Political science and theory Books
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Masters: The Invisible War of the Powerful
Book SynopsisFrom the breweries of Colorado and the faculties of Harvard to the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm, Marco D’Eramo guides us through the places where a new war has been thought out, planned and financed. It’s a real war, though it has been fought silently, without us realizing it. Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, said it best: ‘There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning’. The revolt from above has affected all fields – not only the economy, but also justice and education. It has twisted our ideas of society, family and ourselves. It has taken advantage of every crisis, whether natural disasters, terrorist attacks, recessions or pandemics. It has used every weapon, from the information revolution to the technology of debt. It has changed the nature of power, from discipline to control. It has learnt from the workers’ struggle, using Gramsci and Lenin against them. Maybe the time has come for us to do the same and to learn from our opponents.Trade Review‘Before Masters, to speak of the ideological defeat of the left was taboo, a shameful story, and unspeakable. With the courage of truth, Marco d'Eramo spells out how it was the billionaires of the world, not the oppressed, who took to heart Gramsci’s lessons on building hegemony. In this brilliant, foundational work, he invites us to learn from our adversaries, to stop living as oblivious subjects and to take back the initiative.’Saskia Sassen, The Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University‘Marco d'Eramo is one of the most provocative and insightful thinkers of our time, and his gifts are all splendidly on display in this riveting account of how global elites launched, and eventually won, their war against the poor and the weak.’Amitav Ghosh, author of The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in CrisisTable of ContentsPrologue1. Counterintelligentsia2. Ideas Are Weapons3. The Justice Market4. Trigger-Happy Parents5. The Tyranny of Benevolence6. Capitale sive Nature7. The Politics Pricelist8. Arsenic and Witchcraft I9. Arsenic and Witchcraft II10. And They All Lived Happily Antily Ever After11. Social Pornography12. The Circular Thought of the Economic Circuit13. The Game is Rigged. However …14. Time to Learn from Your EnemiesPostscriptBibliographyIndex
£16.19
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Zelensky: A Biography
Book SynopsisThree years after the political novice Volodymyr Zelensky was elected to Ukraine’s highest office, he found himself catapulted into the role of war-time leader. The former comedian has become the public face of his country’s courageous and bloody struggle against a brutal invasion. Zelensky’s extraordinary leadership in the face of Russia’s aggression is an inspiration to everyone who stands opposed to the appalling violence unleashed on Ukraine. This book – the first biography of Zelensky published in English – tells his astonishing story. It has been revised and updated for this new paperback edition.Trade Review"War is a rupture—in a country's life and a leader's. Amid the calamity, Ukrainians have proven lucky in theirs. As Mr Rudenko writes at the close, the man who was 'visibly nervous' in his early bouts of diplomacy, the ingénue and clown, now has an experience of statecraft that no modern Western leader can match, nor would wish to."The Economist "From voice of Paddington to global giant... the man behind the wartime façade"The Observer "The first English-language biography of Zelensky reveals what Ukrainians really think of him"The Telegraph "Serhii Rudenko's biography is a portrait of a wartime hero whose troubled past may return to haunt him... [It is] an extraordinary life story, which is still being written. Reading this biography now, in the wake of a war that upended our understanding of both Zelensky and Ukraine, presents his personal history in a new light."Lyse Doucet, The New Statesman "Fascinating"The Guardian "A fast-paced biography of an unexpected world leader... the author capably shows how Zelensky has displayed an astonishing transformation in the face of continued Russian aggression."Kirkus "Rudenko has written a succinct political biography that plunges readers right into the middle of the Ukrainian political scene"Prospect Magazine "... important and detailed...: Zelensky is easily the equal of the most impressive wartime leaders the West has ever had."Owen Matthews, The SpectatorTable of ContentsAbbreviations Preface: Zelensky’s Political Oscar 1 Ten Assassination Attempts on President Zelensky 2 The Campaign for President 3 “Let It Be the Stadium Then!” 4 Zelensky and Forty-two Million Presidents 5 Devirtualization of Servant of the People 6 A Mad Printer for the President 7 Trump’s Impeachment 8 Vice-President Bohdan 9 The Cosmic Year of 1978 10 The Irreplaceable Yuliya Mendel 11 Look into the Eyes of Putin and … 12 The Amateur on an Electric Scooter 13 A Little Bell for Maslyakov 14 Godfather Rodnyansky 15 A Scandal in Jurmala 16 The Family of Kvartal 95 17 The Kadyrov Ordeal 18 Ebony Rods 19 Zelensky's Double 20 Zelensky’s Ceremonial General 21 Zelensky’s Shefir Brothers 22 Kolomoisky’s Knife 23 Poroshenko on His Knees 24 The Zelensky Collective 25 Zelensky’s Idol Syvokho 26 The Polygraph for “Servants of the People” 27 Who Turned Zelensky into an Addict? 28 Zelensky under Yermak 29 Zelensky’s Dream Team 30 Zelensky’s Architect 31 The Magic Number 95 32 He Who Burdened Zelensky with the Presidency 33 A Gagarin for Zelensky 34 A Black Mirror for a Hero 35 Zvirobiy, Fedyna, and a Victim 36 Wagnergate: A Story with Many Unknowns 37 How the Oligarch Akhmetov Prepared a Coup for Zelensky 38 The Bucha Massacre Epilogue: The President of War Chronology
£11.69
University of Pennsylvania Press Law Without Future
Book SynopsisA provocative, sobering analysis of twenty-first century court cases that undermine the very idea of constitutional governmentAs the 2000 decision by the Supreme Court to effectively deliver the presidency to George W. Bush recedes in time, its real meaning comes into focus. If the initial critique of the Court was that it had altered the rules of democracy after the fact, the perspective of distance permits us to see that the rules were, in some sense, not altered at all. Here was a landmark decision that, according to its own logic, was applicable only once and that therefore neither relied on past precedent nor lay the foundation for future interpretations.This logic, according to scholar Jack Jackson, not only marks a stark break from the traditional terrain of U.S. constitutional law but exemplifies an era of triumphant radicalism and illiberalism on the American Right. In Law Without Future, Jackson demonstrates how this philosophy has manifested itse
£17.99
University of Minnesota Press Nuclear Suburbs: Cold War Technoscience and the
Book SynopsisFrom submarines to the suburbs—the remaking of Pittsburgh during the Cold WarDuring the early Cold War, research facilities became ubiquitous features of suburbs across the United States. Pittsburgh’s eastern and southern suburbs hosted a constellation of such facilities that became the world’s leading center for the development of nuclear reactors for naval vessels and power plants. The segregated communities that surrounded these laboratories housed one of the largest concentrations of nuclear engineers and scientists on earth. In Nuclear Suburbs, Patrick Vitale uncovers how the suburbs shaped the everyday lives of these technology workers. Using oral histories, Vitale follows nuclear engineers and scientists throughout and beyond the Pittsburgh region to understand how the politics of technoscience and the Cold War were embedded in daily life. At the same time that research facilities moved to Pittsburgh’s suburbs, a coalition of business and political elites began an aggressive effort, called the Pittsburgh Renaissance, to renew the region. For Pittsburgh’s elite, laboratories and researchers became important symbols of the new Pittsburgh and its postindustrial economy. Nuclear Suburbs exposes how this coalition enrolled technology workers as allies in their remaking of the city.Offering lessons for the present day, Nuclear Suburbs shows how race, class, gender, and the production of urban and suburban space are fundamental to technoscientific networks, and explains how the “renewal” of industrial regions into centers of the tech economy is rooted in violence and injustice. Trade Review"Forget Silicon Valley, Google buses, and loft living in San Francisco. As Patrick Vitale shows in his deeply researched and compellingly written book, post-war American high-tech begins in gritty Steel City, Pittsburgh. Its workers are not today’s multi-ethnic, collarless class making social media but white men wearing pressed white shirts, living in suburban tract housing, making the Bomb. High-tech becomes something quite different, politically conservative, socially exclusive, rather sinister."—Trevor J. Barnes, University of British Columbia"Nuclear Suburbs offers a new and important insight into the complex relationship between the Cold War, suburbanization, and post-industrial capitalism. Patrick Vitale expertly reveals how deeply enmeshed scientists’ lives and work were in the economic and spatial restructuring of cities like Pittsburgh. It provides a powerful, important retort to anyone suggesting that science and knowledge workers are the solution to urban problems."—Lily Geismer, author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party"Even readers who don’t share Vitale’s political conclusions might be intrigued to learn about Pittsburgh’s place in nuclear history, which is little recalled today."—Pittsburgh Post-GazetteTable of ContentsContentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Engineering the BubblePart I. Remaking Postwar Pittsburgh1. Going Critical: Technoscience, the Cold War, and the Pittsburgh Renaissance2. Research and Renaissance: Renewing the City for ScientistsPart II. Making Science Suburban3. The Invention of Research Man4. The Monroeville Doctrine: How the Suburbs Shaped Cold War Science Part III. Cold War Community5. Finding a Home in the Nuclear Suburbs6. Invisibilities of Nuclear Engineering7. Warplace/Workplace: Technoscientific Jobs during the Cold WarEpilogue: Did Science Save Pittsburgh?AcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Nuclear Suburbs: Cold War Technoscience and the
Book SynopsisFrom submarines to the suburbs—the remaking of Pittsburgh during the Cold WarDuring the early Cold War, research facilities became ubiquitous features of suburbs across the United States. Pittsburgh’s eastern and southern suburbs hosted a constellation of such facilities that became the world’s leading center for the development of nuclear reactors for naval vessels and power plants. The segregated communities that surrounded these laboratories housed one of the largest concentrations of nuclear engineers and scientists on earth. In Nuclear Suburbs, Patrick Vitale uncovers how the suburbs shaped the everyday lives of these technology workers. Using oral histories, Vitale follows nuclear engineers and scientists throughout and beyond the Pittsburgh region to understand how the politics of technoscience and the Cold War were embedded in daily life. At the same time that research facilities moved to Pittsburgh’s suburbs, a coalition of business and political elites began an aggressive effort, called the Pittsburgh Renaissance, to renew the region. For Pittsburgh’s elite, laboratories and researchers became important symbols of the new Pittsburgh and its postindustrial economy. Nuclear Suburbs exposes how this coalition enrolled technology workers as allies in their remaking of the city.Offering lessons for the present day, Nuclear Suburbs shows how race, class, gender, and the production of urban and suburban space are fundamental to technoscientific networks, and explains how the “renewal” of industrial regions into centers of the tech economy is rooted in violence and injustice. Trade Review"Forget Silicon Valley, Google buses, and loft living in San Francisco. As Patrick Vitale shows in his deeply researched and compellingly written book, post-war American high-tech begins in gritty Steel City, Pittsburgh. Its workers are not today’s multi-ethnic, collarless class making social media but white men wearing pressed white shirts, living in suburban tract housing, making the Bomb. High-tech becomes something quite different, politically conservative, socially exclusive, rather sinister."—Trevor J. Barnes, University of British Columbia"Nuclear Suburbs offers a new and important insight into the complex relationship between the Cold War, suburbanization, and post-industrial capitalism. Patrick Vitale expertly reveals how deeply enmeshed scientists’ lives and work were in the economic and spatial restructuring of cities like Pittsburgh. It provides a powerful, important retort to anyone suggesting that science and knowledge workers are the solution to urban problems."—Lily Geismer, author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party"Even readers who don’t share Vitale’s political conclusions might be intrigued to learn about Pittsburgh’s place in nuclear history, which is little recalled today."—Pittsburgh Post-GazetteTable of ContentsContentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Engineering the BubblePart I. Remaking Postwar Pittsburgh1. Going Critical: Technoscience, the Cold War, and the Pittsburgh Renaissance2. Research and Renaissance: Renewing the City for ScientistsPart II. Making Science Suburban3. The Invention of Research Man4. The Monroeville Doctrine: How the Suburbs Shaped Cold War Science Part III. Cold War Community5. Finding a Home in the Nuclear Suburbs6. Invisibilities of Nuclear Engineering7. Warplace/Workplace: Technoscientific Jobs during the Cold WarEpilogue: Did Science Save Pittsburgh?AcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Archives of Infamy: Foucault on State Power in
