Political Ideologies Audiobooks | Politics

Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers

Leadership from Bad to Worse is about how leadership that is bad, invariably, inexorably, gets worse-unless it is somehow, by someone or something, stopped or slowed. This work draws on four cases of bad leadership-two in political leadership, two in business leadership-to show how it goes from bad to worse. Kellerman finds that bad leadership and bad followership go through four phases of development: 1) Onward and Upward; 2) Followers Join In; 3) Leaders Start In; and 4) Bad to Worse. These findings correctly suggest that the book, in addition to being of theoretical interest, is of practical import. It is intended, deliberately, to serve as an early warning system. By breaking bad leadership and followership into phases-each more ominous and ultimately dangerous than the one preceding-their progression will be easier to predict and detect. And easier, therefore, to slow or, preferably, to stop before they turn toxic. Bad leadership is a social disease. But unlike diseases that are physical or psychological, it remains at the margins of our collective concerns. Leadership from Bad to Worse is, then, a corrective. Knowing that bad leadership can be checked before it corrupts is knowing that bad and then worse can be, if not completely precluded, then sometimes short-circuited.

Barbara Kellerman (Author), Linda Jones (Narrator)

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Party People: Candidates and Party Evolution

Candidates are the literal 'face' of political parties, yet they are not wedded to them permanently: candidates can enter or leave politics, switch parties, move along or stay behind when parties split or merge. Even in parties that look stable, candidate change happens below the surface, ultimately altering what the parties stand for. Inspired by evolutionary theories, Party People: Candidates and Party Evolution conceptualizes candidates as 'party genes' and develops a candidate-based approach to party evolution. Tracking candidates between elections and parties opens up new perspectives on party development in complex and dynamic settings in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and beyond. Based on a new database of 200,000 electoral candidates from over sixty elections across nine CEE democracies, this book presents a groundbreaking study of party evolution using candidate change as an indicator of party change. Allan Sikk and Philipp Köker offer a series of methodological and conceptual advances for the measurement of candidate turnover, party fission and fusion, programmatic change, and party leadership change; the resulting analyses make a significant contribution to the study of CEE party politics as well as to the general scholarship on elections, parties, and political change.

Allan Sikk, Phillip Koker (Author), David Marantz (Narrator)

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Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age

The internet as we know it is broken. Here's how we can seize back control of our lives from the corporate algorithms and create a better internet-before it's too late. It was once a utopian dream. But today's internet, despite its conveniences and connectivity, is the primary cause of a pervasive unease that has taken hold in the U.S. and other democratic societies. It's why youth suicide rates are rising, why politics has become toxic, and why our most important institutions are faltering. Information is the lifeblood of any society, and our current system for distributing it is corrupted at its heart. Everything comes down to our ability to communicate openly and trustfully with each other. But, thanks to the dominant digital platforms and the ways they distort human behavior, we have lost that ability-while, at the same time, we've been robbed of the data that is rightfully ours. The roots of this crisis, argue Frank McCourt and Michael Casey, lie in the prevailing order of the internet. In plain but forceful language, the authors-a civic entrepreneur and an acclaimed journalist-show how a centralized system controlled by a small group of for-profit entities has set this catastrophe in motion and eroded our personhood. And then they describe a groundbreaking solution to reclaim it: rather than superficial, patchwork regulations, we must reimagine the very architecture of the internet. The resulting "third-generation internet" would replace the status quo with a new model marked by digital property rights, autonomy, and ownership. Inspired by historical calls to action like Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Our Biggest Fight argues that we must act now to embed the core values of a free, democratic society in the internet of tomorrow. Do it right and we will finally, properly, unlock its immense potential.

Frank H. Mccourt (Author), Frank H. Mccourt, Jonathan Beville, Michael J. Casey (Narrator)

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I Am the Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future

He is the law-and you better believe it! Judge, jury, and executioner, Judge Dredd is the brutal comic book cop policing the chaotic future urban jungle of Mega-City One, created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra and launching in the pages of 2000 AD in 1977. But what began as a sci-fi action comic quickly evolved into a searing satire on hardline, militarized policing and 'law and order' politics, its endless inventiveness and ironic humor acting as a prophetic warning about our world today-and with important lessons for our future. Blending comic book history with contemporary radical theories on policing, I Am The Law takes key Dredd stories from the last forty-five years and demonstrates how they provide a unique wake up call about our gradual, and not so gradual, slide towards authoritarian policing. From the politicization of policing to 'zero tolerance,' from violent suppression of protest to the rise of the surveillance state, I Am The Law examines how a comic book warned us about the chilling endgame of today's 'law and order' politics.

