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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > General
Illegal migrants who evade detection, creators of value in insecure and precarious working conditions and those who refuse the constraints of sexual and biomedical classifications: these are the people who manage to subvert power and to craft unexpected sociabilities and experiences. Escape Routes shows how people can escape control and create social change by becoming imperceptible to the political system of Global North Atlantic societies. "A profound and brilliant examination of the power of exodus to
create radical interventions in perhaps the three most important
and contested fields of society today: life, migration and
precarious labour. It is in these fields that the present and
future of multitude is at stake. "Escape Routes" is a toolbox in
the hands of multitude." "Another world is here So announce the authors in their preface
to a stirring and intellectually inspiring book about the
possibility, the necessity and the potency of escape. Rather than
seeing social transformation in terms of revolt, event and abrupt
shifts, the authors trace escape routes through the ordinary and
through everyday practices. "Escape Routes" is required reading for
anyone who believes in the alternative worlds produced alongside
neoliberal capitalism." "A rich variety of work starts with some version of the
autonomous thesis, that the everyday actions or resistances of
people precede power; they are in fact what constitute and drive
power forward. "Escape Routes" is one of the most original and
interesting efforts to build a fuller understanding of the
contemporary world, by focussing on processes and mapping out some
of the history of modern power and resistance." "This is one of the most original treatments of some of the big
questions we confront today. Even familiar subjects gain a new kind
of traction as they are repositioned in the authors' sharply
defined lens of control and subversion. This is conceptualisation
at its best - "Escape Routes" allows us to see what might otherwise
be illegible and it continuously executes reversals of standard
interpretations of the present." Dimitris Papadopoulos teaches social theory at Cardiff University, UK. He is co-editor of the journal "Subjectivity" and his work has appeared in various journals including "Boundary 2"; "Culture, Theory & Critique"; "Darkmatter"; and "Ephemera." Niamh Stephenson teaches social science at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her most recent book, "Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change" (2006), was co-authored with Dimitris Papadopoulos. Vassilis Tsianos teaches sociology at the University of Hamburg,
Germany. He is co-editor of "Empire and the Biopolitical Turn"
(2007) and "Turbulent Margins: New Perspectives of Migration in
Europe" (2007).
In this path-breaking study, Wanda Krause presents evidence of civil society emerging and in some dynamic ways in the Arab Gulf. She looks at the key role women play in the United Arab Emirates by analyzing women in government-run organizations, Islamic-oriented associations/Islamist groups, and women's networks. Krause also expands the definition of civil society beyond its 'western' biases. In this endeavor, she incorporates indigenous forms of action and multitude forms of women's agency. This book will benefit all those interested in the relationship between civil society and a wide array of subjects, such as gender, Islamism, human rights, development, feminism, governmentality, security, globalization, and social networks.
This book revolves around three closely related questions. First, how did George W. Bush--a wisecracking cutup, mediocre student, failed oil patch entrepreneur and fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard's "Champagne Unit"--become a War President? Did George W. Bush go too far--invading Iraq, abandoning the Geneva Conventions' safeguards for captured prisoners and conducting surveillance over American citizens without court approval--in wielding his powers as War President? And finally, will George W. Bush receive history's accolade as a great American president for his leadership in the war on terror?
How emerging adults, broadly referring to those aged from 18 to 29 years old, fare in civic engagement, as compared with other adults is the focus of the present work. The work takes civic engagement to comprise prosociality in civil society, sustaining social institutions, and challenging institutions. Delineating a theoretical framework based on voluntaristic theory, the work expects to find differences in civic engagement due to the voluntaristic mechanisms of power realization, utilitarian optimization, normative conformity, and idealistic consistency maintenance in the emerging adult, as compared with the other. Using survey data from 25,878 Chinese adults in Hong Kong, the work illustrates that the emerging adult is higher than is the other in challenging social institutions, notably in terms radicalism and occupying protest. Moreover, the emerging adult is less prosocial in terms in community participation. Meanwhile, the emerging adult is not consistently different from the other in sustaining social institutions. The findings are crucial, given the control various background characteristics, including age, education, marriage, and employment. These findings are therefore useful for illustrating social forces postulated in voluntaristic theory for explaining civic engagement.
Discusses, in social, cultural, and political terms, the Russian immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their impact on Israel over the last three decades.
