Investigating art practitioners' responses to violence, this book considers how artists have used art practices to rethink concepts of violence and non-violence. It explores the strategies that artists have deployed to expose physical and symbolic violence through representational, performative and interventional means. It examines how intellectual and material contexts have affected art interventions and how visual arts can open up critical spaces to explore violence without reinforcement or recuperation. Its premises are that art is not only able to contest prevailing norms about violence but that contemporary artists are consciously engaging with publics through their practice in order to do so. Contributors respond to three questions: how can political violence be understood or interpreted through art? How are publics understood or identified? How are art interventions designed to shift, challenge or respond to public perceptions of political violence and how are they constrained by them? They discuss violence in the everyday and at state level: the Watts' Rebellion and Occupy, repression in Russia, domination in Hong Kong, the violence of migration and the unfolding art activist logic of the sigma portfolio. Asking how public debates can be shaped through the visual and performing arts and setting taboos about violence to one side, the volume provides an innovative approach to a perennial issue of interest to scholars of international politics, art and cultural studies.

This book draws on the experiences of the indigenous movement in Myanmar to explore how the local construction of indigenous identities connects communities to global mechanisms for addressing human rights and environmental issues. Various communities in Myanmar have increasingly adapted international discourses of indigenous identity as a vehicle to access international legal mechanisms to address their human rights and environmental grievances against the Myanmar state. Such exercise of global discourses overlays historical endemic struggles of diverse peoples involving intersectional issues of self- determination, cultural survival, and control over natural resources. This book draws implications for the intersectionality of local and global theoretical discourses of indigeneity, human rights, and environment. It uses such implications to identify attendant issues for the aspirations of international human rights and environmental efforts and the practice of their associated international legal mechanisms. This book informs readers of the agency and capabilities of communities in underdeveloped countries to engage different global mechanisms to address local grievances against their states. Readers will develop a more critical understanding of the issues posed by the local construction of indigeneity for the ideals and practice of international efforts regarding human rights and the environment. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of indigenous studies, human rights, international law, Asian studies, development studies, and the environment.

This book examines the ways in which Russia and Belarus use disinformation, "weaponised" historical narratives, and the politics of memory for domestic and foreign policy purposes, utilising these factors to justify aggressive foreign policy in defensive terms and, domestically, for legitimating local ruling elites, consolidating the states' propaganda machines, and mobilising both societies around national power centres. Besides analysing Russian and Belarusian disinformation, geopolitical narratives, and policies, the book also assesses the effectiveness of these measures and discusses how the West can counteract the geopolitical narratives disseminated by Russia and Belarus that attempt to undermine Western democracies and weaken the resilience of its societies.

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.

This book examines the visual-sexual turn in social media discourses in the field of online activism with a particular focus on the extraordinary protest years of 2018-2020. Presenting a socially engaged theory of "tit-for-tat media" and including case-studies on activist movements such as the Euro-American alt-right, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and revolutionary artists in China, this study reveals how visual cultures, including gendered or sexualized imagery, are utilized to influence public perception. By presenting in-depth explorations of online ethnography, interviews with activists and studies of the political histories and urban protests-environments, the volume uncovers how local artists, netizens and citizens are using media and digital imagery in contemporary activism. Covering a broad spectrum of social media content, from hyper-cute manga and cartoons to satirical pornography and sexualized hate-speech, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of media and communication studies, political communication, sexuality and gender studies.

This book examines the visual-sexual turn in social media discourses in the field of online activism with a particular focus on the extraordinary protest years of 2018-2020. Presenting a socially engaged theory of "tit-for-tat media" and including case-studies on activist movements such as the Euro-American alt-right, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and revolutionary artists in China, this study reveals how visual cultures, including gendered or sexualized imagery, are utilized to influence public perception. By presenting in-depth explorations of online ethnography, interviews with activists and studies of the political histories and urban protests-environments, the volume uncovers how local artists, netizens and citizens are using media and digital imagery in contemporary activism. Covering a broad spectrum of social media content, from hyper-cute manga and cartoons to satirical pornography and sexualized hate-speech, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of media and communication studies, political communication, sexuality and gender studies.

