinary – or, moving beyond academia, a multi-sectoral – approach to addressing issues of oppression, occupation, racism and capitalism. It simultaneously examines contemporary events that illustrate these issues and challenges existing decolonial theoretical frameworks.

A bottom-up perspective

Previous literature on decolonial theory has usually adopted the frameworks and methodologies of the Eurocentric (and often defended) Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, or other conventional academic perspectives. This handbook consciously attempts to de-link decolonial theory from these origins. It instead imagines new ways of situating decoloniality to address struggles of resistance against violence and oppression. In essence, it establishes a new form of scholarship that looks at decolonial practice from a bottom-up perspective of the subjugated subaltern rather than a top-down perspective of the Eurocentric oppressor.

This enormous volume – comprising 42 chapters written by scholars, practitioners and social activists from or of the Global South – brings into focus various geographies where colonialism, illegal occupation, racial capitalism, genocide, Indigenous practices among other social injustices, has been rife. Palestine, the Indigenous Peoples of the Abya Yala (North America), decolonial feminists, queer Muslims (yes, Muslims!) are just some of the subjects the Handbook spotlights. In so doing, it departs from Eurocentric knowledge, as the editors call on new ways to interpret the praxis between decolonial theory and decolonial practice. The co-editors and contributors themselves all bring a rich background of lived experience in decolonial struggles – Indigenous activism, Black antiracism, feminist activism, journalism, abolitionism, and Palestinian liberation, and of course, academia.

The book’s themes place decolonial thought and theory across three streams of thought and practice: the Palestinian struggle for liberation; Indigenous knowledge and resistance in North America (Abya Yala); and queer sexualities and liberation.

It does this by structuring its contributions by 46 contributors around five key themes; key debates in decolonial history; geopolitics and geographies, transdisciplinarity, feminisms, genders and sexuality and racial capitalism. The book’s themes place decolonial thought and theory across three streams of thought and practice: the Palestinian struggle for liberation; Indigenous knowledge and resistance in North America (Abya Yala); and queer sexualities and liberation. Black liberation and diasporic identity have the possibility of forming a fourth stream, while cutting across the first three. Each of these sections forms a sizable work in its own right.

A selective framework on decoloniality

These cases and contexts explored in the chapters raise some questions: what about other geographies of decolonial resistance? For instance, a chapter on Hindu Nationalism and Indigeneity introduces a lesser-known influence on decolonial thought, but what of the Dalit resistance (one of the contributors is Dalit and Queer), or the recent ethnic violence in the north-east Indian state of Manipur, that effortlessly fall under the decolonial struggles the book details? Similarly, a chapter on Decolonial Islamophobia Studies argues for the need for anti-Muslim racism or Islamophobia to be understood and studied from a decolonial lens, incorporating solidarity with others affected by power and coloniality. But is it also worthwhile to try to understand the growing hyper-religious sentiment within many Muslim nations that could lead to repressive societal changes such as denying women’s, trans and queer rights among Muslims? The latter issue of queer representation and positionality is raised exceptionally well in chapters on caste and South Asian Queer diaspora and Islam and Queer life, respectively.

Likewise, while the volume includes individual contributions on decolonial perceptions of slavery, climate, fascism and economic disempowerment, it could have been worthwhile to develop a framework of how decoloniality can use these as legitimate forms of liberation from the oppressive structures they represent. For instance, how can decolonial thinking draw on the history of transatlantic slavery to dismantle the structures of modern slavery now implicated in climate disasters, corporate power and rising authoritarianism? Is this even possible?  

Inviting further work on decoloniality

None of these observations supposes that the contributions in this volume should or can be exhaustive. Instead, the wide range of issues it covers are only a part of what must be a wider debate on decolonial thought. Beyond this volume, we must find other ways, subjects and lenses through which to examine the impacts of different forms of resistance. And rather than examine them in isolation from each other, we should explore how one connects to another. While the book reflects many of these practices of resistance in India, Jamaica, Mexico, and Ghana, it also creates room for future scholarly exploration of how decolonial theory feeds into praxis across various geographies, religions and cultures.

Arguably the book’s most important contribution is how forcefully and unapologetically it resists both the Eurocentric delegitimisation of whole communities and the limitations of decolonial theory as a paradigm.

