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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > General
Can terrorism and state violence cause democratic breakdown? Although the origins of violence have been studied, only rarely are its consequences examined. In this detailed comparative study of Uruguay, Spain, and Peru, Holmes claims that to understand the consequences of violence on democratic stability, terrorism and state responses to terrorism must be studied together. This extensively revised and expanded second edition takes advantage of new historical sources, an extended time span, and new theories that have emerged since the original publication. In addition to adding new data sources in the Peruvian and Spanish cases, the time period covered has been expanded from the late 1990s to early 2007, allowing a more comprehensive treatment of the consequences of state and non-state violence on democratic stability and the prospects for stability. The literature reviews have been significantly revised and updated and an entirely new chapter covers the special case of Spain, which faces both a domestic and an international threat.
Although land reform in Latin America has long been heralded by scholars and development economists, as well as by revolutionaries, as the essential ingredient for economic growth, the results of actual land reform projects have been largely disappointing. This book attempts to identify the reasons for these results by analyzing some of the microeconomic factors underlying the inadequate performance of reform sector agriculture. Basing her analysis on a detailed case study of agrarian reform in the Dominican Republic, Meyer deals specifically with the organizational structure of the reform project itself, evaluating the relative efficiency of associative, individual, and collective organizational structures. Meyer begins by providing both a comprehensive survey of the issues surrounding agrarian reform projects in Latin America and an introduction to the history, land settlement patterns, and agriculture of the Dominican Republic. The following chapters detail the history and institutional structure of agrarian reform in the Dominican Republic, review the literature relevant to the study of reform sector projects, and offer case studies of particular reform projects. The author then develops original microeconomic models to explore the implications of the individual, collective, and associative organizational structures. Taken as a whole, Meyer's study provides both theoretical and empirical evidence to support the superior efficiency of the associative organizational structure over either the individual or collective farming approach in the Dominican Republic.
There is a long tradition in western political thought suggesting that violence is necessary to defend freedom. But nonviolence and civil disobedience have played an equally long and critical role in establishing democratic institutions. Freedom Without Violence explores the long history of political practice and thought that connects freedom to violence in the West, from Athenian democracy and the Roman republic to the Age of Revolutions and the rise of totalitarianism. It is the first comprehensive examination of the idea that violence is necessary to obtain, defend, and exercise freedom. The book also brings to the fore the opposing theme of nonviolent freedom, which can be found both within the Western tradition and among critics of that tradition. Since the plebs first vacated Rome to refuse military service and win concessions from the patricians in 494 B.C., nonviolence and civil disobedience have played a critical role in republics and democracies. Abolitionists, feminists and anti-colonial activists all adopted and innovated the methods of nonviolence. With the advent of the Velvet Revolutions, the end of apartheid in South Africa and, most recently, the Arab Spring, nonviolence has garnered renewed interest in both scholarly publications and the popular imagination. In this book, Dustin Ells Howes traces the intellectual history of freedom as it relates to the concepts and practices of violence and nonviolence. Through a critique and reappraisal of the Western political tradition, Freedom Without Violence constructs a conception of nonviolent freedom. The book argues that cultivating and practicing this brand of freedom is the sine qua non of a vibrant democracy that resists authoritarianism, imperialism and oligarchy.
This book offers the first authoritative guide to assumptions about time in theories of contemporary world politics. It demonstrates how predominant theories of the international or global "present" are affected by temporal assumptions, grounded in western political thought, that fundamentally shape what we can and cannot know about world politics today. The first part of the book traces the philosophical roots of assumptions about time in contemporary political theory. The second part examines contemporary theories of world politics, including liberal and realist International Relations theories and the work of Habermas, Hardt and Negri, Virilio and Agamben. In each case, it is argued, assumptions about political time ensure the identification of the particular temporality of western experience with the political temporality of the world as such and put the theorist in the unsustainable position of holding the key to the direction of world history. In the final chapter, the book draws on postcolonial and feminist thinking, and the philosophical accounts of political time in the work of Derrida and Deleuze, to develop a new "untimely" way of thinking about time in world politics.