If you reckon corruption in South Africa began with Zuma or even with apartheid, it’s time to catch a wake-up call. Rogues’ Gallery tells the story of some of the biggest skelms to grace our (un)fair shores, showing that dodgy dealings have been a national pastime for as long as South African history has been written down.

The action starts with the machinations of three colonial governors: rotten Willem Adriaan van der Stel and the ‘twaddling’ British duo, Sir George Yonge and Lord Charles Somerset. Added to this is Cecil John Rhodes’s unparalleled success in poisoning the land with theft, fraud and war, and Oom Paul Kruger’s corrupt and compromised Volksraads (official and unofficial). Readers are then treated to apartheid’s finest feats in corruption: from the Broederbond’s perfect ten in state capture to the Department of Information’s peddling of fake news and the apartheid state’s manufacture of – no, not illegal cigarettes – Class A drugs! And let’s not forget the hotbed of corruption that was the ‘independent’ homelands. Add to this a few murders, plenty of nepotism and a state president who started out as a Nazi spy, and the gallery of rogues is complete. On the flipside, every chapter also features at least one brave whistle-blower – the true heroes of this book.

Irreverent, entertaining and impeccably researched, Rogues’ Gallery busts the myth that the Zuptas were the first to capture the South African state, showing that corruption has always been around – and that the tricks politicians play haven’t changed a jot.

Scrutinizing a relatively new field of study, the Handbook of Political Party Funding assesses the basic assumptions underlying the research, presenting an unequalled variety of case studies from diverse political finance systems. With contributions from both eminent international scholars and prominent representatives of the second generation of students in the field, this original and thought-provoking collection of current research updates our understanding of party funding regimes, while contributing to the re-examination of perennial and often problematic issues. It illustrates, using select empirical data, the range of alternative political finance structures, exposing both the limits of these regimes and their effects on parties, systems and on democratic competition. Offering diverse and detailed case studies, the chapters examine the stakes involved nationally, and the impact of financing on the political environment. At the same time, they present a picture of a field of study that is still establishing itself, offering direction for future research. Students and academics of political science, public law and comparative politics will find this an essential reference for studying party funding and its wider influence. Members of political institutions and those fighting political corruption will find this an incredibly useful Handbook for understanding the positives and negatives of party funding globally. Contributors include: M. Blumenberg, R. Boatright, L. Brenez, S.-H. Chang, B.A. Dworkin, N. Evertsson, J. Fischer, A. Francois, A. Gupta, F. Jimenez, M.A. Lopez Varas, E. Martins Paz, D. May, I. Mendez De Hoyos, J. Mendilow, A. Meyer, K.-H. Nassmacher, H. Onken, G. Orr, M. Pelletier, E. Phelippeau, D.R. Piccio, M. Pinto-Duschinsky, V.C. Reyes Jr., G. Sandri, S.E. Scarrow, V. Shale, V. Simral, J. Smulders, H. Soo Sim, S.U. Umoh, I. Van Biezen, M. Villoria, F.C. Von Nostitz, W. Wolfs

This ground breaking book discusses whether human rights can be forged into a common set of transcendent principles against which actions of every nation can be judged and whether such a common understanding, or civil religion, could one day become a vehicle for global peace. Eminent international scholars from political science, international relations, human rights and civil religion argue both sides of this debate. In the first section the theoretical issues relating to why human rights have come about and whether they should be fought for are discussed. Part two focuses on the reality of actions brought about by human rights ideas with illuminating case studies showing that human rights ideas and practice are generated from both the bottom up and top down by individual actors and institutions. The unique book will be of great interest to scholars in the field of history, human rights, international relations and political science in general.

Civil society is frequently conceived as a field of multiple organizations, committed to highly diverse causes and interests. When studied empirically, however, its properties are often reduced to the sum of the traits and attitudes of the individuals or groups that are populating it. This book shows how to move from an 'aggregative' to a relational view of civil society. Drawing upon field work on citizens' organizations in two British cities, this book combines network analysis and social movement theories to show how to represent civil society as a system of relations between multiple actors. 'Modes of coordination' enables us to identify different logics of collective action within the same local settings. The book exposes the weakness of rigid dichotomies, separating the voluntary sector from social movements, 'civic' activism oriented to service delivery from 'un-civic' protest, grassroots activism external to institutions from formal, professionalized organizations integrated within the 'system'.

