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Abandoning Historical Conflict?: Former Political Prisoners and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

Peter Shirlow, Jon Tonge, and James McAuley

Drawing on more than 150 interviews with former IRA, INLA, UVF and UFF prisoners, this book is a major analysis of why Northern Ireland has seen a transition from war to peace. Most accounts of the ... More

Drawing on more than 150 interviews with former IRA, INLA, UVF and UFF prisoners, this book is a major analysis of why Northern Ireland has seen a transition from war to peace. Most accounts of the peace process are ‘top-down’, relying upon the views of political elites. This book is ‘bottom-up’, analysing the voices of those who actually ‘fought the war’. What made them fight, why did they stop and what are the lessons for other conflict zones? Using unrivalled access to members of the armed groups, the book offers a critical appraisal of one-dimensional accounts of the onset of peace, grounded in ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ and ‘ripeness’, which downgrade the political and economic aspects of conflict. Military stalemate had been evident since the early 1970s and offers little in explaining the timing of the peace process. Moreover, republicans and loyalists based their ceasefires upon very different perceptions of transformation or victory. Based on a Leverhulme Trust project, the book offers an analysis based on subtle interplays of military, political, economic and personal changes and experiences. Combined, these allowed combatants to move from violence to peace whilst retaining core ideological beliefs and maintaining long-term constitutional visions. Former prisoners now act as ambassadors for peace in Northern Ireland. Knowledge of why and how combatants switched to peaceful methodologies amid widespread skepticism over prospects for peace is essential to our understanding of the management of global peace processes.Less

Accountability and Democracy: The Pitfalls and Promise of Popular Control

Craig T. Borowiak

Situated at the intersection of democratic theory and international studies, Accountability and Democracy provides an in-depth critical analysis of the concept “democratic accountability.” The book ... More

Situated at the intersection of democratic theory and international studies, Accountability and Democracy provides an in-depth critical analysis of the concept “democratic accountability.” The book proceeds with separate chapters on accountability as found in the U.S. Ratification debates, agency theory, ancient Athenian democracy, theories of deliberative democracy, capitalist markets, and cosmopolitan democracy. Through an engagement with these different traditions and contexts, the book paints a picture of democratic accountability as a multidimensional concept harboring competing imperatives and diverse instantiations. It both engages conventional electoral models of accountability and moves beyond them by situating democratic accountability within more deliberative, participatory and agonistic contexts. Contrary to dominant views that emphasize discipline and control, the book describes democratic accountability as a source of mutuality, community, and political transformation. The book also challenges deep-seated understandings of democratic accountability as an expression of popular sovereignty. It instead argues that accountable governance is incompatible with all claims to ultimate authority, regardless of whether they refer to the demos, the state, or cosmopolitan public law. Rather than conceiving of democratic accountability as a way to legitimize a secure and sovereign political order, the book contends that destabilization and democratic insurgence are indispensable and often neglected facets of democratic accountability practices.Less

Administering Interpretation: Derrida, Agamben, and the Political Theology of Law

Peter Goodrich and Michel Rosenfeld (eds)

Populism in politics and policy orientations in law have thrown the jurisdiction of the academy and the disciplines of interpretation into disarray. Critique flounders in abstraction and negativity, ... More

Populism in politics and policy orientations in law have thrown the jurisdiction of the academy and the disciplines of interpretation into disarray. Critique flounders in abstraction and negativity, law loses itself in particularity. Administering Interpretation brings together philosophers, humanists, and jurists from both continental and anglophone jurisdictions to reassess the status and trajectory of interpretative theory as applied in the art of law. Tracking the thread of philosophical influences upon the community of legal interpretation, both reception and resistance, the essays move from the translation and wake of Derrida to the work of Agamben, from deconstruction to oikononmia. Sharing roots in the philological excavation of the political theology of modern law, contributors assess the failure of secularism and the continuing theological borrowings of juridical interpretation. Contemporary critique is brought to bear upon the interpretative apparatuses of exclusion, the law of spectacular sovereignty, and the bodies that lie in its wake.Less

