While skepticism about the role of moral considerations in international politics has been influential within the discipline of international relations (IR), those writing on topics such as war, peace, rights and trade up until the twentieth century took seriously the importance of ethical values and moral debates. The 1990s and 2000s have seen a substantial growth of attention to the ways in which IR conceives and analyzes themes of an ethical nature, and how issues, problems and policies involving ethics are addressed by a variety of actors within the international system. This indispensable research companion widens the perspective from 'ethics and international relations' to 'ethics in international relations', redressing the (mis)perception that ethical concepts, principles, norms and rules are not in part constitutive of the international system and the agents acting within that system. Necessarily cross-disciplinary, expertise is drawn from IR and also philosophy, political theory, religious studies, history and law, making this an ideal volume for any library reference collection.

The global crisis of our time involves a complex of ecological, economic, technological and migratory challenges that no state is able to control. The result is a provincialisation of our democracies with respect to the new planetary powers confronting humanity. It is from this that our increasingly impotent and rabid politics stems. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is precisely the decline of the nation-state that is the source of the great nationalist uprising of our time. We need a new planetary vision that is able to reclaim and liberate our world, starting today and engaging each of us. This is the task of philosophy as much as it is of politics, of theory as it is of activism. Connecting with a new generation taking to the streets across the globe, this book tells the story of the ever-closer union of our world, from the age of empire to the climate crisis, and presents a plea and a roadmap to step beyond the mental and material boundaries of our nations.

China's growth as a major international superpower means that it is now more important than ever to understand how its politics work. Rejecting familiar discussions of China cast in terms of traditional culture, contemporary economic power or shifting official ideologies, this forward thinking work instead analyses the historically contingent mix of agents, ideas and institutions that make up the country's political life. This approach allows Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk and Peter W. Preston to pragmatically unpack the logic of contemporary politics in China. They trace the construction of the party-state system, note some of its major re-orientations and consider its present condition. The book also covers a range of hot policy topics including: internet sovereignty; the One Belt, One Road initiative; the South China Sea issue and the problems of the elderly empty nesters and left-behind children. Offering a detailed yet concise treatment of key social policy areas and other complex issues, this book will serve a broad audience of students, researchers and professionals, irrespective of discipline, along with all those with an interest in China or Chinese politics.

As the US becomes a second-place nation, can it shed the superpower nostalgia that still haunts the UK? The debate over the US's fading hegemony has raged and sputtered for 50 years, glutting the market with prophecies about American decline. Media experts ask how fast we will fall and how much we will lose, but generally ignore the fundamental question: What does decline mean? What is the significance, in experiential and everyday terms, in feelings and fantasies, of living in a country past its prime? Drawing on the example of post-WWII Britain and looking ahead at 2020s America, Jed Esty suggests that becoming a second-place nation is neither disastrous, as alarmists claim, nor avoidable, as optimists insist. Contemporary declinism often masks white nostalgia and perpetuates a conservative longing for Cold War certainty. But the narcissistic lure of "lost greatness" appeals across the political spectrum. As Esty argues, it resonates so widely in mainstream media because Americans have lost access to a language of national purpose beyond global supremacy. It is time to shelve the shopworn fables of endless US dominance, to face the multipolar world of the future, and to tell new American stories. The Future of Decline is a guide to finding them.

This set of 44 volumes, originally published between 1924 and 1995, amalgamates a wide breadth of research on the Labour Movement, including labour union history, the early stages and development of the Labour Party, and studies on the working classes. This collection of books from some of the leading scholars in the field provides a comprehensive overview of the subject how it has evolved over time, and will be of particular interest to students of political history.

