New Books Network

About Nick Cheesman

Fellow, Dept of Political & Social Change, Australian National University
Host, Interpretive Political & Social Science; Co-host, Southeast Asian Studies; for comments or to suggest a book to feature, contact me at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au
Nick's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Nick:

Interpretive Political and Social Science January 11, 2021

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria

Lisa Wedeen

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
How has the Syrian regime been able to bear the brunt of the challenges raised against it? And, what can we learn about the seductions of authoritarian politics more generally …
Southeast Asian Studies October 20, 2020

The Constitution of Myanmar

A Contextual Analysis

Melissa Crouch

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
The tail end of the twentieth century was a good time for constitutional lawyers. Leapfrogging around the globe, they offered advice on how to amend, write or rewrite one state …
Interpretive Political and Social Science October 15, 2020

Interpretive Social Science

An Anti-Naturalist Approach

Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
In Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach (Oxford University Press, 2018), Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely make a case for why interpretivism is the most philosophically cogent approach currently on …
Southeast Asian Studies August 17, 2020

Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar

Roman David and Ian Holliday

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Democracy is a popular topic among scholars of politics in Southeast Asia. Liberalism is not. Or at least it hadn’t been up until the last few years, which have seen …
Interpretive Political and Social Science June 3, 2020

Against the Grain

A Deep History of the Earliest States

James C. Scott

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
We are schooled to believe that states formed more or less synchronously with settlement and agriculture. In Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (Yale University Press …
Southeast Asian Studies April 15, 2020

Containing Contagion

The Politics of Disease Outbreaks in Southeast Asia

Sara E. Davies

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
At the start of 2020 few of us would have recognized the face of the current director general of the World Health Organization. Three months later, and in the midst …
Interpretive Political and Social Science March 30, 2020

Elucidating Social Science Concepts

Frederic C. Schaffer

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
For the third installment in our special series on interpretive political and social scientific research, Frederic C. Schaffer joins us to discuss his Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide …
Southeast Asian Studies March 10, 2020

Becoming Arab

Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World

Sumit K. Mandal

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
In the wake of the so-called war on terror we’ve become accustomed to racialized portrayals of the Arab as an inflexible and threatening other to the mores and ways of …
Interpretive Political and Social Science November 29, 2019

Everyday Exposure

Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley

Sarah Marie Wiebe

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
In a foreword to Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley (University of British Columbia Press, 2016), the public philosopher James Tully writes that, “Every once …
Southeast Asian Studies October 22, 2019

Luxury and Rubble

Civility and Dispossession in the New Saigon

Erik Harms

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
What happens when market-oriented policy reforms butt heads with a single-party state’s strictly maintained limits on political freedoms? That question sets the terms for Luxury and Rubble: Civility and Dispossession …
Interpretive Political and Social Science August 19, 2019

Interpretive Research Design

Concepts and Processes

Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
This episode is the first in a new series, New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science, which will feature works on interpretive research design and practice alongside recently published …
Southeast Asian Studies July 23, 2019

In Plain Sight

Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand

Tyrell Haberkorn

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
In the preface to In Plain Sight: Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018) Tyrell Haberkorn asks, echoing Pakavadi Veerapaspong, if and when it might one …