Adorno and Democracy: The American Years

Shannon L. Mariotti

As a German critical social theorist associated with the Frankfurt School, Adorno is not typically studied in the context of American political thought or democratic theory. But because of his Jewish ... More

As a German critical social theorist associated with the Frankfurt School, Adorno is not typically studied in the context of American political thought or democratic theory. But because of his Jewish background, during the World War II era he immigrated to the United States and resided in New York and California for nearly eleven years. Drawing from neglected essays, radio addresses, and lectures originally composed in English in the United States, Adorno and Democracy: The American Years revises the traditional understanding of Adorno as a high modernist aesthete, a cultural elitist, and a notoriously inaccessible theorist. This book traces his theory of democracy as it both develops in and is practically applied to the United States. Adorno enacts and encourages a novel project for democratic leadership that operates through specifically democratic forms of education and pedagogy. We see Adorno translating and introducing his ideas to a broader public in ways that reflect a desire to understand and inform the problems and possibilities of American democracy at the level of the everyday customs and conventions of citizens. Reframing our image of Adorno in the process of drawing out the lessons of these neglected and unexplored writings, this book shows why we should begin to read him as a twentieth-century democratic theorist. Adorno’s unconventional perspectives may help revitalize our democratic politics, add conceptual rigor to democratic theory, and remind us of the normative promise that used to attach more closely to the concept of “democracy.”Less

Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics

Zizi Papacharissi

The past few decades have witnessed the growth of movements that use digital means to connect with broader publics and express their point of view. Social media facilitate feelings of engagement, in ... More

The past few decades have witnessed the growth of movements that use digital means to connect with broader publics and express their point of view. Social media facilitate feelings of engagement, in ways that frequently make people feel reenergized about what it means to be political. In doing so, media do not make or break revolutions but they do lend emerging, storytelling publics their own means for feeling their way into the developing event, frequently by making them a part of the developing story. Digital technologies network us but it is our stories that connect us to each other, making us feel close to some and distancing us from others. Affective Publics explores how storytelling practices on Twitter facilitate affective engagement for publics tuning into a current issue or event by employing three case studies: Arab Spring movements, various iterations of Occupy, and everyday casual political expressions as traced through the archives of trending topics on Twitter.Less

African, American and European Trajectories of Modernity: Past Oppression, Future Justice?

Peter Wagner (ed.)

This book asks why, from some moment onwards, ‘Europe’ and ‘the rest of the world’ entered into a particular relationship. This relationship was not merely one of domination but one that was ... More

This book asks why, from some moment onwards, ‘Europe’ and ‘the rest of the world’ entered into a particular relationship. This relationship was not merely one of domination but one that was conceived as a kind of superiority; more specifically, as an ‘advance’ in historical time. Toward this end, the book first analyses the emergence of this Atlantic modernity, then proceeds to compare aspects of contemporary Southern modernity, focusing on Brazil, Chile and South Africa. Finally, it explores the dynamics of contemporary modernity worldwide, looking at the relationship between past oppression and injustice and expectations for future freedom and justice. The book firmly links the history of Europe to world history, situating European modernity in its global context.Less

After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century

Tom Malleson

What should progressive social movements after Occupy be aiming for? What is the underlying economic vision and what are the ultimate economic goals? This book provides an answer to these questions. ... More

What should progressive social movements after Occupy be aiming for? What is the underlying economic vision and what are the ultimate economic goals? This book provides an answer to these questions. The book investigates the fundamental aspects of the contemporary economy by providing a perspective that integrates both normative and empirical concerns. Part One asks whether workplaces should be democratized and examines the empirical record of worker cooperatives. Part Two investigates the democratic potential of markets and examines the extent to which actual market systems, particularly the Nordic variety, have been democratized in practice. Part Three asks whether finance and investment institutions should be democratized and analyzes the empirical record of various experiments in this regard, including capital controls, public banks, and participatory budgeting. The book thus weaves together the different strands of economic democracy into a comprehensive whole. It culminates in an illustration of a truly democratic society in the form of market socialism. Yet while the book is hopeful it is not utopian. It invites us to pay close attention to the inherent costs and benefits of economic reforms. The ultimate argument is that although economic democracy is far from perfect, it represents a significant and substantial advance over contemporary American neoliberalism as well as European social democracy.Less