When the networks called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7, 2020, people from coast to coast exhaled--and danced in the streets. This quick-turnaround volume, a collection of 38 personal essays from writers all over the country--"many of America's most thoughtful voices," as Jon Meacham puts it--captures the week Trump was voted out, a unique juncture in American life, and helps point toward a way forward to a nation less divided. An eclectic lineup of contributors--from Rosanna Arquette, Susan Bro and General Wesley Clark to Keith Olbermann, Stewart O'Nan and Anthony Scaramucci--puts a year of transition into perspective, and summons the anxieties and hopes so many have for better times ahead. As award-winning columnist Mary C. Curtis writes in the lead essay, "Saying you're not interested in politics is dangerous because, like it or not, politics is interested in you." Novelist Christopher Buckley, a former speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, laments, "The Republican Senate, with one exception, has become a stay of ovine, lickspittle quislings, degenerate descendants of such giants as Everett Dirksen, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker and John McCain." Nero Award-winning mystery novelist Stephen Mack Jones writes, to Donald Trump, "Remember: You live in my house. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is my house. My ancestors built it at a cost of blood, soul and labor. I pay my taxes every year to feed you, clothe you and your family and staff and fly you around the country and the world in my tricked-out private jet. If you violate any aspect of your four-year lease--any aspect--Lord Jesus so help me, I will do everything in my power to kick yo narrow ass to the curb." As Publisher Steve Kettmann writes in the Introduction: "The hope is that in putting out these glimpses so quickly, giving them an immediacy unusual in book publishing, we can help in the mourning for all that has been lost, help in the healing (of ourselves and of our country), and help in the pained effort, like moving limbs that have gone numb from inactivity, to give new life to our democracy. We stared into the abyss, tottered on the edge, and a record-setting surge of voting and activism delivered us from the very real threat of plunging into autocracy."

Calls for an imaginative surge to fix our battered societies, fusing bold ideas and practical experiment. As the world confronts the fast catastrophe of Covid and the slow calamity of climate change, we also face a third, less visible emergency: a crisis of imagination. We can easily picture ecological disaster or futures dominated by technology. But we struggle to imagine a world in which people thrive and where we improve our democracy, welfare, neighbourhoods or education. Many are resigned to fatalism-yet they desperately want transformational social change. This book argues that, although the threats are real, we can use creative imagination to achieve a better future: visualising where we want to go and how to get there. Political and social thinker Geoff Mulgan offers lessons we can learn from the past, and methods we can use now to open up thinking about the future and spark action. Drawing on social sciences, the arts, philosophy and history, Mulgan shows how we can recharge our collective imagination. From Socrates to Star Wars, he provides a roadmap for the future.

Over the course of the last four decades as China's ideological realm has been transformed, it has become significantly more complicated. This is well illustrated in the current discourse concerning China's constitutional future. Among Chinese intellectuals the liberal constitutionalism paradigm is widely accepted. However, more recently, this perspective has been challenged by mainland New Confucians and Sinicized Marxists alike. The former advocate a constitutionalism that is based upon and loyal to the Confucian tradition; while the latter has sought to theorize the current Chinese constitutional order and reclaim its legitimacy. This book presents a discussion of these three approaches, analyzing their respective strengths and weaknesses, and looking to the likely outcome. The study provides a clear picture of the current ideological debates in China, while developing a platform for the three schools and their respective constituencies to engage in dialogue, pluralize the conceptions of constitutionalism in academia, and shed light on the political path of China in the 21st Century. The consequences of this Chinese contribution to the global constitutionalism debate are significant. Notions of the meaning of democratic organization, of the nature of the division of authority between administrative and political organs, of the nature and role of political citizenship, of the construction of rights are all implicated. It is argued that China's constitutional system, when fully theorized and embedded within the global discourse might serve, as the German Basic Law did in its time, as a model for states seeking an alternative approach to the legitimate construction of state, political structures and institutions.

Popolo applies Foucauldian methodology to the understanding of Complexity Science for the purposes of generating new understandings related to International Relations in general and to the Kosovo conflict in particular. He provides an epistemic analysis to the history of International Relations theory to reveal its intrinsic 'modernity', highlighting how such modernity derives from a particular understanding of scientific epistemology, which is being radically undermined by the emergence of Complexity Science. Importantly, the book shows how these theoretical issues affect specific understandings of crisis - in this case Kosovo - leading to specific policy decisions in the real world of international policy-making.