Book SynopsisExpanding the insights of Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault’s Disorderly Families into policing, public order, (in)justice, and daily life What might it mean for ordinary people to intervene in the circulation of power between police and the streets, sovereigns and their subjects? How did the police come to understand themselves as responsible for the circulation of people as much as things—and to separate law and justice from the maintenance of a newly emergent civil order? These are among the many questions addressed in the interpretive essays in Archives of Infamy.Crisscrossing the Atlantic to bring together unpublished radio broadcasts, book reviews, and essays by historians, geographers, and political theorists, Archives of Infamy provides historical and archival contexts to the recent translation of Disorderly Families by Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault. This volume includes new translations of key texts, including a radio address Foucault gave in 1983 that explains the writing process for Disorderly Families; two essays by Foucault not readily available in English; and a previously untranslated essay by Farge that describes how historians have appropriated Foucault.Archives of Infamy pushes past old debates between philosophers and historians to offer a new perspective on the crystallization of ideas—of the family, gender relations, and political power—into social relationships and the regimes of power they engender. Contributors: Roger Chartier, Collège de France; Stuart Elden, U of Warwick; Arlette Farge, Centre national de recherche scientifique; Michel Foucault (1926–1984); Jean-Philippe Guinle, Catholic Institute of Paris; Michel Heurteaux; Pierre Nora, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; Michael Rey (1953–1993); Thomas Scott-Railton; Elizabeth Wingrove, U of Michigan.Trade Review"Listening to the voices rising from the archives, grasping the distant echoes of confrontations with power, exhuming the tenuous grain of tiny existences—this is what Michel Foucault chose to do. Does the philosopher’s gesture conflict with the historical understanding of archival material? This look back at an exciting debate asks: is it possible to build together a concern for anonymous lives, a literary passion for documentary fragments, and the desire to make a history of the discourses and practices of power?" —Judith Revel, Université Paris Nanterre"The book should be of interest to Foucault scholars, political scientists, historians of eighteenth century France, as well as general readers."—Foucault Studies
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Ten Theses for an Aesthetics of Politics
Book SynopsisTen Theses for an Aesthetics of Politics is an invitation to culture makers, political thinkers of all kinds, and everyday spectators to reconsider their love of the world of appearances. Inspired by Jacques Rancière’s Ten Theses on Politics and work by Hannah Arendt, Stanley Cavell, and Roland Barthes, Davide Panagia offers conceptual provocations that emphasize the sense of conviction one has when facing the frictions of aesthetic experience. Rooted in varied and variable experiences of border crossings, Panagia invites readers to reflect on the relational practices that appearances engender.Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
£9.00
University of Minnesota Press A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal
Book SynopsisA field guide to a nonfascist life at the end of the world as we know itA Guerrilla Guide to Refusal is an unexpected approach to philosophy from a guerrilla-logic point of view. Harnessing critical theory to creatively reimagine counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, and interventions beyond the political mainstream, it takes us on a journey through anarchist infowar, queer outlaws, and black insurgency—through a subterranean network of communiques, military documents, contemporary art, political slogans, adversarial blogs, and captive media. In doing so, it provides powerful new insight into contemporary political movements that pose no demands, refuse labels, and offer no solutions.Written to both inspire and provoke, A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal urges us to think through the refusal to participate in politics as usual. Author Andrew Culp demonstrates how evasion can combatively deny the existing order its power. Focusing on punk cinema, anarchist pamphlets, feminist art projects, hacker manifestos, and guerrilla manuals, he foregrounds invisibility as a novel force of disruption. He draws on concepts of criminality, fugitivity, and anonymity to bring a more nuanced understanding of how power makes things—and people—visible.The book’s unique format is that of a theoretical manual, comprising freestanding segments instead of blueprints. Poised to reach beyond the academy into activist circles, this potent theory-in-action intervention forces us to reconsider the terrain upon which our struggles against patriarchy, anti-Blackness, capitalism, and the state operate.Trade Review"In this moment of miasma, Andrew Culp opens an aperture on a politics of negation that lives and breathes only for itself. A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal taps the vein of revolt, recognizing that its lifeblood already flows through our societies. For Culp, the cry for liberation is an ever-present reverberation that echoes across the beautiful wilderness that is life." —Simon Springer, author of The Anarchist Roots of Geography: Toward Spatial EmancipationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Underground PhilosophyI. Anonymity1. The Guerrilla Force of Liberation2. Propaganda of the Deed3. The Voice of Bullets and Bombs4. Messages without a Sender5. The Sprawl6. The Politics of AsymmetryII. Criminality7. Society with Sexual Characteristics8. Excitement and Exposure9. A Heart That Burns and Burns10. We Are Bad, but We Could Be Worse11. We Don’t12. Making Illness into a WeaponIII. Fugitivity13. Uprising14. Self-Abolition15. Searing Flesh16 Captive Media17. Black Out18. Trapped between Withdrawal and HypervisibilityConclusion: Communism at the End of the WorldAcknowledgmentsNotes Index
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Why We Lost the Sex Wars: Sexual Freedom in the
Book SynopsisReexamining feminist sexual politics since the 1970s—the rivalries and the remarkable alliances Since the historic #MeToo movement materialized in 2017, innumerable survivors of sexual assault and misconduct have broken their silence and called out their abusers publicly—from well-known celebrities to politicians and high-profile business leaders. Not surprisingly, conservatives quickly opposed this new movement, but the fact that “sex positive” progressives joined in the opposition was unexpected and seldom discussed. Why We Lost the Sex Wars explores how a narrow set of political prospects for resisting the use of sex as a tool of domination came to be embraced across this broad swath of the political spectrum in the contemporary United States.To better understand today’s multilayered sexual politics, Lorna N. Bracewell offers a revisionist history of the “sex wars” of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. Rather than focusing on what divided antipornography and sex-radical feminists, Bracewell highlights significant points of contact and overlap between these rivals, particularly the trenchant challenges they offered to the narrow and ambivalent sexual politics of postwar liberalism. Bracewell leverages this recovered history to illuminate in fresh and provocative ways a range of current phenomena, including recent controversies over trigger warnings, the unimaginative politics of “sex-positive” feminism, and the rise of carceral feminism. By foregrounding the role played by liberal concepts such as expressive freedom and the public/private divide as well as the long-neglected contributions of Black and “Third World” feminists, Bracewell upends much of what we think we know about the sex wars and makes a strong case for the continued relevance of these debates today. Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a history of feminist thinking on topics such as pornography, commercial sex work, LGBTQ+ identities, and BDSM, as well as discussions of such notable figures as Patrick Califia, Alan Dershowitz, Andrea Dworkin, Elena Kagan, Audre Lorde, Catharine MacKinnon, Cherríe Moraga, Robin Morgan, Gayle Rubin, Nadine Strossen, Cass Sunstein, and Alice Walker.Trade Review"Why We Lost the Sex Wars is a fascinating read. It provides a gripping social history of both feminist movement and of feminist political theory, including archival research into interviews and writings that current feminist ‘legends’ did as graduate students. This is intertwined with incisive and creative theoretical analysis of the arguments offered in courts, conferences, and publications. Lorna N. Bracewell shows that the so-called ‘sex wars’ were not warlike, nor a clear-cut duality, but rather multiple and complex, and that these debates and arguments still influence feminism and feminist theory today. In Bracewell’s account of the central role that feminists of color played, which is often overlooked, is particularly insightful and important. This book is essential reading for all of us interested in the history of late twentieth-century feminism and in understanding how we got to where we are today."—Nancy Hirschmann, author of Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory"Lorna N. Bracewell’s careful treatment of the feminist sexuality debates of the 1980s demonstrates how their framing in terms of liberal philosophies of the eighteenth century contributed to a reductive misunderstanding of key questions about freedom and sexuality that continue to resurface decades later. This is a timely and important work."—Judith Grant, Ohio University"Thoroughly researched, yet immensely readable, Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a clear, illuminating, and utterly engaging account of antipornography feminism and sex radical feminists’ consequential encounters with liberalism. It details how liberalism remade both and, in that remaking, helped to foreclose feminist imaginations regarding damage and reparation and worked to lead us to our carceral present. It, rightly, highlights the oft-overlooked interventions of Black and ‘Third World’ feminists who critiqued the ‘monism’ of white antipornography and whose analysis helped to clarify that pornography could do far worse than simply objectify women. The book skillfully and seamlessly combines historical accounts and close textual reading. Among the latter method, the author's convincing illustration of the impact of antipornography feminism on one of liberalism's most revered feminist critics, Carole Pateman, stands out, as it demonstrates how the feminists, who we too often understand to have lost their fight ultimately, helped to shape her understanding of male power. An important contribution to feminist political theory."—Shatema Threadcraft, author of Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic "A timely revisionist scholarly history certain to spark debate."—Kirkus Reviews "Why We Lost the Sex Wars is incredibly detailed, well-researched, and well-organized."—Kara Reviews "An illuminating retelling of this period of American feminist history."—The New Yorker "A thorough, thoughtful account of the multiple and evolving constellations of perspectives and interactions that composed the so-called Sex Wars."—Gender & Society Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Rethinking the Sex Wars1. “Pornography Is the Theory. Rape Is the Practice”: The Antipornography Feminist Critique of Liberalism2. Free Speech, Criminal Acts: Liberal Appropriations of Antipornography Feminism3. Ambivalent Liberals, Sex Radical Feminists4. Third World Feminism and the Sex WarsConclusion: The Liberal Roots of Carceral FeminismAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
£74.40
University of Minnesota Press Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future
Book SynopsisA bold new critique of dialogue as a method of eliminating dissent Is dialogue always the productive political and communicative tool it is widely conceived to be? Resisting Dialogue reassesses our assumptions about dialogue and, in so doing, about what a politically healthy society should look like. Juan Meneses argues that, far from an unalloyed good, dialogue often serves as a subtle tool of domination, perpetuating the underlying inequalities it is intended to address.Meneses investigates how “illusory dialogue” (a particular dialogic encounter designed to secure consensus) is employed as an instrument that forestalls—instead of fostering—articulations of dissent that lead to political change. He does so through close readings of novels from the English-speaking world written in the past hundred years—from E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion to Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and more. Resisting Dialogue demonstrates how these novels are rhetorical exercises with real political clout capable of restoring the radical potential of dialogue in today’s globalized world. Expanding the boundaries of postpolitical theory, Meneses reveals how these works offer ways to practice disagreement against this regulatory use of dialogue and expose the pitfalls of certain other dialogic interventions in relation to some of the most prominent questions of modern history: cosmopolitanism at the end of empire, the dangers of rewriting the historical record, the affective dimension of neoliberalism, the racial and nationalist underpinnings of the “war on terror,” and the visibility of environmental violence in the Anthropocene. Ultimately, Resisting Dialogue is a complex, provocative critique that, melding political and literary theory, reveals how fiction can help confront the deployment of dialogue to preempt the emergence of dissent and, thus, revitalize the practice of emancipatory politics. Trade Review"Deepening and widening a furrow first plowed by Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek, Resisting Dialogue marks a refusal to underwrite ‘postpolitics’ as politics by insisting that unspeakable political ambition take its place, without apology, so that our voyage from a troubled modernist literature to the Anthropocene maps, simultaneously, a continuous trajectory and a jarring, disjunctive continuity."—Grant Farred, Cornell University"Resisting Dialogue draws on literature to develop a fresh vocabulary of political activism and thetic force. Contrarianism, deadlock, impasse, silence, resilience, persistence, the power of unexceptional figures of history to block and oppose the status quo—these immobilizing postures acquire a make-over as acts of agency that contest the eclipse of political agency besetting progressive theories of the Political."—Emily Apter, author of Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic "In all, Resisting Dialogue will be immensely useful for those conducting scholarly work in global studies across the disciplines, especially in the twentieth- and twenty-first century literary studies."—Project Muse "In attuning us to examine with greater sensitivity the political contours of dialogue... Meneses makes a genuinely original,impactful contribution to the study of the novel, as well as to political discourse and theory. "—American Literary History"Meneses changes the terms of a larger cultural debate about dialogue to reframe what is actually happening as the illusory manipulations of postpolitical power... in doing so, he demonstrates a promising correlation between reading imaginative texts and reading the world."—MFS Modern Fiction Studies"Resisting Dialogue is a crucial meditation on our fraught times of ever-deepening social, cultural and political divides, where all attempts at dialogue seem to be failing."—LSE Review of Books
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future