Theorists interested in learning more about any given interpretive approach are often required to navigate a dizzying array of sources, with no clear sense of where to begin. The prose of many primary sources is often steeped in dense and technical argot that novices find intimidating or even impenetrable. Interpretation in Political Theory provide students of political theory a single introductory reference guide to major approaches to interpretation available in the field today. Comprehensive and clearly written, the book includes: A historical and theoretical overview that situates the practice of interpretation within the development of political theory in the twentieth century. Chapters on Straussian esotericism, historical approaches within the Cambridge School of interpretation, materialist approaches associated with Marxism, the critical approaches associated with varieties of feminism, Greimassian semiotics, Foucaultian genealogy, the negative dialectics of Theodor Adorno, deconstruction as exemplified by Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. An exposition of the theoretical and disciplinary background of each approach, the tools and techniques of interpretation it uses, its assumptions about what counts as a relevant text in political theory, and what it considers to be the purpose or objective of reading in political theory. A reading of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan to illustrate how each approach can be applied in practice. A list of suggestions for further reading that will guide those interested in pursuing more advanced study. An invaluable textbook for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and even seasoned scholars of political theory interested in learning more about different interpretive approaches.
Theorists interested in learning more about any given interpretive approach are often required to navigate a dizzying array of sources, with no clear sense of where to begin. The prose of many primary sources is often steeped in dense and technical argot that novices find intimidating or even impenetrable. Interpretation in Political Theory provide students of political theory a single introductory reference guide to major approaches to interpretation available in the field today. Comprehensive and clearly written, the book includes: A historical and theoretical overview that situates the practice of interpretation within the development of political theory in the twentieth century. Chapters on Straussian esotericism, historical approaches within the Cambridge School of interpretation, materialist approaches associated with Marxism, the critical approaches associated with varieties of feminism, Greimassian semiotics, Foucaultian genealogy, the negative dialectics of Theodor Adorno, deconstruction as exemplified by Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. An exposition of the theoretical and disciplinary background of each approach, the tools and techniques of interpretation it uses, its assumptions about what counts as a relevant text in political theory, and what it considers to be the purpose or objective of reading in political theory. A reading of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan to illustrate how each approach can be applied in practice. A list of suggestions for further reading that will guide those interested in pursuing more advanced study. An invaluable textbook for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and even seasoned scholars of political theory interested in learning more about different interpretive approaches.
The Paradox of Philosophical Education: Nietzsche's New Nobility and the Eternal Recurrence in Beyond Good and Evil is the first coherent interpretation of Nietzsche's mature thought. Author Harvey Lomax pays particular attention to the problematic concept of nobility which concerned the philosopher during his later years. This sensitive reading of Nietzsche examines nobility as the philosopher himself must have seen it: as a true and powerful longing of the human soul, interwoven with poetry, philosophy, religion, and aristocratic politics. Both a close textual analysis and a thoughtful reconceptualization of Beyond Good and Evil, The Paradox of Philosophical Education penetrates beyond the philosopher's mask of caustic irony to the face of the real Nietzsche: a lover of wisdom whose work sought to resurrect it in all its Socratic splendor
Democratizing Leadership: Counter?hegemonic Democracy in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities promotes leadership in the democratization of culture to counter the current hegemony of domination and cultivate an alternative hegemony of collaboration. It is premised on a leadership framework for decision?making rooted in democratic voice and leading to collective action. This broad peacebuilding prescription for individual and collective agency accounts for the constructive role of conflict in democratic pluralism, and the need to develop practices and structures that prevent violent conflict in order to advance positive peace. This theory addresses the contexts of deliberative, agonistic, and revolutionary democratic frameworks. Democratizing Leadership is informed by three qualitative case studies described in rich detail. First Bank System Visual Art Program, In the Heart of the Beast Theater's May Day Ritual, and The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers exemplify the practice of democratizing leadership. These diverse settings include corporate banking during 1980's deregulation, an annual community May Day parade, and an informal alliance of peacemaking organizations. Leadership in each case promotes authentic voice, encourages decision?making with integrity, and advocates for responsible collective action.
