Bernard Crick and Andrew Lockyer (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638666
- eISBN:
- 9780748671939
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638666.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This book gathers a group of political actors and academics who believe that a radically more active citizenship is a worthy aim. They spell out how it can be achieved in their particular area of ...
More
This book gathers a group of political actors and academics who believe that a radically more active citizenship is a worthy aim. They spell out how it can be achieved in their particular area of concern, looking at the obstacles and how they might be overcome. Together, they show us how we can realise the dream of a citizen culture and the benefits that it would bring for democracy in the United Kingdom. The first and final chapters set the tone, respectively, on civic republicanism today and political identity. Other chapters consider active citizenship in relation to: Labour government policy; Scottish devolution; public services; gender equality; schools; multiculturalism; integrating immigrants; lifelong learning; Europe and international understanding; young people and Scottish independence.Less
This book gathers a group of political actors and academics who believe that a radically more active citizenship is a worthy aim. They spell out how it can be achieved in their particular area of concern, looking at the obstacles and how they might be overcome. Together, they show us how we can realise the dream of a citizen culture and the benefits that it would bring for democracy in the United Kingdom. The first and final chapters set the tone, respectively, on civic republicanism today and political identity. Other chapters consider active citizenship in relation to: Labour government policy; Scottish devolution; public services; gender equality; schools; multiculturalism; integrating immigrants; lifelong learning; Europe and international understanding; young people and Scottish independence.
Peter Wagner (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474400404
- eISBN:
- 9781474412476
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474400404.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
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
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.
John Lechte and Saul Newman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748645725
- eISBN:
- 9780748689163
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748645725.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Reference
Most commentators agree that human rights today are in crisis. Virtually everywhere one looks, there is violence, deprivation and oppression, which human rights norms – prominent as they are in the ...
More
Most commentators agree that human rights today are in crisis. Virtually everywhere one looks, there is violence, deprivation and oppression, which human rights norms – prominent as they are in the global order – seem powerless to prevent. This book investigates the roots of the current crisis through the thought of Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. While Agamben is critical of human rights, he nevertheless opens up crucial thresholds and lines of enquiry – biopolitics, the sovereign state of exception, and ‘bare life’ – which human rights theory and practice must come to grips with. The authors contend that any renewal of the human rights project today must involve breaking decisively with the traditional coordinates of Western political thought, which has come to see politics in terms of the activity of sovereign states and law-making – and as confined to the public domain. Instead, it must affirm an alternative political ontology based around notions of statelessness, inoperativeness, and the realization of the freedom and community that we already live. This alternative politics of human rights is developed through innovative approaches to language, gesture, and the image, and through key encounters with not only with Agamben, but also Arendt, Esposito, Bataille, Nancy and Benjamin.Less
Most commentators agree that human rights today are in crisis. Virtually everywhere one looks, there is violence, deprivation and oppression, which human rights norms – prominent as they are in the global order – seem powerless to prevent. This book investigates the roots of the current crisis through the thought of Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. While Agamben is critical of human rights, he nevertheless opens up crucial thresholds and lines of enquiry – biopolitics, the sovereign state of exception, and ‘bare life’ – which human rights theory and practice must come to grips with. The authors contend that any renewal of the human rights project today must involve breaking decisively with the traditional coordinates of Western political thought, which has come to see politics in terms of the activity of sovereign states and law-making – and as confined to the public domain. Instead, it must affirm an alternative political ontology based around notions of statelessness, inoperativeness, and the realization of the freedom and community that we already live. This alternative politics of human rights is developed through innovative approaches to language, gesture, and the image, and through key encounters with not only with Agamben, but also Arendt, Esposito, Bataille, Nancy and Benjamin.
Aoileann Ní Mhurchú
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748692774
- eISBN:
- 9781474406499
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748692774.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
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
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.
Georg Löfflmann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474419765
- eISBN:
- 9781474435192
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474419765.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
The book explores the breakdown of the elite consensus on America's role in the world. By emphasising military restraint and 'leading from behind' President Obama challenged the Washington foreign ...
