Societies have constant competition between progressive forces that would reduce group-based inequality and regressive forces that would maintain it. As groups vie for superiority or equality, people on all sides can feel that their group is not being accorded as much status as it deserves, the feeling of status indignity. Further, political contests can lead people on all sides to feel excluded. We show that status indignity and exclusion are connected and can lead to radicalization. In reviewing research on social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and collective narcissism, we identify evidence that regressive radicalization is more likely than progressive radicalization due to the psychological assumptions of people who favor regressive versus progressive movements.

Why are progressives often critical of US foreign policy and the national security state? What would a statecraft that pulls ideas from the American left look like? Grand Strategies of the Left brings the progressive worldview into conversation with security studies and foreign policy practice. It argues that American progressives think durable security will only come by prioritizing the interconnected conditions of peace, democracy, and equality. By conceiving of grand strategy as worldmaking, progressives see multiple ways of using foreign policy to make a more just and stable world. US statecraft – including defense policy – should be retooled not for primacy, endless power accumulation, or a political status quo that privileges elites, but rather to shape the context that gives rise to perpetual insecurity. Progressive worldmaking has its own risks and dilemmas but expands how we imagine what the world is and could be.