At the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, thousands of pro-democracy rebel groups spontaneously formed to fight the Assad regime. Years later, the revolution was unrecognizable as rebel opposition forces had merged into three major groups: Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al Sham, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Why did these three groups rapidly increase in size and military strength while others simply disappeared? What is it about their organizational structure and their Islamist ideology that helped group manage their fighters so successfully? With these questions at the forefront, this book examines the internal organization of armed groups and, in particular, their human resources. Analyzing the growth of these groups through the prism of a labor market theory, this book shows that extreme Islamist groups were able to attract fighters away from more moderate groups because they had better internal organization, took better care of fighters both physically and monetarily, experienced less internal corruption, and effectively used their Islamist ideology to control recruits. With unparalleled access and extensive ethnographic research drawn from her interviews and her year embedded with Iraqi Special Operation forces, Mironova delves deep into the ideological and practical nexus of some of the most radical groups in the Middle East. This book brings together more than 600 survey-interviews with local civilians and fighters on the frontline in Syria and a dataset of human resource policies from 40 armed groups; it is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants insight into the on the ground functioning of rebel organizations.
This book focuses on the crises facing Al Qaeda and how the mass killing of Muslims is challenging its credibility as a leader among Islamist jihadist organizations. The book argues that these crises are directly related to Al Qaeda's affiliation with the extreme violence employed against Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the decade since 9/11. Al Qaeda's public and private responses to this violence differ greatly. While in public Al Qaeda has justified those attacks declaring that, for the establishment of a state of 'true believers', they are a necessary evil, in private Al Qaeda has been advising its local affiliates to refrain from killing Muslims. To better understand the crises facing Al Qaeda, the book explores the development of Central Al Qaeda's complex relationship with radical (mis)appropriations and manifestations of takfir, which allows one Muslim to declare another an unbeliever, and its unique relationship with each of its affiliates in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The author then goes on to consider how the prominence of takfir is contributing to the deteriorating security in those countries and how this is affecting Al Qaeda's credibility as an Islamist terror organization. The book concludes by considering the long-term viability of Al Qaeda and how its demise could allow the rise of the even more radical, violent Islamic State and the implications this has for the future security of the Middle East, North Africa and Central/South Asia. This book will be of much interest to students of political violence and terrorism, Islamism, global security and IR.
A balanced presentation chronicling both the major events that sparked environmental activism and the nature of that activism in the past century. Beginning with an overview of activism in the past century from 1900 to 2001, Environmental Activism: A Reference Handbook puts organizations and their activities into historical context. This volume offers both an American perspective and a global perspective. It chronicles the major events that sparked environmental actions; aligns individuals with organizations, such as John Muir and the Sierra Club; and presents a balanced treatment of activities in both conservative and liberal political spheres. Separate chapters identify six eras of activism from 1900 to 2001 and include their characteristics, issues, strategies, and advocates. This is followed by summaries of the various types of organizations and their strategies, including direct action (ecoterrorism, monkey wrenching) as well as mainstream activity (lobbying, letter writing). In-depth profiles of 25 key individuals and organizations Original reports, congressional testimony, and court documents covering environmental justice, green political parties, corporate environmentalism, the wise use movement, genetically engineered foods, environmental sabotage, and local land use issues
The governance arrangements put in place for Siberia and Mongolia after the collapse of the Qing and Russian Empires were highly unusual, experimental and extremely interesting. The Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic established within the Soviet Union in 1923 and the independent Mongolian People's Republic established a year later were supposed to represent a new model of transnational, post-national governance, incorporating religious and ethno-national independence, under the leadership of the coming global political party, the Communist International. The model, designed to be suitable for a socialist, decolonised Asia, and for a highly diverse population in a strategic border region, was intended to be globally applicable. This book, based on extensive original research, charts the development of these unusual governance arrangements, discusses how the ideologies of nationalism, socialism and Buddhism were borrowed from, and highlights the relevance of the subject for the present day world, where multiculturality, interconnectedness and interdependency become ever more complicated.