But the editors also rightly recognise that “departing from the Eurocentric knowledge production does not suggest that the Global South has a privileged epistemic viewpoint”. They contend that “Questioning power is not a result of one’s geopolitical location of sociocultural identity, but of one’s praxis, understood here as collective action informed by thought and reflection”. While it is not possible to comment on each chapter of this expansive handbook, arguably the book’s most important contribution is how forcefully and unapologetically it resists both the Eurocentric delegitimisation of whole communities (the Indigenous peoples of the Abya Yala, Palestine or now, Iran) and the limitations of decolonial theory as a paradigm. Emphasising this dehumanisation and the struggles against it, the book is dedicated to the Palestinian Resistance, before and after the events of October 7^th 2023. In its framework and the contributions of individual chapters,

The Sage Handbook of Decolonial Theory is an urgent, important contribution to scholarship and other types of work that illuminates and drives struggle against oppression in old and new forms. It will be an excellent resource for understanding historical and contemporary struggles of liberation and resistance. It will appeal to scholars, practitioners, activists and anyone interested in furthering those struggles and participating in the real, and often challenging work, of decolonisation.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Climate Hegemony: Confronting the Politics of the Environmental Impasse. Laurie Parsons. LSE Press. 2026.

Anna D’Alton (AD): What prompted you to write this book and what did you set out to do in writing it?

Laurie Parsons (LP): My perspective on this issue comes from the fact that my work began, and continues, in the field, in Cambodia. Before beginning any postgraduate research, I went to Cambodia and worked with vulnerable communities, with people working in garment factories and on construction sites. I could see first-hand how environmental vulnerabilities were interwoven with labour, culture and social dimensions.

But the large-scale frameworks and theoretical ways of understanding environmental vulnerability that I learned from textbooks deviated from what I saw in the field. Trying to make sense of that disjuncture is one of the key things the book does; to invert the traditional way of looking at the science and measurement of the environment in practice. Rather than asking, why do the data diverge from our models?, it asks, why do these diverge from what we see in the field? Why is the dominant scientific analysis failing to capture lived realities?

I wanted to understand how climate science, and the governance of the environment more generally, reflects capitalist power dynamics

I became interested in the politics of knowledge around nature and the idea – put forward by George Monbiot, Jason Moore, and others – that capitalism requires a separation of value from waste that often results in destructive and extractive practices. I wanted to understand how climate science, and the governance of the environment more generally, reflects capitalist power dynamics, and how we can situate that within the wider context and politics of today’s world.

AD: On the politics of knowledge, what is “climate hegemony”, and what makes it so difficult to disrupt?

LP: The concept of hegemony goes back to the 1920s in Italy, to Antonio Gramsci and his prison notebooks. Gramsci was a revolutionary and scholar, and he was languishing in prison wondering why there was a bloc of cultural opposition to the revolution that he was attempting to foment. Why were shopkeepers and labourers not rising up in support of a revolution if it was so obviously in their interests? Hegemony captures the idea that every aspect of culture and society comes to reflect the interests of its political, economic centre, which stifles revolution and creates inertia.

The idea that you need debt to create resilience to the environment and climate is an example of a hegemonic logic. And yet everything you see in the field shows that debt is creating the problems rather than solving them.

In the 1980s, Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe updated this concept as applied to social science. They claim that hegemony is essentially the conflation of objectivity and power. A hegemonic logic is objective (i.e. an unquestionable truth), is universal (there is no other way of looking at it), and is necessary, (we can’t just discard or forget it). The idea of climate hegemony is essentially applying this to climate governance – understanding how power relations come together to shape how we manage the environment and build inequalities within it.

AD: What are some examples of climate hegemony in action?

LP: One example is debt-driven development, a big issue in Cambodia and (other countries like Bangladesh) which are both growing rapidly and climate-vulnerable. I’ve seen massive increases in “microfinance”, resulting in households having multiple times the GDP per household in debt. This hardwired idea that you need debt to create resilience to the environment and climate is an example of a hegemonic logic. And yet everything you see in the field shows that debt is creating the problems rather than solving them. It’s creating a need to farm more intensively to pay off loans, to self-exploit in all kinds of dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs.

If you are directly affected by a drought, flood or heatwave, your experience of that is subjective, embodied, emotional. It involves your life, your family, your community. But once you scale that up to the global level, the human perspective disappears.

Another example is the predominance of GDP as a metric and the growth imperative. A massive aggregate like GDP masks great inequality. It also masks how “growth” – which involves massive foreign investments in construction and extraction of natural resources like forests – may have minimal benefits to society. There are alternative frameworks, but climate hegemony precludes them from being part of the conversation.

