The last decades have witnessed a steady increase in popular discontent with prevailing neoliberal approaches to economy, policy and society. And yet neoliberalism remains dominant, even in the context of the ongoing financial crisis. The anti-neoliberal movement seems disorientated. Typical explanations of this current contradicatory situation highlight that anti-neoliberal movements are unwilling to commit to a policy programme, enact effective political tactics, or challenge state institutions. This book argues that a more deep-seated problem lies at the heart of these deficiencies: how the movement approaches the role of ideology in political action. Reflecting a widely-held belief that ours is a post-ideological age, ideology has been marginalized or altogether rejected by the majority of the movement's activists and intellectuals. The dismissal of ideology has hindered the politics of resistance and it now becomes clear that a firm ideological vision is what activists urgently require to defy neoliberal domination. This book shows the useful nature of ideology, by exploring continuities between current anti-neoliberal positions and well-known past ideological arguments that changed the world.

While most of the scholarship on populism and populist political communication is focused on Western European countries with a long tradition of populist parties' appearance on the political scene (such as Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Sweden), this volume offers an insight into populist political communication in countries less frequently covered in the English-language literature, namely Bosnia and Hercegovina, Bulgaria, France, Israel, Poland, and Romania. With the main focus on Eastern and Southern Europe, this book contributes to answering key questions regarding the relations between populist actors, media, and citizens. The publication represents an interdisciplinary approach to the populist political communication. The co-existence of different research methods and tools in that book allows us to capture the multi-dimensional nature of populism.

The last decades have witnessed a steady increase in popular discontent with prevailing neoliberal approaches to economy, policy and society. And yet neoliberalism remains dominant, even in the context of the ongoing financial crisis. The anti-neoliberal movement seems disorientated. Typical explanations of this current contradicatory situation highlight that anti-neoliberal movements are unwilling to commit to a policy programme, enact effective political tactics, or challenge state institutions. This book argues that a more deep-seated problem lies at the heart of these deficiencies: how the movement approaches the role of ideology in political action. Reflecting a widely-held belief that ours is a post-ideological age, ideology has been marginalized or altogether rejected by the majority of the movement's activists and intellectuals. The dismissal of ideology has hindered the politics of resistance and it now becomes clear that a firm ideological vision is what activists urgently require to defy neoliberal domination. This book shows the useful nature of ideology, by exploring continuities between current anti-neoliberal positions and well-known past ideological arguments that changed the world.

Multiculturalism and the Nation in Germany: A Study in Moral Conflict examines the new debates surrounding matters of multiculturalism, immigration, and national identity in Germany in the wake of the 2015 Refugee Crisis. Arguing that contemporary disputes are centered around four moral ideals, or ideal visions of the German community, it draws upon the thought of Emile Durkheim to identify the role of the sacred in political conflict. The book argues that at the heart of each moral ideal is a sacred object that legitimates specific policies and behaviors, and that attempts to realize moral ideals lead to conflicts involving free speech, German Memory Culture, inner-party rivalries, and political violence that go to the very essence of what it means to be German. The book includes a ground-breaking theoretical reworking of Durkheim's sociology, which it applies to the study of power and politics, as well as to debates in political philosophy. This volume will appeal to scholars across disciplines with interests in political sociology, comparative politics, social and political theory, and questions of citizenship, national identity, and belonging.

Autonomy, Refusal, and The Black Bloc reinterprets the positioning of critical and radical theory by focusing squarely on the role of class analysis. It also argues that the survivance of The Frankfurt School style of critique is wholly dependent upon the traditions of radical theory that find their same departure point from out of "the great refusals" of the 1960s and 1970s. By linking together the traditions of critical and radical theory through the work of Marcuse and Negri and by demonstrating their conjunctural and historiographical connections, Carley argues that the inventive strategic and organizational contexts that give rise to the black bloc tactic constitute a new political expression of class and, more forcefully, constitute the meaning of class politics for the late 20th and 21st century.