'One of the most perceptive and thought-provoking books yet written about the multiple intersecting crises that are now upending our once-familiar world. . . Essential reading for these turbulent times.' Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement Dougald Hine, author and social thinker, has spent most of his life talking to people about climate change. And then one afternoon in the second year of the pandemic, he found he had nothing left to say. Why would someone who cares so deeply about ecological destruction want to stop talking about climate change now? At Work in the Ruins explores that question. 'Climate change asks us questions that climate science cannot answer,' Hine says. Questions like, how did we end up in this mess? Is it just a piece of bad luck with the atmospheric chemistry-or is it the result of a way of approaching the world that would always have brought us to such a pass? How we answer such questions has consequences. According to Hine, our answers shape our understanding and our thinking about what kind of problem we think we're dealing with and, therefore, what kind of responses we go looking for. "But when science is turned into an object of belief and a source of overriding authority," Hine continues, "it becomes hard even to talk about the questions that it cannot answer." In eloquent, deeply researched prose, Hine demonstrates how our over-reliance on the single lens of science has blinded us to the nature of the crises around and ahead of us, leading to 'solutions' that can only make things worse. At Work in the Ruins is his reckoning with the strange years we have been living through and our long history of asking too much of science. It's also about how we find our bearings and what kind of tasks are worth giving our lives to, given all we know or have good grounds to fear about the trouble the world is in. For anyone who has found themselves needing to make sense of the COVID time and how we talk about it, At Work in the Ruins offers guidance by standing firmly forward and facing the depth of the trouble we are in. Hine, ultimately, helps us find the work that is worth doing, even in the ruins. 'A book of rare originality and depth-profound, far-reaching, mind-altering stuff.' Helen Jukes, author of A Honeybee Heart has Five Openings
Gustave Herve (1871-1944) seemed to have traditional Breton roots and a typical republican education. As a young socialist journalist and professor, he gained notoriety following a 1901 article which appeared to plant the tricolor in a dung pile. When French socialists unified in 1905, the Herveistes were an influential minority. The antimilitarist movement called Herveism gradually emerged as a quixotic crusade to unite revolutionaries against war and for socialism. Herve soon founded a weekly newspaper, La Guerre Sociale. Over the next six years, press campaigns, trials, prison, demonstrations, strikes, and conspiratorial organizations maintained Herve's profile and sold newspapers. Ironically, Herve advertised conspiracies, which suggests revolutionary theater more than practical politics. Among Herve's rivals, such theatrics often generated resentment. While Herve's movement succeeded as a media experience, his leftist competitors became jealous and skeptical. As revolutionary theater Herveism might have been entertaining, but the actors and some of the audience often confused revolutionary art with political reality. By 1911 the ingenuous Herve felt betrayed. His failure to unite revolutionaries began an evolution toward the nation and its traditional Catholic faith. Besides the international situation, one crucial determinant in Herve's evolution toward French national socialism sympathetic to fascism involved ongoing rivalries within the French Left. Herve's marginal interwar national socialist parties sought to employ patriotism and religion to solve French problems. By 1935 he attempted to draft Petain to lead an authoritarian republic. Gradually losing hope in Petain after the fall of France, the aging Herve put his faith in Christian socialism.
Few empirical studies of Arab countries have dealt with political culture and political socialisation or focused on people's beliefs, values, and attitudes towards the government or political leaders, mainly because the regimes have been reluctant to allow opinion to be tested. The significance of this book is that it assesses the influence of state ideology on the new generation of Libyans, and examines their political culture.