AD: You discuss the relevance of the different scales at which something is considered, from the macro (like GDP) to the individual farmer’s perspective. Why is it important to notice those different scales?

LP: The scale at which something is viewed shapes the way we interact with it. If you are directly affected by a drought, flood or heatwave, your experience of that is subjective, embodied, emotional. It involves your life, your family, your community. There’s an obvious politics to it. But once you scale that up to the global level, the human perspective disappears. Things become increasingly technical; you’re left with logic frameworks, models, perhaps, and what’s known in rhetoric as ethos, the authority of the speaker. Because you can’t see what’s going on, you cede that capacity to a trusted proxy, and then rely on that logic framework.

I think it’s worth observing how discourse and politics shift, and how what matters shifts, as we move up and up through that scale. My book examines where things get lost in that scalar transition, when you can no longer see the forest for the trees. One of the things I’m doing here is an archaeology of silence: trying to find the questions that are not being asked, why not, and what we can learn from that silence.

AD: Related to that is your concept of “thumbnail knowledges”. What are they and how do corporations and governments exploit them as regards climate governance?

LP: I developed this idea while writing the book, and it stems from the history of greenwashing, which dates from the 1960s. At that time, corporations and oil companies could make any environmental claim they wanted. Yet within a decade, the development of a green lobby and environmental legislation in the late ‘60s, began to result in pushback against some of those blatantly false claims.

Brands opt to broadly imply a green affiliation rather than claiming anything: they will put a green background to an ad, or set it in a field

Today, this greenwashing operates with much more subtlety. Brands opt to broadly imply a green affiliation rather than claiming anything: they will put a green background to an ad, or set it in a field, dress the models in a bohemian style, etc. And this can be effective because of how our brains work: like lighthouses constantly scanning, only able to focus attention on one thing at a time. We might think we have a great understanding of countless concepts, but in fact, we can only have a deep knowledge about a select number of things, and a surface-level or passing knowledge about tens of thousands of other things.

And corporations use this – the fact that people have a limited amount of attention, and a limited capacity for scrutiny – to their advantage. The real power in controlling knowledge is to shape those “thumbnails” or surface knowledges; to create assumptions which are vague or slightly wrong in how we interact with key political issues. This keeps the governance of that issue on track without having to really engage with the real political arguments that would challenge the hegemony. Understanding that architecture of knowledge and the way in which power shapes those tacit knowledges – those that we don’t know we don’t have – is critical if we want to disrupt power.

AD: The problem of climate hegemony seems so deeply embedded and difficult to fight against. And yet your book feels hopeful. How can we bring forth alternative understandings and frameworks for climate governance, a future different to the one we’re told to accept?

LP: I am hopeful. All the ingredients to resolve this problem are there. It’s neither a technical nor an insurmountable challenge. It’s really a question of rearranging how we examine and govern the issue, being on the ground with the communities experiencing climate vulnerability, seeing things from their perspectives.

From an academic perspective, and in every discipline, I’m advocating that we get to grips with field work, and take a productively sceptical stance towards numbers, models and data sets. In the age of AI and massive global modelling, we can get very rigorous-looking models, systems of governance, logics and approaches, which are fundamentally based on a limited amount of data or data which doesn’t reflect the whole situation. Although such models can be incredibly useful, we need to interrogate whether and when they diverge from reality by systematically engaging in the field, with lived realities, and to correct the gaps and errors.

The climate acts on society, not on atomised individuals. And society is something we make – we can make reshape and remake it.

From a practical perspective, another reason I have hope is because I’ve seen these alternative ways of viewing and doing things working. For example, I work a lot on heat stress and the problems arising from increasing instances of heat waves in countries like Cambodia. They cause health problems and issues with the capacity to work, and that is cause for concern, especially because a certain degree of global temperature increase is irreversible. And though we can’t control the increase, we do have control over the impact of that increase.

In the case of heat stress, just by rearranging working arrangements, by giving workers more autonomy over the way they manage their work we can massively reduce the adverse impacts of those heat waves on people. This is a huge lever that we control over the impacts of climate change, and it’s crucial that we recognise and act on that power. The climate acts on society, not on atomised individuals. And society is something we make – we can make reshape and remake it.