Usage of the political keyword 'propaganda' by the Chinese Communist Party has changed and expanded over time. These changes have been masked by strong continuities spanning periods in the history of the People's Republic of China from the Mao Zedong era (1949-76) to the new era of Xi Jinping (2012-present). Redefining Propaganda in Modern China builds on the work of earlier scholars to revisit the central issue of how propaganda has been understood within the Communist Party system. What did propaganda mean across successive eras? What were its institutions and functions? What were its main techniques and themes? What can we learn about popular consciousness as a result? In answering these questions, the contributors to this volume draw on a range of historical, cultural studies, propa ganda studies and comparative politics approaches. Their work captures the sweep of propaganda - its appearance in everyday life, as well as during extraordinary moments of mobilization (and demobilization), and its systematic continuities and discontinuities from the perspective of policy-makers, bureaucratic function aries and artists. More localized and granular case studies are balanced against deep readings and cross-cutting interpretive essays, which place the history of the People's Republic of China within broader temporal and comparative frames. Addressing a vital aspect of Chinese Communist Party authority, this book is meant to provide a timely and comprehensive update on what propaganda has meant ideologically, operationally, aesthetically and in terms of social experience.

An international collection of essays by leading academics, artists, writers, and curators examining ways in which the global tragedies of our century are being negotiated in current theatre practice Includes discussion on how dramaturgy and performance today have tackled specific forms of crisis that seem inherent to the 21st century Includes essays, provocations, interviews, original works, and diaries by theatre artists

An international collection of essays by leading academics, artists, writers, and curators examining ways in which the global tragedies of our century are being negotiated in current theatre practice Includes discussion on how dramaturgy and performance today have tackled specific forms of crisis that seem inherent to the 21st century Includes essays, provocations, interviews, original works, and diaries by theatre artists

This book examines selected high-profile U.S. First Amendment cases occurring during the Trump era as a vehicle for exploring a possible fundamental commonality in understanding the democratic rule of law globally. In each of these cases, the adjudicating body's analytical legal strategy is discussed in terms of how it reinforces or detracts from the democratic rule of law. It was and continues to be highly internationally anticipated as to what legal examples are being set by this established democracy when confronted by legal contests between the former Trump administration and those alleging their rights were somehow violated by the executive of that time. Thus, the book is instructive for an international audience on the essential role of the courts in protecting democracy through providing, where supported by the law and the facts, a remedy for the aggrieved comparatively powerless. The book will be essential reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of constitutional law, politics and human rights.

"A fascinating, if disturbing, window onto the origins of racism." -Publishers Weekly "The eighteenth-century essays published for the first time in Who's Black and Why? contain a world of ideas-theories, inventions, and fantasies-about what blackness is, and what it means. To read them is to witness European intellectuals, in the age of the Atlantic slave trade, struggling, one after another, to justify atrocity." -Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States The first translation and publication of sixteen submissions to the notorious eighteenth-century Bordeaux essay contest on the cause of black skin-an indispensable chronicle of the rise of scientifically based, anti-Black racism. In 1739 Bordeaux's Royal Academy of Sciences announced a contest for the best essay on the sources of "blackness." What is the physical cause of blackness and African hair, and what is the cause of Black degeneration, the contest announcement asked. Sixteen essays, written in French and Latin, were ultimately dispatched from all over Europe. The authors ranged from naturalists to physicians, theologians to amateur savants. Documented on each page are European ideas about who is Black and why. Looming behind these essays is the fact that some four million Africans had been kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic by the time the contest was announced. The essays themselves represent a broad range of opinions. Some affirm that Africans had fallen from God's grace; others that blackness had resulted from a brutal climate; still others emphasized the anatomical specificity of Africans. All the submissions nonetheless circulate around a common theme: the search for a scientific understanding of the new concept of race. More important, they provide an indispensable record of the Enlightenment-era thinking that normalized the sale and enslavement of Black human beings. These never previously published documents survived the centuries tucked away in Bordeaux's municipal library. Translated into English and accompanied by a detailed introduction and headnotes written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Andrew Curran, each essay included in this volume lays bare the origins of anti-Black racism and colorism in the West.