Far from being the preserve of a few elite thinkers, critique increasingly dominates public life in modernity, leading to a cacophony of accusation and denunciation around all political issues. The technique of unmasking 'power' or 'hegemony' or 'ideology' has now been adopted across the political spectrum, where critical discourses are routinely used to suggest that anything and everything is only a 'construct' or even a 'conspiracy'. This book draws on anthropological theory to provide a different perspective on this phenomenon; critique appears as a liminal predicament combining imitative polemical and schismatic urges with a haunting sense of uncertainty. It thereby addresses a central academic concern, with a special focus on political critique in the public sphere and within social media. Combining historical interrogations of the roots of critique, as well as examining contemporary political discourse in relation to populism, as seen in presidential elections, historical commemorations and welfare reform, The Spectacle of Critique uses anthropology and genealogy to offer a new sociology of critique that problematises critique and diagnoses its crisis, cultivating acritical and imaginative ways of thinking.

In For the People: Left Populism in Spain and the US Jorge Tamames offers a stimulating comparative study of Spain's Podemos and the Bernie Sanders movement in the US. Left populism emerges as a potential powerful antidote to rising inequality in both Europe and America. Recent years have witnessed dramatic challenges to established politics across Europe and America. Opposition to business-as-usual has not been limited to the radical right: left populist movements with transformative agendas offer a very different - if equally radical - response to the status quo. Focusing on left populist movements in the contrasting political landscapes of Spain and the US, For the People brings together insights from Karl Polanyi, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to offer a bold new explanatory framework for today's left populism. The book will be a key text for activists, students of politics, and anyone interested in the current political landscape of Europe and America. It grounds its insights in a careful excavation of recent political history in the two countries, tracing the emergence and advance of left parties and movements from the early days of neoliberalism in the 1970s, through the political landslides that followed the 2008 financial crisis and the post2011 protest cycle, up to the present day. In the age of Trump and Brexit, For the People offers an indispensable mix of theoretical, historical and practical insights for all those interested in and inspired by the radical potentials of left populism.

If China seems unstoppable, so too does its leader Xi Jinping. As General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of China, he commands over 1.4 billion people, in a vast country that spans the prosperous megacities of Beijing and Shanghai and desperately poor rural regions where families still struggle with malnutrition. Today, Xi Jinping faces a series of monumental challenges that would make other global leaders tremble: a trade war with the USA, political unrest in Hong Kong, accusations of genocide in Xinjiang, stuttering economic growth and a devastating global pandemic that originated inside China. But who is Xi Jinping and what does he really want? To rejuvenate China and bring economic prosperity to all its people? To challenge American supremacy and turn China into the world's dominant power? Avoiding both sycophantic flattery and outright condemnation, this new biography by Stefan Aust and Adrian Geiges gets inside the head of one of the world's most mysterious leaders. Skilfully unravelling the hidden story of Xi Jinping's life and career, from his early childhood to his rise to the pinnacles of the Party and the State, they flesh out his views and uncover how he became the most powerful man in the world. This biography of China's leader will be indispensable for anyone interested in China and where it is heading.

From 'Best of the Booker' winner Salman Rushdie, an incisive and inspiring collection of non-fiction essays, criticism and speeches that takes readers on a thrilling journey through the evolution of language and culture

Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, including several never previously in print, Languages of Truth chronicles a period of momentous cultural shifts. Across a wide variety of subjects, Rushdie delves into the nature of storytelling as a deeply human need, and what emerges is a love letter to literature itself. Throughout, Rushdie shares his personal encounters, on the page and in person, with storytellers from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison, and revels in the creative lines that can join art and life.

Always attuned to the malleability of language, Rushdie considers the nature of truth, and looks anew at migration, multiculturalism and censorship. Written with the author's signature wit and energy, Languages of Truth offers pleasure and insight in equal measure, confirming Rushdie's place as one of the most original and important thinkers of our time.

