Steven Klein

What can the deep history of democracy tell us about renewal today? Excited to be presenting a new paper coauthored with my colleague Federica Carugati at MANCEPT today

Democratic elitism: the founding myth of American political science - Contemporary Political Theory Contemporary Political Theory -

Excellent review of Natasha Piano's groundbreaking new book Democratic elitism: the founding myth of American political science. Far from being advocates of a "realistic" view of democracy, the Italian elite theorists warn us of the plutocratic dangers of election

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

LPTN: Spring Grad Student Workshops LPTN hosts an event to workshop some aspects of professional development, catered to PhD students

The London Political Theory Network is organising a professional development workshop on 11 May for PhD students and early career political theorists in order to broaden access to the discipline. Register here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lptn-sprin...

Reform win a seat: The true Volk have spoken and we all must listen.

Greens win a seat: Early reports that Muslims may have ‘voted’ (an ancient Islamic practice designed to steal elections). How severely should the franchise be limited in response?

There's an emerging coterie of "dissident," anti-woke journalists who argue that calling Epstein a pedophile is part of a moral panic that bends the facts. But all evidence points to Epstein in fact being a pedophile.

How a Labour Government Helped to Crush Iran’s Workers’ Movement As the Second World War came to a close, the rise of Iran's workers' movement posed a growing threat to British capital – so a Labour government set about crushing it for a generation.

tribunemag.co.uk/2021/11/attl...

A good moment to remember that when you dig into history, the British are behind almost every major global crisis. In this case it was also Attlee's Labour government that began to undermine Iranian democracy, although eventually Churchill who launched the coup.

the right/conservatives seem to actually like their voters on an affective, moral, and cultural level. don't really understand why this dynamic plays out this way.

there's a peculiar dynamic where centre-left political elites/advisors around the world seem to have an intense contempt for their own voters. they/we believe the caricature of their voters as woke urban professionals out of touch with the "real" core of their country.

Such a huge figure, and one of the people I remember most vividly reading when I first became interested in political theory

With the rise of generative AI, Heidegger's effort to rescue thinking by writing in semi intelligible jargon doesn't seem so silly.

Public support for taxation crumbles when unfairness is revealed | King's College London Public support for broad-based taxation risks eroding when voters learn that the super-rich pay lower tax rates than ordinary citizens, according to new research co-authored by King’s academics.

See the research of my colleagues David Hope and Julian Limberg

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/public-...

You can't look at taxing the rich in isolation from broader attitudes towards taxing everyone else. If taxing the rich makes people perceive the system as more fair and so more willing to pay higher taxes themselves, it would definitely help close these gaps.

Regressing to Nature: Culture Industry and Fascism in Times of Ecological Crisis Click on the article title to read more.

My article “Regressing to Nature: Culture Industry and Fascism in Times of Ecological Crisis” is out in Constellations (open access)! It draws on Frankfurt School analyses of culture industry and fascism to rethink them as forces that obstruct responses to the climate crisis: doi.org/10.1111/1467...

Please do submit to the second London PPE conference hosted at KCL- it is a great community and will promise to be an exciting conference!

Project will seek to address challenge of skills shortage in rural areas | King's College London A pioneering new project led by a King’s College London academic aims to help rural governments address the growing challenges posed by ageing populations and skills shortages.

A new project led by @sanpages.bsky.social will seek to address the growing challenges posed by ageing populations and skills shortages in rural areas 📑

Read more ⬇️

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/project...

Very excited we will be hosting a lecture by the one and only John Ganz - info and sign up here!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/why-the-cl...

Utopia Abstract. Ideal societies, better worlds, more just and peaceful ways of living: these have long been the stuff of human beings’ social dreaming. In this c

NEW BOOK!

I'm very happy to say that my new book, Utopia, co-written with Douglas Mao, has been published on-line

academic.oup.com/book/62279

How Britain tried (and failed) to stop a £10 billion crimewave The police have launched two fraud-fighting intiatives — will they be any better at tackling the three million cases a year, asks Megan Harwood-Baynes

🗣️ "The government can’t promise anything in terms of solving the problem..."

Professor Anja Shortland spoke to @thetimes.com about efforts to tackle cybercrime and fraud in the UK 🤖💻

Read it here (💷)⬇️

www.thetimes.com/money/saving...

bye bye queen

Depreciating the University of Edinburgh into the Ground — UCU Edinburgh There are four key takeaways from the University of Edinburgh’s 2024-25 annual report, which this post explores: The University continues to make a sizeable surplus. What financial pressures exi...

Great work by @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social on UoE's latest financial report. Depressing that a university doing pretty damn well financially (no deficit) compared to most of the sector choosing to destroy itself, and staff are all just sitting helplessly in the backseat of a slow motion car crash.

It's the Iraq war mea culpas all over again. Yes you were right but you were right for the wrong reasons.

The Unavoidability of Scarcity and Necessity of Political Choice Advocates of the ‘abundance’ agenda dream of a bright future, but in the UK its possibility relies on economic sacrifices in the present. The consequent politics are wicked and demand ideologically i...

The @ippr.org asked me to write about Klein and Thompson's"abundance" agenda for their Progressive Review.

Rather than a choice, scarcity has been unavoidable in the UK recently - with implications for both abundance and more dirigiste supply agendas.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A significant percentage of this was orchestrated by tech oligarchs like Thiele looking for an opening to tear down the state

Alex Pretti from his early days working at the VA

Alex from our time working together, while he was in nursing school. Later, he moved to ICU, working as a nurse to support critically ill Veterans. He had such a great attitude. We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together. Will never happen now

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him.

White. Hot. Rage.

Volume 33, Issue 3-4 A quarterly journal of politics and ideas, committed to exploring and expanding the radical potential of social democracy.

NEW ISSUE: Renewal 33/3&4

Guest co-edited by @neilwarner.bsky.social & @beccagold.bsky.social, this special double issue features nineteen (19) brilliant essays analysing Labour's statecraft and debating the strategic challenges for social democracy in Britain and beyond

How do ecological activists use expert knowledge to stage scenes of dissensus & what does this reveal about expertise & democracy? @aehyvonen.bsky.social reformulates radical democratic theory to offer new insights into both questions. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/RoFhPou

@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

🆕 'Judith Shklar’s Ethos of Skeptical Vigilance'

Professor Robin Douglass and Dr Edward Hall have a new article published in the Review of Politics journal ✍️💭

Read it here 👇

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Public support for taxation crumbles when unfairness is revealed | King's College London Public support for broad-based taxation risks eroding when voters learn that the super-rich pay lower tax rates than ordinary citizens, according to new research co-authored by King’s academics.

🪙Public support for broad-based taxation risks eroding when voters learn that the super-rich pay lower tax rates than ordinary citizens, according to new research 📉

Read the research, co-authored by Julian Limberg, David Hope and Lukas Haffert, here 👇

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/public-...