This book discusses the role of selective identities in shaping China's position in regional and global affairs. It does so by using the concept of the political transition of power, and argues that by taking on different types of identities-of state, ideology and culture-the Chinese government has adjusted China's identity to different kinds of audiences. By adopting different kinds of "self", China has secured its relatively peaceful transition within the existing system and, in the meantime, strengthened its capacity to place its principles within that system. To its immediate neighbors, China presents itself as a state that needs clearcut borders. In relation to the developing world (Global South), the PRC narrates "self" as an ideology with the banner of materialism, equality and justice. To its third "audience", the developed world (mainly Europe), China presents itself as a peaceful, innocent cultural construct based primarily on Confucius' passive approach. By bringing these three identities into "one Chinese body" ( , sanwei yiti), China's policymakers skillfully maneuver and build the country's position in the arena of global affairs.

This book examines and explains the Center-Left's political decline since 2008, whilst analyzing the factors that account for its sagging electoral and popular support, losing voters both to the Far-Left, the Far-Right, and abstentions. Focusing on the era since the 2008 financial crisis in particular, while also charting the historical genealogy that led to the current impasse, the book examines how, when and why the collapse of Europe's Center-Left occurred. Moving beyond existing and slightly dated accounts, the contributors explore why Social Democrats lack compelling answers to pressing current policy challenges. Faced with a decline in its core clientele, namely blue-collar workers, the Center-Left is being outflanked and risks permanently jeopardizing its erstwhile status as representing a catch-all party. Exploring one of the more pressing and timely political puzzles of the contemporary political scene in Europe, the book identifies six factors that have driven the decline of the Left and examines them systematically across eight countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark. This book will be of particular interest to both scholars and students of social democracy, political parties, and the politics of the Left and more broadly to those interested in European and comparative politics, governance, and contemporary history.

This book examines and explains the Center-Left's political decline since 2008, whilst analyzing the factors that account for its sagging electoral and popular support, losing voters both to the Far-Left, the Far-Right, and abstentions. Focusing on the era since the 2008 financial crisis in particular, while also charting the historical genealogy that led to the current impasse, the book examines how, when and why the collapse of Europe's Center-Left occurred. Moving beyond existing and slightly dated accounts, the contributors explore why Social Democrats lack compelling answers to pressing current policy challenges. Faced with a decline in its core clientele, namely blue-collar workers, the Center-Left is being outflanked and risks permanently jeopardizing its erstwhile status as representing a catch-all party. Exploring one of the more pressing and timely political puzzles of the contemporary political scene in Europe, the book identifies six factors that have driven the decline of the Left and examines them systematically across eight countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark. This book will be of particular interest to both scholars and students of social democracy, political parties, and the politics of the Left and more broadly to those interested in European and comparative politics, governance, and contemporary history.

Al-Qaida and Islamic State continue to captivate the world with their extreme violence. While much attention has been given to the operations and doctrines of jihadi groups, this is the first book to explore their culture. Using a wealth of primary sources, the authors examine what goes on inside these organizations and what daily life is like for the foot-soldiers. They show that Islamist militants have a rich aesthetic culture and do much more than fight and train. Life in a jihadi group is in fact filled with poetry and music, and fighters spend time on surprising things like dream interpretation and weeping. Readers will discover an entirely new perspective on radical Islamists: that despite their reputation as macho men, they value humility, artistic sensitivity, and displays of emotion. Cultural practices are essential for understanding the jihadi worldview and may shed important new light on decision-making and recruitment processes in extremist groups. This original book will interest anyone in academia, government, or the general public who is intrigued by the appeal and resilience of the jihadi movement.

This book explores the uses and limits of Max Weber's work for thinking sociologically about capitalism today. The books argues that through Weber, a network of concepts can be developed that can frame a sociological analysis of the present.

Banks failed, credit contracted, inequality grew, and people everywhere were out of work while political paralysis and slavery threatened to rend the nation in two. As financial crises always have, the Panic of 1837 drew forth a plethora of reformers who promised to restore America to greatness. Animated by an ethic of individualism and self-reliance, they became prophets of a new moral order: if only their fellow countrymen would call on each individual's God-given better instincts, the most intractable problems could be resolved. Inspired by this reformist fervor, Americans took to strict dieting, water cures, phrenology readings, mesmerism, utopian communities, free love, mutual banking, and a host of other elaborate self-improvement schemes. Vocal activists were certain that solutions to the country's ills started with the reformation of individuals, and through them communities, and through communities the nation. This set of assumptions ignored the hard political and economic realities at the core of the country's malaise, however, and did nothing to prevent another financial panic twenty years later, followed by secession and civil war. Focusing on seven individuals-George Ripley, Horace Greeley, William B. Greene, Orson Squire Fowler, Mary Gove Nichols, Henry David Thoreau, and John Brown-Philip Gura explores their efforts, from the comical to the homicidal, to beat a new path to prosperity. A narrative of people and ideas, Man's Better Angels captures an intellectual moment in American history that has been overshadowed by the Civil War and the pragmatism that arose in its wake.