More
The book explores the breakdown of the elite consensus on America's role in the world. By emphasising military restraint and 'leading from behind' President Obama challenged the Washington foreign policy establishment and its strategic vision of liberal hegemony from within.Highlighting the identity performing function and discursive construction of grand strategy, the book demonstrates how the geopolitical identity of American exceptionalism is linked to the conduct of an activist and interventionist foreign policy, resulting in a dominant grand strategy of American primacy and global military pre-eminence. An intertextual framework of analysis is used to examine the political performance and validity of this dominant identity-policy link, and the success of countering discourses of cooperative engagement and restraint under the Obama presidency. The nexus of geopolitical identity and national security is traced through a multidimensional perspective that considers the common sense status of popular culture and media, the expertise of Washington think tanks and foreign policy experts, and the political decisions taken in the White House and the Pentagon.From an in-depth analysis of various competing discourses of national security and foreign policy, the book concludes that American grand strategy under Obama no longer represented a coherent and consistent equation of material resources and political ends, but a contested discursive space, where identity and policy no longer matched. This resulted in the conflicted and contradictory nature of the Obama Doctrine.Less
The book explores the breakdown of the elite consensus on America's role in the world. By emphasising military restraint and 'leading from behind' President Obama challenged the Washington foreign policy establishment and its strategic vision of liberal hegemony from within.Highlighting the identity performing function and discursive construction of grand strategy, the book demonstrates how the geopolitical identity of American exceptionalism is linked to the conduct of an activist and interventionist foreign policy, resulting in a dominant grand strategy of American primacy and global military pre-eminence. An intertextual framework of analysis is used to examine the political performance and validity of this dominant identity-policy link, and the success of countering discourses of cooperative engagement and restraint under the Obama presidency. The nexus of geopolitical identity and national security is traced through a multidimensional perspective that considers the common sense status of popular culture and media, the expertise of Washington think tanks and foreign policy experts, and the political decisions taken in the White House and the Pentagon.From an in-depth analysis of various competing discourses of national security and foreign policy, the book concludes that American grand strategy under Obama no longer represented a coherent and consistent equation of material resources and political ends, but a contested discursive space, where identity and policy no longer matched. This resulted in the conflicted and contradictory nature of the Obama Doctrine.
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748668878
- eISBN:
- 9780748695218
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748668878.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Only the right has recognized the potency of the American left. The book explains why others have underestimated the left in the USA, citing the relative absence of a free press in America, the ...
More
Only the right has recognized the potency of the American left. The book explains why others have underestimated the left in the USA, citing the relative absence of a free press in America, the disposition of the left to deny its own existence in the name of pragmatism, and the left’s fallacy that the right is always wrong, and thus in error in pointing to the left’s impact. The book sets forth the achievements of the left. These achievements include the welfare state, critiques of and sometimes effective opposition to militarism, the reshaping of American culture, crusades for black rights and civil liberties, the awakening of America to the dangers of fascism, and great public enterprizes such as the New York and New Jersey Port Authority. The book shows how the socialists of the Old Left gave way by the 1960s to the anti-war militants of the New Left, and how they in turn gave way to a “Newer Left” that advocated a host of additional causes such as gay rights and multiculturalism. Final chapters show how the post-2000 Bush administration succumbed to the “socialist” nationalization it professed to condemn, and how Barack Obama was a president for the left.Less
Only the right has recognized the potency of the American left. The book explains why others have underestimated the left in the USA, citing the relative absence of a free press in America, the disposition of the left to deny its own existence in the name of pragmatism, and the left’s fallacy that the right is always wrong, and thus in error in pointing to the left’s impact. The book sets forth the achievements of the left. These achievements include the welfare state, critiques of and sometimes effective opposition to militarism, the reshaping of American culture, crusades for black rights and civil liberties, the awakening of America to the dangers of fascism, and great public enterprizes such as the New York and New Jersey Port Authority. The book shows how the socialists of the Old Left gave way by the 1960s to the anti-war militants of the New Left, and how they in turn gave way to a “Newer Left” that advocated a host of additional causes such as gay rights and multiculturalism. Final chapters show how the post-2000 Bush administration succumbed to the “socialist” nationalization it professed to condemn, and how Barack Obama was a president for the left.
