There are few books that so reflect an author’s mastery of a subject as much as the latest contribution from Jonathan Simon, the Associate Dean of Jurisprudence and Social Policy at the University of California Berkeley.  Simon’s polemic and ambitious book, Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear, is a real eye-opener on law, justice, and the politics of public security in post 9/11 America, containing compelling arguments of far-reaching implications – not in the least in terms of observing the similar transformation which has occured in Russia.

First released in 2007, Simon’s book contains an important prescription for the incoming president to be aware of, and can help contribute to a deeper understanding of the political mechanics behind the world’s newest authoritarian leaning regimes.

It is Simon’s argument that we must look past the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in searching for the original impetuous which has driven the U.S. government headlong into the war on terror, including all the accompanying constitutional and rule of law abuses which have accompanied it.  The legislative precursors for the latest sweeping arc of rights deprivations, including everything from the strengthening of the executive to the PATRIOT Act, generalized domestic wiretapping and Guantanamo Bay, can be observed in the Nixonian collapse of the “New Deal approach” to governing of the 1960s, when we saw the birth of the war on crime and the portrayal of society as a victim in need of government protection – quickly becoming the central trope in American neo-populism.