Power may be globalized, but Westphalian notions of sovereignty continue to determine political and legal arrangements domestically and internationally: global issues - the legacy of colonialism expressed in continuing human displacement and environmental destruction - are thus treated 'parochially' and ineffectually. Not designed for dealing with situations of interdependence, democratic institutions find themselves in crisis. Reform in this case is not simply operational but conceptual: political relationships need to be drawn differently; the cultural illiteracy that prevents the local knowledge invested in places made after their stories needs to be recognised as a major obstacle to decolonising governance. Archipelagic thinking refers to neglected dimensions of the earth's human geography but also to a geo-politics of relationality, where governance is understood performatively as the continuous establishment of exchange rates. Insisting on the poetic literacy that must inform a decolonising politics, Carter suggests a way out of the incommensurability impasse that dogs assertions of indigenous sovereignty. Discussing bicultural areal management strategies located in south-west Victoria, Maluco (Indonesia) and inter-regionally across the Arafura and Timor Seas, Carter argues for the existence of creative regions constituted archipelagically that can intervene to rewrite the theory and practice of decolonisation. A book of great stylistic elegance and deftness of analysis, Decolonising Governance is an important intervention in the related fields of ecological, ecocritical and environmental humanities. Methodologically innovative in its foregrounding of relationality as the nexus between poetics and politics, it will also be of great interest to scholars in a range of areas, including communicational praxis, land/sea biodiversity design, bicultural resource management, and the constitution of post-Westphalian regional jurisdictions.

The past year has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, “the theorist of beginnings,” whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations—from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan’s 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.

This book corrects an imbalance in Canadian political literature through offering a conservative account of Canadian political thought, within a framework of global politics. Across 15 chronologically organized chapters, and with a mixture of established and rising scholars, the book offers an investigation of the defining features and characteristics of Canadian conservative political thought, asking what have Canadian conservative political thinkers and practitioners learned from other traditions and, in turn, what have they contribute to our understanding of global politics and political thought? Rather than its culmination Canadian Conservative Political Thought will be the beginning of conservative political thought's recovery, and will spark debates and future research. The book will be a great resource for courses on Canadian politics, history, political philosophy and conservatism, Canadian Studies, and political theory.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. 'We have declared before that it is not only expedient but necessary for a prince to take care his foundations be good, otherwise his fabric will be sure to fail.' Considered one of the first works of modern philosophy, Machiavelli's The Prince is an intense study on the nature of power and the course it should take when ruling a country and expresses the author's strong and unyielding ideals and beliefs on using force rather than law to achieve your aims. Responsible for the widely-used phrase 'Machiavellian', with all of its negative connotations, his extreme treatise remains a classic text to this day.