Book SynopsisA bold new critique of dialogue as a method of eliminating dissent Is dialogue always the productive political and communicative tool it is widely conceived to be? Resisting Dialogue reassesses our assumptions about dialogue and, in so doing, about what a politically healthy society should look like. Juan Meneses argues that, far from an unalloyed good, dialogue often serves as a subtle tool of domination, perpetuating the underlying inequalities it is intended to address.Meneses investigates how “illusory dialogue” (a particular dialogic encounter designed to secure consensus) is employed as an instrument that forestalls—instead of fostering—articulations of dissent that lead to political change. He does so through close readings of novels from the English-speaking world written in the past hundred years—from E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion to Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and more. Resisting Dialogue demonstrates how these novels are rhetorical exercises with real political clout capable of restoring the radical potential of dialogue in today’s globalized world. Expanding the boundaries of postpolitical theory, Meneses reveals how these works offer ways to practice disagreement against this regulatory use of dialogue and expose the pitfalls of certain other dialogic interventions in relation to some of the most prominent questions of modern history: cosmopolitanism at the end of empire, the dangers of rewriting the historical record, the affective dimension of neoliberalism, the racial and nationalist underpinnings of the “war on terror,” and the visibility of environmental violence in the Anthropocene. Ultimately, Resisting Dialogue is a complex, provocative critique that, melding political and literary theory, reveals how fiction can help confront the deployment of dialogue to preempt the emergence of dissent and, thus, revitalize the practice of emancipatory politics. Trade Review"Deepening and widening a furrow first plowed by Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek, Resisting Dialogue marks a refusal to underwrite ‘postpolitics’ as politics by insisting that unspeakable political ambition take its place, without apology, so that our voyage from a troubled modernist literature to the Anthropocene maps, simultaneously, a continuous trajectory and a jarring, disjunctive continuity."—Grant Farred, Cornell University"Resisting Dialogue draws on literature to develop a fresh vocabulary of political activism and thetic force. Contrarianism, deadlock, impasse, silence, resilience, persistence, the power of unexceptional figures of history to block and oppose the status quo—these immobilizing postures acquire a make-over as acts of agency that contest the eclipse of political agency besetting progressive theories of the Political."—Emily Apter, author of Unexceptional Politics: On Obstruction, Impasse and the Impolitic "In all, Resisting Dialogue will be immensely useful for those conducting scholarly work in global studies across the disciplines, especially in the twentieth- and twenty-first century literary studies."—Project Muse "In attuning us to examine with greater sensitivity the political contours of dialogue... Meneses makes a genuinely original,impactful contribution to the study of the novel, as well as to political discourse and theory. "—American Literary History"Meneses changes the terms of a larger cultural debate about dialogue to reframe what is actually happening as the illusory manipulations of postpolitical power... in doing so, he demonstrates a promising correlation between reading imaginative texts and reading the world."—MFS Modern Fiction Studies"Resisting Dialogue is a crucial meditation on our fraught times of ever-deepening social, cultural and political divides, where all attempts at dialogue seem to be failing."—LSE Review of Books
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press The Digitally Disposed: Racial Capitalism and the
Book SynopsisLocates the deep history of digitality in the development of racial capitalism Seb Franklin sets out a media theory of racial capitalism to examine digitality’s racial-capitalist foundations. The Digitally Disposed shows how the promises of boundless connection, flexibility, and prosperity that are often associated with digital technologies are grounded in racialized histories of dispossession and exploitation. Reading archival and published material from the cybernetic sciences alongside nineteenth-century accounts of intellectual labor, twentieth-century sociometric experiments, and a range of literary and visual works, The Digitally Disposed locates the deep history of digitality in the development of racial capitalism.Franklin makes the groundbreaking argument that capital’s apparently spontaneous synthesis of so-called free individuals into productive circuits represents an “informatics of value.” On the one hand, understanding value as an informatic relation helps to explain why capital was able to graft so seamlessly with digitality at a moment in which it required more granular and distributed control over labor—the moment that is often glossed as the age of logistics. On the other hand, because the informatics of value sort populations into positions of higher and lower capacity, value, and status, understanding their relationship to digitality requires that we see the digital as racialized and gendered in pervasive ways.Ultimately, The Digitally Disposed questions the universalizing assumptions that are maintained, remade, and intensified by today’s dominant digital technologies. Vital and far-reaching, The Digitally Disposed reshapes such fundamental concepts as cybernetics, informatics, and digitality.Trade Review"Drawing beautifully on Black, Indigenous, postcolonial, and anti-racist feminist cultural theory, Seb Franklin offers a bold and rigorous critique of the social and epistemological processes of dispossession and abjection undergirding the informatics of value. This is a significant and powerful intervention, demonstrating the intimate intertwining of digitality and value—two linked modes of abstraction that shape social forms of free, self-possessed personhood only through the enactment of racialized and gendered forms of disposal. Through brilliant readings of the works of Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Samuel Delany, Sondra Perry, and Charles Babbage and extensive original archival research in the history of cybernetics, Franklin carefully tracks and restores what both information theory and dominant digital culture, in their fantasies of pure transmission and frictionless connection, depend on yet disavow: that is, the historical and present material violence of slavery, dispossession, unwaged reproduction, and superfluous populations at the heart of racial capitalism. An indispensable work, a model of critically engaged, synthetic scholarship, and an urgent reminder that ‘other ways of being free’ persist in forging connectivity beyond the informatics of value."—Neferti X. M. Tadiar, Barnard College, Columbia University"Why has digital culture perpetuated new forms of racial and gender inequality despite early hopes that it would make users more equal? Seb Franklin’s lucid readings of information theory and its affinities with the history of slavery and dispossession show the reader how informatics emerges historically through racial-capitalist dynamics. This book is a major contribution to the study of race, gender, and capacity as the foundation upon which the digital stands. Elegant, important, and compelling."—Lisa Nakamura, University of Michigan"There's a brilliant moment—one of many—in Seb Franklin's new book, that turns the cyberlibertarian term 'digital native' inside out. . . . The Digitally Disposed's close readings, at once minute and expansive, demonstrate the deep and insidious connections between cybernetics, racial capitalism, and digital culture."—Media History"The Digitally Disposed establishes itself as critical reading and inspiration for the digital present, highlighting the continued need for anti-racist and anti-capitalist scholarship capable of rethinking the forms of knowledge and relation that connect our world."—Radical Philosophy"Through discriminating, situated readings, Franklin teases out how a logic of 'digitality' and 'disposal' takes shape at the sidelines of science and capitalism... These readings resonate with a larger strength of the book, Franklin’s knack for identifying overlooked fragments from a scientific career... [and] elicits from these works clues of still largely neglected economic and racial histories shaping digital infrastructures today."—Critical InquiryTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Forms of DisposalPart I. The Informatics of Value1. Things Communicated: Messages, Persons, Goods2. Reliable Circuits, Unreliable Components: How Capital Connects3. The Informatics of Dispossession4. Differentiation as Regulation5. Two Models: Samuel R. Delany’s NeveryónaPart II. Media Histories of Disposal6. Human Use, or The Digital-Liberal Person7. Elemental Space: Coloniality and Flexibility8. Deplorable Alternatives: “Mechanical Slaves” and Upgradable Labor9. The Digital Atlantic: Sondra Perry’s Typhoon coming on10. Redundant Life: Intellectual Workers and Street Nuisances11. Anatomizing “Freedom”: Carceral Digitality12. The Cybernetics of Capacity: R.S. Hunt’s “Two Kinds of Work”Coda: The Human SurgeAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Radioactive Ghosts
Book SynopsisA pioneering examination of nuclear trauma, the continuing and new nuclear peril, and the subjectivities they generate Amid resurgent calls for widespread nuclear energy and “limited nuclear war,” the populations that must live with the consequences of these decisions are increasingly insecure. The nuclear peril combined with the looming threat of climate change means that we are seeing the formation of a new kind of subjectivity: humans who are in a position of perpetual ontological insecurity. In Radioactive Ghosts, Gabriele Schwab articulates a vision of these “nuclear subjectivities” that we all live with. Focusing on the legacies of the Manhattan Project, Hiroshima, and nuclear energy politics, Radioactive Ghosts takes us on a tour of the little-seen sides of our nuclear world. Examining devastating uranium mining on Native lands, nuclear sacrifice zones, the catastrophic accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, and the formation of a new transspecies ethics, Schwab shows how individuals threatened with extinction are creating new adaptations, defenses, and communal spaces. Ranging from personal accounts of experiences with radiation to in-depth readings of literature, film, art, and scholarly works, Schwab gives us a complex, idiosyncratic, and personal analysis of one of the most overlooked issues of our time.Trade Review"This book, a wake-up call and a tour de force of wide-ranging interdisciplinary scholarship, is beautifully written and accessible; Gabriele Schwab moves nuclear power discourse further by focusing on aspects rarely addressed together, like psychic, racial, gender and class implications. Her short personal interludes add yet another layer of meaning. Radioactive Ghosts should be required reading for everyone hoping the human species can survive."—E. Ann Kaplan, author of Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Literature"The innocent sounding Manhattan project forever put a Damocles sword on human existence. The first uranium that made the Project possible was dug from Africa. Drawing parallels between the extraction of uranium and the extraction of slave labor, Gabriele Schwab shows the prominent role of colonialism and race in the politics of nuclear production and possession. Radioactive Ghosts, with its clarity of prose and thought, reminds us that we humans have only the one planet. Why, oh, why should any nation be proud that they have the capacity to destroy all planetary life? Exorcise these radioactive ghosts by banning and destroying all these weapons of human destruction. End this MADNESS."—Ngugi wa Thiong'o, author of Wrestling with the Devil "Gabrielle Schwab’s thought-provoking book makes a timely contribution to the on-going nuclear debate."—Journal of Peace ResearchTable of ContentsContentsPreface: Of Three-Eyed Fish and Other GhostingsIntroduction: Why Nuclear Necropolitics Today?Part I. Nuclear Subjectivities1. No Apocalypse, Not Now: Derrida and the Nuclear Unconscious2. Nuclear Colonialism3. Critical Nuclear Race Theory4. The Gender of Nuclear SubjectivitiesInterlude: Children of the Nuclear AgeWith Simon J. OrtizPart II. Haunting from the Future5. The Afterlife of Nuclear Catastrophes6. Hiroshima’s Ghostly Shadows7. Postnuclear Madness and Nuclear Crypts8. Transspecies Selves: Intimacies, Extimacies, AnimaciesCoda: Postnuclear Ecologies: Language, Body, and Affect in Beckett’s Happy DaysAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America
Book SynopsisWinner of Outstanding Book Award of Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human RightsAn award-winning and canonical history of radical feminism, whose activist heat and intellectual audacity powered second-wave feminism—30th anniversary edition A fascinating chronicle of radical feminism’s rise and fall from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies, Daring to Be Bad is a must-read for both students of gender history and activists of intersectionality. This thirtieth anniversary edition reveals how current debates about race, transgender rights, queer theory, and sexuality echo issues that galvanized and divided feminists fifty years ago. Trade Review"Thirty years after its publication, Daring to Be Bad feels more essential than ever. Alice Echols captures the heady vision of radical feminism and documents the wrenching challenges the movement confronted, not least within its own ranks. Both rigorous and generous, Daring to Be Bad offers vital lessons to students of the revolutionary past, and to aspirants for a feminist future."—Jane Kamensky, Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America “Many younger feminists have a fairly negative stereotype of radical feminism: that it was an exclusively white and middle-class movement that promoted gender essentialism, ‘woman’s energy,’ separatism transphobia, and banning pornography . . . No book shattered that stereotype for me more than Daring to Be Bad.” —Julia Serano, bitchmedia “To learn more about the rise and fall of radical feminism, I highly recommend Alice Echols’s Daring to Be Bad, a detailed and vivid account of the movement’s history.”—Susan Faludi, The New Yorker “This balanced study deftly explores feminism, from its break with the coalition of leftist activist groups of the ’60s to its abandonment of radicalism and separatism in the ’70s. . . . Echols masterfully re-creates a perpetually divisive atmosphere.” —Publishers Weekly “If we are still debating the relative importance of gender, class, and race, combating the power of capitalism and patriarchy, this valuable study shows that the discussion owes much to the radical feminists who hewed out the outlines of these issues.”—Library Journal “Daring to Be Bad offers the kind of critical attention that contemporary feminism has lacked.” —The Nation “Far beyond mere nostalgic value, the enduring worth of Echols’s book is as a resource, not only for future women’s studies courses but for all who want to understand contemporary feminism. The book supplies essential background that explains the splits that persist in the feminist movement today. . . . Cheers to Daring to Be Bad.” —New Directions for Women “Daring to Be Bad is a welcome addition to feminist bookshelves. It breaks new ground, making creative use of extensive interviews and early feminist publications to recreate the environment that elicited and shaped radical feminism.” —Sojourner “Daring to Be Bad is like a long consciousness-raising session: it prods, validates, and witnesses. Echols offers an oral history that is also an homage. . . . we’re given the benefit of a clear and honest eye cast over two decades’ span of women working on that most influential social struggle toward liberation.” —Village Voice “This fine and sympathetic interpretation of the origin and evolution of radical feminism will give students of women’s history a glimpse of the passion of those hours and help explain why a new order did not emerge from them.” —American Historical Review “Echols gives a rich, detailed history of radical feminism’s heyday from 1967 to 1971 . . . offers the type of critical interpretation of the women’s liberation movement that contemporary feminism has lacked.” —Socialist Review “Daring to Be Bad is path-breaking . . . based on abundant and painstaking interviewing, as well as the tracking down and assembling of the ephemera of short-lived committees, cells, and association. . . . Echols’s writing is lucid, detailed, and extremely responsible.” —American Quarterly
