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Articles and Book Chapters by Nick Dorzweiler
Perspectives on Politics, 2025
In 1939 and 1940, the renowned political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote and hosted over 40 episo... more In 1939 and 1940, the renowned political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote and hosted over 40 episodes of a radio show, Human Nature in Action, for the National Broadcasting Corporation. The program was meant to adjust listeners to the experience of psychological insecurities generated by American life-insecurities Lasswell believed would engender political unrest if not properly managed. In uncovering the archives of the show, which have gone almost entirely unexamined to date, this article not only explains why one of the most famous political scientists of the mid-twentieth century believed the American public needed to be subjected to such a program of mass psychotherapy and why the nation's largest broadcaster agreed to support it. It also invites reconsideration of the ways in which popular political commentary today-even when it represents otherwise diverse ideological perspectives-remains attached to Lasswellian narratives of anxiety as dangerous to a "healthy" democratic polity.
Learning to Relinquish Silence: Feministing in Political Science as an Ethicopolitical Project
Feministing in Political Science, 2024
Polity, 2015
How do journalists in two formerly authoritarian countries, the Czech Republic and South Africa, ... more How do journalists in two formerly authoritarian countries, the Czech Republic and South Africa, perceive the potential of media owners and other business people to infl uence their work? Multinomial ordinal regression analysis was applied to data collected in the Czech Republic and South Africa for the present 50 country-wide Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) Project. A total of 291 journalists in the Czech Republic and 371 journalists in South Africa were interviewed according to the WoJ protocol. Th ree aspects of media freedom, as perceived by the respondents, a r e discussed, namely the freedom journalists have to select news stories; to emphasize certain news aspects; and to participate in editorial discussion and decision making (news coordination). Th e results suggest that media owners as well as business people curb, but also support, journalists' freedom in dealing with the news. In the Czech Republic, a country in the global North and a former member of the Soviet bloc, the results show the infl uence of media owners and business owners supports the freedom of journalists in selecting their own stories. More infl uence of business people is associated with more freedom of journalists in aspects emphasized in the stories and in the frequency the journalists participate in newsroom coordination. In South Africa, a former white minority-ruled country in the global South, the results suggest that the infl uence of media owners seems to lessen journalists' freedom to select news and to emphasize certain news aspects, and coordination. Moreover, the perceived level of infl uence of business people in South Africa did not statistically signifi cantly relate to all three aspects of journalists' freedom.
Watching War Movies in Baghdad: Popular Culture and the Construction of Military Policy in the Iraq War
Polity, 2016
This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during t... more This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during the Iraq War. We first examine why the 2003 mission to capture Saddam Hussein was named after Red Dawn, the 1984 film about the Soviet invasion and occupation of the American heartland, and how it helped define U.S. soldiers’ understanding of their mission in Iraq. We then consider how and why in 2006 military planning groups screened films, including Meeting Resistance, whose narrative centers of gravity tilt toward Muslim Arab populations resisting the occupations of Western militaries. We argue that the circulation of these movies encouraged military audiences to critically reconsider their aims and mission in the midst of the unanticipated emergence of an Iraqi insurgency. The broader purpose of these investigations is to demonstrate the ways in which popular culture can shape individuals’ understanding of their political problems and possibilities, even in times of war.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2020
For the past half-century, critical pedagogy has represented perhaps the most influential respons... more For the past half-century, critical pedagogy has represented perhaps the most influential response to traditional 'banking' models of education and the political obedience and social conformity they are purported to engender. Precisely because of its lasting impact, however, it has tended to overshadow other possible visions of the critical political potential of education. In this article, I trace the origins and development of a distinctive yet under-discussed concept in Michel Foucault's late ethical work-psychagogy-to pursue an alternative depiction of education as a critical political practice. Attending to the origins and meaning of psychagogy in Foucault's work is valuable, I argue, for two reasons. On the one hand, the concept offers a vision of political education that avoids reproducing problematic juridical binaries-truth and ideology, rationality and irrationality, absolved and condemned-that Foucault believed inhered in Enlightenment-era conceptions of emancipation. On the other hand, it demonstrates how political problems of our present might be rendered workable not only through recourse to the authoritative discourses of experts or collective demands of revolutionaries, but also through exercises in subjectivity formation that are rather more quotidian, experiential, and conditional in nature.
Historically, American political science has rarely engaged popular culture as a central topic of... more Historically, American political science has rarely engaged popular culture as a central topic of study, despite the domain's outsized influence in American community life. This article argues that this marginalization is, in part, the by-product of long-standing disciplinary debates over the inadequate political development of the American public. To develop this argument, the article first surveys the work of early political scientists such as John Burgess and Woodrow Wilson, to show that their reformist ambitions largely precluded discussion of mundane activities of social life such as popular culture. It then turns to Harold Lasswell, who produced some of the first investigations of popular culture in American political science. Ironically, however, his work – and the work of those who adapted similar ways of speaking about popular culture after him – only reinforced skepticisms concerning the American public. It has thus helped keep the topic on the margins of disciplinary discourse.
