Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
Present-day attacks on the right to free assembly have a long history behind them. For centuries, the rulers of ancient Rome tried to stop its people from organizing to defend their interests, but protest kept resurfacing despite their best efforts.
In the 1960s, the Indonesian dictator Suharto was responsible for one of the twentieth century’s bloodiest political massacres. Under the rule of Prabowo, the country’s government is suppressing the memory of Suharto’s crimes while vilifying the Left.
James Baldwin shaped a generation of American writers, many of whom later dismissed his humanistic outlook as naive. Today he is once again celebrated, but a new biography shows that his life was more complex than his viral fame suggests.
In The Life, Old Age, and Death of a Working-Class Woman, French writer Didier Eribon sees his mother’s passing as symbolic of the disappearance of the mass culture and politics that once gave workers of her generation identity and social standing.
Culture warriors and industry lobbyists have turned electric vehicles into a proxy battle for deeper anxieties about class, control, and who might be left behind in a green economy. But most people just want a car they can afford.
Not everyone is excited about the resurgence of brutalism. But the rise of neobrutalist projects shows how the polarizing architectural style can also be a pragmatic use of scarce resources.
Genocide scholar Martin Shaw argues that ending Israel’s genocide in Gaza and isolating Israel on the international stage must become the cause of every country that claims to represent human values.
Bolivians head to the polls on Sunday amid a spiraling economic crisis and the total collapse of the Movement Toward Socialism. A right-wing victory could bring neoliberal austerity back to Bolivia, unleashing a new cycle of social unrest.
Steven Rose, who died last month, was a major figure in the field of neuroscience and a brilliant scientific popularizer. Rose was also a committed socialist who challenged the misuse of science to legitimate racism, sexism, and class inequality.
Legislation on protected identities is supposed to foster good intercommunal relations. When it’s used to protect Zionism, it means shielding a 19th-century nationalist ideology from criticism as if it were an innate characteristic of all Jews.
We’re seeing an alarming revival of archaic gender role ideas, from the manosphere’s remasculinization crusade to trad wives’ rejection of public life. Veteran historian of gender roles Stephanie Coontz explains the moment’s deep economic undercurrents.
Raised amid wage stagnation and soaring markets, Gen Z invests more than prior generations. Yet rising inequality means that, despite their efforts, most are unlikely to close the wealth gap with their more affluent peers.
Legendary novelist Cormac McCarthy is often hailed by the Right as one of its own. The truth is more complicated.
Israel’s extreme rationing of water to the Palestinian people is central to its larger project of control, domination, and ethnic cleansing.
Frankly, the memoir of Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, presents itself as a brave, plain-speaking account of her career. But this uninspiring book inadvertently reveals the blandness and conformism of Sturgeon’s political outlook.
Donald Trump’s takeover of Washington’s police force this week is adding insult to the injury of the United States’ long denial of equal political standing to the capital’s residents.
Fulgencio Batista’s Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities had a blood-spattered record of torture and political killings before the 1959 revolution. Declassified files show how the CIA nurtured the bureau and its repressive techniques.
Across the country, democratic socialists are continuing to build their presence in municipal government. Kelsea Bond is hoping to become the first socialist on Atlanta’s city council.
The Trump administration moved ahead last week with its plans to void the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The labor movement appears largely quiescent in the face of this historic union busting.
New York City can’t fund many of the robust social programs that Zohran Mamdani has promised in his mayoral run without taxing the rich. And that taxation has to be done at the state level — against a governor who has so far refused to entertain it.