This groundbreaking book explores the treatment of the millions of refugees and tens of thousands of spies that flooded Germany after World War II. Drawing on newly declassified espionage files, Keith R. Allen uncovers long-hidden interrogation systems that were developed by Germany's western occupiers to protect internal security and gather intelligence about the Soviet Union. He shows how vetting in the name of public order brought foreign intelligence officials into practically every venue, from train stations to corporate boardrooms to private dwellings, in postwar West Germany. At the heart of efforts to extract insights were extensive, personalized efforts by law enforcement and security officials to manipulate desires and emotions involving dearest family members, closest friends, and trusted colleagues. Linking personal narratives of those interrogated to the international context of postwar politics, Allen reveals a compelling world inhabited by spies and refugees. Allen's study illuminates the places, personalities, and practices of refugee interrogation in one of Europe's most successful postwar states. As calls for intense scrutiny of refugees have grown dramatically, Allen illustrates how decisions to shortchange the rights of migrants in periods of heightened ideological and military tension may contribute to long-term threats to personal liberties and the rule of law.
Between 2009 and 2012, the city of Chongqing came into the national, and even international spotlight, as it became the geographical centre of the 'Singing Red, Smashing Black' campaign, and later the political storm that swept China. Chongqing's Red Culture Campaign drew an incredible amount of interest at the time, but speculation and prejudice has since blurred the public understanding of the sensational story that ties the campaign with the rise and fall of a political star, Bo Xilai. This book, therefore, seeks to study the nature of Chongqing's Red Culture Campaign, and the interaction between the political programme and the practices of its participants. Based on fieldwork conducted in Chongqing, it seeks to question whether the Red Culture Campaign was actually a return to Maoist revolutionary mass campaigning whilst examining the relationship between the CCP's political power and the lives of the ordinary people as reflected in the case of the campaign. Ultimately, it highlights that the campaign was not in fact a real Maoist mass movement. Although it followed the pre-existing model of past mass campaigns in China, containing a series of frequent and highly performative operations, Xiao Mei argues that it essentially demonstrated critical features of 'simulation'. By contributing to our understanding of the discrepancies between a designed political programme, and what it actually becomes when implemented on the ground, this book will be of use to students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Politics and Sociology.
The Southeast Europe and Black Sea region presents fertile terrain for examining recent international migration trends. The contributions to this book cover a range of examples, from Ukraine and Moldova in the north, to Greece and Albania in the south. By intersecting the three key concepts of migration, transnationalism and development, they offer new insights based on original empirical research. A wide range of types of migration can be observed in this region: large-scale emigration in many countries, recent mass immigration in the case of Greece, return migration, internal migration, internal and external forced migration, irregular migration, brain drain etc. These migratory phenomena occur within the context of EU migration policies and EU accession for some countries. Yet within this shifting migration landscape of migrant stocks and flows, the fundamental economic geography of different wealth levels and work opportunities is what drives most migration, now as in the past. This book was previously published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.
The increasing importance of civil society and civil society actors in recent decades has ensured that they now feature prominently in the European Union's enlargement strategy with the EU now possessing a series of policies on civil society in line with its perceived importance in the expansion of the Eurozone. Drawing on interviews with civil society organizations and in conjunction with an examination of EU Civil Society Policy and the legal and institutional environment in Turkey, this book questions the impact that these policies have had on Turkish civil society suggesting that it is, at best, limited. Instead this book argues that the EU could not accomplish its expected objectives within the framework of its civil society policy in Turkey due to a universalist understanding that ignores the current domestic structure of Turkish civil society as well as disregarding its political nature and the autonomous character of Turkey's civil society actors. The result is one of the most wide-ranging and in-depth studies on Turkish civil society and European Union, as such it is an important text for students and scholars of EU enlargement and civil society.
The cross Taiwan Strait clash has evolved from a regime challenge revolving around ideological confrontation between Taipei and Beijing into a conflict about Taiwan's nationhood. In Evolving Identity Politics and Cross-Strait Relations, Yana Zuo shows that Taiwan's future is still full of uncertainty and unpredictability. A mutually acceptable solution is not likely without the 'one China' principle as an independent Taiwan fundamentally challenges China's modern national identity. Zuo demonstrates that dialogues between nationalism studies and international relations are urgently needed in explaining much of the identity-related conflict. States are under pressure of finding balance between an ordered state and a harmonious society. National consciousness contributes as a possible starting point to bring the society back to constructivism theorization of identity.
This rich study examines the everyday politics of a rice farming village in central Luzon. Contending that the faction and patron-client relationships emphasized by conventional studies are but one part of Philippine political life, Kerkvliet offers a nuanced and fascinating portrait of political relationships among villagers. The world he portrays is complex and multifaceted: in a period of flux, relations of status and class shift as traditional roles give way to new social identities. The author demonstrates how disputes over land or controversies around wages lie at the heart of political life regardless of whether they manifest themselves in the usual political arenas. Kerkvliet shows how everyday politics illuminates contending beliefs about what is just and who has rights to particular resources. Furthermore, relationships between people in different class and status positions are far less harmonious than they might appear on the surface. Embedded in this contentious interaction are divergent ideas about how resources should be distributed the privileged emphasize values supported by capitalism, while the poor press rights to the satisfaction of basic needs and to human dignity. A comprehensive and masterful classic, Everyday Politics in the Philippines revises our notions of political life in the developing world. Now available again with a new preface, postscript, and updated bibliography, this updated edition will be welcomed by a broad range of social scientists."