£18.89
University of Minnesota Press Invoking Hope: Theory and Utopia in Dark Times
Book SynopsisAn appeal for the importance of theory, utopia, and close consideration of our contemporary dark times What does any particular theory allow us to do? What is the value of doing so? And who benefits? In Invoking Hope, Phillip E. Wegner argues for the undiminished importance of the practices of theory, utopia, and a deep and critical reading of our current situation of what Bertolt Brecht refers to as finsteren Zeiten, or dark times.Invoking Hope was written in response to three events that occurred in 2016: the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia; the one hundredth anniversary of the founding text in theory, Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics; and the rise of the right-wing populism that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. Wegner offers original readings of major interventions in theory alongside dazzling utopian imaginaries developed from classical Greece to our global present—from Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Alain Badiou, Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Sarah Ahmed, Susan Buck-Morss, and Jacques Lacan to such works as Plato’s Republic, W. E. B. Du Bois’s John Brown, Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast,” Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, and more. Wegner comments on an expansive array of modernist and contemporary literature, film, theory, and popular culture.With Invoking Hope, Wegner provides an innovative lens for considering the rise of right-wing populism and the current crisis in democracy. He discusses challenges in the humanities and higher education and develops strategies of creative critical reading and hope against the grain of current trends in scholarship.Trade Review"This is a book that banishes intellectual lethargy forever, so dazzling are the close readings that flesh out its world-scale philosophy and so forceful is its polemic—a polemic on behalf of knowledge itself as much as theory, commitment, and a responsibly grounded, even necessary, account of hope."—Bruce Robbins, author of The Beneficiary"With originality and humor, Phillip E. Wegner extends Fredric Jameson’s tradition of dialectically reappropriating formalisms, showing how even the most seemingly static structures can be deployed to think diachronically and reinvigorate our abilities to historicize. This fearless book is exactly what we need now."—Sianne Ngai, University of Chicago"Invoking Hope is a major intervention by our leading theorist of utopia—a manifesto for the crisis of the present and the possibility of a better future. Drawing on a mix of Western Marxism and Badiou, Phillip E. Wegner argues for the necessity of a positive hermeneutics and the imagination of possible futures. In the Pandora’s box of the present, Wegner finds the hope that emerges last but promises everything."—Christopher Breu, Illinois State University"An uplifting (and very welcome) message that should appeal to everyone."—Science Fiction Studies Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Reading in Dark TimesPart I. Reading Theory1. Reading the Event of the New Criticism and the Fate of the Republic2. Toward Nonreading Utopia3. Beyond Ethical Reading; or, Reading Again the James-Wells DebatePart II. Reading Utopia4. John Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Universal History5. Politics, Art, and Utopia in “Babette’s Feast”6. Repetition, Love, and Concrete Utopia in 50 First Dates7. Conditions of Utopia in 2312 and The Best of All Possible WorldsConclusion: Optimism and Pessimism in Cloud AtlasAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£80.00
University of Minnesota Press Invoking Hope: Theory and Utopia in Dark Times
Book SynopsisAn appeal for the importance of theory, utopia, and close consideration of our contemporary dark times What does any particular theory allow us to do? What is the value of doing so? And who benefits? In Invoking Hope, Phillip E. Wegner argues for the undiminished importance of the practices of theory, utopia, and a deep and critical reading of our current situation of what Bertolt Brecht refers to as finsteren Zeiten, or dark times.Invoking Hope was written in response to three events that occurred in 2016: the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia; the one hundredth anniversary of the founding text in theory, Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics; and the rise of the right-wing populism that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. Wegner offers original readings of major interventions in theory alongside dazzling utopian imaginaries developed from classical Greece to our global present—from Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Alain Badiou, Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Sarah Ahmed, Susan Buck-Morss, and Jacques Lacan to such works as Plato’s Republic, W. E. B. Du Bois’s John Brown, Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast,” Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, and more. Wegner comments on an expansive array of modernist and contemporary literature, film, theory, and popular culture.With Invoking Hope, Wegner provides an innovative lens for considering the rise of right-wing populism and the current crisis in democracy. He discusses challenges in the humanities and higher education and develops strategies of creative critical reading and hope against the grain of current trends in scholarship.Trade Review"This is a book that banishes intellectual lethargy forever, so dazzling are the close readings that flesh out its world-scale philosophy and so forceful is its polemic—a polemic on behalf of knowledge itself as much as theory, commitment, and a responsibly grounded, even necessary, account of hope."—Bruce Robbins, author of The Beneficiary"With originality and humor, Phillip E. Wegner extends Fredric Jameson’s tradition of dialectically reappropriating formalisms, showing how even the most seemingly static structures can be deployed to think diachronically and reinvigorate our abilities to historicize. This fearless book is exactly what we need now."—Sianne Ngai, University of Chicago"Invoking Hope is a major intervention by our leading theorist of utopia—a manifesto for the crisis of the present and the possibility of a better future. Drawing on a mix of Western Marxism and Badiou, Phillip E. Wegner argues for the necessity of a positive hermeneutics and the imagination of possible futures. In the Pandora’s box of the present, Wegner finds the hope that emerges last but promises everything."—Christopher Breu, Illinois State University"An uplifting (and very welcome) message that should appeal to everyone."—Science Fiction Studies Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Reading in Dark TimesPart I. Reading Theory1. Reading the Event of the New Criticism and the Fate of the Republic2. Toward Nonreading Utopia3. Beyond Ethical Reading; or, Reading Again the James-Wells DebatePart II. Reading Utopia4. John Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Universal History5. Politics, Art, and Utopia in “Babette’s Feast”6. Repetition, Love, and Concrete Utopia in 50 First Dates7. Conditions of Utopia in 2312 and The Best of All Possible WorldsConclusion: Optimism and Pessimism in Cloud AtlasAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press Statelessness: On Almost Not Existing
Book SynopsisA pathbreaking new genealogy of statelessness Just as the modern state and the citizenship associated with it are commonly thought of as a European invention, so too is citizenship’s negation in the form of twentieth-century diaspora and statelessness. Statelessness sets forth a new genealogy, suggesting that Europe first encountered mass statelessness neither inside its own borders nor during the twentieth century, as Hannah Arendt so influentially claimed, but outside of itself—in the New World, several hundred years earlier.Through close readings of political philosophers from Hobbes to Rousseau to Kant, Tony C. Brown argues that statelessness became a central problem for political thought early on, with far-reaching implications for thinking both on the state and on being human. What Europeans thought they saw among the “savages” of the Americas was life without political order, life less than human. Lacking almost everything those deemed clearly human had achieved, the stateless existed in a radically precarious, almost inhuman privation.And yet this existence also raised the unsettling possibility that state-based existence may not be inevitable, necessary, or even ideal. This possibility, as Brown shows, prompts the response—as defensive as it was aggressive—that we call Enlightenment political philosophy, which arguably still orders much thinking on being stateless today, including our discourses concerning migrants and Indigenous peoples.Trade Review"Magnificently learned, deeply rigorous, and exceptionally clear, this decisive, original work fundamentally and importantly reframes our understanding of statelessness as an operative political category."—Martin Crowley, University of Cambridge"Statelessness addresses a truly vital issue, and Tony C. Brown's analysis works to 'denaturalize' the state as the only and inevitable form of human social organization."—James C. Scott, author of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Statelessness: On Almost Not Existing
Book SynopsisA pathbreaking new genealogy of statelessness Just as the modern state and the citizenship associated with it are commonly thought of as a European invention, so too is citizenship’s negation in the form of twentieth-century diaspora and statelessness. Statelessness sets forth a new genealogy, suggesting that Europe first encountered mass statelessness neither inside its own borders nor during the twentieth century, as Hannah Arendt so influentially claimed, but outside of itself—in the New World, several hundred years earlier.Through close readings of political philosophers from Hobbes to Rousseau to Kant, Tony C. Brown argues that statelessness became a central problem for political thought early on, with far-reaching implications for thinking both on the state and on being human. What Europeans thought they saw among the “savages” of the Americas was life without political order, life less than human. Lacking almost everything those deemed clearly human had achieved, the stateless existed in a radically precarious, almost inhuman privation.And yet this existence also raised the unsettling possibility that state-based existence may not be inevitable, necessary, or even ideal. This possibility, as Brown shows, prompts the response—as defensive as it was aggressive—that we call Enlightenment political philosophy, which arguably still orders much thinking on being stateless today, including our discourses concerning migrants and Indigenous peoples.Trade Review"Magnificently learned, deeply rigorous, and exceptionally clear, this decisive, original work fundamentally and importantly reframes our understanding of statelessness as an operative political category."—Martin Crowley, University of Cambridge"Statelessness addresses a truly vital issue, and Tony C. Brown's analysis works to 'denaturalize' the state as the only and inevitable form of human social organization."—James C. Scott, author of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press Disorderly Families: Infamous Letters from the
Book SynopsisThe first English translation of letters of arrest from eighteenth century France held in the archives of the Bastille Drunken and debauched husbands; libertine wives; vagabonding children. These and many more are the subjects of requests for confinement written to the king of France in the eighteenth century. These letters of arrest (lettres de cachet) from France’s Ancien Régime were often associated with excessive royal power and seen as a way for the king to imprison political opponents. In Disorderly Families, first published in French in 1982, Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault collect ninety-four letters from ordinary families who, with the help of hired scribes, submitted complaints to the king to intervene and resolve their family disputes. Gathered together, these letters show something other than the exercise of arbitrary royal power, and offer unusual insight into the infamies of daily life. From these letters come stories of divorce and marital conflict, sexual waywardness, reckless extravagance, and abandonment. The letters evoke a fluid social space in which life in the home and on the street was regulated by the rhythms of relations between husbands and wives, or parents and children. Most impressively, these letters outline how ordinary people seized the mechanisms of power to address the king and make demands in the name of an emerging civil order. Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault were fascinated by the letters’ explosive qualities and by how they both illustrated and intervened in the workings of power and governmentality. Disorderly Families sheds light on Foucault’s conception of political agency and his commitment to theorizing how ordinary lives come to be touched by power. This first English translation is complete with an introduction from the book’s editor, Nancy Luxon, as well as notes that contextualize the original 1982 publication and eighteenth-century policing practices. Trade Review"Expertly edited, this thoughtful translation of Disorderly Families adds a central pillar to the English archive of Michel Foucault’s work. A source of fascination for him since at least the 1950s, the Bastille lettres de cachets deeply influenced and shaped his analysis of power. As he discovered, these letters were what he and Arlette Farge would call a ‘popular practice,’ demanded from below, and not an arbitrary exercise of monarchical power—and they would become a key building block for Foucault’s theory of power-knowledge. This exceptional English translation gives life to Foucault’s—and Farge’s—subversive desire to breathe life into these beautiful, infamous, and obscure lives."—Bernard E. Harcourt, Columbia University"An enlightening compilation that will leave historically inclined readers wanting to dig a little further into the archives."—Kirkus Reviews"Thirty-five years on, the study of obscure individual lives has become a valued feature of historical research and the source of new perspectives in the understanding of social and political contexts. [But quite apart from this change in the attitude of historians], the letters themselves seem to have aged better than the intellectual disagreements and academic disputes that accompanied their original publication."—Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsContents Translator’s Preface Editor’s Introduction Presentation The King’s Orders At the Family’s Request 1728–1758: A Survey 1. Marital Discord Putting and End to One’s Misery The Pact Broken Debauch: Masculine Spaces, Feminine Spaces The Gaze of Others The Imprisonment Obtained or the Beginning of a Story Obscure “Police Clarifications” The Singular Status of Repentance Documents 1. Marital Discord Households in Ruin The Imprisonment of Wives The Debauch of Husbands The Tale of a Request 2. Parents and Children Conflicts of Interest Disturbance “Conflicts at the Threshold” Departure for the Islands The Honor of Families Parental Ethics Documents 2. Parents and Children The Disruption of Affairs Shameful Concubinage The Dishonor of Waywardness Domestic Violence Bad Apprentices Exiles Family Honor The Parental Ethos of 1728: The Importance of Sentiment The Parental Ethos of 1758: The Duty to Educate 3. When Addressing the King From Use to Abuse Representation and Secrecy The End of Lettres de Cachet Afterword Arlette Farge Notes Index to Names Index to Places