In today's Turkey under the Justice and Development administration, it seems that religion becomes or is imposed as an important element of the Turkish national identity. The education system works as the channel for promoting this change. Thus, the case of Turkey is that of a nation-state that has been under construction since it emerged from a successful war of independence, and any analysis of policies needs to pay careful attention to the dominant state ideology. Set against the general historical background, this analysis examines and interprets the educational policies and decision-making in this area in relation to political ideologies. In fact, it is the series of Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - AKP) governments which, since the party's first election victory in 2002, have implemented several reforms so as to change educational thinking in Turkey. Within this framework and especially after 2002, Islam, and most specifically the Turkish political Islam, plays an important and defining role in Turkish society. It is an agenda, consisting of market-oriented education, that includes transforming and privatising the public education system, developing policies on religious education in line with emerging notions of political Islam, promoting the growth of Islamic educational curricula, whether in Imam-Hatip schools or in higher education, and generally putting more emphasis upon Islam as an important constituent of the Turkish national identity. This book provides both historical context and state policy information in order to meet researchers' and lecturers' needs and expectation to learn about the characteristics of different policies used by Turkish governments in education. It enables civil society groups, researchers, university students and academics to identify problems and opportunities that the Turkish Government has been dealing with. Hence, it can be used both by researchers and policy makers as well as educators.

While the Chinese urban movement has successfully transferred surplus labor from the countryside to urban industries that urgently require free and cheap labor, numerous problems have arisen as a result of the unprecedented huge-scale process. Such conditions such as overcrowding, substandard housing, lack of social services, corruption, and abuse of power have often reached crisis stage. American college students often ask: How does the government control the largest urban population in the world? Why do newly developed, highly commercialized cities continue to support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rather than challenging the old regime? What happens when urban residents have problems with a party-controlled government? This book, collects essays from the best scholars in their fields and examines urban issues, including identifying residents' concerns, analyzing policy problems, and providing some answers to these pivotal questions. They address this important topic from a Chinese-American perspective through a cooperative interdisciplinary research effort among Chinese-American scholars interested in the subject. Their scholarship makes a significant contribution through multi-faceted components from different fields such as economics, political science, criminal justice, law, anthropology, sociology, and education. The authors introduce and explore the theory and practice of policy patterns, political systems, and social institutions by identifying key issues in Chinese government and society contained within the larger framework of the international sphere. Originally from Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Tianjin, and other cities in China, these authors have received training and advanced degrees from American universities and colleges, thus bringing uncommon perspective and conclusions by focusing on urban studies specific to China. Their endeavors move beyond the existing scholarship and seek to spark new debates and proposed solutions while reflecting on established schools of history, religion, linguistics, and gender studies. Crucial to this volume is the assessment of historical and empirical data found in these essays that place major events in the context of Chinese tradition, its culture, and national security. Using comprehensive coverage to create a broad and solid foundation of knowledge, this collection presents a better understanding of the current Chinese metropolitan climate and includes legitimate issues with city policy implementation.

This book focuses on the Boko Haram insurgence in Nigeria, and provides information on the origin and growth of the sect, antecedent and historical factors behind the insurgence, assessing a variety of socio-political drivers. The structure, organization and ideology of the sect are analysed, paying attention to internal splits within the group, as well as external relations with the Nigerian state, and global jihadism. The diverse and wide ranging issues covered in the book makes it valuable for academic researchers, students and policy practitioners both within Africa and beyond.