"Cosmopolitan Borders" makes the case for processes of bordering being better understood through the lens of cosmopolitanism. Rather than 'world citizenship' an alternative understanding of cosmopolitanism is offered, emerging from a critique of the idea of 'openness', and founded on a different understanding of the relationship between globalization and cosmopolitanism. The core argument is that borders are 'cosmopolitan workshops' where 'cultural encounters of a cosmopolitan kind' take place and where entrepreneurial cosmopolitans advance new forms of sociality in the face of 'global closure'. The book outlines four cosmopolitan dimensions of borders: vernacularization, multiperspectivalism, fixity/unfixity, and connectivity.
In the summer of 2013 the Central Intelligence Agency and the Clinton Presidential Library made an unprecedented declassification of more than 300 documents showing the role of intelligence in supporting American decision-making on Bosnia in the 1990s, and in particular the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which brought an end to the fighting in Bosnia. The following spring, James Madison University hosted a conference in which scholars from all over the world assessed what the documents show about what is needed for the complex process of making peace. Aspects covered included military, political, diplomatic, and religious, among others. Timothy R. Walton's The Role of Intelligence in Ending the War in Bosnia in 1995 offers a collection of papers presented at the conference; several of the authors were participants in the events of the time.
This book is a sociological study of how economic reforms, started in the late 1970s, have affected people's life in China. The book is based upon the author's recent research projects conducted in mainland China. The unique feature of the book is not only based upon qualitative analysis but also quantitative data, the integration of which can enhance readers' understanding of current social and political developments in post-Mao China. In particular, the book aims to depict a context and sociological framework for the analysis of the dynamic and interactive processes between economic, social and political fronts.
This book addresses the instabilities that growing industries face in developing countries, especially Nepal. Also, what happens when industries die out? It questions the rickety ride to industrialization and development - if at all it is avoidable? The author delves deep into its impact on human lives - what happens to those hundreds of thousands of people whose livelihoods are dependent on these industries? How do they inculcate new skillsets to suit changing requirements? What future awaits those who leave the country in search of a better tomorrow? The author challenges the existing perspective that the Maoist movement was essentially a rural, guerrilla warfare. She explains how the Maoist-led labour uprising in Nepal following the death of the garment industry was embedded in a broader political upheaval that was essentially urban in nature and was more about national politics than everyday politics in the margins.
Post-communist transformation in the former Soviet bloc has had a profound effect, not just in the political and economic sphere, but on all aspects of life. Although a great deal has been written about transformation, much of it has been about transformation viewed from the top, and little has been written about how things have changed for ordinary people at the local level. This book, based on extensive original research, examines the changes resulting from transformation at the local level in the form Czechoslovakia. It considers especially local democracy, social movements, and work collectives, and paints a picture of people gradually growing in self-confidence and taking more control of their communities, having lived for decades in a framework where so much was directed from the top.
The first work to provide a comparative look at how newspapers in England, France, Russia, Germany, and Austro-Hungary explained the war World War I highlighted the influence of newspapers in rousing and maintaining public support for the war effort. Discussions of the role of the press in the Great War have, to date, largely focused on atrocity stories. This book offers the first comparative analysis of how newspapers in Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary attempted to define war, its objectives, and the enemy. Presented country-by-country, expert essays examine, through the use of translated articles from the contemporary press, how newspapers of different nations defined the war for their readership and the ideals they used to justify a war and support governments that some segments of the press had opposed just a few months earlier. During the opening months of the war, government attempts to influence public opinion functioned in a largely negative fashion - for example, the censoring of military information and of criticism of government policies. There was little effort to provide a positive message to sway readers. the reasons for their nation's involvement. Partisan politics was a staple of the pre-war press; thus, newspapers could and did define the war in terms that reflected their own political ideals and agenda. Conservative, liberal, and socialist newspapers all largely supported the war (the ones that did not were shut down immediately), but they did so for different reasons and hoped for different outcomes if their side was victorious. Part of the Perspectives on the Twentieth Century series The comparative analysis of newspaper attitudes to World War I in five of the main belligerent powers Includes and analyzes translations of contemporary newspaper articles
An exploration of how political violence is constructed, this book presents the life stories of individuals once committed to political transformation through violent means in Portugal. Challenging simplistic conceptualisations about the actors of violence, this book examines issues of temporality, gender and interpersonal dynamics in the study of political violence. It is the first comprehensive case study of political violence in Portugal, based on the perspectives of former militants. These are individuals from different political spheres who became convinced that they could not be mere spectators of the circumstances of their times. For them, the only viable way of making a difference was through violent acts. Applying the Dialogical Self Theory to trace the identity positions underpinning their narratives, this book not only sheds light on radicalisation and deradicalisation processes at the individual level, but also on the meso- and macro-level contexts that instigate engagement with and encourage disengagement from armed organisations. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of critical terrorism studies, political violence, European history and security studies more generally.