Finally, I also have a lot of faith in the public. Poll after poll indicates that there is overwhelming public support for resolving excessive carbon emissions and the problems this is excess is creating for communities around the world. And that sentiment, if harnessed correctly, is powerful. If we can get around the constant discursive blocking of the actions that the majority of us want to take, that gives us the power and the capacity to resolve the worst effects of these problems, and to stop the worst outcomes of climate change from happening.

Note: This interview gives the views of the interviewer and author, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better. Alan Manning. Polity. 2026.

Advocates and opponents of immigration often cite statistics. Some note that half of all Nobel Prizes in the US were earned by migrants, or that migrants have low rates of integration. These statistics can be misleading, as expertly demonstrated in Alan Manning’s Why Immigration Policy is Hard. Drawing upon government data and natural and survey experiments, Manning follows others (such as Alexander Kustov and Hein de Haas) in noting the dysfunctional relationship between policy, immigration, and public perception. In particular, he argues that there is an “infernal cycle,” where governments attempt to control immigration, would-be migrants attempt to avoid such control, citizens perceive a loss of control, governments attempt to better control immigration, and so forth. This results in poor policy and polarised debates with misleading claims (6).

Misleading claims about immigration

Before presenting these claims, Manning provides data on immigration globally, noting that – largely due to inequality – 16 per cent of the world wished to migrate in 2023, and 80 per cent of that group to higher-income countries (45). He then focuses on immigration’s effect on receiving countries, picking apart common talking points. For example, while many Nobel laureates are migrants, the odds of any given migrant winning a Nobel Prize are around one in 20 million. If so, these winners aren’t evidence supporting migration in general, Manning argues; they are reason to admit certain types of migrants, like scientists (112). Manning also presents statistics made by those opposing immigration, such as the claim – made by those against Muslim immigrants – that Muslims on average in the UK live in areas that are 32 per cent Muslim, and so are overly segregated. This overlooks the fact that Christians on average live in areas that are 52 per cent Christian (179).  

Determining immigration’s effects requires looking at data on the ground. It also requires examining how other policies impact the effects of immigration.

Claims about labour can also be misleading: some think migrants fill labour shortages, doing jobs locals won’t do like picking strawberries, but there are not a fixed number of jobs to be filled. New job openings can crop up when migrants arrive, as they create demand for food and other necessities, which can lead to new labour shortages as a result (123). Rather than attempting to generalise, determining immigration’s effects requires looking at data on the ground. It also requires examining how other policies impact the effects of immigration. For example, building more housing impacts whether migrants increase housing prices (141) and generous welfare impacts whether migrants are net fiscal contributors (159).

Issues with immigration policies

Manning then addresses potential new policies. While he supports making borders more open (201), he rejects completely open borders in today’s unequal world, arguing that too many migrants would move to wealthy countries, leading to the policy collapsing from various harms (197). One potential harm arises when low-wage local citizens are paid lower salaries due to employers hiring migrants (198-199). Even if such employers could compensate citizens made worse off, Manning thinks there is no way of ensuring they do (199). Importantly, if migrants were eligible for welfare benefits, at least once they become citizens, eventually migrants’ contributions may no longer outweigh their costs, and the economic benefits of open borders would be less clear-cut (201).

Manning notes that international students on post-study work visas often end up with jobs not requiring BAs, such as social care. He proposes offering them work visas instead.

Even current migration policies, far short of open borders, have some downsides. Manning notes that international students on post-study work visas often end up with jobs not requiring BAs, such as social care (243). If many students are essentially paying for degrees to work in jobs not requiring them, he proposes offering them work visas instead. Then such migrants needn’t first study, and the visa fees would go directly to the government, accruing revenue for the general taxpayer and not just universities (243).    

Problematic immigration enforcement

Of course, even when there are good reasons to limit migration, it isn’t always justified. Sometimes trying to reduce immigration means immigration officers falsely accuse migrants of violating immigration laws (249). Governments must always account for risks of false accusations, which can be difficult. One reason it is difficult, Manning claims, is that immigration enforcement is under-resourced, and so it is hard to discern who is or is not in the country legally (319 and 326).

The book pays significant attention to refugees. Some refugee advocates claim border enforcement does not actually deter border-crossings, because refugees have little other choice. Manning presents evidence debunking this claim: it turns out, not surprisingly, that if a state erects an armed border, then fewer cross (271). Whether this is viewed as a positive outcome, of course, is another matter. Manning supports rights for refugees, but claims that preventing irregular migration can save lives, because fewer try to make unsafe border crossings (274-275). Here he overlooks how stopping migrants from crossing borders could lead to them dying in unsafe transit and home countries. Indeed, Manning himself earlier notes that migrants taking life-threatening journeys are increasing their life expectancy if staying in their home countries means having shorter lives (3). He does not raise this when discussing enforcement deterring migrants from unsafe journeys, where he only considers deaths during travel.