This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during t... more This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during the Iraq War. We first examine why the 2003 mission to capture Saddam Hussein was named after Red Dawn, the 1984 film about the Soviet invasion and occupation of the American heartland, and how it helped define U.S. soldiers' understanding of their mission in Iraq. We then consider how and why in 2006 military planning groups screened films, including Meeting Resistance, whose narrative centers of gravity tilt toward Muslim Arab populations resisting the occupations of Western militaries. We argue that the circulation of these movies encouraged military audiences to critically reconsider their aims and mission in the midst of the unanticipated emergence of an Iraqi insurgency. The broader purpose of these investigations is to demonstrate the ways in which popular culture can shape individuals' understanding of their political problems and possibilities, even in times of war. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops drive east to Kuwait City…. After hearing the news of imminent war in the Middle East, we march in platoon formation to the barber shop and get fresh high-and-tight haircuts…. Then we send a few guys downtown to rent all of the war movies they can get their hands on. They
The Frankfurt School is rightly remembered for Critical Theory and for its condemnations of “scie... more The Frankfurt School is rightly remembered for Critical Theory and for its condemnations of “scientism.” Nonetheless, during its American exile, the Frankfurt School developed a remarkably constructive relationship with leading advocates for the scientific study of politics, particularly Harold Lasswell. That relationship offers an intriguing new perspective on the history of political science. First, it helps explain why the Frankfurt School retained John Dewey as its chief representative of scientism. Second, it reveals that, despite conventional narratives concerning the incompatibility of empirical political science and normative political theory, Lasswell and the Frankfurt School found important areas of conceptual overlap, particularly with respect to the politics of culture.
What Kain Colter Really Learned at Northwestern
When Kain Colter called for Northwestern football players to unionize in early 2014, he cited his... more When Kain Colter called for Northwestern football players to unionize in early 2014, he cited his experiences in my class, “Field Studies in the Modern Workplace,” as the turning point in his thinking on the status of NCAA “student-athletes” (or “workers,” depending on one’s interpretation). The idea to establish a union was entirely Kain’s own—he had been interested in expanding protections for NCAA players long before he stepped into my classroom—but, as a teacher, I was thrilled that the work we did in my course helped Kain pursue something so meaningful to him.
Book Reviews by Nick Dorzweiler
American Political Thought, 2020
Perspectives on Politics, 2025
In 1939 and 1940, the renowned political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote and hosted over 40 episo... more In 1939 and 1940, the renowned political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote and hosted over 40 episodes of a radio show, Human Nature in Action, for the National Broadcasting Corporation. The program was meant to adjust listeners to the experience of psychological insecurities generated by American life-insecurities Lasswell believed would engender political unrest if not properly managed. In uncovering the archives of the show, which have gone almost entirely unexamined to date, this article not only explains why one of the most famous political scientists of the mid-twentieth century believed the American public needed to be subjected to such a program of mass psychotherapy and why the nation's largest broadcaster agreed to support it. It also invites reconsideration of the ways in which popular political commentary today-even when it represents otherwise diverse ideological perspectives-remains attached to Lasswellian narratives of anxiety as dangerous to a "healthy" democratic polity.
Learning to Relinquish Silence: Feministing in Political Science as an Ethicopolitical Project
Feministing in Political Science, 2024
Polity, 2015
How do journalists in two formerly authoritarian countries, the Czech Republic and South Africa, ... more How do journalists in two formerly authoritarian countries, the Czech Republic and South Africa, perceive the potential of media owners and other business people to infl uence their work? Multinomial ordinal regression analysis was applied to data collected in the Czech Republic and South Africa for the present 50 country-wide Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) Project. A total of 291 journalists in the Czech Republic and 371 journalists in South Africa were interviewed according to the WoJ protocol. Th ree aspects of media freedom, as perceived by the respondents, a r e discussed, namely the freedom journalists have to select news stories; to emphasize certain news aspects; and to participate in editorial discussion and decision making (news coordination). Th e results suggest that media owners as well as business people curb, but also support, journalists' freedom in dealing with the news. In the Czech Republic, a country in the global North and a former member of the Soviet bloc, the results show the infl uence of media owners and business owners supports the freedom of journalists in selecting their own stories. More infl uence of business people is associated with more freedom of journalists in aspects emphasized in the stories and in the frequency the journalists participate in newsroom coordination. In South Africa, a former white minority-ruled country in the global South, the results suggest that the infl uence of media owners seems to lessen journalists' freedom to select news and to emphasize certain news aspects, and coordination. Moreover, the perceived level of infl uence of business people in South Africa did not statistically signifi cantly relate to all three aspects of journalists' freedom.
