I have a new open access journal article out in Democratic Theory, “The Last Argument for Democracy: The Unsettling Reliance of Embedded Democracies on Authoritarian Specter Regimes.” As it’s open access, there are no paywalls. You can read it here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S2332889426000333.

Here’s the abstract:

Winston Churchill’s line—that democracy is “the worst form of Government” except all other forms that have been tried—concedes that liberal democracy cannot normatively satisfy us. In the absence of compelling positive arguments, liberals retreat to the Churchill line. But the Churchill line operates by comparing democracy with other, even worse forms of government. In the older embedded democracies, there is no recent direct experience of other forms of government. The Churchill line therefore requires a “specter regime”—a repugnant, yet viable foreign authoritarian regime that can serve as a foil. Without the USSR, it is difficult to find such regimes. Efforts to make China, Russia, and Iran into specter regimes carry enormous costs. But without positive arguments, these costs become hard to avoid.

I have a new piece out for Sublation about state bureaucracy. There’s no paywall. You can read it here: https://sublationmedia.com/a-critique-of-the-critique-of-the-administrative-state/

I have a new piece out for Sublation on the left’s attempt to reconstitute itself around the war in Gaza. You can read it here: https://sublationmedia.com/the-left-cannot-make-use-of-the-gaza-war/

My article in Contemporary Political Theory came out today. It directly challenges the prevalent idea that American democracy currently faces existential threats. I’ve been given a link that will allow you to read it even without institutional affiliation. Check it out:

https://rdcu.be/cViBD

I have spent years refining the argument, and I am hoping to spend many more years further developing my theory of chronic legitimacy crisis. It is central to my understanding of politics in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. Anything that you’ve read on this blog for the past 5 years or so has been heavily influenced by the argument I make in the article above.