Democratizing Leadership: Counter?hegemonic Democracy in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities promotes leadership in the democratization of culture to counter the current hegemony of domination and cultivate an alternative hegemony of collaboration. It is premised on a leadership framework for decision?making rooted in democratic voice and leading to collective action. This broad peacebuilding prescription for individual and collective agency accounts for the constructive role of conflict in democratic pluralism, and the need to develop practices and structures that prevent violent conflict in order to advance positive peace. This theory addresses the contexts of deliberative, agonistic, and revolutionary democratic frameworks. Democratizing Leadership is informed by three qualitative case studies described in rich detail. First Bank System Visual Art Program, In the Heart of the Beast Theater's May Day Ritual, and The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers exemplify the practice of democratizing leadership. These diverse settings include corporate banking during 1980's deregulation, an annual community May Day parade, and an informal alliance of peacemaking organizations. Leadership in each case promotes authentic voice, encourages decision?making with integrity, and advocates for responsible collective action.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the most significant and enduring Sunni Islamist organization of the contemporary era. Its roots lay in the Middle East but today it is both a local and global movement. Under the slogan that "Islam is the solution" the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideologues have impacted on the political evolution of the region. The Muslim Brotherhood is variously regarded as a true force for moderation among Islamists or a facade behind which lies a terroristic fundamentalist threat which could undermine global security agendas. The Arab Spring has brought the Muslim Brotherhood to the fore of regional politics once more. The face of the Brotherhood and its ambitions are slowly being realised as state-based power is re-ordered across the Middle East. The book will examine the genesis and evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East with chapters devoted to specific cases and localities where the Brotherhood and its ideas have made and are making important impacts on society, the state and politics. Within these chapters the author will assess in detail the dynamics of particular themes of Islamist politics associated with the Brotherhood such as democracy, equality, pan-Islamism, radicalism, violence, reform, the Palestine issue and gender. This will reveal an evolutionary trend within the movement since its founding in Egypt in 1928 to its manifestation as the largest Sunni Islamist movement in the Middle East in the 21st century. Drawing on a wide range of sources and interviews with the leaders and cadres this book presents an evolving standpoint of a newly resurgent movement that is significantly organised to take the opportunities for power and electoral competition offered by the Arab Spring. The book will also question whether the Muslim Brotherhood can demonstrate to its sceptics that an accommodation with democracy and the presence of a secular trend within the region can be made. The book will also be the first study to deal with the ascension to power, through the ballot box, of the Muslim Brotherhood (including in its localised forms) in the Palestinian territories, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere to analyse the impact of this in terms of Western policy debates on whether and how they should engage with this manifestation of political Islam.
Iron Cages addresses the crisis of the African postcolonial state by exploring the interaction between the 'iron cages' of expert knowledge - of which social science paradigms are taken as emblematic - and lived worlds as experienced by 'ordinary' Africans. The book focuses on two paradigms in particular, modernization theory and Marxism-Leninism, and argues that they were designed not so much to chart the mutable and permeable contours of local landscapes as to affirm the immutable, purportedly scientific, reality tracks embedded in each paradigm. A related investigative trajectory targets the interface between social science paradigms and political ideologies, and argues that the frontier between scientific observation and ideological conviction often is honored more in the breach than in the observance. Author Alison Jones concludes that, by relegating lived worlds to shadowy and insubstantial landscapes of non-being, social science paradigms are implicated in the inability of political ideologies to make sufficient sense to African constituencies. A negative consequence is that in a number of cases, 'national unity' either disintegrates altogether or is coercively enforced by incumbent regimes. However, two African leaders - Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania - broke free from paradigmatic constraints by consciously seeking to bridge the gap between expert knowledge and local worlds. In so doing, they created a third space of humanist enunciation informed by - but not exclusive to - the lived experience of African peoples. By situating local specificities within global contexts, they flagged a way forward for the continent and her many countries.