Michael Molcher (Author), Keval Shah (Narrator)

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The Great Wave: The Era of Radical Disruption and the Rise of the Outsider

An urgent examination of the great wave of change breaking over today’s world – from the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and New York Times bestselling author of The Death of Truth ‘A profoundly inspiring and prophetic perspective on the contemporary world’ Ai Weiwei In the twenty-first century, a wave of political, cultural and technological change has capsized our old certainties and assumptions, creating both opportunity and danger. As people lose their faith in old institutions and elites, radical voices at the margins and the grassroots are disrupting the status quo. This is the time of the outsider – the protester, the populist, the hacker. Some of these outsiders have sown chaos, like Donald Trump, and others have provided inspirational leadership, like Volodymyr Zelensky. But all have grasped this precarious moment to make something new. Writing with a critic’s incisive understanding of cultural trends, Michiko Kakutani outlines the consequences of these new asymmetries of power, and looks back to similar hinge moments in history, from the waning of the Middle Ages to the aftermath of the Second World War, to find a way forward. For there is, Kakutani argues, always the promise of transformation in times of turmoil. We can surrender to the waters, give in to the gathering chaos, or we can use the wave’s momentum to propel us into a more stable and sustainable future.

Michiko Kakutani (Author), Tavia Gilbert (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor

A timely, in-depth, and vital exploration of the American labor movement and its critical place in our society and politics, from acclaimed labor reporter Hamilton Nolan. Inequality is America's biggest problem. Unions are the single strongest tool that working people have to fix it. Organized labor has been in decline for decades. Yet it sits today at a moment of enormous opportunity. In the wake of the pandemic, a highly visible wave of strikes and new organizing campaigns have driven the popularity of unions to historic highs. The simmering battle inside of the labor movement over how to tap into its revolutionary potential-or allow it to be squandered-will determine the economic and social course of American life for years to come. In chapters that span the country, Nolan shows readers the actual places where labor and politics meld. He highlights how organized labor can and does wield power effectively: a union that dominates Las Vegas and is trying to scale nationally; a successful decades-long campaign to organize California's child care workers; the human face of a surprising strike of factory workers trying to preserve their pathway to the middle class. Throughout, Nolan follows Sara Nelson, the fiery and charismatic head of the flight attendants' union, as she struggles with how (and whether) to assert herself as a national leader, to try to fix what is broken. The Hammer draws the line from forgotten workplaces in rural West Virginia to Washington's halls of power, and shows how labor solidarity can utterly transform American politics-if it can first transform itself. A labor journalist for more than a decade, Nolan helped unionize his own industry. The Hammer is a urgent on-the-ground excavation of the past, present, and future of the American labor movement.

Hamilton Nolan (Author), Hamilton Nolan, TBD (Narrator)

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The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

An exciting new voice makes the case for a colorblind approach to politics and culture, warning that the so-called 'anti-racist' movement is driving us-ironically-toward a new kind of racism. As one of the few black students in his philosophy program at Columbia University years ago, Coleman Hughes wondered why his peers seemed more pessimistic about the state of American race relations than his own grandparents-who lived through segregation. The End of Race Politics is the culmination of his years-long search for an answer. Contemplative yet audacious, The End of Race Politics is necessary reading for anyone who questions the race orthodoxies of our time. Hughes argues for a return to the ideals that inspired the American Civil Rights movement, showing how our departure from the colorblind ideal has ushered in a new era of fear, paranoia, and resentment marked by draconian interpersonal etiquette, failed corporate diversity and inclusion efforts, and poisonous race-based policies that hurt the very people they intend to help. Hughes exposes the harmful side effects of Kendi-DiAngelo style antiracism, from programs that distribute emergency aid on the basis of race to revisionist versions of American history that hide the truth from the public. Through careful argument, Hughes dismantles harmful beliefs about race, proving that reverse racism will not atone for past wrongs and showing why race-based policies will lead only to the illusion of racial equity. By fixating on race, we lose sight of what it really means to be anti-racist. A racially just, colorblind society is possible. Hughes gives us the intellectual tools to make it happen.

Coleman Hughes (Author), Coleman Hughes (Narrator)

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Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power

Brought to you by Penguin. In a hyper-competitive world obsessed with rankings, super-wealth and greatness, how can we live up to democratic ideals of equality? Erica Benner has spent a lifetime thinking about these questions from different angles in different countries - from post-war Japan, where democracy was imposed on a defeated country, to post-communist Poland, with sudden gaps of wealth and security, and the US and South Africa with their legacies of slavery and racism. Adventures in Democracy draws on her experiences and the deep history of democracies - in ancient Rome and Athens, the American and French revolutions and Renaissance Florence - to offer an unflinching portrait of modern democracy. To salvage democratic institutions and ideals, Benner argues, we need to pay more attention to inequalities and struggles for power among citizens. Probing myths of heroic triumph over tyranny and inexorable progress towards equality, she reveals the vulnerabilities of people power, inviting us to consider why democracy is worth fighting for and the role each citizen must play. ©2024 Erica Benner (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Erica Benner (Author), Louise Brealey, TBD (Narrator)