Gender and Human Rights in a Global, Mobile Era delves into feminist debates surrounding the relationship between gender and human rights through engaging feminist perspectives on the multifaceted issue of human trafficking. Building on analyses of domestic servitude, commercial sex, and labor trafficking by military contractors, and grounded in intersectional feminist cosmopolitanism and feminist theorizing on vulnerability, precarity, and ethical interdependence, Laura Hebert makes several interrelated contributions. As she explores how a feminist gender analysis illuminates the structures and norms enabling trafficking, Hebert simultaneously considers the future of feminist rights advocacy. Emphasizing the sociality of human rights, she encourages feminist scholars and activists to look beyond states as the duty-bearers of human rights and the assumption that human rights are made meaningful mainly through the establishment of legal rights at the national level. She challenges the idea that "feminism" can be reduced to advocacy on behalf of women's rights. She also encourages critical reflection on how divisions associated with feminist politics have impeded opportunities for the building of feminist solidarities across differences aimed at the realization of the human rights of all. Strongly interdisciplinary, Gender and Human Rights in a Global, Mobile Era will be of interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

This book provides a comparative analysis and a systemic categorization of the Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe. Institutional and socio-economic aspects have transformed the political culture of many modern democracies, leading to the creation of radical left-wing parties who, by combining a strongly populist political offer with the historical demands of the traditional left wing, are capable of electoral success. This book analyzes a range of different Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe through in-depth case studies. The author uses statutes, internal documents, programs, election results, membership data, and international political literature combined with interviews with executives and national secretaries to describe and interpret the main features of PRLPs, their paths of formation and political transformation. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of political science and political sociology, media studies and anyone interested in trying to better understand European populism and the distinctions among its different forms.

This book examines the societal dynamics of memory politics in Russia. Since Vladimir Putin became president, the Russian central government has increasingly actively employed cultural memory to claim political legitimacy and discredit all forms of political opposition. The rhetorical use of the past has become a defining characteristic of Russian politics, creating a historical foundation for the regime's emphasis on a strong state and centralised leadership. Exploring memory politics, this book analyses a wide range of actors, from the central government and the Russian Orthodox Church, to filmmaker and cultural heavyweight Nikita Mikhalkov and radical thinkers such as Aleksandr Dugin. In addition, in view of the steady decline in media freedom since 2000, it critically examines the role of cinema and television in shaping and spreading these narratives. Thus, this book aims to gain a better understanding of the various means through which the Russian government practices its memory politics (e.g., the role of state media) and, on the other hand, to sufficiently value the existence of alternative and critical voices and criticism that existing studies tend to overlook. Contributing to current debates in the field of memory studies and of current affairs in Russia and Eastern Europe, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of Russian Studies, Cultural Memory Studies, Nationalism and National Identity, Political Communication, Film, Television and Media Studies.

'A scrupulous piece of reporting, necessary, timely and very sobering' John Le Carré

A Sunday Times Best Book of 2018

Agent. Prisoner. Target.
Who is Sergei Skripal?

4 March 2018, Salisbury, England. A man and his daughter are found slumped on a bench, poisoned by the deadly nerve agent Novichok. He was a Russian national that became a MI6 spy.

Russia are publicly accused of carrying out the attack by the British government, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West.

Then two innocent people find a discarded perfume bottle used in the attack and one of them, Dawn Sturgess, tragically dies. It is now a murder investigation. How exactly did we get here?

