New Books in Political Science

Can trade unions be reconceptualised as human rights organisations? This study explores the untapped potential of labour movements in human rights advocacy, drawing on extensive interviews with representatives of union confederations worldwide.
In Trade Unions as Human Rights Organisations: Approaches to and Experiences of Human Rights Advocacy (Bristol UP, 2026), Dr. Matthew Evans provides both theoretical foundations and empirical evidence for viewing trade unions through a human rights lens, examining existing partnerships with NGOs and identifying opportunities for enhanced collaboration. Through detailed analysis of concrete political campaigns, this book reveals how union-based advocacy networks operate in practice.
Essential reading for scholars of labour relations, human rights and political advocacy, this innovative work opens new pathways for understanding and strengthening human rights movements globally.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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It’s April, 1959, a respected naval commander comes back from time at sea to find out that his wife is having an affair. Despondent and angry, he drives to the apartment of his wife’s lover to talk to him. The lover ends up dead. The murder trial of Commander Kawas Nanavati captivated Bombay because it had everything—sex, betrayal, intrigue. When the jury verdict came out, many were outraged and they thought the jury system was to blame. The trial came to be known as “The Last Jury Trial in India” because it heralded the end of the jury in India and became a lightning rod for concerns about the jury being corrupted by prejudice and the media.
The Last Jury Trial in India is a four-part series hosted by Sonali Chakravarti, professor of government at Wesleyan University.

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How can the 2026 midterm elections in the U.S. be interpreted, from a public-opinion standpoint? I talk about this with Bruce Stokes, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and formerly a public-opinion analyst at the Pew Research Center. We talk about the potential for bipartisanship in Congress, the tendency for voters not to identify with either major party, and attitudes on issues including the U.S. relationship with Israel. We also touch on public-opinion sentiments in Europe as right-wing candidates like Marine Le Pen come to the fore.

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Neither capitalism nor central planning, this is the future for socialism.
Capitalism isn’t working. But is there a plausible alternative? The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World (Verso, 2026) lays one out: a system where workers control every lever of production, and competitive markets and state planning coexist side by side. Drawing on the history of socialist experiments and the economic debate over planning and markets, The Blueprint confronts the hardest questions about what went wrong in the past—and why it can go right in the future. The result is a socialism worthy of the twenty-first century.
Mike Beggs is senior lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the history of macroeconomic and monetary thinking and policy.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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In this episode, Matthew Mason (Professor of History at Brigham Young University) interviews Rachel Shelden (Associate Professor of History and Director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University) about her new book, The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History (UNC Press, 2026).
Today’s Supreme Court justices bristle at the label “politicians in robes,” insisting that they operate above the fray of partisan politics. But for the first century of the nation’s history, the Court was unmistakably a political institution, both by design and in practice. Justices were fully expected to engage in partisan politics—there was no concern that such engagement would lead to corruption or undue bias—and they remained deeply involved in civic debate and the electoral process while on the bench. In addition to hearing cases in the capital, each justice spent much of his time “riding circuit” and presiding over federal trial courts. On circuit and in Washington, nineteenth-century justices wrote for partisan newspapers, drafted legislation, advised partisan allies, campaigned for colleagues, and even ran for political offices from the bench. Through these political interactions, members of the Court helped shape debates about the Constitution’s meaning at a time when most Americans did not believe in judicial supremacy.

In this sweeping history, Rachel A. Shelden, one of America’s leading voices on the history of the Court, brings readers inside the social and political world of its justices, recovering their essential role in the era’s turbulent politics. She also charts shifts at the turn of the twentieth century, when members of the Court and the legal community refashioned the judiciary as an apolitical institution, setting the stage for an increasingly more powerful—and more isolated—modern Court. The Political Supreme Court is required reading for anyone interested in the legal and political underpinnings of today’s judicial power.

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