Watching War Movies in Baghdad: Popular Culture and the Construction of Military Policy in the Iraq War
Polity, 2016
This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during t... more This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during the Iraq War. We first examine why the 2003 mission to capture Saddam Hussein was named after Red Dawn, the 1984 film about the Soviet invasion and occupation of the American heartland, and how it helped define U.S. soldiers’ understanding of their mission in Iraq. We then consider how and why in 2006 military planning groups screened films, including Meeting Resistance, whose narrative centers of gravity tilt toward Muslim Arab populations resisting the occupations of Western militaries. We argue that the circulation of these movies encouraged military audiences to critically reconsider their aims and mission in the midst of the unanticipated emergence of an Iraqi insurgency. The broader purpose of these investigations is to demonstrate the ways in which popular culture can shape individuals’ understanding of their political problems and possibilities, even in times of war.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2020
For the past half-century, critical pedagogy has represented perhaps the most influential respons... more For the past half-century, critical pedagogy has represented perhaps the most influential response to traditional 'banking' models of education and the political obedience and social conformity they are purported to engender. Precisely because of its lasting impact, however, it has tended to overshadow other possible visions of the critical political potential of education. In this article, I trace the origins and development of a distinctive yet under-discussed concept in Michel Foucault's late ethical work-psychagogy-to pursue an alternative depiction of education as a critical political practice. Attending to the origins and meaning of psychagogy in Foucault's work is valuable, I argue, for two reasons. On the one hand, the concept offers a vision of political education that avoids reproducing problematic juridical binaries-truth and ideology, rationality and irrationality, absolved and condemned-that Foucault believed inhered in Enlightenment-era conceptions of emancipation. On the other hand, it demonstrates how political problems of our present might be rendered workable not only through recourse to the authoritative discourses of experts or collective demands of revolutionaries, but also through exercises in subjectivity formation that are rather more quotidian, experiential, and conditional in nature.
Historically, American political science has rarely engaged popular culture as a central topic of... more Historically, American political science has rarely engaged popular culture as a central topic of study, despite the domain's outsized influence in American community life. This article argues that this marginalization is, in part, the by-product of long-standing disciplinary debates over the inadequate political development of the American public. To develop this argument, the article first surveys the work of early political scientists such as John Burgess and Woodrow Wilson, to show that their reformist ambitions largely precluded discussion of mundane activities of social life such as popular culture. It then turns to Harold Lasswell, who produced some of the first investigations of popular culture in American political science. Ironically, however, his work – and the work of those who adapted similar ways of speaking about popular culture after him – only reinforced skepticisms concerning the American public. It has thus helped keep the topic on the margins of disciplinary discourse.
This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during t... more This article investigates the use of popular culture films by the United States military during the Iraq War. We first examine why the 2003 mission to capture Saddam Hussein was named after Red Dawn, the 1984 film about the Soviet invasion and occupation of the American heartland, and how it helped define U.S. soldiers' understanding of their mission in Iraq. We then consider how and why in 2006 military planning groups screened films, including Meeting Resistance, whose narrative centers of gravity tilt toward Muslim Arab populations resisting the occupations of Western militaries. We argue that the circulation of these movies encouraged military audiences to critically reconsider their aims and mission in the midst of the unanticipated emergence of an Iraqi insurgency. The broader purpose of these investigations is to demonstrate the ways in which popular culture can shape individuals' understanding of their political problems and possibilities, even in times of war. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops drive east to Kuwait City…. After hearing the news of imminent war in the Middle East, we march in platoon formation to the barber shop and get fresh high-and-tight haircuts…. Then we send a few guys downtown to rent all of the war movies they can get their hands on. They
The Frankfurt School is rightly remembered for Critical Theory and for its condemnations of “scie... more The Frankfurt School is rightly remembered for Critical Theory and for its condemnations of “scientism.” Nonetheless, during its American exile, the Frankfurt School developed a remarkably constructive relationship with leading advocates for the scientific study of politics, particularly Harold Lasswell. That relationship offers an intriguing new perspective on the history of political science. First, it helps explain why the Frankfurt School retained John Dewey as its chief representative of scientism. Second, it reveals that, despite conventional narratives concerning the incompatibility of empirical political science and normative political theory, Lasswell and the Frankfurt School found important areas of conceptual overlap, particularly with respect to the politics of culture.
What Kain Colter Really Learned at Northwestern
When Kain Colter called for Northwestern football players to unionize in early 2014, he cited his... more When Kain Colter called for Northwestern football players to unionize in early 2014, he cited his experiences in my class, “Field Studies in the Modern Workplace,” as the turning point in his thinking on the status of NCAA “student-athletes” (or “workers,” depending on one’s interpretation). The idea to establish a union was entirely Kain’s own—he had been interested in expanding protections for NCAA players long before he stepped into my classroom—but, as a teacher, I was thrilled that the work we did in my course helped Kain pursue something so meaningful to him.
American Political Thought, 2020