I’ve written the fourth in a series of six posts that will be coming out with the Streit Council, on the problem of economic integration without political union. There’s no paywall. You can read it here: https://www.streitcouncil.org/post/why-federalism-on-citizenship
I have a new post out for Edinburgh University Press’ blog on my new book, Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies. There’s no paywall. You can read it here: https://euppublishingblog.com/2025/01/22/us-uk-embedded-democracies/
It offers a short introduction to the concept of an “embedded democracy,” which plays a central role in the new book. That book is available here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-legitimacy-in-liberal-democracies.html
I’ve written a piece for Isonomia on the tension between the democratic commitment to ensuring all citizens are able to participate in politics and the worry that some citizens are more capable of participating effectively than others. It’s a bit of a history of thought piece, albeit a bit zoomed out. I discuss ancient perspectives, 18th and 19th century liberal views, Marxist critiques, and 20th century attempts to bring these different commitments together. It was a really fun piece to write, and I hope it’s fun to read. There’s no paywall. You can read it here:
https://isonomiaquarterly.com/archive/volume-1-issue-1/the-heart-of-isonomia/
Also, if you haven’t heard, I have a book out. If you want to read it, the best deal is the paperback, available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-28210-2
I have a new piece out for Sublation on the failure of liberal and left-wing conceptions of citizenship to adequately protect citizens from denationalization. Prominent recent cases include Shamima Begum in the UK and Suhayra Aden in Australia. Both liberal and left-wing accounts increasingly center individual agency, and this emphasis makes it easy for states to deny the role they’ve played in creating the conditions for terrorism and to concretize this denial in the form of denationalization. There are discussions of Althusser and especially Balibar, whose book Citizen Subject is referenced in the title. It’s available here, with no pay wall:
https://www.sublationmag.com/post/citizen-eject
I’ve published a piece in Cosmos + Taxis about some of the tensions between nationalism and liberalism. Cosmos + Taxis‘ readership skews libertarian, and many of its readers are frustrated with the constraints nationalism imposes upon liberalism. There’s a lot of right libertarian interest in republicanism and federalism. I make the case that republicanism can only compete with nationalism insofar as republics offer citizens more extensive sets of rights–including economic rights–than they can have through nationalism. In this way, I pitch the libertarians on adopting more conventionally left-wing economic positions. It’s a sincere effort to make an argument that might be appealing to someone with a rather different set of starting points from my own. You can read the whole thing here.
Benjamin Studebaker 