This oversight might be explained by Manning’s focus on immigration’s effects on the “size and mix” of the population of receiving countries (330 and 334). This focus feeds into his conclusion that higher-income countries should have an upper limit of one per cent per annum net migration (334). It is not clear to what extent he thinks countries should also focus on immigration policy’s effects on the size, mix, and indeed survival rates of those unable to migrate.

Absent morality and selective data

Relatedly, the book rarely mentions morality. While Manning notes that immigration enforcement involves violence (204-205), he does not explain how moral concerns over this violence should be weighed against other considerations. Given that even citizens opposing more migration often oppose harmful detention and deportation, it would have been helpful to understand how such considerations ought to be integrated into policy.

The book has another limitation: while Manning rightly criticises others for cherry-picking facts to fit narratives, he sometimes cherry-picks himself. For example, in defending more resources for immigration enforcement, he cites checks of UK delivery drivers who were 42 per cent unauthorised (325), and US agricultural workers who are 44 per cent unauthorised (326). These industries are atypical: immigration enforcement is much higher in other industries and countries. Manning might even be cherry-picking data when claiming others cherry-pick data: he cites a working paper finding that scholars analysing the impact of welfare programs on support for immigration are biased, picking methods which reach their desired conclusions (83). Yet this paper cites another – never appearing in the book – which found that bias was “barely predictive” and “explained little” of the diverging conclusions.

While the book primarily focuses on economic values, that may be Manning’s intention: as he notes throughout, he is open to broader discussions. Such openness is desperately needed

Other times citations are missing, as when claiming most refugees wish to eventually return home (262 and 267), which might not be true, and claiming governments should publish data on migrant crime because otherwise people “will think there’s something to hide” (190), without presenting evidence. He later suggests that two-year post-work visas for international students are “more generous than necessary” for finding jobs, a claim many graduates will question. He additionally makes unsubstantiated claims about others’ claims, as when stating that some advocating “for more generous refugee policies” think refugees’ economic benefits will be “automatic” (297).

The above limitation, however, is partly down to the many variables relevant for immigration: defending every claim is difficult. This is especially true when presenting a broad overview, which Why Immigration Policy is Hard does successfully. In doing so, the book also demonstrates challenges in determining which policies to implement given competing values. And while the book primarily focuses on economic values, that may be Manning’s intention: as he notes throughout, he is open to broader discussions. Such openness is desperately needed in today’s debates to create better informed and more beneficial immigration.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: 1000 Words on Shutterstock.

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Eclipsing the West: China, India, and the Forging of a New World. Vince Cable. Manchester University Press. 2025.

India and China’s rise to “superstates”

In Eclipsing the West, Vince Cable has created a comprehensive, data-rich account of the rising prominence of China and India and the outsized role in global trade and geoeconomics they are set to play in the coming century. Bracketing more speculative premises found in the literature, about when – or indeed whether – the West will be surpassed by these superstates (or if it has already been), Cable amasses data point after data point, cumulatively demonstrating the inexorable momentum of these emerging Asian economies while outlining several possible future scenarios. The result is an economic portrait of a world in definite flux, but where the geoeconomic contours of the future are far from determined. “The old world is disappearing,” writes Cable, paraphrasing Gramsci, “but the shape of the new one remains unclear.” 

A decisive selection of terminology, which shape’s the book’s analysis, is Cable’s preference for “superstate” over superpower. The author claims, convincingly, that the former is more useful to describe forms of geoeconomic competition predicated on “expanse of territory, the number and diversity of people and… social and economic capacity” (3) which are likely to shape forms of competition in the coming decades. Whereas the comparative strengths of rival “‘superpowers” in the Cold War were occluded by an overemphasis on the destructive power of their weapons, advantage in the 21^st century is likely to be defined by decisive factors such as large, unified internal markets, the ability to make labour and fiscal transfers internally, and network effects derived from common infrastructure – all conditions which China and India, despite their challenges, are well placed to exploit in a new era of geostrategic competition.

Recent upheavals in world trade caused by the Iran war have highlighted the fragility of key global chokepoints while exposing the unwillingness of great powers to take on the sustained burden of securing them.

