Examines the ways in which the American model is being imposed on the world, and outlines its economic and political consequences. It shows how both citizenship and class consciousness are diluted in "low-intensity democracy" and argues instead for democratization as an ongoing process--of fundamental importance for human progress--rather than a fixed constitutional formula designed to support the logic of capital accumulation. [publisher web site]
The Global State of Democracy 2026: Democracy in an Age of Conflict
In the face of increasing political and societal fragmentation, the Global State of Democracy 2026 explains the patterns that define the direction of democratization around the world. Drawing on the latest data from the Global State of Democracy Indices, the report documents both democratic stagnation and key declines in indicators that measure the credibility of elections, the effectiveness of legislatures, respect for freedoms of expression and the press, and access to justice. These phenomena affect countries across thespectrum of democratic performance.
The Global State of Democracy 2026: Democracy in an Age of Conflict
In the face of increasing political and societal fragmentation, the Global State of Democracy 2026 explains the patterns that define the direction of democratization around the world. Drawing on the latest data from the Global State of Democracy Indices, the report documents both democratic stagnation and key declines in indicators that measure the credibility of elections, the effectiveness of legislatures, respect for freedoms of expression and the press, and access to justice. These phenomena affect countries across thespectrum of democratic performance.
Preface | The World After Capital
Since publishing the previous version of The World After Capital, I have met with people across the political spectrum to discuss the ideas from the book. When I present these in person, I emphasize that the ideas are neither left nor right but forward (credit to Scott Santens who first used this phrase about Universal Basic Income). My writing, however, at times has alienated readers who identify as being more on the right. In this new edition, I am therefore making an extra effort to emphasize how both my diagnosis of where we are at and my suggestions for how to move forward do not map onto the existing political divides. Instead this is a new way of understanding our challenges and opportunities that can be the basis for movements and parties that are not trapped in Industrial Age ideology.
Pluralistic: America and “national capitalism” (18 Feb 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Thomas Piketty's 2013 unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) Capital in the 21st Century, offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:
Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences
POLITICS AFTER THE END OF THE END OF HISTORYWhat happens when politics is everywhere, yet nothing seems to change? From the abandoned dance floors of Thatcher’s London to the mass mobilizations of Black Lives Matter, Anton Jäger traces how public life has become infused with protest, spectacle, and moral urgency — while the old infrastructure of parties, unions, and civic solidarity has been hollowed out.Hyperpolitics revisits the illusions of the “end of history” and dissects the strange energies that replaced them: viral outrage, endless culture wars, and the digital rush of causes that flare and vanish overnight. Jäger shows how the promises of post–Cold War liberalism gave way to a restless, unsteady public sphere where private passions overflow into politics but rarely build enduring power.Ranging from Guy Debord and Wolfgang Tillmans to Houellebecq’s disenchanted fictions, Hyperpolitics makes sense of a world in which collective action remains fragmented and the social fabric thinner than ever. For anyone trying to grasp why our age feels so charged yet so inconsequential, this book offers a vital map through the new contradictions of our hyperpolitical moment.
The Weaponized World Economy
When Washington announced a “framework deal” with China in June, it marked a silent shifting of gears in the global political economy. This was not the beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s imagined epoch of “liberation” under unilateral American greatness or a return to the Biden administration’s dream of managed great-power rivalry. Instead, it was the true opening of the age of weaponized interdependence, in which the United States is discovering what it is like to have others do unto it as it has eagerly done unto others.
Towards a Planetary Theology
Every political innovation requires, first of all, a corresponding transformation in the cosmos. To remake globalization from a gangster racket into a genuine political society, we must recognize theology’s foundational role in shaping political order.
Citizens Above the Law
The growing sovereign citizen movement reflects an America that has lost faith in its democratic institutions.
Democracy Tracker | The Global State of Democracy
Each report describes an event that affects the state of democracy in a given country, with assessments made relative to that country's context, not as comparisons or rankings between countries.
The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy
Abstract The Dispersion of Power is an urgent call to rethink centuries of conventional wisdom about what democracy is, why it matters, and how to make it better. Drawing from history, social science, psychology, and critical theory, it explains why elections do not and cannot realize the classic ideal of popular rule, and why prevailing strategies of democratic reform often make things worse. Instead, Bagg argues, we should see democracy as a way of protecting public power from capture—an alternative vision that is at once more realistic and more inspiring. Despite their many shortcomings, real-world elections do prevent the most extreme forms of tyranny, and are therefore indispensable. In dealing with the vast inequalities that remain, however, we cannot rely on standard solutions such as electoral reform, direct democracy, deliberation, and participatory governance. Instead, Bagg shows, protecting and enriching democracy requires addressing underlying inequalities of power directly. In part, this entails substantive policies attacking the advantages of wealthy elites. Even more crucially, deepening democracy requires the organization of oppositional, countervailing power among ordinary people. Neither task is easy, but historical precedents exist in both cases—and if democracy is to survive contemporary crises, leaders and citizens alike must find ways to revive and reinvent these essential democratic practices for the twenty-first century.
The Human Condition: Second Edition
A classic work of political thought, more relevant today than ever The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, “the theorist of beginnings,” whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations—from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan’s 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.
Hello I'm an American living in a red state. I wrote a little thing for Europeans explaining the current the moment in the US. It's important that people understand why this is happening, because a similar thing is coming for most democracies. docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRPrDiXk2…
Fix the internet, save democracy
The internet has evolved into a state that is actively hostile towards global democracy. A thesis is emerging that to save global democracy, you must fix the internet.
The IndieWeb Is Punk Manifesto
The Retweeting Class
Funding The Web: From Cartel to Covenant
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
The architecture of the internet creates risks for democracy
