This important text introduces students to both feminism and other social and political theories via an examination of the inter-relationship between different feminist positions and key contemporary debates. The book takes each debate in turn, outlines the main themes, discusses different feminist responses and evaluates the implications for real-life political and social issues. This user-friendly structure effectively redraws the map of contemporary feminist thought, offering a fresh and succinct summary of an extensive range of material and graphically demonstrating the ongoing relevance and value of a feminist perspective.

Glenn Beck, the New York Times bestselling author of The Great Reset, returns with his contemporary adaptation of The Federalist Papers with the inclusion of his own commentary and annotations to help readers interpret and understand the Constitution. Glenn Beck revisited Thomas Paine's famous pre-Revolutionary War call to action in his #1 New York Times bestseller Glenn Beck's Common Sense. Now he brings his historical acumen and political savvy to this fresh, new interpretation of The Federalist Papers, the 18th-century collection of political essays that defined and shaped our Constitution and laid bare the "original argument" between states' rights and big federal government-a debate as relevant and urgent today as it was at the birth of our nation. Adapting a selection of these essential essays-pseudonymously authored by the now well-documented triumvirate of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay-for a contemporary audience, Glenn Beck has had them reworked into "modern" English so as to be thoroughly accessible to anyone seeking a better understanding of the Founding Fathers' intent and meaning when laying the groundwork of our government. Beck provides his own illuminating commentary and annotations and, for a number of the essays, has brought together the viewpoints of both liberal and conservative historians and scholars, making this a fair and insightful perspective on the historical works that remain the primary source for interpreting Constitutional law and the rights of American citizens.

Exploring the manifold relationships between religion and public administration, this topical book conceptualises and theorises the diverse influence of religions on the functioning of public administrative systems across the globe. International and comparative in approach, this book analyses the social and public dimensions to religion and its interplay with public administration as a field of social scientific inquiry and an area of professional activity. Taking methodological agnosticism as its sociological perspective to the study of the religious experience, chapters focus on Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to examine diverse religious compositions across both secularised and non-secularised societies and political regimes. The book uses a distinctive theoretical lens to analyse the influence of religions on organisational fit, public service motivation, individual and organisational behaviours and values, bureaucratic discretion, government funding, the delivery of public services, and the dynamics of social cohesion overall. It provides a fresh perspective on religion as a source of legitimacy and basis of accountability, responsibility, and delegation of power in public administration, institutional quality, and ethics. Students and scholars interested in the religious dimensions to public administration, policy, governance and management will find use in this book’s theoretical analyses. Its empirical findings will also be valuable to policymakers working in public administration and leaders of faith organisations engaged in public services.

As an unprecedented global pandemic sweeps the planet, who better than the supercharged Slovenian philosopher Slavoj i ek to uncover its deeper meanings, marvel at its mind-boggling paradoxes and speculate on the profundity of its consequences? We live in a moment when the greatest act of love is to stay distant from the object of your affection. When governments renowned for ruthless cuts in public spending can suddenly conjure up trillions. When toilet paper becomes a commodity as precious as diamonds. And when, according to i ek, a new form of communism - the outlines of which can already be seen in the very heartlands of neoliberalism - may be the only way of averting a descent into global barbarism. Written with his customary brio and love of analogies in popular culture (Quentin Tarantino and H. G. Wells sit next to Hegel and Marx), i ek provides a concise and provocative snapshot of the crisis as it widens, engulfing us all.

First published in 2001, Achille Mbembe's landmark book, On the postcolony, continues to renew our understanding of power and subjectivity in Africa. This edition has been updated with a foreword by professor of African literature, Isabel Hofmeyr, and a preface by the author. In a series of provocative essays, Mbembe contests die hard Africanist and nativist perspectives as well as some of the key assumptions of postcolonial theory. Through his provocation, the `banality of power', Mbembe reinterprets the meanings of death, utopia and the divine libido as part of the new theoretical perspectives he offers on the constitution of power in Africa. He works with the complex registers of bodily subjectivity - violence, wonder and laughter - to contest categories of oppression and resistance, autonomy and subjection, and state and civil society that marked the social theory of the late twentieth century. On the postcolony, like Frantz Fanon's Black skins, white masks, will remain a text of profound importance in the discourse of anticolonial and anti-imperial struggles.

