[3] As the political theorist William E. Connolly has described him: "no one writing in English today has as wide a command over diverse references or develops more profound insights from them".

[2][5] Around 1980, however, under the influence of philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Shapiro began employing concepts from continental philosophy and cultural studies including governmentality, micropolitics, the movement-image, the time-image, and rhythmanalysis, while introducing unconventional devices such as first-person narrative into his essays.

[2][5] With his colleagues at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Political Science Department, Shapiro founded what is sometimes called the Aloha School.

Aesthetics of Equality (Oxford University Press, 2023) Writing Politics: Studies in Compositional Method (Routledge, 2021).

Deforming American Political Thought [2nd edition with a new chapter and subtitle]: Challenging the Jeffersonian Legacy (Routledge, 2016).