Volume 139, Issue 2, Summer 2024

This paper examines the transnational implications of anti-Asian racial violence in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the rise of hawkish foreign policy discourses and public opinion in China. The author investigates the way the Chinese state media discuss anti-Asian racism in America and how such political narratives shape mass attitudes and foreign policy preferences in China. The findings highlight the potential racialization of current Sino-American great power competition.

Approval of the Supreme Court has recently hit its lowest point in decades and calls for reforming the U.S. Supreme Court have gained more traction today than at any point in modern history. In this article, Anna Flemming, Matthew Montgomery, and Natalie Rogol use a novel survey experiment to try and understand if the public is becoming more willing to reform the U.S. Supreme Court, and if so, why.

Should democracies hunker down and get ready for a cyber version of a new cold war? The long reach of Russian and, to some extent, Chinese efforts electronically to subvert orderly democratic processes may be the issue of our time—or it may not. David Sloss's new work argues strongly that democracies are on the ropes, that Russian disinformation campaigns are a prime culprit, and that we best mobilize to quarantine the contagion before it is too late. This is no Dr. Strangelove scenario but a serious set of worst-case analyses of how cyber can undermine both the institutions and morale of democracies, beginning with the core concern of confidence in election integrity. Some may conclude that the case is not yet proven or that the cost side of the equation outweighs the potential benefits. Even for skeptics, this is a valuable contribution to a much-needed debate about how to address the mobilization of the means of communication as an element of antidemocratic aggression.

Some friends from India climbed into an Uber car and made their way from the airport to downtown Seattle. They sensibly wore masks, though the worst of the coronavirus had abated. At a red light, a man in a pickup truck pulled up next to them, lowered his window, leaned out, and introduced them to the Great American Culture Clash: “Take off those fucken masks,” he shouted. Bewildered, they later asked me why the man had been so agitated. Somehow, their perfectly reasonable precaution—a cloth strip that protects others from asymptomatic spread—had morphed into a cultural totem separating us from them, sorting the virile from the woke. A health epidemic set off a culture war and, like all national crises, revealed exactly who we Americans are. At the same time, it offered unexpected little hints of who we might become. This review essay, focused primarily on Danielle Allen's Democracy in a Time of Coronavirus, traces how and why public health fell into the American culture wars, notes the brief glimmer of a genuine social welfare safety net that briefly emerged during the crisis, and concludes by summarizing the epidemic's dismal toll on American lives.

Stein Ringen's new book, How Democracies Live: Power, Statecraft, and Freedom in Modern Societies, is an entry in an increasingly cluttered genre: the diagnosis and remediation of democratic backsliding. Ringen inverts the ordinary “order of battle” found in this body of scholarship. He approaches the question of democratic backsliding through an analytic path that flips around the usual scholarly procedure. Rather than starting with the present crisis, he begins with classical texts of political theory and develops a general conceptual map of that terrain. His approach is organized around five core concepts of political theory: power, statecraft, freedom, poverty, and democracy. The big question posed by this design decision is simple: Do we gain more or less insight into the mechanisms and cure for democratic backsliding by starting big (and general), or are we better off reasoning from specific facts? In making a case for going big, Ringen inadvertently illuminates the benefits of the more common, case-based approach.

Are baby boomers still relevant? Will millennials and Gen Z political participation ever reach boomer levels? Does Gen X even get a seat at the table? Kevin Munger addresses these questions and more in Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture, his wide-ranging review of American politics and culture through a generational lens. Munger argues that boomer political dominance has been a characteristic of their generation since they entered the public realm, resulting in public policies that have favored them throughout the life course. As they approach retirement, boomers are obstinately holding onto electoral power and protecting their own interests, to the detriment of younger generations. Supplementing traditional surveys and economic trends with original data, Munger makes a case for a potential showdown between the tech-savvy younger cohorts and aging boomers.