The epilogue, written in late 2025 during the opening year of Donald Trump’s second term, reflects the unease of finishing a book on war powers as presidential authority is asserted aggressively at home and abroad. Trump’s use of military force, emergency statutes, and National Guard deployments tests constitutional boundaries and revives fears – familiar to the Framers – that war powers can erode democratic self-government. Yet the epilogue resists both normalization and panic. By situating Trump’s actions alongside earlier episodes from Washington to Biden, it shows that many controversial uses of military power have precedents or precursors, even as red lines remain uncrossed. It emphasizes that constitutional checks often reemerge slowly – through legislation, litigation, and political pressure – and that their effects are often felt through the strategic environments created by the exercise of war powers.

Addresses and rejects the contention that presidents may pardon themselves, employing arguments from etymology, British practice before the American founding, the constitutional structure and text, statements of the Framers and ratifiers, original public meaning, American practice since 1788, and fact that a president with a power of self-pardon would be a monarchical figure immune from the rule of law.

Recounts the events of Donald Trump’s first term, including the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s two impeachments. The focus is on Trump’s use of the pardon power as a tool in obstructing investigation into his own wrongdoing as well as a means of protecting the corrupt politicians and white-collar criminals who supported him. Attention is also given to Trump’s transformation of the pardon application process from a formal standardized procedure into a game of connections and private access.

This is the second of two chapters that will take a closer look at the national level, or the bottom-up approach, to security dynamics in the Arctic. All states are not equal. There is obviously a difference between a global superpower of almost 350 million people and Norway, with the population of 5.5 million people. Still, both are states, both are in the Arctic, and both face geographically determined security issues in their immediate Arctic domain. It is thus both highly relevant and instructive to compare how these two states have approached their respective Arctic security dynamics. US interest in Arctic security affairs over the last two decades has been a conundrum, going from relative disinterest to making use of the Arctic in global rivalry with China.

Bureaucrats in democracies and international organizations are frequently criticized for lacking democratic accountability. Across time and countries, elected officials have expressed frustration over the challenges of controlling behavior of bureaucrats. How do political leaders attempt to exert control over bureaucrats, and how do bureaucrats respond in turn? More importantly, what do these responses mean for the implementation of foreign policy and global governance programs? Taming the Careerists addresses these questions within the context of US foreign policy, emphasizing how job protections embedded in bureaucrats’ employment contracts shape behavior of bureaucrats in foreign affairs. This introductory chapter presents the book’s central argument, explains its significance, and provides an overview of its structure.

The Conclusion summarizes the main themes of the book, noting how they have special salience as the second administration of Donald Trump unfolds and as we near the 250th anniversary.

The epilogue to this book is a brief reflection on the relevance of Arendt’s moral philosophy to the current slide toward autocracy in many countries, including my own. Unlike the other chapters of this book, the epilogue is “time-stamped” to the moment of its writing: the first year of a US administration that openly aims to dismantle liberal institutions and inflate the president’s prerogative powers. It describes a set of events that poses moral problems resembling those that preoccupied Arendt in her “emergency ethics.”

The book opens with an overview of the tensions that increasingly define hip-hop’s role in contemporary culture, namely the way that the music continually shifts between complicity and critique in its assessment of capitalism and racialized inequality. This ambivalence is related back to the currents of pleasure and pain that run through the work of such rappers as Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion, and to the usage of hip-hop in a recent film soundtrack. After briefly discussing the editor’s own position in relation to the culture, the introduction moves on to an overview of the collection’s general aims. These include the attempt to reflect both the diverse styles and regions of contemporary hip-hop, and the political commitments of the contributors. A short discussion of editorial conventions follows, as well as an account of the book’s approach to hate speech. The section ends with a brief overview of each of the nineteen chapters.

The rise of community capitalism since the mid-2010s is reflected in the return of protectionism, authoritarianism, nativism, and violent conflict. European capitalism was forced to adapt by being more assertive. Europeans have embraced solutions that were previously refused as too protectionist, such as European preference, free trade contingent on adhering to social and environmental norms, subsidies to industry for strategic reasons, and competition policy decisions based on reciprocity. Some of these ideas were long defended by France. Germany previously criticised them, but has embraced some in trade since 2016, and others in foreign policy since 2022. The management of Brexit has reaffirmed the basis of European soft power, which depends on the unity of the Single Market. The Covid-19 pandemic (2020–21) forced the Union to adopt protectionist and interventionist measures. The Russo-Ukrainian War has led to very strong sanctions packages, as well as the Union’s foray into military matters. But the Europeans still remain heavily dependent on the US for defence. Donald Trump’s return to power in 2025 has forced Europe to think harder about organising community capitalism.

At first glance, Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) remains a marginal figure within US political discourse. However, this chapter argues that revisiting Kelsen is crucial if we are to understand present-day intellectual tendencies supportive of autocratic threats to US democracy. A neglected, yet pivotal, anti-Kelsenian moment proves decisive among influential right wing intellectuals, so-called ‘west coast’ Straussians based at California’s Claremont Institute, who enthusiastically supported Donald Trump and embraced his authoritarianism. The lawyer and Claremont affiliate John Eastman, for example, worked to prevent a peaceful transfer of power to then President-elect Joe Biden in 2020 to keep Trump in power. Trump’s Claremont Institute defenders have absorbed crucial facets of Leo Strauss’s critical rejoinder to Kelsen: Strauss’ longstanding anti-Kelsenianism has morphed into their subterranean anti-Kelsenianism. To validate this claim, the chapter revisits Strauss’ complicated theoretical dialogue with Kelsen, while also highlighting crucial moments in the arcane history of postwar American Straussianism. What is gained theoretically, and not just historically or politically, by doing so? The Claremont Institute’s apologetics for Trump corroborate Kelsen’s worries that attempts to revive natural law under contemporary conditions invite autocracy.

This chapter examines early decisions made by the Trump Administration that could have an impact on the financing of terrorism. The chapter also ties together the previous chapters – specifically looking at overlaps, regulatory, technological, or other in the area of terrorist financing and the countering of it.

Chapter 4 shifts the focus from why the US fears the ICC to when it opposes the ICC. The basic idea underpinning this portion of the book is that even though America’s fear that the ICC might someday target its troops is a constant, US policy toward the Court is a variable. I start by generating a typology of three broad strategies that the US might pursue in response to ICC investigations: opposition, assistance, and neglect. I describe what makes each strategy conceptually distinct and highlight the specific tactics associated with them. I then explain why the US might pick one strategy over the others. My theoretical framework calls attention to the interaction of two key variables: (a) whether the ICC investigation threatens US troops and (b) whether the ICC investigation advances broader American foreign policy goals. An analysis of each US presidential administration’s policies toward the ICC provides strong support for the theoretical framework.

Chapter 1 introduces President Donald Trump’s all-out assaults on the validity of the law of war. It argues that his behavior differs from other Western leaders in that Trump has been willing to openly challenge international humanitarian law (IHL) not “in the shadows” but “in the daylight.” Section 1.1 explains why the topic matters for political scientists and legal scholars. Section 1.2 discusses the significance of Trump’s impunity agenda for policy and governance. Section 1.3 argues that, regardless of whether Trump has technically violated the law of war in the past, his brazen attacks on the need for IHL distinguish him from other Western leaders. Section 1.4 claims that the constraints in Western democracies that largely prevent democratic leaders from publicly flouting IHL may be more perceived than actual. Section 1.5 justifies the case selection of Trump, explaining how Trump was presented with the “means, motive, and opportunity” to overtly defy the law of war. Section 1.6 previews the puzzles and arguments that guide the rest of the book.