Social theory Books

Book Synopsisthe book conducts in-depth inquiries into the practices, nature and theory of postindustrial cultural work and the humanities – and arts – based civic dialogues which cultural work promotes. Given the broad neglect of utopian thinking in the mainstream of critical social science, and in an attempt to sketch out a vision of an alternative future, the aim of the book is to outline an epistemology for cultural work as well as to reflect upon the prospects for educational cultural work practices and their function as a catalyst for civic dialogue and cultural change. A major focus of the book is on the epistemological, ecological, ethical and political dimensions of cultural work. This includes the prospects for a new form of communal workspace for knowledge and cultural learning. Cultural work and knowledge are the central topics of this book and intersect with many of the concerns on how to involve the general public in scientific, technological and economic developments to address urgent changes often deemed to be of a highly scientific nature – including climate change, sustainability, environment and development.

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Book SynopsisIn the last decade, there has been an international resurgence of interest in the philosophy of Louis Althusser. New essays, journalism, collections, secondary literature, and even manuscripts by Althusser himself are emerging, speaking in fresh ways to audiences of theorists and activists. Althusser is especially important in educational thought, as he famously claimed that school is the most impactful ideological state apparatus in modern society. This insight inspired a generation of educational researchers, but Althusser’s philosophy—unique in a number of ways, one of which was its emphasis on education—largely lost popularity. Despite this resurgence of interest, and while Althusser’s philosophy is important for educators and activists to know about, it remains difficult to understand. The Gold and the Dross: Althusser for Educators, with succinct prose and a creative organization, introduces readers to Althusser’s thinking. Intended for those who have never encountered Althusser’s theory before, and even those who are new to philosophy and critical theory in general, the book elaborates the basic tenets of Althusser’s philosophy using examples and personal stories juxtaposed with selected passages of Althusser’s writing. Starting with a beginner’s guide to interpellation and Althusser’s concept of ideology, the book continues by elaborating the epistemology and ontology Althusser produced, and concludes with his concepts of society and science. The Gold and the Dross makes Althusser’s philosophy more available to contemporary audiences of educators and activists.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction  General Plan and Purpose of This Book  Althusser’s Context  Althusser’s Life  Author’s Context  Note on Passages 1 A Beginner’s Guide to Interpellation  Getting in Trouble  At School  Get with the Program  Not Anything Impactful  I Don’t Remember What I Learned in School  Testing  Where Did My Friends Go?  Falling in Love  Is Interpellation Passive?  Ideology = Imagined Relations to Real Conditions  Wings  Race and Gender  Reproduction  Consent  Individuality  Images  Being Guided  Interpellation Machine  Intersectionality  Counter-Interpellation  A Grain of Sand  Hut  A Play  Our Society: Capitalism and Democracy 2 The Law of Dislocation  Concrete-Real vs. Concrete-in-Thought  Snakes, Ropes, and Concepts  The Gold and the Dross  Straying from Dislocation: Empiricism and Surplus Value  Petty, Laplace, and Capital Vol. 1  Leaves, Monads, and Other Simple Internal Essences  Shades of Hegel  Expressivism: (Dig Here)  Human Nature  Concepts behind ‘Words’  A Theory of Reading: Listening to Silence 3 The Law of Uneven Development  Every Thing Is a Mess  The dsa  Theory of Combination  Theory of Formation  Theory of Relative Autonomy  Theory of Determination  The Wrong Side of History  Acorns  Teleology on the Train  Concepts of Structure: Captain Planet vs. Voltron  The Two Laws: Three Reflections 4 Theory of Social Formations  Geology as Analogy for Society  Forces, Elements, and Variations in Society: Overview  Economic Region  Ideological Region  Culture and Agency  Repressive Region  Thanksgiving  The Three Social Forces: Productive, Reproductive, Repressive  The Hut and the Theater  Naked Capitalism  Home Ownership  Freedom  An Allegory for Social Structure  In the Last Instance: Theory of Moveable Types 5 Conclusion: Ideology, Truth, Science  Ambivalence  Truth as Correctness  Gold  Science as Sweet Science Afterword: Studying the Dross  Tyson