Articles by Michael Hanchard

November 16, 2022

🦋 Democracy as a problem

Michael Hanchard

Michael Hanchard argues that there is no singular scientific method that is the property of democracy. Instead, we should, as WEB Dubois suggests, treat democracy as a problem replete with many possibilities for expansion and contraction, regardless of its normative and conceptual status as an aspiration and ideal type

Michael Hanchard

Gustave C. Kuemmerle Professor, Africana Studies Department, University of Pennsylvania

Michael is Director of the Center for Africana Studies' Marginalized Populations project.

He is a specialist in comparative politics with particular interest in contemporary political theory, encompassing themes of nationalism, racism, xenophobia and citizenship.

Michael has been a visiting scholar at the WEB DuBois Institute, Harvard University, Universitaria Candido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro, Universidade de Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, University of Cartagena, Instituto Gramsci, Milan, University of Ghana, Legon, University of Vienna, and Sciences Po in Paris.

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.

He tweets @ProfHanchard

The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy by Michael Hanchard

The Spectre of Race Princeton, 2018
Winner of APSA’s 2019 Ralph J Bunche Award for the best book on ethnic and cultural pluralism. Named one of the Ten Best Books in 2018 by London's Times Educational Supplement.

Party/Politics OUP, 2006

Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil
Duke, 1999 (editor)

Orpheus and Power
Princeton, 1994

The Loop

Cutting-edge analysis showcasing the work of the political science discipline at its best.