£20.69
University of Minnesota Press Torture in the National Security Imagination
Book SynopsisReassessing the role of torture in the context of police violence, mass incarceration, and racial capitalism At the midpoint of a century of imperial expansion, marked on one end by the Philippine–American War of 1899–1902 and on the other by post–9/11 debates over waterboarding, the United States embraced a vision of “national security torture,” one contrived to cut ties with domestic torture and mass racial terror and to promote torture instead as a minimalist interrogation tool. Torture in the National Security Imagination argues that dispelling this vision requires a new set of questions about the everyday work that torture does for U.S. society. Stephanie Athey describes the role of torture in the proliferation of a U.S. national security stance and imagination: as U.S. domestic tortures were refined in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century, then in mid-century counterinsurgency theory and the networks that brought it home in the form of law-and-order policing and mass incarceration. Drawing on examples from news to military reports, legal writing, and activist media, Athey shows that torture must be seen as a colonial legacy with a corporate future, highlighting the centrality of torture to the American empire—including its role in colonial settlement, American Indian boarding schools, and police violence. She brings to the fore the spectators and commentators, the communal energy of violence, and the teams and target groups necessary to a mass undertaking (equipment suppliers, contractors, bureaucrats, university researchers, and profiteers) to demonstrate that, at base, torture is propelled by local social functions, conducted by networked professional collaborations, and publicly supported by a durable social imaginary. Trade Review "Now that the spectacular images of U.S. torture under the auspices of the ‘war on terror’ have faded, mainstream media and, indeed, scholarly debates have turned to other manifestations of U.S. state violence: against Black Lives Matter protestors, climate activists, First Nations peoples, and in the multiple theaters of global war. By widening the lens on torture within the post–9/11 U.S. regime to illuminate the imaginaries that animated it, Stephanie Athey insists that we recognize it as a moment in a larger narrative of ongoing and multidimensional imperialist violence."—Danielle Celermajer, author of The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach "Offering a highly original discussion of the role of torture in the historical development of American national security, Stephanie Athey provides a new approach to a subject that has seen more than a decade of sustained popular and critical commentary. With innovative claims, Athey traces the evolution of torture lore as a long-standing justification for the making of American empire."—Benjamin Meiches, author of The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Torture in the National Security Imagination
Book SynopsisReassessing the role of torture in the context of police violence, mass incarceration, and racial capitalism At the midpoint of a century of imperial expansion, marked on one end by the Philippine–American War of 1899–1902 and on the other by post–9/11 debates over waterboarding, the United States embraced a vision of “national security torture,” one contrived to cut ties with domestic torture and mass racial terror and to promote torture instead as a minimalist interrogation tool. Torture in the National Security Imagination argues that dispelling this vision requires a new set of questions about the everyday work that torture does for U.S. society. Stephanie Athey describes the role of torture in the proliferation of a U.S. national security stance and imagination: as U.S. domestic tortures were refined in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century, then in mid-century counterinsurgency theory and the networks that brought it home in the form of law-and-order policing and mass incarceration. Drawing on examples from news to military reports, legal writing, and activist media, Athey shows that torture must be seen as a colonial legacy with a corporate future, highlighting the centrality of torture to the American empire—including its role in colonial settlement, American Indian boarding schools, and police violence. She brings to the fore the spectators and commentators, the communal energy of violence, and the teams and target groups necessary to a mass undertaking (equipment suppliers, contractors, bureaucrats, university researchers, and profiteers) to demonstrate that, at base, torture is propelled by local social functions, conducted by networked professional collaborations, and publicly supported by a durable social imaginary. Trade Review "Now that the spectacular images of U.S. torture under the auspices of the ‘war on terror’ have faded, mainstream media and, indeed, scholarly debates have turned to other manifestations of U.S. state violence: against Black Lives Matter protestors, climate activists, First Nations peoples, and in the multiple theaters of global war. By widening the lens on torture within the post–9/11 U.S. regime to illuminate the imaginaries that animated it, Stephanie Athey insists that we recognize it as a moment in a larger narrative of ongoing and multidimensional imperialist violence."—Danielle Celermajer, author of The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach "Offering a highly original discussion of the role of torture in the historical development of American national security, Stephanie Athey provides a new approach to a subject that has seen more than a decade of sustained popular and critical commentary. With innovative claims, Athey traces the evolution of torture lore as a long-standing justification for the making of American empire."—Benjamin Meiches, author of The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Terrorism on Trial: Political Violence and
Book SynopsisA landmark sociological examination of terrorism prosecution in United States courts Rather than functioning as a final arbiter of justice, U.S. domestic courts are increasingly seen as counterterrorism tools that can incapacitate terrorists, maintain national security operations domestically, and produce certain narratives of conflict. Terrorism on Trial examines the contemporary role that these courts play in the global war on terror and their use as a weapon of war: hunting, criminalizing, and punishing entire communities in the name of national security. Nicole Nguyen advocates for a rethinking of popular understandings of political violence and its root causes, encouraging readers to consider anti-imperial abolitionist alternatives to the criminalization, prosecution, and incarceration of individuals marked as real or perceived terrorists. She exposes how dominant academic discourses, geographical imaginations, and social processes have shaped terrorism prosecutions, as well as how our fundamental misunderstanding of terrorism has led to punitive responses that do little to address the true sources of violence, such as military interventions, colonial occupations, and tyrannical regimes. Nguyen also explores how these criminal proceedings bear on the lives of defendants and families, seeking to understand how legal processes unevenly criminalize and disempower communities of color. A retheorization of terrorism as political violence, Terrorism on Trial invites readers to carefully consider the role of power and politics in the making of armed resistance, addressing the root causes of political violence, with a goal of building toward a less violent and more liberatory world. Trade Review "Through its expansive analysis of anti-Muslim racism and the global war on terror, Terrorism on Trial reveals startling connections across some of the most urgent issues of our times—from U.S. settler colonialism and militarism to policing and global punishment. This book’s contextual approach to resistance and its coalitional approach to race, empire, and abolition provide an urgent foundation for anyone committed to life-affirming futures rooted in transnational BIPOC coalitions and solidarities."—Nadine Naber, University of Illinois Chicago "Nicole Nguyen’s commanding study exposes how U.S. geopolitics play out in the criminal justice system in cases against people accused of terrorism. She shows how their prosecution—and prosecutability—often relies on allegations constructed from sting operations, Islamophobic impulses, and unfounded or propagandistic claims of the government’s favorite terrorologists."—Lisa Hajjar, author of The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Convicting Detainee #001: Locating the Courts in the Global War on Terror 1. Offensive Lawfare: The Juridification of the Global War on Terror 2. Defining the Bad Guys: Geopolitics, Terrorists, and the Courts 3. The Racialization of Legal Categories: From the Citizen to the Terrorist 4. Terrorologists: Epistemic Injustice in Terrorism Prosecutions 5. Prosecuting Lone Wolves: The Legal Life of Radicalization Theories Conclusion. Abolitionist Futures: Rethinking Power, Politics, and Violence Notes Bibliography Index
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Terrorism on Trial: Political Violence and
Book SynopsisA landmark sociological examination of terrorism prosecution in United States courts Rather than functioning as a final arbiter of justice, U.S. domestic courts are increasingly seen as counterterrorism tools that can incapacitate terrorists, maintain national security operations domestically, and produce certain narratives of conflict. Terrorism on Trial examines the contemporary role that these courts play in the global war on terror and their use as a weapon of war: hunting, criminalizing, and punishing entire communities in the name of national security. Nicole Nguyen advocates for a rethinking of popular understandings of political violence and its root causes, encouraging readers to consider anti-imperial abolitionist alternatives to the criminalization, prosecution, and incarceration of individuals marked as real or perceived terrorists. She exposes how dominant academic discourses, geographical imaginations, and social processes have shaped terrorism prosecutions, as well as how our fundamental misunderstanding of terrorism has led to punitive responses that do little to address the true sources of violence, such as military interventions, colonial occupations, and tyrannical regimes. Nguyen also explores how these criminal proceedings bear on the lives of defendants and families, seeking to understand how legal processes unevenly criminalize and disempower communities of color. A retheorization of terrorism as political violence, Terrorism on Trial invites readers to carefully consider the role of power and politics in the making of armed resistance, addressing the root causes of political violence, with a goal of building toward a less violent and more liberatory world. Trade Review "Through its expansive analysis of anti-Muslim racism and the global war on terror, Terrorism on Trial reveals startling connections across some of the most urgent issues of our times—from U.S. settler colonialism and militarism to policing and global punishment. This book’s contextual approach to resistance and its coalitional approach to race, empire, and abolition provide an urgent foundation for anyone committed to life-affirming futures rooted in transnational BIPOC coalitions and solidarities."—Nadine Naber, University of Illinois Chicago "Nicole Nguyen’s commanding study exposes how U.S. geopolitics play out in the criminal justice system in cases against people accused of terrorism. She shows how their prosecution—and prosecutability—often relies on allegations constructed from sting operations, Islamophobic impulses, and unfounded or propagandistic claims of the government’s favorite terrorologists."—Lisa Hajjar, author of The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Convicting Detainee #001: Locating the Courts in the Global War on Terror 1. Offensive Lawfare: The Juridification of the Global War on Terror 2. Defining the Bad Guys: Geopolitics, Terrorists, and the Courts 3. The Racialization of Legal Categories: From the Citizen to the Terrorist 4. Terrorologists: Epistemic Injustice in Terrorism Prosecutions 5. Prosecuting Lone Wolves: The Legal Life of Radicalization Theories Conclusion. Abolitionist Futures: Rethinking Power, Politics, and Violence Notes Bibliography Index
£23.39
Bristol University Press ASEAN Resistance to Sovereignty Violation:
Book SynopsisExamining how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) has responded to external threats since 1975 and drawing on rarely analysed material including declassified government documents and WikiLeaks cables, this book develops the `vanguard state theory’ to explain why regional states act as they do in the face of potential sovereignty violation.Trade Review"An original argument, based on vanguard state theory...A very original and superb piece of scholarship." Andrew Tan, Macquarie UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: ASEAN and the Vanguard State Chapter One: Interests and Vanguard State Theory Chapter Two: The Indonesian Invasion of East Timor Chapter Three: The Third Indochina War Chapter Four: The East Timor Humanitarian Crisis Chapter Five: The South China Sea Dispute Chapter Six: The Future of ASEAN Sovereignty?