E. Lewis References Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Struggle for Development and Democracy Alessandro Olsaretti argues that we need significantly new theories of development and democracy to answer the problem posed by neoliberalism and the populist backlash, namely, uneven development and divisive politics. This book proposes as a first step a truly multidisciplinary humanist social science, to overcome the flaws of neoliberal economic theories, and to recover a balanced approach to theories and policies alike that is especially needed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. These led to divisive culture wars, which were compounded by the divisive populist politics. This book begins to sketch such a humanist social science, and applies it to answer one question: who is responsible for neoliberalism and the populist backlash?Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures  Introduction  1 Defending Theory and an Eclectic Methodology for Formulating It  2 The New Theories and the Main Hypotheses and Theses on Neoliberalism part 1 The Project and the Need for New Approaches 1 The Project and Theories of Development and Democracy  1.1 The Project and the Answers and Alternatives That It Proposes  1.2 The Project and Its Importance to Achieve a Paradigm Shift  1.3 The Significantly New Theory of Democracy Proposed  1.4 The Significantly New Theory of Development Proposed  1.5 Uneven Development, Civil Society and Engineering  1.6 The Importance of Civil Society and Universities  1.7 The Importance of the State and Defense 2 An Intellectual Journey, the Struggle for Objectivity, and Elitism  2.1 Humanism, Synthesis, and Political-Military Development  2.2 Broad Pictures and a Humanist Social Science  2.3 The Difficulties Faced by Some Intellectual Projects  2.4 McGill University and the Social Conditions for Objectivity  2.5 Aristocratic-military Elites and a Humanistic Education  2.6 Broad Pictures of Society and History and Their Importance  2.7 Implications for Cultural Studies and International Relations part 2 Continuing Gramsci’s Project through a Humanist Social Science 3 Gramsci’s Project and a Significantly New Theory of Democracy  3.1 Gramsci and His Legacy and Approach to Philosophy  3.2 Gramsci’s Project and His Theory of Democracy  3.3 Gramsci’s Project and Related Projects in Italy  3.4 Gramsci’s Project and the Projects of Structural Marxists  3.5 Gramsci’s Project and the Projects of Analytical Marxists  3.6 A View of Democracy That Rejects Eurocentrism  3.7 A View of Scientific Knowledge That Rejects Eurocentrism 4 A Humanist Social Science That Promotes Cultural Democracy  4.1 Gramsci’s Humanist Social Science and Cultural Democracy  4.2 The Anthropological-Sociological View of Philosophy  4.3 The Contribution from Popular Culture to Theory  4.4 The Contribution from Popular Art to Theory  4.5 The Eclectic Methodology, Rhetoric, and Theory  4.6 The Contribution from Theory to Popular Culture  4.7 The Contribution from Rhetoric to Popular Culture part 3 The Methodology and the Hypotheses and Theses of the Project 5 The Theory, and the Hypotheses and Theses on Elites  5.1 Specialization and the Origins of One-Sidedness  5.2 Specialization Due to Compartmentalization  5.3 Specialization Due to the Needs of Empirical Research  5.4 Theory, Theoretical Groundwork and General Theory  5.5 The Contribution from Theoretical Groundwork  5.6 The Contribution from General Theory  5.7 Theoretical Groundwork and Hypotheses on Elites  5.8 General Theory and Theses on Elites and Masses 6 Case Studies and Hypotheses on Hegemony and Collective Action  6.1 Historical Case Studies to Understand Contemporary Cases  6.2 The Use of Case Studies to Understand Hegemony  6.3 Gramsci’s Theory of Hegemony and Collective Action  6.4 Gramsci’s Theory and Criticism of Elite Theorists  6.5 The British Elite and Its Use of Culture for Consent  6.6 The Piedmontese Elite and Its Collective Action Advantage  6.7 Meso Collective Action Problems, Cooptation, and Defection  6.8 General Theory and Theses on the Origins of Democracy   Conclusions Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to be human? We invite the reader to discuss this most fundamental issue in philosophy and to do so in an intercultural framework. The question of the human was the starting point for a legendary discussion between two German philosophers who met in Davos in 1929. We return to this historical event and re-imagine the debate between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer from a global perspective. Generating twenty papers from elaborate discussions, our authors contribute to the thought experiment by inviting the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō from Kyoto and other Japanese thinkers into the debate to overcome the challenge of Eurocentrism inherent to these historic days in Davos.Table of ContentsPreface Notes on Contributors Introduction  Ralf Müller Part 1 Recontextualizing the Davos Debate 1 Revisiting the Debate between Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos: Imagination, Finiteness, and Morals  Michel Dalissier 2 The Davos Debate, Pure Philosophy and Normativity: Thinking from the Perspective of the History of Philosophy  Esther Oluffa Pedersen 3 Humans and Other Animals: The Forgotten Other Beyond Davos and Kyoto  John C. Maraldo 4 Anthropology as an Intercultural Philosophy of Culture  Tobias Endres 5 Heidegger and Cassirer on Schematism: Reflections on an Intercultural Philosophy  Domenico Schneider Part 2 Nishida Joining the Davos Debate 6 Absolute Self-Contradictory Human Existence: Nishida in Davos  Francesca Greco 7 Cassirer and Nishida: Mathematical Crosscurrents in Their Philosophical Paths  Rossella Lupacchini 8 Lask, Heidegger, and Nishida: From Meaning as Object to Horizon and Place  John W.M. Krummel 9 From Kyoto and Hong Kong to Davos: Nishida Kitaro and Mou Zongsan’s possible contributions to the Cassirer-Heidegger Debate  Tak-Lap Yeung 10 From the Problem of Meaning via Basic Phenomena to the Question of Philosophy after Metaphysics: Cassirer, Heidegger, and Nishida  Ingmar Meland 11 The Self-Aware Individual and the Kyoto School’s Quest for a Philosophical Anthropology  Dennis Stromback Part 3 German-Japanese Ramifications of the Davos Debate 12 The Davos Debate and Japanese Philosophy: Welt-Schema and Einbildungskraft in Tanabe and Miki  Tatsuya Higaki 13 From Despair to Authentic Existence: Kierkegaard’s Anthropology of Despair in the Light of Nishitani’s Thought  Sebastian Hüsch 14 Cassirer, Heidegger, and Miki: The Logic of the Dual Transcendence of the Imagination  Steve Lofts 15 Now, Ever or After: Contrasting the Pure Lands of D.T. Suzuki and Tanabe Hajime  Rossa Ó Muireartaigh 16 On Homo Faber: Nishida and Miki  Takushi Odagiri 17 Anti-Cartesianism East and West: Watsuji and Heidegger on the Possibility of Significant Dealing with Entities  Hans Peter Liederbach 18 Miki and the Myth of Humanism  Fernando Wirtz 19 Hineingehalten in das Nichts: Die Metaphysik und das Andere des Seins  Emanuel Seitz Index

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Book SynopsisExpertos en Liderazgo han reconocido una paradoja que caracteriza este concepto: buscamos un liderazgo efectivo justo cuando los líderes son incapaces de manejar apropiadamente los acontecimientos que afectan nuestras vidas. Confrontar este círculo vicioso implica analizar la noción de liderazgo en función de la relación entre líderes y seguidores. Este tema fue discutido abiertamente durante el 2008, año caracterizado por varias crisis en los niveles global (e.g. la crisis financiera), regional (la crisis andina) y nacional (la crisis electoral en Zimbabwe). Estudios recientes se enfocan en las cualidades de los buenos líderes. En contraste, los ensayos de este volumen, resultado de los paneles centrales de la conferencia RISC 2008, traen a los seguidores de vuelta a la escena del análisis social. Cada autor discute la necesidad de crear nuevas formas de gobierno seguidor-centrista, a través de estudios relacionados con diferentes eventos del 2008: la política electoral y la calidad de la democracia, el impacto de la crisis financiera global en Bélgica, la guerra civil en Colombia, la crisis andina, la guerra de México contra la violencia y la política exterior de Sudáfrica. Scholars of leadership have appropriately recognized a paradox which characterizes this concept: we seek effective leadership in moments when leaders are incapable of properly managing events which affect our lives. Confronting this vicious circle implies analyzing leadership as the function of the relationship between leaders and followers. This theme was openly discussed in 2008, a year characterized by various crises at the global (e.g. the financial crisis), regional (e.g. the Andean Crisis), and national (e.g. the electoral crisis in Zimbabwe) levels. Recent studies on leadership have focused on the so-called qualities of good leaders. In contrast, the essays in this edited volume, which derive from the keynote panels of the RISC Consortium's 2008 conference, bring followers back in. All the chapters discuss the need to create new forms of follower-based governance through studies of phenomena related to 2008, including electoral politics and the quality of democracy, the impact of the global financial crisis in Belgium, civil war in Colombia, the 2008 Andean Crisis, Mexico's War on Violence and South Africa's foreign policy.

