In this book, we have interpreted the long-term economic trends of recent decades through the lens of structural dynamics, based on what the available data may (or may not) reveal. Clark’s (1940) analysis of capitalist economies, which established the foundation for the structuralist approach, identifies three dominant sectors at different stages of development: agriculture first, followed by manufacturing, and finally services. This approach has also been articulated in terms of dualistic development from the beginning: Lewis’s (1954) model highlighted the challenges that can arise in transitioning from ‘traditional’ to ‘advanced’ sectors and underscores the positive and active role the state can play in facilitating these transitions. Rosenstein-Rodan (1943) explicitly discussed the need for ‘big pushes’ by public authorities to avoid vicious circles that can hinder structural change, specifically towards industrialisation.

Chapter 1 revives the traditional view that Sir William Temple had a profound influence on Swift against the recent tendency to underrate Temple. It does so by providing long overdue attention to the most neglected yet most substantial dimension of Temple’s career, literary work, and bequest to Swift: the international dimension. Temple’s teachings as diplomat and foreign policy essayist are primarily responsible for Swift’s heightened awareness of the intersection of domestic and international politics throughout his career. Hence also Swift’s recognition of the interdependence of domestic liberty and international security – the need to preserve liberty through not only constitutional balance but also international balance. This inextricable relationship is often overlooked by scholars focused on the domestic ideological binary of liberty versus authority. It reveals Temple’s and Swift’s shared opposition to domestic political polarization, even at the risk of being falsely accused of favoring absolutist, paternalistic, or arbitrary government.

Chapter 6 shifts the scene to Ireland, where Swift returned after his four years writing propaganda for the Tory government in London. It reasserts the allegorical reading of Part I of Gulliver’s Travels (1726), a defense of the Peace of Utrecht, and more importantly the underlying principles. In light of Swift’s international politics and thought, the war between the fictional lands of Lilliput and Blefuscu can be seen as a tripolar model of international relations – not bipolar, as widely believed, since Gulliver acts as arbiter. This model centers on Swift’s neoclassical balance-of-power theory, which also underscores a defensive blue-water foreign policy that contrasts starkly with offensive policy, “reason of state,” imperialism, and colonialism.

Chapter 2 discusses Swift’s statement of political principles, A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions (1701), and shows how international relations proved essential both to his fully developed, neoclassical balance-of-power theory as well as his practical political objectives in contemporary debates about the constitution and emerging War of Spanish Succession. Swift wrote against the Tory majority in the House of Commons and thus attacked the tyranny of the majority – but he also took a more realistic and permissive view of popular political participation than has been acknowledged. That view reflected his belief in the voice of the people and consensual government, including when discovering the national interest within the international context. The masses helped to rescue England from French imperialism, just as threats of French hegemony put the domestic political need for power-sharing into perspective. Swift defends executive action for the sake of national security but does not abandon constitutional constraints.

We explore the behaviour of the crystalline lattice under the action of external electric fields. We treat polarization as an energy derivative and define the atomic charges in terms of charge exchange; we define the dielectric tensors and visit the higher-order dielectric response of the lattice.

This chapter offers a thorough understanding of polarization and its applications. We explore its historical development from static charge theories to modern insights involving Berry phases. Additionally, we examine ferroic materials.

This poses the problem of American civic fracture and failing civic attachment, and points to renewed civics as the remedy.

Chapter 8 tests the cross-regional validity of the refined theory by tracing processes in Ecuador and Peru and comparing them with patterns in Slovakia and Poland. After a brief discussion of antecedent conditions and crises before critical periods of major market reform, I assess neoliberal junctures in Ecuador and Peru with special attention to the hypothetically crucial variations in terms of political agency. The next two sections analyze divergent path dependencies that stemmed from nuanced juncture contingencies, ultimately showing that illiberal tendencies in the Andes were shaped in ways consistent with theoretical expectations. Finally, I compare the South American and Eastern European cases by focusing on the mechanisms of production and reproduction linking neoliberal junctures and subsequent illiberal tendencies. Contrary to prior research, I conclude that Andean illiberalism’s capacities to be politically dominant and to be contestatory vis-à-vis liberal democracy are, as in Eastern Europe, best understood as distinct adaptations to societal reactions resulting from prior historical contingencies. By offering a theoretically grounded comparative account, this chapter invites new ways of thinking about developments after neoliberal reforms in Latin America.

Chapter 5 examines path dependencies in Slovakia and Poland, where postcommunist junctures produced powerful illiberal reactions in the 2000–20 period. It does so by unpacking political and societal dynamics and emphasizing how illiberal forces reaped considerable electoral benefits. In both countries, mainstream leftist parties embraced the neoliberal agenda and (eventually) failed, with many of their former supporters becoming available for subsequent populist mobilization. As the Left’s failures occurred amid the rising salience of economic concerns, adaptive illiberals gained at the ballot box. While it stresses key similarities in terms of the core mechanism linking postcommunist junctures and illiberal electoral outcomes, the chapter also identifies important distinctions between reactive sequences in Slovakia and Poland. Indeed, bait-and-switch tactics may have defined junctures in both cases, but political configurations featured more nuanced distinctions specifically in terms of agency, which, in turn, conditioned important differences between illiberals in the two countries. Overall, whereas the patterns of similarity substantiate the book’s core theory linking early market reform legacies and illiberal electoral outcomes, the differences suggest that the critical juncture framework can be further refined – to which I return in the book's final part.

The term post-truth refers to circumstances in which objective facts exert less influence on public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. While not new, this phenomenon has intensified with the rapid speed that misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread online, compounded by rising political polarization. This book draws on leading research in psychology and other social sciences to explain how post-truth claims emerge, why they persist despite contrary evidence, and how we might respond to their challenges. My analysis integrates three distinct approaches to human reasoning: Bayesian models, dual-process theories, and social argumentation. I introduce the term wise deliberative spaces to describe forums that pursue truth and the common good through discourse practices that foster deliberative dialogue. These spaces have declined in recent decades due to reduced face-to-face community engagement, shifts in the media landscape, declining trust in knowledge-producing institutions, and deepening political divides. The chapter concludes by summarizing the book’s organization.

The 1930s did not resolve doubts about the viability of democracy, but military success in World War II enhanced democracy’s reputation. In 1951, Hannah Arendt pointed out that German citizens had not managed to stop Hitler, but discussion of their failure was set aside by American intellectuals focused on communism during the Cold War. They said, in “the end of ideology” movement, that democrats don’t have to think but to do – to oppose the USSR and to campaign for “incremental economic progress” at home. Therefore, when the Cold War ended, democrats were mostly wedded to marketplace practices of “neoliberalism” without strong political dimensions. Consequently, when that neoliberalism sagged in 2008, there was no widely shared democratic theory available to inspire resentful people. Into this vacuum stepped the Republican Party, which since Barry Goldwater had become ideologically committed to capitalism, hostile to “government activism” (such as the New Deal), enthusiastic about public “school privatization,” scornful of “abortion rights” but zealous about “religious tradition,” and set on appointing right-wing judges who would empower money more than people, as in permitting wealthy individuals and corporations to make unlimited political contributions (Elon Musk alone contributed $250,000,000 to the Republican Party in 2024). Thus the country lapsed more and more into a “culture war,” wherein Democrats were pluralistic and Republicans promoted ideological convictions.