In The Skripal Files Mark Urban explains the most shocking espionage incident in a decade. Based on interviews with Sergei before his poisoning, Urban describes precisely how an otherwise loyal Russian intelligence officer was turned into an agent by MI6, how Skripal was betrayed so that he found himself in a Siberian prison, and why, years later, was he was targeted for assassination.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003046653, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This book unveils the significant impact of the European integration process on the political thinking of European citizens. With close attention to the interrelation between social and political divisions, it shows that an integrated Europe promotes consensus but also propagates growing dissent among its citizens, with both objective inequalities and the subjective perception of these inequalities fuelling political dissent. Based on original data sets developed from two EU-funded projects across eight and nine European countries, the volume demonstrates the important role played by the social structure of European social space in conditioning political attitudes and preferences. It shows, in particular, that Europeans are highly sensitive to unequal living conditions between European countries, thus affecting their political support of national politics and the European Union. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in Europe and the European Union, European integration and political sociology.

This book examines whether a global consensus is emerging on climate change and human mobility and presents evidence of a slow-moving but dynamic, step-by-step process of international policy development on climate-related mobility. Naser reviews the range of solutions offered to address climate-related mobility problems, such as extending the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, adopting an additional protocol to the UNFCCC or creating a new international treaty to support those facing climate-related migration and displacement problems. He examines the accumulating stock of international policies and initiatives relevant to climate-related mobility using a framework of six policy areas: human rights, refugees, climate change, disaster risk reduction, migration,and sustainable development. He uses this framework to define and summarise the main UN actions and milestones on climate-related mobility. Despite the difficult context affecting the global community of worsening climate change impacts and human rights under threat, Naser asserts that the foundations of global consensus on climate-related mobility have been built, particularly in the last decade. This book will be of great relevance to students, scholars and policy-makers with an interest in the increasing interface between climate change and human mobility policy issues.

You are being lied to by people who don't even exist. Digital deception is the new face of information warfare. Social media has been weaponised by states and commercial entities alike, as bots and trolls proliferate and users are left to navigate an infodemic of fake news and disinformation. In the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East, where authoritarian regimes continue to innovate and adapt in the face of changing technology, online deception has reached new levels of audacity. From pro-Saudi entities that manipulate the tweets of the US president, to the activities of fake journalists and Western PR companies that whitewash human rights abuses, Marc Owen Jones' meticulous investigative research uncovers the full gamut of tactics used by Gulf regimes and their allies to deceive domestic and international audiences. In an age of global deception, this book charts the lengths bad actors will go to when seeking to impose their ideology and views on citizens around the world.

In many countries, particularly in the Global North, established forms of solidarity within communities are said to be challenged by the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of the population. Against the backdrop of renewed geopolitical tensions - which inflate and exploit ethno-cultural, rather than political-economic cleavages - concerns are raised that ethnic and cultural diversity challenge both the formal mechanisms of redistribution and informal acts of charity, reciprocity and support which underpin common notions of community. This book focuses on the innovative forms of solidarity that develop around the joint appropriation and the envisaged common future of specific places. Drawing on examples from schools, streets, community centres, workplaces, churches, housing projects and sporting projects, it provides an alternative research agenda from the 'loss of community' narrative. It reflects on the different spatiotemporal frames in which solidarities are nurtured, the connections forged between solidarity and citizenship, and the role of interventions by professionals to nurture solidarity in diversity. This timely and original work will be essential reading for those working in human geography, sociology, ethnic studies, social work, urban studies, political studies and cultural studies.

1) For academic researchers, human rights practitioners, musicians and all artists 2) Addresses a valiant and highly relevant and timely need: to fostering a culture of humanism in support of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related goals set forth by the UN 3) Promotes global conversations about the role of the arts to empower citizenry and enhance human rights awareness. 4) Inspires new trajectories in interdisciplinary research, most notably linking music with studies in health, environment, gender and forced displacement. 5) Facilitated by a wide range of experts from the human rights sector-academics, human rights defenders, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and individual practitioners-and from a variety of musical fields, both academic and performing

most comprehensive, monograph on the subject not yet another report on human rights violations, but an in-depth analysis of their structure, complexity and background of interest to experts in: human rights in general, South Asia, political science, international relations, peace and conflict studies providing comprehensive knowledge on recent dynamics (after India bifurcated its chunk into two Union Territories) of human rights violations in all parts of Kashmir