E45 Professor Ian Shapiro

We had the incredible honor of welcoming back Professor Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs at Yale University. He is a leading democracy scholar and a profound source of inspiration for us. This episode is a deep dive into his newest book, After the Fall: From the End of History to the Crisis of Democracy, How Politicians Broke Our World, available May 5 (today!) in print, online, and audio. It was a huge honor and pleasure to read, so we highly recommend checking it out! We begin with the story behind the book and its thesis that today’s political crisis was not inevitable but rather the result of deliberate choices, before moving chapter by chapter. In “Waging a Global War on Terror,” we discuss George H. W. Bush’s role in building a rules-based international order through the Powell Doctrine, contrasted with George W. Bush’s shift to unilateralism and the precedent it set for Russia and China. In “Reviving the Cold War,” we explore the Marshall Plan and Churchill’s idea of “victory with magnanimity,” and why a similar effort was not offered to post-Soviet Russia, and how that decision influenced later tensions. Transitioning to “The Demise of Humanitarian Intervention,” we discuss the tension between Rwanda as the cost of inaction and Kosovo as illegal but legitimate, asking whether frameworks like R2P can reconcile moral urgency with legal constraint or if an inherent tradeoff exists. In “Obama’s Missteps,” we examine a historical parallel between Obama and FDR, questioning why, despite crisis-driven leverage, Obama pursued triangulation and neoliberal continuation. We then move to “Harvesting Disaster,” analyzing how the convergence of center-left and center-right parties narrowed political alternatives across Europe, fueling disillusionment and the rise of populism. Finally, in “Taking Stock And Looking Forward,” we discuss the rise of zero-sum thinking in politics, Professor Shapiro’s hopes for future policy, and strategies to shift toward a more positive-sum future. Stay until the end to hear Professor Shapiro’s favorite chapter to write and his three word description of After the Fall.