The Rise of Illiberalism: A Threat to Liberal Democracy

Illiberalism is defined by both its opposition to and dependence on liberalism—understood as an ideology and as a democratic system...

15 Min Read

Private Censorship: Between Corporate Power and Free Speech

Censorship is permissible when private parties target speech that threatens harm greater…

Academia and the Illiberal Challenges to Freedom of Expression

This article explores the democratic complexities encountered by researchers and academic institutions…

Does Free Speech Have a Future?

About the book The Life and Death of Freedom of Expression by Richard Moon, published by University of Toronto Press…

Richard Moon
21 Min Read

Political songs: An Unsung Hero in Political Struggle

Political songs have long served as the resonant voice of…

15 Min Read

From Dylan to Beyoncé: Pop Music’s Role in Social Change

The relationship between pop music and politics is a dynamic…

10 Min Read

Urban Precarity: Art’s Political Lens

Artistic portrayals of marginalized cityscapes challenge perceptions, reshaping the global…

15 Min Read

Politically Speaking Art in Albania: Echoes of Dissent and Duality

Politically speaking art in Albania navigates the intricate landscape of…

13 Min Read

After Venezuela: Trump Advances on Greenland

Like a North Atlantic iceberg, Greenland had drifted off the global media’s radar in recent months, as other places and events dominated headlines, from the festering military conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, to the new year’s showdown in Venezuela.

Barry Scott Zellen
22 Min Read

Project 2025: Authoritarian Agenda Disguised as Reform

The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” lays out a coordinated effort to restructure federal governance by consolidating executive power and reshaping institutional norms along partisan lines.

2024 UN Report: Counterterrorism vs. Human Rights

The 2024 UN report on counter-terrorism measures examines the growing…

8 Min Read
AI’s Impact on Healthcare, Employment, and Economic Growth

Artificial Intelligence is transforming key industries by driving economic growth,…

10 Min Read
Living Planet 2024: Biodiversity in Crisis

The Living Planet Report 2024 reveals a staggering 73% decline…

8 Min Read
Internet Shutdowns as a Tool of Authoritarian Repression

An analysis of internet shutdowns as instruments of state repression,…

9 Min Read
Citizens United: Impact of Wealthy Donors and Dark Money

The effectiveness of legislative efforts to curb dark money, the role of…

14 Min Read

Editor's Pick

Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and author of Land Power:...
Dillon Professor of American History at Harvard University, where she teaches in the Department...
Emeritus Professor of Policy Analysis at the London School of Economics and Political Science....
Professor of African Diaspora Studies at Yale University. Author of Awakening the Ashes: An...
Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Sidney Sussex...
Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Oxford, affiliated with the Faculty of...
President of the Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Research Chair in Quebec and Canadian...
Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA and Faculty Co-Director of its...
Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford University and Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford...

The Book Curator

Discover the Books Featured in Politics and Rights Review

Can't Miss

Unraveling the Radical Right: A Review

The book makes a significant contribution to public discourse by offering clarity…

6 Min Read
20th-Century Revolutions: Dynamics & Legacy

Exploring the transformative power and enduring impact of 20th-century revolutions on global…

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Your donation matters – even small contributions fuel big ideas

Award-winning books in the humanities and social sciences: works that shape thought and intellectual debate.

What Racism Really Costs Us All

Winner of the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award.

6 Min Read

Climate-Friendly Food Choices: The Blue Plate

Winner of the 2025 IBPA Gold Award.

8 Min Read

How Group Empathy Can Transform Politics and Society

Winner of the 2022 Merze Tate – Elinor Ostrom Outstanding Book Award.

5 Min Read

Patchwork Freedoms: How Enslaved People Won Their Rights

Winner of the James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History (2023) and the Peter Gonville Stein Book Award (2023).

4 Min Read

Rethinking Colonial Caribbean History

Winner of the 2022 James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History

7 Min Read

Cancel Culture and the Silencing of Arctic Dissent

This article presents a first-person reflection on a recent academic exchange in Arctic studies, situating it within broader debates on…

On the Religious Politics of American Borders

The border is a site of retrenchment and transcendence. Enforcement and erasure. The suspension of the law and its prosecution. The US ferociously defends its borders even as the ideal…

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
17 Min Read

Microhistories and the African Past

The understanding of the African past has been revolutionised in the six decades since African nations’ wave of independence in the 1960s...

16 Min Read

When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness

In the fourth century BCE, the Greek philosopher Aristotle labeled sleep “a border-land between living and not living.”

David M. Peña-Guzmán
14 Min Read

A World on Edge: Environmental Injustice Threatens Us All

Our old planet is now like a fragile crystal, shimmering yet perilously close to cracking...

12 Min Read

Environmental Violence and the Human Right to a Healthy Planet

We live in a time of immense juxtaposition. Recently the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)…

13 Min Read

How Emotions Shape Climate Action: Barriers and Agency

If we have learned anything from the past four decades of non-progress in the face…

19 Min Read

Does Humanity Have a Death Wish?

Extreme climate change and the despoliation of our planet. Threats of global war and nuclear…

16 Min Read

Latest Articles

The Rise of Illiberalism: A Threat to Liberal Democracy

Illiberalism is defined by both its opposition to and dependence on liberalism—understood as an ideology and as a democratic system...

15 Min Read

Cancel Culture and the Silencing of Arctic Dissent

I was pleased to learn last week that none other than the widely renowned lead of the North American and…

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Is the Cuban Dictatorship Coming to an End?

For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has survived profound economic crises, the disappearance of strategic allies, and—more recently—systematic…

11 Min Read

On the Religious Politics of American Borders

The border is a site of retrenchment and transcendence. Enforcement and erasure. The suspension of the law and its prosecution.…

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The Christmas Verdict: Europe Alone

The threat is double. Trump signals American withdrawal precisely when Russia remains an active danger on Europe’s eastern frontier.

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After Venezuela: Trump Advances on Greenland

Like a North Atlantic iceberg, Greenland had drifted off the global media’s radar in recent months, as other places and…

22 Min Read

Phenomenology of Race : Identity, Relationality, and Racism

A phenomenology of race aims to understand race as changing, ambiguous, dynamic, and as a persistent feature in our social…

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Putin’s Ainu Recognition: Is Hokkaido Russia’s Next Target?

Just as Japan and China have both acknowledged the importance of engagement with the Arctic’s indigenous peoples in their respective…

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Hokkaido and the Foundations of Japan’s Arctic Influence

Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands, with their long-contested but fortuitously situated geography, remain critical to the future stability of the…

14 Min Read

The Rise, Fall and Re-emergence of Japan as an Arctic Power

Japan was, for much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a North Pacific great power in command of…

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Christian Globalism: Bridging Distant Ties

Can one forge real relationships with faraway people and places? Is it possible to experience aspects of a global reality…

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Introducing Civil Society to China

In the 1980s and 1990s wave of democratization, democracy movements corroborated the role of civil society in democratic transitions. It…

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Is Harvard’s Judge Truly Impartial?

In a courtroom where generations of Harvard visibly and invisibly converge, reasonable minds can wonder whether true justice can ever…

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Secular Sensibilities amidst French and Québécois Politics

In recent years, political leaders in the North Atlantic world have stressed the importance of buttressing “secularism,” often framed as…

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Harvard Admissions, Privilege, and the Trump Challenge

Structures of access matter as much as structures of excellence. Harvard has long excelled at the latter; the time has…

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