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Podcast: New Books in Politics and Polemics
Episode: Didi Kuo, "The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Description: As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments.
Once a centralizing force of the democratic process, political parties have eroded over the past fifty years. Parties now rank among the most unpopular institutions in society--less trusted than business, the police, and the media. Identification with parties has plummeted, and even those who are loyal to a party report feeling that par...