From the former Republican governor of Florida and a leading constitutional litigator comes a timely and provocative look at one of the most divisive issues facing the nation today--"a must-read for every citizen, wannabe citizen, legal working resident, and those illegally working in the shadows of our economy" (The Washington Times). The immigration debate has challenged our nation since its founding. But today, it divides Americans more stridently than ever, due to a chronic failure of national leadership by both parties. Here at last is an attainable resolution guided by two core principles: first, immigration is vital to America's future; second, any enduring resolution must adhere to the rule of law. Unfortunately, current laws are so cumbersome and irrational that millions have circumvented them and entered the United States illegally, taxing our system to the breaking point. Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick contend there are other unique factors currently at play: America's future population expansion will come solely from immigrants. And for the first time, the U.S. must compete with other countries for immigrant workers and their skills. In the first book to offer a practical, nonpartisan approach, Bush and Bolick propose a compelling six-point strategy for reworking our policies that begins with erasing all existing, outdated immigration structures and starting over. From there, Immigration Wars details their plan for advancing the national goals that immigration policy is supposed to achieve: build a demand-driven immigration system; increase states' autonomy based on varying needs; reduce the significant physical risks and financial costs imposed by illegal immigration; unite Mexico and America in their common war against drug cartels; and educate aspiring citizens in our nation's founding principles and why they still matter. Here too is a viable variation of the DREAM Act as a legal status for children brought here illegally, and sound strategies for the Republican Party to revitalize their ever-decreasing core constituency. With Immigration Wars as a beacon of hope, Americans can finally solidify a national identity that is based on a set of ideals enriched and reinvigorated by immigrants, most of whom fervently embrace our core values--family, faith, hard work, education, and patriotism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an important case study, on a global scale, of how democracy works - and fails to work - today. From leadership to citizenship, from due process to checks and balances, from globalization to misinformation, from solidarity within and across borders to the role of expertise, key democratic concepts both old and new are now being put to the test. The future of democracy around the world is at issue as today's governments manage their responses to the pandemic. Bringing together some of today's most creative thinkers, these essays offer a variety of inquiries into democracy during the global pandemic with a view to imagining post-crisis political conditions. Representing different regions and disciplines, including law, politics, philosophy, religion, and sociology, eighteen voices offer different outlooks - optimistic and pessimistic - on the future.

The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed. However attractive the social justice vision, the crucial question is whether the social justice agenda will get us to the fulfillment of that vision. History shows that the social justice agenda has often led in the opposite direction, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. More things are involved besides simply mistakes. All human beings are fallible, and social justice advocates may not necessarily make any more mistakes than others. But crusaders with an utter certainty about their mission are often undeterred by obstacles, evidence or even fatal dangers. That is where much of the Western world is today. The question is whether we will continue on heedlessly, past the point of no return.

This book, first published in 1977, looks at the two peasant revolts that occurred in 1549, in the troubled period following the death of Henry VIII. The uprisings reveal a harsh background of economic and social injustice, intensified at the time by inflation. Peasants in North Devon rose against the imposition of the English Prayer Book, and with the local authorities paralysed and the government wavering between conciliation and repression, a general rebellion broke out. Reinforced by Cornishmen, rallying to the defence of their national identity, the peasants assembled a formidable army and laid siege to Exeter itself. Only after three major battles was the revolt suppressed. The Norfolk peasants rose against agrarian abuses, routing a small royal force and occupying Norwich. Ably led by Robert Kett, they expelled the gentry and governed the county on a programme of social justice until they were crushed by the forces released by the collapse of the other risings. These revolts display the deep-seated resentments and injustices felt by the peasantry of the sixteenth century.

This book, first published in 1976, re-examines many aspects of the German Peasant War of 1525, important as the first national peasant revolt in Germany and because of the influence of Engels' work on the subject. With one contributor noting the similarities between the organisation, demands and action of the Swabian peasants and those of the Zapatas of Mexico four centuries later, these essays provide remarkable insights and analyses into the enduring importance of the German Peasant War.

Selected as one of '100 Notable African Books of 2022' in Brittle Paper A leading African political philosopher's searing intellectual and moral critique of today's decolonisation movement. Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West's direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing 'morality' or 'authenticity'; it suffocates African thought and denies African agency. Olufe mi Taiwo fiercely rejects the indiscriminate application of 'decolonisation' to everything from literature, language and philosophy to sociology, psychology and medicine. He argues that the decolonisation industry, obsessed with cataloguing wrongs, is seriously harming scholarship on and in Africa. He finds 'decolonisation' of culture intellectually unsound and wholly unrealistic, conflating modernity with coloniality, and groundlessly advocating an open-ended undoing of global society's foundations. Worst of all, today's movement attacks its own cause: 'decolonisers' themselves are disregarding, infantilising and imposing values on contemporary African thinkers. This powerful, much-needed intervention questions whether today's 'decolonisation' truly serves African empowerment. Taiwo's is a bold challenge to respect African intellectuals as innovative adaptors, appropriators and synthesisers of ideas they have always seen as universally relevant.