Author

Angus Brown

Angus Brown is a Collegiate Assistant Professor and Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago where he writes and teaches on the history of democracy.

Articles by Angus Brown

Emmanuel Macron walks alone during a ceremony for late French politician and admiral, Philippe de Gaulle, the son of Charles de Gaulle
notebook

The last days of the Fifth Republic

The Fifth Republic, forged by de Gaulle to stabilise France, teeters on the brink of collapse as its fundamental contradictions put French politics at an impasse...

Angus BrownDecember 13, 2024
Gerald Ford announcing his decision to pardon Richard Nixon, 1974.
notebook

The fraught history of the presidential pardon

From its founding, the United States has wrestled with the scope and limits of the presidential pardon, a power in many ways more redolent of monarchy than republicanism...

Angus BrownDecember 5, 2024
Electoral College ballot boxes from states arrive to a joint session of Congress, 6 January 2021.
notebook

The looming crisis of an Electoral College tie

A tie between Trump and Harris in the Electoral College remains possible in the 2024 presidential election, and the constitutional procedures for resolving it are elaborate and fra..

Angus BrownOctober 30, 2024
Former president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, imprisoned in a casement cell in Fortress Monroe, 1865.
essays

The trials of a president

The failed prosecution of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, underscores the lasting tension between justice and political pragmatism seen..

Angus BrownSeptember 26, 2024
Jordan Bardella at a rally in Lecleuse, April 2024.
notebook

The constitutional casualties of the French election

Facing an unprecedented defeat in the French Parliamentary elections, Emmanuel Macron is forced to confront the previously unthinkable: a government led by the far right. ..

Angus BrownJuly 1, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron walks through the Galerie des Bustes at Versailles.
notebook

Macron’s very French gambit

By calling parliamentary elections, will Emmanuel Macron save the constitution by drawing on a distinctively French legacy of political action, or risk the future of the republic? ..

Angus BrownJune 11, 2024
The Festival of the Supreme Being at the Field of Mars, 8 June 1794, 1794.
Review

Did the Enlightenment fail?

The Enlightenment was a way of thinking born out of the bloody conflicts of the 17th and 18th centuries dedicated to tolerance and moderation, and the violence of the French Revolu..

Angus BrownApril 16, 2024
A debate on protectionist tariffs that would lead to the South Carolina nullification crisis in 1833.
notebook

The conflict between states and the US federal government is nothing new

A controversial legal theory known as 'nullification', as old as the US constitution itself, lies at the heart of an ongoing battle between Texas and the federal government over th..

Angus BrownFebruary 5, 2024
French and European flags
notebook

The Stalinist who wrote the playbook for French foreign policy

The philosopher-statesman Alexander Kojève and President Emmanuel Macron make unlikely bedfellows as France tries to reshape the world order...

Angus BrownMay 31, 2023
The United States Supreme Court.
notebook

When the Founding Fathers opposed the Supreme Court

With the overturning of abortion rights in America, questions have turned to the court’s legitimacy and power — but this is not a new debate. It has haunted US politics for centuri..

Angus BrownMarch 31, 2023