£75.99
Bristol University Press The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party: From
Book SynopsisFrom Attlee to the birth of New Labour, and the advent of Corbynism, this book gives a lively account of the ideological developments and dramas in the Labour Party in recent decades. Batrouni delves into the totemic battles between hard and soft left, examining the destructive and creative elements of key periods of Labour’s ideological exhaustion and ideational confusion. Providing powerful insights from interviews with some of the most influential thinkers, advisors and MPs in the party, he goes on to examine the phenomenal emergence of Corbynism, the impact of Brexit and what lies ahead for the party.Trade Review“[This book] is well worth reading for anyone interested in Labour’s extensive history and may be of particular use to its new leader, a man who needs to ensure he can deal with ideas successfully and ensure that the Labour Party accepts his.” Left Foot ForwardTable of ContentsIntroduction The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party, 1945– 92 The Rise of New Labour: Electoral Concerns Trump Ideology Bridging the Divide: Ed Miliband and Ideas Pre-distribution Corbynism: The Left’s Resurgence Corbynism: Brexit and Globalization
£75.99
Bristol University Press Women’s Activism Behind the Screens: Trade Unions
Book SynopsisThe first book to examine archival material which has not been analysed by other academics, specifically Committee on Equality meeting minutes and ephemera, as well as new oral history interviews conducted by the author with ACTT women activists.Trade Review“Galt’s wonderfully original and thoroughly researched book makes a vital contribution to women’s history, expanding our understanding of women’s experience and gender equality struggles in the film and TV industries.” Arthur McIvor, University of Strathclyde"Makes a major contribution to the historiography of women in the British screen industries, women and trade unionism, and feminist activism, through a unique longitudinal study of the relationship between women and one British craft trade union... This illuminating book will be a vital resource not only for scholars of women’s production histories but also for researchers of women’s work more broadly." Journal of British Cinema and TelevisionTable of ContentsIntroduction Women and the ACT, 1933-59 Catalysts for Change, 1960-75 Regrettably 'Up-to-Date' 1975-81 Remarkable political gains? The 1980s Women and BECTU, 1991-2017 Conclusion
£75.99
Bristol University Press Rational Choice and Political Power
Book SynopsisFeaturing a substantial new introduction and two new chapters in the Postscript, this new edition makes one of the most significant works on power available in paperback and online for the first time. The author extensively engages with a body of new literature to elucidate and expand upon the original work, using rational choice theory to provide: • An examination of how, due to the collective action problem, groups can be powerless despite not facing any resistance • Timely engagement with feminist accounts of power • An explanation of the relationship of structure and agency and how to measure power comparatively across societies This book’s unique interaction with both classical and contemporary debates makes it an essential resource for anyone teaching or studying power in the disciplines of sociology, philosophy, politics or international relations.Table of ContentsIntroduction to the New Edition Part I. THE ORIGINAL TEXT 1. Introduction 2. Rational Choice and a Theory of Action 3. Preferences and Objective Interests 4. Political Power and Bargaining Theory 5. Collective Action and Dimensions of Power 6. State Power Structures 7. Preference Formation, Social Location and Ideology 8. Conclusions Part II. POSTSCRIPT 9. Some Further Thoughts on Power 10. The Nature of the Exercise
£20.89
Bristol University Press It’s the Government, Stupid: How Governments
Book SynopsisGovernments have developed a convenient habit of blaming social problems on their citizens, placing too much emphasis on personal responsibility and pursuing policies to ‘nudge’ their citizens to better behaviour. Keith Dowding shows that, in fact, responsibility for many of our biggest social crises – including homelessness, gun crime, obesity, drug addiction and problem gambling – should be laid at the feet of politicians. He calls for us to stop scapegoating fellow citizens and to demand more from our governments, who have the real power and responsibility to alleviate social problems and bring about lasting change.Table of ContentsResponsibility; Gun Crime; Obesity; Homelessness; Problem Gambling; Recreational Drugs Policy; Government Responsibility.
£75.99
Bristol University Press It’s the Government, Stupid: How Governments
Book SynopsisGovernments have developed a convenient habit of blaming social problems on their citizens, placing too much emphasis on personal responsibility and pursuing policies to ‘nudge’ their citizens to better behaviour. Keith Dowding shows that, in fact, responsibility for many of our biggest social crises – including homelessness, gun crime, obesity, drug addiction and problem gambling – should be laid at the feet of politicians. He calls for us to stop scapegoating fellow citizens and to demand more from our governments, who have the real power and responsibility to alleviate social problems and bring about lasting change.Table of ContentsResponsibility; Gun Crime; Obesity; Homelessness; Problem Gambling; Recreational Drugs Policy; Government Responsibility.
£18.99
Bristol University Press Ecological Justice and the Extinction Crisis:
Book SynopsisePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. As the biodiversity crisis deepens, Anna Wienhues sets out radical environmental thinking and action to respond to the threat of mass species extinction. The book conceptualises large-scale injustice endangering non-humans, and signposts new approaches to the conservation of a shared planet. Developing principles of distributive ecological justice, it builds towards a bold vision of just conservation that can inform the work of policy makers and activists. This is a timely, original and compelling investigation into ethics in the natural world during the Anthropocene, and a call for biocentric ecological justice before it is too late.Table of ContentsIntroducing Ecological Justice Political Non-Ranking Biocentrism The Community of Justice The Currency of Distributive Justice The Principles of Distributive Justice Ecological Justice and the Capabilities Approach Biodiversity Loss: An Injustice? Who Owns the Earth? Visions of Just Conservation Outlook for Implementation
£75.99
Bristol University Press The People in Question: Citizens and
Book SynopsisAt a time of rising populism and debate about immigration, legal academic Jo Shaw sets out to review interactions between constitutions and citizenship. With examples from the political and cultural processes of countries’ worldwide, it is an incisive, accessible and urgent read for anyone interested in the boundaries of constitutions and citizenship today.Trade Review"Anyone who wants to understand the ambivalent dynamics of populism and globalism and think about the future of citizenship and democracy will profit immensely from Shaw's scholarly work." * Sandra Seubert, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt *"Democratic constitutions invoke citizens as the ultimate source of political authority. Yet the link between constitutionalism and citizenship has been surprisingly neglected so far. In her magisterial treatise, Jo Shaw paints a sweeping panorama of the global landscape of “constitutional citizenship” in all its manifold and contradictory manifestations." -- Rainer Bauböck, European University Institute, FlorenceTable of ContentsIntroduction: Juxtaposing Citizenship and Constitutions What Is Constitutional Citizenship and How Can We Study It? Key Themes Within Constitutional Citizenship Citizenship in an Era of National Populism Shifting Spatialities of Citizenship Reconciling the Ages of Populism and Globalism for an Open Concept of Constitutional Citizenship
£75.99
Bristol University Press Who Enters Politics and Why?: Basic Human Values
Book SynopsisExploring unique survey and interview data on the personality characteristics of British politicians, this book provides a timely psychological analysis of those individuals who pursue political careers and how they represent their constituents once elected. Focusing specifically on the Basic Human Values of more than 150 MPs as well as hundreds of local councillors, Weinberg offers original insights into three compelling questions: Who enters politics and how are they different to the general public? Do politicians’ personality characteristics matter for their legislative behaviour? Do voters really get the ‘wrong’ politicians? Taking a fresh psychological approach to issues that are predominant in political science, this book casts new light on the human side of representative democracy.Table of ContentsWhy Do We Hate Politicians? Psychological Scrutiny: Who Enters Politics and Why? All the Same! Demographic Homogeneity and Careerism Basic Values and Partisanship Parliamentary Behaviour: Personal Choices, Political Results Perfect Politicians? Voting Preferences in the United Kingdom
£75.99
Bristol University Press Contemporary Iran: Politics, Economy, Religion
Book SynopsisThis accessible introductory text explains the political, economic and religious developments since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and provides an analysis of the domestic politics of Iran. It identifies the ways in which the country, often imagined as ‘isolated’, is actually integrated into the global capitalist economy. It also explains the often-heated relationship of the regional powerhouse with the outside world, especially with West Asian neighbours and the United States. Both rigorous and readable, the book covers: • Iran’s unusual path of capitalist development; • The relationship between politics and religion in what is known as ‘God’s Kingdom’; • The international and domestic factors that shape Iranian politics and society. Assuming no prior knowledge, this book is an ideal starting point for students and general readers looking for a thought-provoking introduction to contemporary Iran.Table of ContentsIntroduction Capitalist Development in Iran: Continuity and Change Oil, State, Power and Economy Islam, Politics and Power in Transition: Prologue to the 1979 Revolution Revolution: Theories and Practices State and Political Forces in Post-Revolutionary Iran The Dynamics of US–Iran Relations: Background, Evolution and Consequences Regional Influence and Ambitions Conclusion
£75.99
Bristol University Press Contemporary Iran: Politics, Economy, Religion
Book SynopsisThis accessible introductory text explains the political, economic and religious developments since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and provides an analysis of the domestic politics of Iran. It identifies the ways in which the country, often imagined as ‘isolated’, is actually integrated into the global capitalist economy. It also explains the often-heated relationship of the regional powerhouse with the outside world, especially with West Asian neighbours and the United States. Both rigorous and readable, the book covers: • Iran’s unusual path of capitalist development; • The relationship between politics and religion in what is known as ‘God’s Kingdom’; • The international and domestic factors that shape Iranian politics and society. Assuming no prior knowledge, this book is an ideal starting point for students and general readers looking for a thought-provoking introduction to contemporary Iran.Table of ContentsIntroduction Capitalist Development in Iran: Continuity and Change Oil, State, Power and Economy Islam, Politics and Power in Transition: Prologue to the 1979 Revolution Revolution: Theories and Practices State and Political Forces in Post-Revolutionary Iran The Dynamics of US–Iran Relations: Background, Evolution and Consequences Regional Influence and Ambitions Conclusion
£23.74
Bristol University Press The Political Formulation of Policy Solutions:
Book SynopsisIn this book, an international group of public policy scholars revisit the stage of formulating policy solutions by investigating the basic political dimensions inherent to this critical phase of the policy process. The book focuses attention on how policy makers craft their policy proposals, match them with public problems, debate their feasibility to build coalitions and dispute their acceptability as serious contenders for government consideration. Based on international case studies, this book is an invitation to examine the uncertain and often indeterminate aspects of policy-making using qualitative analysis embedded in a political perspective.Table of Contents1. Introduction - Policy Formulation: A Political Perspective – Phillipe Zittoun, Frank Fischer and Nikolaos Zahariadis 2. Upcycling a Trashed Policy Solution? Argumentative Couplings for Solution Definition and Deconstruction in German Pension Policy – Sonja Blum 3. Binding and Unbinding Problem-Solution Associations in US Agricultural Policy Making: the Introduction and Demise of Direct Payments to Farmers – Gerry Alons 4. The Role of Expert Reporting in Binding Together Policy Problem and Solution Definition Processes – Magalie Bourblanc, Gabrielle Bouleau, Philippe Deuffic 5. Coalitions and Values in the Flow of Policy Solutions – Nikolaos Zahariadis 6. The Marks of Ownership: The Promotion of Carbon Capture and Storage in France – Sebastien Chailleux 7. Anticipating Public Approval in the Binding of Immigrant Integration Problems and Solutions – Van Breugel 8. Discourse Coalitions and the Messiness of Policy Solutions: College Governance in Nevada – Magdalena Martinez 9. Policy Solution Ownership: Road Space Re-allocation as New Approach to Urban Mobility – Charlotte Halpern
£76.00
Bristol University Press The People in Question: Citizens and
Book SynopsisAt a time of rising populism and debate about immigration, leading legal academic Jo Shaw sets out to review interactions between constitutions and constructs of citizenship. This incisive appraisal is the first sustained treatment of the relationship between citizenship and constitutional law in a comparative and transnational perspective. Drawing on examples from around the world, it assesses how countries’ legal, political and cultural processes help to determine the boundaries of citizenship. For students and academics across political, social and international disciplines, Shaw offers an accessible response to some of the most pressing international questions of our age.Trade Review“A broad-ranging tour de force that elegantly and uncompromisingly guides the reader through various battles of belonging, all waged under the auspices of constitutional law.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies“Tackles hitherto under-explored dimensions of citizenship, offering a subtle, but convincing, rebuttal of its ‘fashionable’ negative treatment, while encouraging others to join in the ship-building task.” Helen Irving, Sydney Law School in the GLOBALCIT Review Symposium“It is liberating to read this book, which straddles so much research and yet finds its own multi-scalar analytical space…. [Jo Shaw] is signposting the freeway for future research. I, for one, will take advantage of this freeway.” Journal of Law and SocietyTable of ContentsPart One ~ Setting the Scene Introduction What Is ‘Constitutional Citizenship’ and How Can We Approach It? Part Two ~ Constitutional Citizenship Unpacked Picking Out the People: Ideals and Identities in the Citizenship / Constitution Relation The Acquisition and Loss of Citizenship in a Constitutional Context Filling Out Citizenship: Citizenship Rights, Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Part Three ~ Citizenship Under Pressure: National and Global Tensions The Populist Challenge to Constitutional Citizenship: The Closing of Discursive Space Shifting Spatialities of Citizenship Conclusions
£25.64
Bristol University Press The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract
Book SynopsisThis book provides a lively account of the gilets jaunes, the yellow vest movement that has shaken France since 2018. Charles Devellennes assesses what lessons can be drawn from their activities and the impact for the contemporary relationship between state and citizen. Informed by a dialogue with past political theorists – from Hobbes, Spinoza and Rousseau to Rawls, Nozick and Diderot – and reflecting on the challenges posed by the yellow vest movement, the author rethinks the concept of the social contract for contemporary societies around the world. It proposes a new relationship between the state and the individual, and establishes the necessity of rethinking the modern democratic nature of our representative polities in order to provide a genuine process for the healing of social ills.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Critical times for the social contract; Violence and the state; Liberty; Democracy; Economic justice; A renewal of the social contract; Conclusion
£76.00
Bristol University Press War, Technology and the State
Book SynopsisThis book explores the relationship between the state and war within the context of seismic technological change. As we experience a fourth industrial revolution, technology already exerts a huge impact on the character of war and military strategies in the form of drones and other types of ‘remote’ warfare. However, technological developments are not confined to the defence sector, and the diffusion of military technology inevitably also affects the wider economy and society. This book investigates these possible developments and speculates on their ramifications for the future. Through its analysis, the book questions what will happen to war and the state and whether we will reach a point where war leads to the unmaking of the state itself.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Purpose and Scope 2. Technological Determinism and Debates about State Formation in Early Modern Europe 3. The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of Modern War 4. The Nuclear Revolution and the Rise of Postmodern War 5. The Western Military Vision of Future War 6. Testing Western Military Thinking about the Future of War: Russia's War in Ukraine 7. Conclusion: Assessing the Impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the Future of War and the State
£72.00
Bristol University Press Knowledge Alchemy: Models and Agency in Global
Book SynopsisThis book introduces the concept of ‘knowledge alchemy’ to capture the generic process of transforming mundane practices and policies of governance into competitive ones following imagined global gold standards. Using examples from North America, Europe and Asia, it explores how knowledge alchemy increasingly informs national and institutional policies and practices on economic performance, higher education, research and innovation. The book examines how governments around the world have embraced global models of world-class university, human capital and talent competition as essential in ensuring national competitiveness. Through its analysis, the book shows how this strongly future-oriented and anticipatory knowledge governance is steered by a surge of global classifications, rankings and indicators, resulting in numerous comparisons of various domains that today form more constraining global policy scripts.Table of Contents1. Introduction Part 1: Indicators, Data, and Models of Global Knowledge Governance 2. Global Rankings of Good Governance and Higher Education 3. Human Capital and the Rise of the Global Talent Competition Part 2: Scripts, Imaginaries, and Policy 4. Global Imaginaries of Knowledge Governance 5. From the Medieval Scholar to the Global Flows of Academics: Exploring the Emergence, Evolution, and Impact of the “Talent” Imaginary 6. Strategies and Policies for the Global Talent Competition 7. Conclusion
£72.00
Bristol University Press The Western Ideology and Other Essays
Book Synopsis‘Capitalism may be teetering once again on the edge of a terminal crisis, but there are no gravediggers in sight. This time around not only are there no gravediggers there are no longer any rival economic systems either …’ In ‘The Western Ideology’ Andrew Gamble demonstrates the contradictions and the resilience of the doctrines that define liberal modernity, and examines the contemporary possibilities for dissent and change. This volume brings together for the first time this seminal essay with a collection of Andrew Gamble’s writings on political ideas and ideologies, which have been chosen by the author to illustrate the main themes of his writing in intellectual history and the history of ideas. Themes include the character of economic liberalism and neoliberalism, especially as expressed in the work of Friedrich Hayek, as well as critiques from both social democratic and conservative perspectives and from critics as varied as Karl Marx, Michael Oakeshott and Bob Dylan. The collection includes a new autobiographical introduction, notes on the essays and an epilogue putting the essays into the context of today’s society. Andrew Gamble provides a unique exploration of the debates and the ideas that have shaped our politics and Western ideology. A companion volume of Andrew Gamble’s essays, After Brexit and Other Essays, focusing on political economy and British politics, is also available from Bristol University Press.Table of ContentsIntroduction: An Intellectual Journey Notes on the Essays The Western Ideology (2008) Neo-liberalism and the Tax State (2013) Ideas and Interests in British Economic Policy (1989) Hayek on Knowledge, Economics and Society (2006) Marxism After Communism (1999) G.D.H. Cole and the History of Socialist Thought (2002) Social Democracy in a Global World (2009) The Quest for a Great Labour Party (2018) Oakeshott’s Ideological Politics (2012) Oakeshott and Totalitarianism (2016) The Drifter’s Escape (2004) Epilogue: The Western Ideology Revisited
£76.00
Bristol University Press After Brexit and Other Essays
Book Synopsis‘Being more like America again and less like Europe is the heart of the UK model of capitalism … [but] there are many respects in which Britain remains unlike America despite its strong appeal to the British political class ...’ In 'After Brexit' Andrew Gamble sets out the economic models and external relationships that Britain has pursued since the Second World War and examines the choices it now faces as it adjusts to life outside of the European Union. This volume brings together this essay with some of Andrew Gamble’s most important and influential writings on British politics and political economy from the last forty years. They reflect on many of the issues that animate British politics, from the relative decline of the economy and the reshaping of the welfare state to the transformation of the Conservative and Labour parties and the changing constitutional order with the devolution of power to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The volume is introduced by the author and includes his notes on each of the essays as well as an epilogue, which considers their original context and what has changed since. Taken together, the essays in this volume are testament to the acuity of one of Britain’s foremost political thinkers and provide rich insight into debates and ideas that continue to influence British politics and Britain’s place in the world. A companion volume of Andrew Gamble’s essays, The Western Ideology and Other Essays, focusing on political ideas and ideologies, is also available from Bristol University Press.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Historical Contexts Notes on the Essays After Brexit (2019) Explanations of British Decline (1999) The European Disunion (2006) The Anglo-American World View (2019) The Free Economy and the Strong State (1979) Thatcherism and Conservative Politics (1983) Economic Growth and Political Dilemmas (1983) The Crisis of Conservatism (1995) The Thatcher Myth (2015) Theories of British Politics (1990) The Constitutional Revolution in the United Kingdom (2006) What’s British about British Politics? (2016) Epilogue: Last Thoughts
£76.00
Bristol University Press Globalizing Regionalism and International