In recent years, political theorists have increasingly focused on the question of legitimacy rather than on justice. The question of legitimacy asks: even if legal coercion falls short of being perfectly just, what nonetheless makes it morally legitimate? Yet legitimacy remains poorly understood. According to the regnant theory of justificatory liberalism, legitimate legal coercion is based on reasons all reasonable persons can accept and is conceived in terms of a hypothetical procedure. Philip Shadd argues that this view would effectively de-legitimize all laws given its requirement of unanimity; it wrongly suggests that basic rights are outcomes of political procedures rather than checks on such procedures; and it is paternalistic as it substitutes hypothetical persons for actual persons. Where should theorists turn? Shadd's perhaps surprising proposal is that they turn to neo-Calvinism. Founded by the Dutch politician, theologian, and social theorist, Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), neo-Calvinism is a specific variant of Reformed social thought unique for its emphasis on institutional pluralism. It has long theorized themes such as church-state separation, religious diversity, and both individual and institutional liberty. Out of this tradition Shadd reconstructs an alternative framework for legitimacy. The central neo-Calvinist insight is this: legitimacy is a function of preventing basic wrongs. The book develops this insight in terms of three ideas. First, the wrongs that legitimate regimes must prevent are violations of objective natural rights. Second, these rights and wrongs presuppose some or another view of basic human flourishing. Third, Shadd suggests we understand these rights and wrongs as being exogenous. That is, they are not social constructions, but arise outside of human societies even while applying to them. While based in a religious tradition of thought, religious intolerance is no part of this neo-Calvinist theory of legitimacy and, in fact, runs contrary to neo-Calvinism's distinctive institutional pluralism. But only by theorizing legitimacy along the lines Shadd suggests can we make sense of convictions such as that some legal coercion is legitimate even amidst disagreement and that paternalistic coercion is illegitimate. Neo-Calvinism offers a better framework for understanding legitimacy. This book will be of particular interest to secular theorists focusing on themes of political legitimacy, public reason, justificatory (or political) liberalism, or the work of John Rawls, and to religious theorists focused on theories of church-state separation, institutional pluralism, and religious diversity.

This book studies the unprecedented decision of 23 June 2016, which saw the UK electorate vote to leave the EU, turning David Cameron's referendum gamble into a great miscalculation. It analyzes the renegotiation that preceded the vote, before examining the campaign itself so as to understand why the government's strategy for winning foundered. It then evaluates the implications that this decision has for the country's international relations as well as for its domestic politics. The author's final reflections are on the political philosophy of Brexit, which is founded on a critique of representative democracy. Yet the use of direct democracy to trigger EU withdrawal leaves the supposedly sovereign British people at an impasse. For it is up to the people's representatives to negotiate the terms of Brexit. By engaging with a highly charged political debate in an accessible and non-partisan manner this book will appeal to a broad readership of academics, policy-makers, journalists, and interested citizens.

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba - which translates to 'disaster' or 'catastrophe' - lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight. Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it. The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.

Social Progress and the Authoritarian Challenge to Democracy examines the authoritarian challenge to present-day democracy through a framing of social progress theory and the idea of the social contract. Building on the author's previous work, this book discusses whether social progress is linear and on a continual upward trajectory to human betterment, or if there are peaks and troughs along the way. More importantly, it questions that, if social progress exists, is it compatible with social and environmental sustainability? At the outset the book introduces the concepts of social contract theory and the idea of human social progress, long considered to be settled conditions, now ripe for further examination. Each chapter carefully analyses the contemporary struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, using examples from the USA as a foundation to discuss and compare democracies from around the world encountering the pressures of rising authoritarianism, including anti-immigration, xenophobia and anti-institutionalism. It argues that if the climate crisis is to be urgently addressed as required, the rise in authoritarian thinking, with its focus on maintaining power and the creation of individual wealth, presents a challenge to both our societal foundations and environmental sustainability. Highlighting and analysing topics of critical importance to today's society, this book will have widespread appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students throughout the social sciences including sociology, political science, philosophy, environmental sustainability and development studies.

A prospective future of ecological and economic crises poses a challenge to the utopian imaginary, to conceive a better world, and alternative future. Utopia as Method does not construe utopia as a goal or blueprint, but as a holistic, reflexive method for developing what those possible futures might be. It begins by treating utopia as the quest for grace, through a hermeneutics that recovers the utopian meaning in our culture, explored through colour and music. Moving from the existential to the social, it draws on H. G. Wells's claim that the creation of utopias is the distinctive and proper method of sociology, and on the tentative reappearance of utopia in contemporary social theory. It proposes a constructive method, the Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. This fusion of explicitly normative social theory and analytic critique rehabilitates utopia as an integral part of sociology, and offers a means of collective engagement in shaping a better tomorrow.