First published in 1999, the world of Christian radicalism in the first half of the nineteenth century is reconstructed here with thorough research by Eileen Groth Lyon. Christian radicals, during this period, sought to incite political action through the use of Scripture, using such themes as the rights of man as founded in God's gift of creation, the deliverance of oppressed peoples, and the perceived favour towards the poor shown in the Gospels. The author tracks the origin and fate of the movement for the first time, from its beginnings in the eighteenth century, through its implementation in the major politic agitations of the early and mid-nineteenth century, to its fruition in the achievements of the campaigns for parliamentary, factory and poor law reform. By focusing on the Christian radical programme, Politicians in the Pulpit advances a new understanding of the most important political initiatives of early Victorian Britain.
This collection of essays by feminist scholar-activists addresses the crucial problem of human security in a world of heavily armed, militarized states. It describes the gendered aspects of human security excluded from the realist militarism that dominates current security policy in most nation states. The book deepens and broadens current security discourses, encouraging serious consideration of alternatives to the present global security system that functions to advantage state security over human security, a system the contributors perceive to be rooted in the patriarchal nature of the nation state. This second edition will be of interest to academics and students of gender studies, women's studies, international studies, development studies, human rights, security studies, peace studies and peace education.
Are ordinary citizens capable of shaping foreign policy? To answer this question, fifteen established and emerging scholars use South Africa as a case study to assess the extent to which democratic consolidation can be translated into the realm of foreign policy. Contributors discuss the South African Development Community as an arena of transnational democracy, the impact of European Union trade policy, and the significance of South Africa's controversial 'arms deals' as they explore the opportunities and constraints facing recently democratized societies in the Southern Hemisphere. Democratizing Foreign Policy? Lessons from South Africa provides a broad-ranging assessment investigating conceptual issues regarding the role of women, think tanks, civil society, labor movements, and the impact of globalization upon the process of foreign policy making of the opportunities and challenges involved in opening the process of foreign policy making to civil society and the need to do so if the developing world is to better manage the complexities of globalization."
Religious liberty is one of the most contentious political issues of our time. How should people of faith engage with the public square in a pluralist era? Some citizens hope to reclaim a more Christian vision of national identity, while others resist any religious presence at all. This dispute is not new, and it goes back to the founding era of American history. As the country was being formed, some envisioned a Christian nation where laws would require worship attendance and Sabbath observance. Others advocated for a thoroughly secular society where faith would have no place in public life. But neither extreme won the day, thanks to the unsung efforts of a Connecticut pastor who forged a middle way. Historian Brandon O'Brien unveils an untold story of how religious liberty came to be. Between the Scylla and Charybdis of theocracy and secularism, Baptist pastor Isaac Backus contended for a third way. He worked to secure religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all Americans, not just for one particular denomination or religious tradition. Backus's ideas give us insight into how people of faith navigate political debates and work for the common good. Backus lived in an age of both religious revival and growing secularism, competing forces much like those at work today. The past speaks into the present as we continue to demand liberty and justice for all.
Real-Time Diplomacy explores the media's role in the process of political change. As a backdrop to the events of 2011, this book examines how diplomacy has evolved as media have gradually reduced the time available to policy makers. It analyzes the workings of real-time diplomacy and the opportunities for media-centered diplomacy programs that bypass governments and directly engage foreign citizens. The book also discusses the ways that lessons from recent electoral campaigns - such as Barack Obama's use of social media in his 2008 presidential race - are applicable to emerging democracies around the world. Also examined are the root causes of the public anger that led to revolution: the social inequities, out-of-touch autocrats, repressive tactics, and other factors that were the tinder set afire by media's sparks.
Drawing on Nelson Mandela's own unfinished memoir, Dare Not Linger is the remarkable story of his presidency told in his own words and those of distinguished South African writer Mandla Langa 'I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.' Long Walk to Freedom. In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa's citizens, black and white, were equal before the law. Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela's presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela's unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account of Mandela's presidency, a country in flux and the creation of a new democracy. It tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcome to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa. |
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