Book SynopsisBuilding on the recent initiative to truly globalize the field of international relations, this book provides an innovative interrogation of regionalism. The book applies a globalizing framework to the study of regional worlds in order to move beyond the traditional conception of regionalism, which views regions as competing blocs dominated by great powers. Bringing together a wide range of case studies, the book shows that regions are instead dynamic configurations of social and political identities in which a variety of actors, including the less powerful, interact and partake in regionalization processes and have done so through the centuries.Trade Review“This book takes readers on a new journey to the future of international relations (IR) where the monolithic understanding of the world is by no means possible or appropriate. Its publication is not only timely but also much needed in materialising the study of regionalism and IR in contemporary world affairs transcending the Eurocentric imagination of the world.” Kosuke Shimizu, Ryukoku University, Kyoto“This book is a crucial contribution to the study of the international. The view that the study of regions is a privileged lens for the development of global and decolonized International Relations is borne out by the analysis on offer here.” Monica Herz, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro"[T]his volume should find a place on the shelves of many students, bureaucrats and politicians with an interest or participation in international affairs and especially those who believe, with the editor, that we now inhabit ‘a post-Western world." Journal of Contemporary European StudiesTable of ContentsPart I: Content 1. Introduction: Globalizing (the Study of) Regionalism in International Relations - Pinar Bilgin and Beatrix Futák-Campbell 2. A Global Perspective on Pan Movements: Regional Anomalies or Abnormal Regions? - Alanna O’Malley 3. Embracing the Particular: A Research Agenda for Globalizing International Relations - Vanessa Newby Part II: Theory 4. Building Regional Communities: The Role of Regional Organizations in Africa - Densua Mumford 5. Environmental Regionalism in the Caspian Sea: A Functionalist Approach - Agha Bayramov 6. Environmental Regionalism in East Asia - Aysun Uyar Makibayashi Part III: Case Studies 7. Is There Such a Thing as a Confucianist Chinese Foreign Policy? A Case Study of the Belt and Road Initiative - Beatrix Futák-Campbell and Jue Wang 8. India and West Asia: Re-Emerging Region(s)? - Nicolas Blarel 9. The Rise and Fall of an Emerging Power: Agency in Turkey’s Identity-Based Regionalism - Müge Kınacıoğlu
£76.00
Bristol University Press Post-Liberal Statebuilding in Central Asia:
Book SynopsisEPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Drawing on decolonial perspectives on peace, statehood and development, this illuminating book examines post-liberal statebuilding in Central Asia. It argues that, despite its emancipatory appearance, post-liberal statebuilding is best understood as a set of social ordering mechanisms that lead to new forms of exclusion, marginalization and violence. Using ethnographic fieldwork in Southern Kyrgyzstan, the volume offers a detailed examination of community security and peacebuilding discourses and practices. Through its analysis, the book highlights the problem with assumptions about liberal democracy, modern statehood and capitalist development as the standard template for post-conflict countries, which is widespread and rarely reflected upon.Table of Contents1. Introduction 2, Theorizing Post-Liberal Forms of Statebuilding and Order-Making Globally 3. From Imaginary to Practice: Capturing the Multiple Meanings of Peace, Security and Order 4. Imaginaries and Discourses of Social Order in Kyrgyzstan 5. Local Crime Prevention Centres and the (After) Lives of the State in Rural Kyrgyzstan 6. Shaping Peace, Social Order and Resilience: Territorial Youth Councils and the Field of Youth Policy 7. Reform Deadlock for Stability? The Civic Union ‘For Reforms and Result’ 8. Conclusion
£76.50
Bristol University Press Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together leading figures in the study of International Relations to explore praxis as a perspective on international politics and law. With its focus on competent judgements, the praxis approach holds the promise to overcome the divide between knowing and acting that marks positivist International Relations theory. Building on the transdisciplinary work of Friedrich Kratochwil – and with a concluding chapter from him – this book reveals the scope, limits and blind spots of praxis theorizing. For anyone involved in international politics, this is an important contribution to the reconciliation of theory and practice and an inspiration for future research. EPDFs of Chapters 1, 4, 9, 13, 15 and 16 are available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics - Gunther Hellmann and Jens Steffek Part 1: Theorizing Praxis 2. Knowing, Remembering, Showing But Still Not Seeing: Critical Praxis, Slavery and the Modern ‘We’ - K.M. Fierke 3. Friedrich Kratochwil: Prophet of Doubt? - Cecelia Lynch 4. Styles of Theorizing International Practice - Christian Bueger 5. Practising Theorizing in Theorizing Praxis: Friedrich Kratochwil and Social Inquiry - Gunther Hellmann Part 2: Praxis and the Law 6. If Not Rome or The Hague, Where? Reflections on Sanctioning and Punishing - Chris Brown 7. Practical Constitutionalism - Anthony F. Lang, Jr. 8. Rules, Institutions and Decisions: Taking Distribution Seriously - Jan Klabbers Part 3: Biology, Contingency and History 9. I Think, Therefore IR? Psychology, Biology and the Notion of Praxis - James W. Davis 10. Practice, Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Contingency - Oliver Kessler 11. The Praxis of Change and Theory - Mathias Albert 12. Thinking on Time: How Scholarly Praxis Can Sustain, Subvert and Transform Social Reality - Jörg Friedrichs Part 4: Theorizing as Intervention 13. Practising Academic Intervention: An Agonistic Reading of Praxis - Antje Wiener 14. Between Science and Politics: Friedrich Kratochwil’s Praxis of ‘Going On’ - Patrick Thaddeus Jackson 15 Praxis, Humanism and the Quest for Wholeness - Jens Steffek Part 5: Conversing with Critics 16. Acting, Representing, Ruling: A Conversation with My Critics on Social Reproduction and the Logic of Social Inquiry - Friedrich Kratochwil
£43.20
Bristol University Press Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together leading figures in the study of International Relations to explore praxis as a perspective on international politics and law. With its focus on competent judgements, the praxis approach holds the promise to overcome the divide between knowing and acting that marks positivist International Relations theory. Building on the transdisciplinary work of Friedrich Kratochwil – and with a concluding chapter from him – this book reveals the scope, limits and blind spots of praxis theorizing. For anyone involved in international politics, this is an important contribution to the reconciliation of theory and practice and an inspiration for future research. EPDFs of Chapters 1, 4, 9, 13, 15 and 16 are available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics - Gunther Hellmann and Jens Steffek Part 1: Theorizing Praxis 2. Knowing, Remembering, Showing But Still Not Seeing: Critical Praxis, Slavery and the Modern ‘We’ - K.M. Fierke 3. Friedrich Kratochwil: Prophet of Doubt? - Cecelia Lynch 4. Styles of Theorizing International Practice - Christian Bueger 5. Practising Theorizing in Theorizing Praxis: Friedrich Kratochwil and Social Inquiry - Gunther Hellmann Part 2: Praxis and the Law 6. If Not Rome or The Hague, Where? Reflections on Sanctioning and Punishing - Chris Brown 7. Practical Constitutionalism - Anthony F. Lang, Jr. 8. Rules, Institutions and Decisions: Taking Distribution Seriously - Jan Klabbers Part 3: Biology, Contingency and History 9. I Think, Therefore IR? Psychology, Biology and the Notion of Praxis - James W. Davis 10. Practice, Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Contingency - Oliver Kessler 11. The Praxis of Change and Theory - Mathias Albert 12. Thinking on Time: How Scholarly Praxis Can Sustain, Subvert and Transform Social Reality - Jörg Friedrichs Part 4: Theorizing as Intervention 13. Practising Academic Intervention: An Agonistic Reading of Praxis - Antje Wiener 14. Between Science and Politics: Friedrich Kratochwil’s Praxis of ‘Going On’ - Patrick Thaddeus Jackson 15 Praxis, Humanism and the Quest for Wholeness - Jens Steffek Part 5: Conversing with Critics 16. Acting, Representing, Ruling: A Conversation with My Critics on Social Reproduction and the Logic of Social Inquiry - Friedrich Kratochwil
£18.99
Bristol University Press Snapshots from Home: Mind, Action and Strategy in
Book SynopsisTaking a broadly interdisciplinary approach, this book provides a unique angle on the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for global theory and practice. The book bridges two important debates regarding the relevance of quantum theory to the social sciences, and the pressing need for a more global international relations (IR). It brings the parallels between quantum physics and ancient Asian traditions – Daoism, Buddhism and Hinduism – to an investigation of mind, action and strategy in conditions of radical uncertainty. Engaging with both theory and real-world problems, including climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic and racial inequality, this book explores what it might mean to successfully navigate the potentials of a post-pandemic world.Table of ContentsIntroductions: Repositioning the Apparatus Getting to Know the Apparatus SECTION I: Impermanence 1. Self/No-Self 2. Mind/ No-Mind SECTION II: Complementarity and Yinyang 3. Action/No Action 4. War/No War SECTION III: Entanglement and Karma 5. Navigating a Participatory Universe 6. What Goes Around Comes Around Endings/Beginnings: At Home in the Universe
£76.50
Bristol University Press Snapshots from Home: Mind, Action and Strategy in
Book SynopsisTaking a broadly interdisciplinary approach, this book provides a unique angle on the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for global theory and practice. The book bridges two important debates regarding the relevance of quantum theory to the social sciences, and the pressing need for a more global international relations (IR). It brings the parallels between quantum physics and ancient Asian traditions – Daoism, Buddhism and Hinduism – to an investigation of mind, action and strategy in conditions of radical uncertainty. Engaging with both theory and real-world problems, including climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic and racial inequality, this book explores what it might mean to successfully navigate the potentials of a post-pandemic world.Table of ContentsIntroductions: Repositioning the Apparatus Getting to Know the Apparatus SECTION I: Impermanence 1. Self/No-Self 2. Mind/ No-Mind SECTION II: Complementarity and Yinyang 3. Action/No Action 4. War/No War SECTION III: Entanglement and Karma 5. Navigating a Participatory Universe 6. What Goes Around Comes Around Endings/Beginnings: At Home in the Universe
£26.59
Bristol University Press The Civil Condition in World Politics: Beyond
Book SynopsisBringing together an international team of contributors, this volume draws on international political theory and intellectual history to rethink the problem of a pluralistic world order. Inspired by the work of international political theorist Nicholas Rengger, the book focuses on three main areas of Rengger’s contribution to the political theory of international relations: his Augustine-inspired idea of an ‘Anti-Pelagian Imagination’; his Oakeshottian argument for a pluralist ‘conversation of mankind’; and his ruminations on war as the uncivil condition in world politics. Through a critical engagement with his work, the book illuminates the promises and limitations of civility as a sceptical, non-utopian, anti-perfectionist approach to theorizing world order that transcends both realist pessimism and liberal utopianism.Table of Contents1. Rengger’s anti-Pelagianism: international political theory as civil conversation – Vassilios Paipais Part 1: Anti-Pelagianism and the Civil Condition in World Politics 2. Revisiting Rengger’s Anti-Pelagianism – Noel O’Sullivan and Sophia Dingli 3. Poetics and Politics: Rengger, Weber, and the Virtuosi of Religion – John-Harmen Valk 4. ‘Keep your mind in hell, and despair not’: Gillian Rose’s anti-Pelagianism – Kate Schick Part 2: Challenging the Anti-Pelagian Imagination 5. ‘A Dangerous Place to Be’? Nicholas J. Rengger, the English School, and International Disorder – Ian Hall 6. Rengger’s War on Teleocracy – Chris Brown 7. Conservatism, Civility, and the Challenges of International Political Theory – Michael Williams Part 3: The Uncivil Condition in Word Politics 8. Rengger the Reluctant Rule Follower – Anthony Lang Jr. 9. Rengger and the ‘Business of War’ – Caroline Kennedy-Pipe 10. Just War as Tradition in a Civil International Order – Valerie Morkevičius Afterword 11. Rengger, History, and the Future of International Relations – Richard Whatmore
£76.50