After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars, New Edition

G. John Ikenberry

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do ... More

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do states that win wars do with their newfound power, and how do they use it to build order? This book examines postwar settlements in modern history, arguing that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power. The book explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions—both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power—has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit “constitutional” characteristics. Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today.Less

Against the Masses: Varieties of Anti-Democratic Thought Since the French Revolution

Joseph V. Femia

Given the almost universal assumption that democracy is a ‘good thing’, the goal of mankind, it is easy to forget that ‘rule by the people’ has been vehemently opposed by some of the most ... More

Given the almost universal assumption that democracy is a ‘good thing’, the goal of mankind, it is easy to forget that ‘rule by the people’ has been vehemently opposed by some of the most distinguished thinkers in the Western tradition. The book attempts to combat collective amnesia by systematically exploring the evaluating anti‐democratic thought since the French Revolution. Using categories first introduced by A. O. Hirschman in The Rhetoric of Reaction, it examines the various arguments under the headings of ‘perversity’, ‘futility’, and ‘jeopardy’. This classification scheme makes it possible to highlight the fatalism and pessimism of anti‐democratic thinkers, their conviction that democratic reform would be either pointless or destructive. They failed to understand the adaptability of democracy, its ability to coexist with traditional and elitist values. Nevertheless, it must be granted that some of their predictions and observations have been confirmed by history.Less

Ambiguous Citizenship in an Age of Global Migration

Aoileann Ní Mhurchú

Citizenship is widely understood in binary statist terms: inclusion/exclusion, past/present, particularism/universalism, with the emphasis on how globalisation brings such binaries into sharp focus ... More

Citizenship is widely understood in binary statist terms: inclusion/exclusion, past/present, particularism/universalism, with the emphasis on how globalisation brings such binaries into sharp focus and exacerbates them. This book highlights the limitations of this position and of current debate, and explores the possibility that citizenship is being reconfigured in contemporary political life beyond binary state-oriented categories. Aoileann Ní Mhurchú uses critical resources found in poststructural, psychoanalytic and postcolonial thought to think in new ways about citizenship-subjectivity in a globalized world, drawing on a range of thinkers including Julia Kristeva, Homi Bhabha and Michel Foucault. Using the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum as a lens and focusing on experiences of intergenerational migrants (the children born to migrants), she highlights the necessity of a more sophisticated understanding of citizenship which takes into account how some people get caught between state-sovereign categories, and provides a robust theoretical discussion about how citizenship increasingly involves overlapping, ambiguous traces of us and them, inclusion and exclusion, particularism and universalism which confound easy categorisation. In doing so it raises questions about how citizenship is understood in time and space. In this way Ambiguous Citizenship in an Age of Global Migration contributes to the growing and dynamic interdisciplinary field of critical citizenship studies (CCS), which explores new forms of political identity and belonging in a globalising world.Less

America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy

Tony Smith

This book provides a comprehensive historical review of American liberal democratic internationalism. It argues that the global strength and prestige of democracy today are due in large part to ... More

This book provides a comprehensive historical review of American liberal democratic internationalism. It argues that the global strength and prestige of democracy today are due in large part to America's impact on international affairs. The book documents the extraordinary history of how American foreign policy has been used to try to promote democracy worldwide, an effort that enjoyed its greatest triumphs in the occupations of Japan and Germany but suffered huge setbacks in Latin America, Vietnam, and elsewhere. With new chapters and a new introduction and epilogue, this expanded edition also traces U.S. attempts to spread democracy more recently, under presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and assesses America's role in the Arab Spring. The book argues that liberal internationalism is built on powerful global historical trends, and the liberal internationalist streak in American foreign policy has been responsible for shaping a liberal world order conducive to American security and economic interests.Less

