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New Books in Public Policy

New Books in Public Policy

By: New Books Network
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 This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policyNew Books Network Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Jamila Michener and Mallory E. Sorelle, "Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power" (Princeton UP, 2026)

    Jamila Michener and Mallory E. Sorelle, "Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power" (Princeton UP, 2026)
    Feb 25 2026
    Each year, as many as 250 million Americans face civil legal problems like eviction, debt collection, and substandard housing. These problems are disproportionately shouldered by racially and economically marginalized people, particularly women of color. Civil courts and legal aid organizations are supposed to protect their rights, yet more than 90 percent of low-income people receive inadequate or no legal assistance. Instead, access to justice is reserved for those who can afford its high price. For those who can’t, the repercussions can be devastating, from homelessness and loss of public benefits to broken families and diminished health. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton UP, 2026) looks at the US civil justice system through the eyes of the people whose very citizenship is indelibly shaped by it. Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle show how civil legal problems, and the institutions meant to address them, greatly erode trust in the legal system among marginalized communities, undermining their broader sense of democratic citizenship and political standing. While legal representation offers vital protections, increased access to justice through an ever-growing supply of lawyers does not address the structural problems that generate demand for lawyers in the first place. Looking at cases involving unfair evictions and substandard housing, Michener and SoRelle demonstrate how community groups such as tenants’ unions can fill this justice gap and provide the means to build political power that transforms the conditions that create precarity. Drawing on eye-opening qualitative evidence and a wealth of historical and survey data, Uncivil Democracy explains why collective organizing holds the greatest promise for altering the systems that create civil legal problems and exercising the political power necessary for meaningful change. Host Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book,America’s Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Jamila Michener is Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and inaugural director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. She is the author of the award-winning book, Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Mallory SoRelle is the Tony and Teddie Brown Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), based on her award-winning doctoral dissertation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy
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    55 mins
  • Josh Seim, "The Welfare Assembly Line: Public Servants in the Suffering City" (U California Press, 2026)

    Josh Seim, "The Welfare Assembly Line: Public Servants in the Suffering City" (U California Press, 2026)
    Feb 24 2026
    Despite claims that we live in a "post-welfare society," welfare offices remain vital not only for those who depend on them for benefits but also for those who depend on them for a paycheck. The Welfare Assembly Line: Public Servants in the Suffering City (U California Press, 2026), a theory-driven case study of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, examines how welfare work has transformed to allow a department of just 14,000 to serve over a third of the county. Josh Seim argues that frontline workers at this agency--who are mostly Black and Brown women--have become increasingly proletarianized. Their work is defined less by their discretion and more by a lack of control over the productive process. This is enabled by a "welfare assembly line," where high divisions of labor and heavy uses of machinery resemble production regimes in factories and fast-food restaurants. With implications beyond the welfare office, The Welfare Assembly Line is a crucial addition to the broader national conversation about work, social policy, and poverty governance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy
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    40 mins
  • Wendy Wolford, "The Plantation Ideal: Landscapes of Extraction in Mozambique" (U California Press, 2025)

    Wendy Wolford, "The Plantation Ideal: Landscapes of Extraction in Mozambique" (U California Press, 2025)
    Feb 21 2026
    Plantations have been the privileged tool of colonial rule and extraction in Mozambique for more than one hundred years despite never having delivered sustained economic or social benefits. Drawing on extensive archival and qualitative contemporary research, The Plantation Ideal: Landscapes of Extraction in Mozambique (U California Press, 2025) by Dr. Wendy Wolford offers new insights into plantation economies, histories, and landscapes. Dr. Wolford tells the story of how the largely failed pursuit of plantation production has shaped agricultural science, government rule, life on the land, and community development in Mozambique from the harshest years of Portuguese colonization to the present. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy
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    1 hr and 7 mins
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