Cable devotes a significant portion of the book to a side-by-side analysis of the economic, political, regulatory, and social systems through which the parallel, but distinct stories of India and China’s growth are unfolding. A strength of the book is certainly the balance Cable strikes in drawing nuanced comparisons between these neighbours, both with reference to their divergent histories and internal dynamics as well as the outlook of their governing classes. Despite their many uncanny similarities (such as their near-identical population sizes, independence dating from roughly the same period, and their initial belief in socialist planning, rapid industrialisation and economic autarky), their differences – manifest in their growth trajectories, development models, and current challenges – are manifest. As Cable elucidates these differences, the oft-cited metaphor of the Chinese “galloping hare” contending with the Indian tortoise, is shown to contain elements of the truth, though by no means the whole story.

Structural constraints and 21^st-century traps

Having meticulously laid out the advantages and challenges faced by the Chinese and Indian superstates, Cable suggests that their trajectories will be shaped by how effectively each is able to resolve their contrasting structural constraints. Can China sustain growth as its investment-driven model runs into diminishing returns, mounting debt, and demographic headwinds? And can India translate its vast demographic potential into productive employment, overcoming its persistent failures in job creation and industrialisation? And how can each square the circle within an increasingly fragmented and uncertain international order?

From here, Cable builds out what, for the non-specialist reader, is likely the most engaging portion of the book: a forward-looking exploration of geopolitical scenarios, structured around the “traps” that may define the twenty-first century. These include the well-documented and widely debated risk of great-power conflict between a rising China and a defensive United States, and the parallel danger that no state is willing or able to sustain the global public goods on which stability depends.

Cable’s analysis of the second of these traps, the Kindleberger Trap, is particularly resonant in light of recent upheavals in world trade caused by the Iran war. These have highlighted the fragility of key global chokepoints while exposing the unwillingness of great powers to take on the sustained burden of securing them. Even more so, recent events show a scenario more troubling than those contained in Cable’s framework: not merely a vacuum of leadership, but a readiness on the part of a dominant power to test and disturb the norms that underpin global commerce without a corresponding willingness to assume unilateral responsibility for stabilising them.

A return to ideology or order?

Where, in Cable’s forward-looking scenarios, does that leave us? Cable suggests that China has, at least implicitly, recognised the risks of the Kindleberger Trap and may, under more cooperative scenarios, move to mitigate it – though it has shown no signs of interfering in Iran. Indeed, China’s stance is that it will engage selectively and on terms that reflect its own conception of global order rather than a wholesale assumption of the liberal system’s burdens.

Other economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, have been more willing to advance definitive claims that China has already surpassed the West, in some sense, a decade or more ago. Cable resists this certainty.

But even this semi-activist role is uncertain. Indeed, in the least pleasant of the three scenarios, there is a fragmented, transactional order in which China, India, and middle powers pursue their interests entirely independently, and no hegemon emerges to uphold global public goods. In this scenario, large states benefit from self-sufficiency and scale, while global rules weaken and protectionism spreads.Cable thinks this scenario more likely than one in which the world coalesces around ideological camps once more, or alternately moves toward a reformed version of the “post-war international order.” Unpromisingly, Cable maintains that, as for the latter, optimistic scenario, only geopolitical or climatic disaster could usher us back to the collective management of global challenges.

Casting the West into shadow

Cable’s talent for developing clear scenarios, no doubt sharpened by his time as Chief Economist at Shell as well as his later career in government, lends his final section an admirable precision. It is notable, too, that he opts for scenario-building rather than prediction, a restraint that sits somewhat at odds with the temptations of the genre. Other economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, have been more willing to advance definitive claims that China has already surpassed the West, in some sense, a decade or more ago. Cable resists this certainty. Instead, he presents a set of plausible, contingent trajectories. It is in this light that the title, Eclipsing the West, seems particularly well chosen. An eclipse does not replace what it obscures; it casts it into shadow. To speak of the West being “eclipsed” is therefore to describe not a clean succession of one order by another, but an ambiguous interlude in which power is redistributed even as the structures that once sustained it persist in altered form. Cable’s account suggests that China and India are indeed moving into the light, yet the question remains whether what they inherit is a coherent system to lead, or a fragmented one to navigate. In that sense, the eclipse may tell us as much about the dimming of the old order as it does about the clarity of the new.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: MaxZolotukhin on Shutterstock.

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