American Conservatism: NOMOS LVI

Sanford Levinson, Melissa Williams, and Joel Parker (eds)

The topic of American conservatism is especially timely, and perhaps volatile. Is there what might be termed an “exceptional” form of conservatism that is characteristically American, in contrast to ... More

The topic of American conservatism is especially timely, and perhaps volatile. Is there what might be termed an “exceptional” form of conservatism that is characteristically American, in contrast to conservatisms found in other countries? Are views that are identified in the United States as conservative necessarily congruent with what political theorists might classify under that label? Or does much American conservatism almost necessarily reflect the distinctly liberal background of American political thought? This book reflects on these crucial questions, unpacking the very nature and development of American conservative thought. It examines both the historical and contemporary realities of arguments offered by self-conscious conservatives in the United States, offering a well-rounded view of the state of this field. In addition to synoptic overviews of the various dimensions of American conservative thought, specific attention is paid to such topics as American constitutionalism, the role of religion and religious institutions, and the particular impact of the late Leo Strauss on American thought and thinkers. Just as American conservatism includes a wide, and sometimes conflicting, group of thinkers, the chapters themselves reflect differing and sometimes controversial assessments of the theorists under discussion.Less

American States of Nature: The Origins of Independence, 1761-1775

Mark Somos

The exact phrase, “state of nature,” was used thousands of times in the British colonies between 1630 and 1810, in juridical, theological, medical, political, economic, and other senses. From the ... More

The exact phrase, “state of nature,” was used thousands of times in the British colonies between 1630 and 1810, in juridical, theological, medical, political, economic, and other senses. From the plurality of meanings, a distinctive American state of nature discourse started to emerge by the 1760s. It combined existing European and American semantic ranges and sidelined others in moments of intense contestation, for instance during the 1765–66 Stamp Act crisis, and the 1774 First Continental Congress. In numerous laws and resolutions, forensic arguments, petitions, sermons, broadsides, books, pamphlets, letters, diaries, and college essays, the increasingly distinct and coherent American state of nature came to justify independence at least as much as colonial formulations of liberty, property, and individual rights did.Less

Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?

Charlotte E. Blattner, Kendra Coulter, and Will Kymlicka (eds)

For centuries, animals have worked alongside humans in a wide variety of workplaces, yet they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded labour rights. Many animal rights advocates have argued that ... More

For centuries, animals have worked alongside humans in a wide variety of workplaces, yet they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded labour rights. Many animal rights advocates have argued that using animals for their labour is inherently oppressive, and that animal labour should therefore be abolished. Recently, however, some people have argued that work can be a source of meaning, self-development, and social membership for animals, as it is for humans, and that our goal should be to create good work for animals, not to abolish work. In this volume, an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the benefits and drawbacks of animal labour as a site for interspecies justice. What kind of work is good work for animals? What kinds of labour rights are appropriate for animal workers? Can animals consent to work? Would recognizing animals as ‘workers’ improve their legal and political status, or would it simply reinforce the perception that they are beasts of burden? Can a focus on labour help create bonds between the animal rights movement and other social justice movements? These and other questions are explored in depth. While the authors defend a range of views on these questions, their contributions make clear that the question of labour deserves a central place in any account of justice between humans and animals.Less

Appropriating Hobbes: Legacies in Political, Legal, and International Thought

David Boucher

The aim of this book is not to trace the changing fortunes of the interpretation of one of the most sophisticated and famous political philosophers who ever lived, but to glimpse here and there his ... More

The aim of this book is not to trace the changing fortunes of the interpretation of one of the most sophisticated and famous political philosophers who ever lived, but to glimpse here and there his place in different contexts, and how his interpreters see their own images reflected in him, or how they define themselves in contrast to him. The main claim is that there is no Hobbes independent of the interpretations that arise from his appropriation in these various contexts and which serve to present him to the world. There is no one perfect context that enables us to get at what Hobbes ‘really meant’, despite the numerous claims to the contrary. He is almost indistinguishable from the context in which he is read. This contention is justified with reference to hermeneutics, and particularly the theories of Gadamer, Koselleck, and Ricoeur, contending that through a process of ‘distanciation’ Hobbes’s writings have been appropriated and commandeered to do service in divergent contexts such as philosophical idealism; debates over the philosophical versus historical understanding of texts; and in ideological disputations, and emblematic characterizations of him by various disciplines such as law, politics, and international relations. The book illustrates the capacity of a text to take on the colouration of its surroundings by exploring and explicating the importance of contexts in reading and understanding how and why particular interpretations of Hobbes have emerged, such as those of Carl Schmitt and Michael Oakeshott, or the international jurists of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.Less