Plato was the first of the great thinkers to integrate the economy into a wide-ranging synthesis of ethical absolutes and human interaction. In this original and stimulating book, David Reisman assesses his influential contribution to the political economy of production, consumption, distribution and exchange. Drawing on the whole of Plato's published work, this book explores Plato's insights into the core philosophical concerns of stability, hegemony, justice and balance. It situates Plato's economics in the context of fourth century Athens. It argues that the transition from oligarchy to democracy in the wake of the disastrous war with Sparta had reinforced the attraction of justice, moderation and the middle way to a political philosopher who wanted to reverse the decay in popular standards of right and wrong. Analytical but accessible, this book is crucial reading for students and scholars of economic and social thought. Researchers and practitioners interested in social and public policy will also benefit from this book's comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach.

The Handbook on Governmentality discusses the development of an interdisciplinary field of research, focusing on Michel Foucault’s post-foundationalist concept of governmentality and the ways it has been used to write genealogies of modern states, the governance of societal problems and the governance of the self. Bringing together an international group of contributors, the Handbook examines major developments in debates on governmentality, as well as encouraging further research in areas such as climate change, decolonial politics, logistics, and populism. Chapters explore how governmentality reshapes policy analysis as political practice, the relationship between Foucault’s ideas of government and postcolonial experiences, and how governmentality can illuminate discourse on the green economy and biopolitics. Analysing how contemporary socio-political issues including feminist politics, migration, and racialized medicine are interwoven with the concept of governmentality, this Handbook sheds light on the modern-day uses of Foucault’s work. Providing a comprehensive overview of research on governmentality, this Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of development studies, geopolitics, political economy, organizational studies, political geography, postcolonial theory, and public policy. It will also be a key resource for policy makers in the field looking for a deeper theoretical understanding of the topic.

The thoroughly revised and updated Handbook on Theories of Governance brings together leading scholars in the field to summarise and assess the diversity of governance theories. The Handbook advances a deeper theoretical understanding of governance processes, illuminating the interdisciplinary foundations of the field. Chapters review key concepts and ideas that form the backbone of modern governance studies, offering vital insights into how this contributes to the development of social science research. The comprehensively updated second edition provides new insights on governance in the contemporary political landscape of global authoritarian populism, emergent progressive movements and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Delivering a foundational conceptual toolkit for research, this Handbook reveals the diversity of contemporary governing practices as changing political dynamics lay the groundwork for the next generation of theories of governance. Sketching a comprehensive map for governance research, this Handbook is a crucial resource for scholars and researchers of governance, as well as those in political science, public policy and public management in need of a solid understanding of core governance theories. It also offers policymakers and practitioners an agenda for navigating the future of governance in a rapidly changing global political order.

This cutting-edge book explores the diverse and contested meanings of ''citizenship'' in the 21st century, as representative democracy faces a mounting crisis in the wake of the Digital Age. Luigi Ceccarini enriches and updates the common notion of citizenship, answering the question of how it is possible to fully live as a citizen in a post-modern political community. Employing an international, multidisciplinary framework, Ceccarini brings together the findings of continental political philosophy and history, and contemporary western political science and communication studies to advance our understanding of political motivation and participation in the present day. As new participatory and monitoring dynamics of online citizenship redefine the very form of public space, this timely book addresses the values, creativity and aspirations through which social actors engage with a networked society, making use of technological innovations and new forms of communication to participate in post-representative politics. A provocative call to action in an era defined by distrust, disillusionment and digitization, this book is crucial reading for scholars and researchers of political science, sociology and communication studies, particularly those seeking a thoroughly modern understanding of digital citizenship. It will also benefit advanced political science students in need of a historical overview of the concept of citizenship and how it has developed under the auspices of the Internet.

'A thinker on fire' - Robin D. G. Kelley Identity politics is everywhere, polarising discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, identity politics is now frequently weaponised as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests. But the trouble, Olufe mi O. Taiwo deftly argues, is not with identity politics itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Taiwo identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture -deployed by political, social and economic elites in the service of their own interests. Taiwo's crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond the binary of 'class' vs. 'race'. By rejecting elitist identity politics in favour of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organising across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.