Many feminists have engaged with the man-made concepts and approaches of traditional political analysis to produce an increasingly sophisticated and wide-ranging body of thought. The starting point of this book is the belief that such work is not simply 'something for the girls'; rather, it has profound and complex implications without which our understanding of political processes and ideas would be impoverished. This book provides an accessible overview and assessment of the impact of recent feminism by bringing together leading feminist and pro-feminist political theorists and analysts, to focus on key concepts, such as rationality, citizenship, democracy and democratisation, development and empowerment. Each chapter takes a 'malestream' concept and examines both the critical debates around it and feminist reactions/critiques. It then analyses the significance and implications of feminism for the concept, considers whether it can simply be extended to include women, or whether it should be radically transformed or even abandoned, and assesses whether feminist input has become part of the mainstream debate or remains marginalised. -- .
This book examines Japan’s relationship with Myanmar from the passage of its constitution in May 2008 to the February 2021 coup d’état that finished its transition to a ‘disciplined democracy.’ It explores the nexus between security and political economy in the context of changing regional dynamics. Focusing on the impact of Japan’s relations with Myanmar on people in Myanmar and beyond, the author argues that the Japanese government and businesses side lined ‘universal values’ for profit at the expense of human security.
Debates about Basque self-determination were curtailed for decades by political violence, involving both the actions of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) and the counter-terrorism activities of Spain and France. In 2011, ETA announced a permanent cessation of operations. Since then, stakeholders have become increasingly aware of the need to rethink Basque nationhood and democratic representation in light of the changing nature of nationhood and citizenship within the European Union. These issues are also topical in the French Basque country, which has witnessed a re-emergence of Basque identity politics in recent years. This book describes the contemporary re-imagining of Basque nationhood in both Spain and France. Taking a fresh look at the history of Basque nationalist movements, it explores the new debates that have emerged since the demise of non-state militancy. Alongside analysis of local transformations, it also describes the impact of global changes on ideas about Basque self-determination.
The 21st-century political landscape has been defined by deep ideological polarization, and as a result scientific inquiry into the psychological mechanisms underlying this divide has taken on increased relevance. The topic is by no means new to social psychology. Classic literature on intergroup conflict shows how pervasive and intractable these group conflicts can be, how readily they can emerge from even minimal group identities, and the hedonic rewards reaped from adopting an "us vs. them" perspective. Indeed, this literature paints a bleak picture for the efficacy of any interventions geared toward reducing intergroup discord. But advances in the psychology of moral judgments and behavior, in particular greater understanding of how moral concerns might inform the creation and stability of political identities, offer new ways forward in understanding partisan divides. This volume brings together leading researchers in moral and political psychology, offering new perspectives on the moral roots of political ideology, and exciting new opportunities for the development of more effective applied interventions.
A critical assessment of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism and their significance to Marxism and feminism. Assiter challenges commonly held views regarding Althusser's contribution to Marxism and offers an alternative to radical feminism.;The author's books include "Pornography, Feminism and the Individual" and she has edited "Radical Philosophy" for twenty years.
This book presents the raging debate on one of the most brutal political realities that India has confronted in recent years: the rising conflict between Maoist insurgent groups and the Indian State. With some of the finest writings on the subject, it brings together articles and interviews from leading authors, politicians, journalists, intellectuals, filmmakers and legal practitioners. The volume straddles between two apparently irreconcilable perspectives: (a) the view that the Maoist movement threatens the very core of democratic foundations, and should be perceived as a violent law & order situation justifying severe retaliatory measures, and (b) the counterview where Maoists are fiercely defended as revolutionaries and comrades of resistance, and the movement seen as the last-ditch struggle by those who have been abandoned over years by the State in its developmental process. The essays probe whether armed struggle is avoidable, whether the desperate desire for peace has simply been overtaken by political ideologies, and whether an inclusive developmental State policy may help restore faith in its democratic ethos. The book will be of interest to academics and students of politics, sociology, social anthropology and law. It will also be extremely useful to social workers, policymakers, politicians, bureaucrats, as well as the general reader. |
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