Aristotle: Democracy and Political Science

Delba Winthrop

Harvey C. Mansfield (ed.)

In our time democracy is seen as the best or even the only legitimate form of government, and not in need of defense. Delba Winthrop in this posthumous publication takes up the challenge of ... More

In our time democracy is seen as the best or even the only legitimate form of government, and not in need of defense. Delba Winthrop in this posthumous publication takes up the challenge of justifying democracy through Aristotle’s political science. She begins from the fact that democrats want inclusiveness; they want above all to include everyone as a part of a whole. But what makes a whole? Winthrop pursues the answer with a comprehensive interpretation of Aristotle’s Politics, Book3, uncovering the insights philosophy brings to politics and, especially, the insights politics brings to philosophy. Central to politics is the quality of assertiveness—the kind of speech that demands to be heard. Aristotle, as shown for the first time, carries assertive speech into philosophy, where human reason claims its due as a contribution to the universe.Less

As If God Existed: Religion and Liberty in the History of Italy

Maurizio Viroli

Religion and liberty are often thought to be mutual enemies: if religion has a natural ally, it is authoritarianism—not republicanism or democracy. This book challenges this conventional wisdom. It ... More

Religion and liberty are often thought to be mutual enemies: if religion has a natural ally, it is authoritarianism—not republicanism or democracy. This book challenges this conventional wisdom. It argues that political emancipation and the defense of political liberty have always required the self-sacrifice of people with religious sentiments and a religious devotion to liberty. This is particularly the case when liberty is threatened by authoritarianism: the staunchest defenders of liberty are those who feel a deeply religious commitment to it. The book makes its case by reconstructing, for the first time, the history of the Italian “religion of liberty,” covering its entire span but focusing on three key examples of political emancipation: the free republics of the late Middle Ages, the Risorgimento of the nineteenth century, and the antifascist Resistenza of the twentieth century. In each example, the book shows, a religious spirit that regarded moral and political liberty as the highest goods of human life was fundamental to establishing and preserving liberty. It also shows that when this religious sentiment has been corrupted or suffocated, Italians have lost their liberty. This book makes a powerful and provocative contribution to today's debates about the compatibility of religion and republicanism.Less

Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria

Lisa Wedeen

If the Arab uprisings initially heralded the end of tyrannies and a move toward liberal democratic governments, their defeat not only marked a reversal but was of a piece with emerging forms of ... More

If the Arab uprisings initially heralded the end of tyrannies and a move toward liberal democratic governments, their defeat not only marked a reversal but was of a piece with emerging forms of authoritarianism worldwide. In Authoritarian Apprehensions, Lisa Wedeen draws on her decades-long engagement with Syria to offer an erudite and compassionate analysis of this extraordinary rush of events—the revolutionary exhilaration of the initial days of unrest and then the devastating violence that shattered hopes of any quick undoing of dictatorship. Developing a fresh, insightful, and theoretically imaginative approach to both authoritarianism and conflict, Wedeen asks, What led a sizable part of the citizenry to stick by the regime through one atrocity after another? What happens to political judgment in a context of pervasive misinformation? And what might the Syrian example suggest about how authoritarian leaders exploit digital media to create uncertainty, political impasses, and fractures among their citizens? Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Wedeen lays bare the ideological investments that sustain ambivalent attachments to established organizations of power and contribute to the ongoing challenge of pursuing political change. This masterful book is a testament to Wedeen’s deep engagement with some of the most troubling concerns of our political present and future.Less