This special issue offers an academic analysis of the television series The Americans as a reflection of current social and political trends across the United States. Uncovering the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of the central characters, authors consider how their performance challenges our ability to differentiate between the authentic family, the legitimate source of social reproduction and the counterfeit one that disrupts the social order.

Focusing on how television’s shift away from the traditional nuclear family is crucial to understanding the relatively rapid acceptance of same-sex marriage in mainstream politics, authors invite consideration and acceptance of alternative family forms that are often represented within LGBTQ communities. Pairing the series with scholarship on criminal law, contributors also delve into how The Americans provides an opportunity to reconsider the significance of the “pro-family” label to New Right organizing, the importance of mothering to this narrative and the relationship between this account of mothering and democratic citizenship more broadly. Drawing on the concept of legal consciousness to examine the relationship between identity and hegemony, chapters also consider how the enactment of legal beliefs and values help individuals to form identities, as well as how these are constrained by popular ideology.

Interpreting this television series through a socially charged lens, Law, Politics and Family in ‘The Americans’ offers a compelling insight into the legal and cultural undertones of family dynamics, as well as those at the heart of conservative American politics.