Jessica Pisano is Associate Professor and Chair of the Politics Department at the New School for Social Research. Her current project focuses on the political economy of illiberal regimes. Much analysis of contemporary illiberalism focuses on the erosion of political rights or the renegotiation of the boundaries of the demos through nationalist discourse. However, contemporary regimes of this type also exhibit a distinct political economy. Pisano’s research shows how their strategies of governance catalyze shifts from welfare to caritas, reframing the basis of citizen-state relations from rights to obligations, changing the meaning of political participation and producing new forms of citizenship and political subjectivity. In 2017-2018, she is completing a monograph on the subject entitled Political Theatre.