This provocative book interrogates the ideology of capitalism as the "default" narrative underpinning various mainstream ideologies in the contemporary world. The book explores the genesis, structure and functioning of this ideological narrative, provides its critical assessment and outlines a possible alternative, beyond the logic of capitalism and toward a truly free and democratic society. The book takes a broad view of the major global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and persuasively argue that, in order to resolve any of the major global problems, from the ongoing ecological crisis to economic and geopolitical issues, we need to confront the capitalist system. To unpack the logic of contemporary capitalist ideology, and the way it structures our inter-personal and political relations, the book gives an analysis of the "end of ideology" narrative and offers a critical assessment of the ideas behind the widely used but fundamentally flawed concept of "Liberal democracy." The book revisits metaphysical foundations behind the ideology of capitalism, exposing their secular-religious dimension, and their immanent oppressiveness. Based on this deconstruction of the metaphysical foundations implicit in (Neo)Liberalism and capitalism, the book offers a way in which alternative metaphysical foundations can be constructed to allow for different socio-political and economic models that would be based on a radical affirmation of freedom and democracy, as well as human responsibility for the natural environment. Beyond Capitalist Dystopia: Reclaiming Freedom and Democracy in the Age of Global Crises will be of great interest to anyone searching for alternatives to the pervasive ideology of capitalism as well as students and researchers active in various fields in the humanities and social sciences.

Translating the Crisis discusses the multiple translation practices that shaped the 15M movement, also known as the indignados ('outraged'), a series of mass demonstrations and occupations of squares that took place across Spain in 2011 and which played a central role in the recent global wave of popular protest. Through a study of the movement's cultural and intellectual impact, as well as some of its main political evolutions (namely Podemos and Barcelona en Comu), Fernandez shows how translation has contributed to the dissemination of ideas and the expansion of political debates, produced new intellectual and political figures, and provided support to political projects. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews, and a large repertoire of sources in various languages, this monograph provides an in-depth study of the role of translation in the renewal of activist language, the development of political platforms, and the creation of new social references, while also presenting a critical perspective on its limitations and shortcomings. Combining first-hand experience of the Spanish reality with a keen transnational awareness, Fernandez offers a nuanced, present-day perspective on the political events taking place in Spain and connects them with wider transformations across the world. This book is invaluable for scholars and researchers in Translation Studies, Spanish Studies, Social Movement Studies, and Politics.

This book aims to capture the complicated development of Korea from monoethnic to multicultural society, challenging the narrative of "ethnonational continuity" in Korea through a discursive institutional approach. At a time when immigration is changing the face of South Korea and an increasingly diverse society becomes empirical fact, this doesn't necessarily mean that multiculturalism has been embraced as a normative, policy-based response to that fact. The approach here diverges from existing academic analyses, which tend to conclude that core institutions defining Korea's immigration and nationality regimes-nd which, crucially, also reflect a basic and hitherto unyielding commitment to racial and ethnic homogeneity-ill remain largely unaffected by increasing diversity. Here, this title underscores the critical importance of "discursive agency" as a necessary corrective to still dominant power and interestbased arguments. In addition, "discursive agents" are found to play a central role in communicating, promoting, and helping to instill the ideas that create a basis for change on the road to remaking Korean society. The Road to Multiculturalism in South Korea will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, immigration and migration studies, race and ethnic studies, as well as comparative politics broadly.

Available in paperback for the first time, and drawing on a wide range of archival sources, Shaping a Global Women's Agenda documents international women's history through the lens of the long-established Western-led international organisations that defined and dominated women's involvement in global politics from the 1925 founding of the Joint Standing Committee of Women's International Organisations up through the UN Decade for Women (1976-85). Documenting specific global campaigns in episodes that span the twentieth century, Garner includes biographical information about lesser known international leaders as she discusses important historic debates regarding feminist goals and strategies among women from the East and West, North and South. This interdisciplinary study addresses questions of interest to historians, political scientists, international relations scholars, sociologists, and feminist scholars and activists whose work promotes women's and human rights.