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The Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization

University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox explains how our ruling class publicly disparages marriage – the institution most likely to deliver prosperity and happiness to ordinary Americans – while privately embracing it. America is in crisis. Happiness is falling, loneliness and despair are rising, too many schools are riddled by fights and failure, crime is unacceptably high, and the American Dream is out of reach for millions. The problems are visible to us all, but virtually no one is talking about the solution that matters most: Marriage. New research by University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox shows that Americans who get married and have children today are leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless. In fact, nothing predicts happiness in life better than a good marriage—not even a hefty bank account or a great career. And kids and communities—not to mention our civilization as a whole—are much more likely to flourish when the state of our unions is strong, according to Wilcox, who directs the National Marriage Project at U.Va. But our country is in crisis because record numbers of Americans are not succeeding at getting or staying married. In this hard-hitting book, Wilcox reveals the anti-family messages and policies that have weakened marriage coming out of Hollywood, Washington, the media, academia, and corporate America. The good news, however, is that millions of Americans are succeeding at marriage. Dr. Wilcox spotlights four groups—Asian, conservative, religious, and college-educated Americans—who are building strong and stable marriages by defying the me-first messages of our elites in favor of a family-first way of life. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why, even as fewer men and women tie the knot, America’s most fundamental institution matters more than ever for our civilization. And for men and women looking to forge strong, stable, and happy unions for themselves and their children, Get Married reveals the road forward.

Brad Wilcox (Author), Mark Deakins (Narrator)

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White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy

A searing portrait and damning takedown of America's proudest citizens-who are also the least likely to defend its core principles White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they're right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage-stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media-now poses an existential threat to the United States. Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become to rural Whites who, despite legitimate grievances, are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, to believe in conspiracy theories, to accept violence as a legitimate course of political action, and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. Rural White Americans' attitude might best be described as "I love my country, but not our country," Schaller and Waldman argue. This phenomenon is the patriot paradox of rural America: The citizens who take such pride in their patriotism are also the least likely to defend core American principles. And by stoking rural Whites' anger rather than addressing the hard problems they face, conservative politicians and talking heads create a feedback loop of resentments that are undermining American democracy. Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures that permit rural Whites' disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects for creating a pluralist, inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both rural people and the rest of America.

Paul Waldman, Tom Schaller (Author), Ray Porter (Narrator)

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A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy

Throughout history, too many Americans have been disenfranchised or faced needless barriers to vote. Part of the blame falls on the Constitution, which does not contain an affirmative right to vote. The Supreme Court has made matters worse by failing to protect voting rights and limiting Congress's ability to do so. The time has come for voters to take action and push for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee this right for all. Drawing on troubling stories of state attempts to disenfranchise military voters, women, African Americans, students, former felons, Native Americans, and others, Richard Hasen argues that American democracy can and should do better in assuring that all eligible voters can cast a meaningful vote that will be fairly counted. He shows how a constitutional right to vote can deescalate voting wars between political parties that lead to endless rounds of litigation and undermine voter confidence in elections, and can safeguard democracy against dangerous attempts at election subversion. The path to a constitutional amendment is undoubtedly hard, especially in these polarized times. A Real Right to Vote explains what's in it for conservatives who have resisted voting reform, and reveals how the pursuit of an amendment can yield tangible dividends for democracy long before ratification.

Richard L. Hasen (Author), Daniel Henning (Narrator)

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Keir Starmer: The Biography

KEIR STARMER: The Biography is an authoritative study of a man who now stands on the brink of becoming Britain's next Prime Minister. If he succeeds, Starmer will be the first Labour leader in a generation to win power, even though most voters still say they don’t know much about him. It not only tells Starmer’s story but also examines the paradox of a politician often uncomfortable with politics, someone who is both remarkably ordinary and capable of defying all efforts to define him. Intended for publication in the foothills of a General Election campaign where all aspects of his life will come under the most intense scrutiny, the book is the result of more than a hundred hours of interviews with Starmer himself, his family, his closest friends, his most senior lieutenants, as well as opponents both from the Conservative Party and within his own. The book offers readers a fuller picture of his working class family and education, the values that drove him on through a career as a lawyer and public prosecutor, as well as his record since entering politics. It provides new detail about the role he played in bitter battles over Brexit and antisemitism, shows how he has transformed his party’s fortunes, and offers insight about the way he would govern if he enters Downing Street in what will be the most straitened circumstances facing any new Prime Minister since the end of the Second World War.

Tom Baldwin (Author), John Sackville (Narrator)

Audiobook

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