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Book SynopsisNowadays, politics is only one voice among many in the concert of social self-organization. Its function is to articulate the differentiated systems of our societies: it encourages their self-restraint, while at the same time restraining itself. Such a conception obviously threatens the primacy of the nation-state. While it is not necessarily disappearing, it must nevertheless cease to be thought of as a dominant principle of organization, and must assume its place in a system of regulation that proceeds on several levels. Distant from the anarchist or Marxist theories that herald the end of the state as it is from libertarian theories of the minimal state, the book illustrates that it is possible in the contemporary period to go beyond the alternatives of dirigisme and neoliberal spontaneity. However, such a transformation can only prove effective through two conditions: we must first reject the enduring opposition between Right and Left, and second, we must invent an anti-state social democracy that is able in its own right to glean the most it can out of the liberal legacy. This book combines philosophical technicality, clarity and elegance of writing in an attempt to provide politics with meaning again, particularly in an era where discourse about its powerlessness abounds.

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Book SynopsisThe Arab Human Development Report 2022 focuses on post-COVID recovery, assessing long standing development challenges across the spheres of governance, society, and economy-tackling aspects of gender; youth; education and health; multi-dimensional poverty; impacts on economic sectors, MSMEs and labour markets; displacement and migration; and nature and climate change challenges, to put the region on a resilient and sustainable human development path. The report also assesses adequacy and efficacy of response policies especially where the pandemic has led to widening inequalities and exacerbated existing challenges in such areas as public service provision, including social protection, care, education, healthcare and vaccine rollout. The report provides concrete recommendations on how to guide a resilient, sustainable, equitable, and inclusive recovery. It calls on Arab States to act quickly, decisively and at scale, to assess, evaluate, and strengthen capabilities and capacities and build effective and trustworthy institutional structures that can support a new social contract to better help societies cope with future shocks and disasters

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Book SynopsisPolicies intended to bring stability to fragile states tend to focus almost exclusively on building institutions and systems to get governance right. Simply building the state is often seen as sufficient for making it stable and legitimate. But policies like these, René Grotenhuis shows in this book, ignore the question of what makes people belong to a nation-state, arguing that issues of identity, culture, and religion are crucial to creating the sense of belonging and social cohesion that a stable nation-state requires.Table of ContentsPrologue: The urgency of reality. 1. Struggling in the world of Nation-States. 2. Nation and state 3. Fragility: a donor's concept but not far from reality. 4. Nation building and state building and the challenge of fragility 5. The Scylla and Charybdis of nation-building 6. Nation-building: identity and identification, process and content 7. Nation-building: sovereignty and citizenship 8. Nationhood: multifaceted 9. Nationhood: Civic, Religious, Cultural and ethnic identities 10. A program of Nation-building. 11. Complementarity: peace-building, nation-building, state-building 12. Epilogue: The reality of urgency.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisGlobal Marx coheres a collective assessment of Marx's account of capital's domination, through his critique of disciplinary languages, investigation of political structures and analysis of specific political spaces within the world market. His discourse appears here as global not only because global is the geography of the world market but also because Marx redefined the relationships between the spaces on which capital exerts its command. Global Marx proves that Marx's texts do not identify any global working class, nor a centre of power to be conquered, but show that – within and against the world market – there is a social movement that is irreducible to any identity or to a single space from whose perspective one can write a universal history of class struggle. Contributors are: Luca Basso, Michele Basso, Matteo Battistini, Eleonora Cappuccilli, Michele Cento, Luca Cobbe, Isabella Consolati, Niccolò Cuppini, Roberta Ferrari, Michele Filippini, Giorgio Grappi, Maurizio Merlo, Mario Piccinini, Fabio Raimondi, Maurizio Ricciardi, Paola Rudan, and Federico Tomasello.Table of ContentsPrefaceAbbreviationNotes on Contributorspart 1Disciplines and Structures: Time, History, Mutations1 On Possession and Property Marx, Gans and the Law  Michele Basso2 Breaking the Chain of Time Marx and the French Historians  Isabella Consolati3 The Social Object Marx, the Economists, the Mercantile Society  Maurizio Merlo4 The Artificial Nature and the Genetic History of Capital Marx and the Modern Theory of Colonisation  Paola Rudan5 The Feminine Ferment Marx and the Critique of Patriarchy  Eleonora Cappuccilli and Roberta Ferrari6 The City as a Time-Machine Marx and Urban Transformations  Niccolò Cuppini7 Marx Technology and Anthropology  Fabio Raimondipart 2Spaces and World: States, Revolutions, Social Movement8 Germany as an Anachronism Marx, Social Science and the State  Maurizio Ricciardi9 In the Anarchic State of Capital Marx and the Suspended History of Latin America  Michele Cento10 The Colonial Lever and the Social Movement in General Marx and Ireland  Luca Cobbe11 The French Revolutions and the Future of Politics Marx and France  Federico Tomasello12 The Nation within Capital’s Political Relations Marx and Italy  Michele Filippini13 From the Commune to Communism? Marx and Russia  Luca Basso14 ‘A Sea of Revolution’ Marx, India and China  Giorgio Grappi15 Between Slavery and Free Labour Marx, the American Civil War and Emancipation as a Global Issue  Matteo Battistini16 England as the Metropolis of Capital Marx, the International and the Working Class  Mario PiccininiWorks of Karl Marx and Friedrich EngelsReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisKnown for his most famous works, such as The Myth of the Lazy Native (1977) and The Problem of Corruption (1986), as well as his concept of the “captive mind,” Syed Hussein Alatas (1928-2007) made significant contributions to decolonization theory, social theory, and other forms of thought critical of the current neo-colonial and neoliberal world. Although Edward Said acknowledged his debt to Syed Hussein Alatas’ work, especially its influence on Orientalism, his most well known book, Alatas’ work has long been overlooked by Eurocentric Western academia. Spurred by the commitment to celebrate and develop Syed Hussein Alatas’ work, this edited volume attempts to demonstrate its relevance to numerous academic fields, and the potential for his thought to be transformative in the international socio-political realm. Twenty authors from various disciplines and countries have contributed, in the hopes of bringing his work to the forefront of social and political theory. Contributors are: Mona Abaza, Joseph Alagha, Masturah Alatas, Sharifah Munirah Alatas, Syed Farid Alatas, Syed Imad Alatas, Hira Amin, Dustin J. Byrd, Zawawi Ibrahim, N. Jayaram, Teo Lee Ken, Habibul Haque Khondker, Victor T. King, João Marcelo E. Maia, Seyed Javad Miri, Carimo Mohomed, Chandra Muzaffar, Norshahril Saat, Mostafa Soueid, and Esmaeil Zeiny.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsNotes on ContributorsIntroductionDustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad MiriPart 1Alatas’ Work and Legacy1 Developing a School of Autonomous Knowledge Thoughts of the Late Syed Hussein Alatas  Syed Imad Alatas2 The Midlife of an Idea Syed Hussein Alatas’ Captive Mind after Fifty Years  Masturah AlatasPart 2Theorizing the Captive Mind3 Alatas on Colonial and Autonomous Knowledge  Syed Farid Alatas4 The Psychological Dynamics of Mental Captivity Subsequent Conceptual Developments  Dustin J. Byrd5 The Cartography of Reception of ‘The Captive Mind’ in Iran  Esmaeil Zeiny6 “The Captive Mind” and Social Sciences in Southeast Asia Syed Hussein Alatas  Mona Abaza7 The Captive Mind Syndrome in Indian Sociology  N. Jayaram8 Psychological Feudalism Malay Political Culture and Responses towards Modernization  Norshahril Saat9 “Irrational” Beliefs in a “Rational” World Religion and Modernization  Hira AminPart 3Mythologizing and Demythologizing the Native10 Demythologizing Dominant Discourses Syed Hussein Alatas’ The Myth of the Lazy Native and the Discourse on Malay Cultural Values and Underdevelopment  Zawawi Ibrahim11 Syed Hussein Alatas Colonialism and Modernity  Joseph Alagha and Mostafa Soueid12 The Invention of “Islam” How (Lazy) Historians and Social Scientists Created a Fantasy  Carimo MohomedPart 4Alatas and the Socio-political13 Syed Hussein Alatas and the Question of Intellectuals  Seyed Javad Miri14 West-Centric Geopolitical Discourse Situating Syed Hussein Alatas in International Relations  Sharifah Munirah Alatas15 Alatas Pioneer in the Study of, and the Struggle against, Corruption  Chandra Muzaffar16 Syed Hussein Alatas and the Question of Political Thought  Teo Lee Ken17 Contributions of Syed Hussein Alatas towards Global Sociology  Habibul Haque Khondker18 East-West Interactions and Complexities Syed Hussein Alatas, Willem Wertheim and Edward Said  Victor T. King19 Hidden Connections Syed Hussein Alatas and Latin American Sociology  João Marcelo E. MaiaIndex

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