Dina Rezk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698912
- eISBN:
- 9781474435253
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698912.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Security Studies
This book addresses a critical question embedded within a heated debate about the ‘failure’ of American intelligence in a post 9/11 age: have Western experts in some fundamental way failed to ...
More
This book addresses a critical question embedded within a heated debate about the ‘failure’ of American intelligence in a post 9/11 age: have Western experts in some fundamental way failed to understand the dynamics, leaders and culture of the Middle East? Looking back in recent history through a series of seminal case studies culminating in Sadat’s dramatic assassination, this monograph explores whether, how and why the most knowledgeable and powerful intelligence agencies in the world have been so notoriously caught off guard in this region.
The story begins after the tripartite invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956 which triggered a ripple of ideological and geopolitical transformations that continue to shape the politics and borders of the modern Middle East. Revolutions swept across Syria, Iraq and Yemen; the three devastating Arab-Israeli wars ravaged the holy lands; and finally, a fraught and contested bilateral treaty bound Egypt and Israel to uneasy peace. The West and the Soviet Union vied for control over the Middle East’s destiny through its political centre, Egypt. The transition from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar el Sadat witnessed the decline of an ardently anti-imperialist Arab nationalism, supplanted by a radical quest to realign Egypt’s identity towards the Western world.
As revolutionary turmoil and conflict continue to unfold throughout the Middle East today, The Arab World and Western Intelligence is the untold story of how the British and American intelligence services have anticipated and reacted to crisis and upheaval in the region’s recent history.Less
This book addresses a critical question embedded within a heated debate about the ‘failure’ of American intelligence in a post 9/11 age: have Western experts in some fundamental way failed to understand the dynamics, leaders and culture of the Middle East? Looking back in recent history through a series of seminal case studies culminating in Sadat’s dramatic assassination, this monograph explores whether, how and why the most knowledgeable and powerful intelligence agencies in the world have been so notoriously caught off guard in this region.
The story begins after the tripartite invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956 which triggered a ripple of ideological and geopolitical transformations that continue to shape the politics and borders of the modern Middle East. Revolutions swept across Syria, Iraq and Yemen; the three devastating Arab-Israeli wars ravaged the holy lands; and finally, a fraught and contested bilateral treaty bound Egypt and Israel to uneasy peace. The West and the Soviet Union vied for control over the Middle East’s destiny through its political centre, Egypt. The transition from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar el Sadat witnessed the decline of an ardently anti-imperialist Arab nationalism, supplanted by a radical quest to realign Egypt’s identity towards the Western world.
As revolutionary turmoil and conflict continue to unfold throughout the Middle East today, The Arab World and Western Intelligence is the untold story of how the British and American intelligence services have anticipated and reacted to crisis and upheaval in the region’s recent history.
Gavin J. Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748647477
- eISBN:
- 9780748693801
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748647477.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Through a series of case studies, this book reveals new details of how Britain used American aircraft and integrates this with broader British statecraft and strategy. It challenges conceptions that ...
More
Through a series of case studies, this book reveals new details of how Britain used American aircraft and integrates this with broader British statecraft and strategy. It challenges conceptions that Britain was strategically reliant on the United States and reveals a complicated, asymmetrical dependency between the wartime allies. Aircraft were at the heart of British supply diplomacy with the United States in the Second World War and were at the forefront of the Roosevelt administration's policy of aiding the Anglo-French alliance against Germany. They were the largest item in British purchasing in the United States in 1940, a key consideration in the Lend-Lease of 1941 and a major component of several wartime conferences between Churchill and Roosevelt.Less
Through a series of case studies, this book reveals new details of how Britain used American aircraft and integrates this with broader British statecraft and strategy. It challenges conceptions that Britain was strategically reliant on the United States and reveals a complicated, asymmetrical dependency between the wartime allies. Aircraft were at the heart of British supply diplomacy with the United States in the Second World War and were at the forefront of the Roosevelt administration's policy of aiding the Anglo-French alliance against Germany. They were the largest item in British purchasing in the United States in 1940, a key consideration in the Lend-Lease of 1941 and a major component of several wartime conferences between Churchill and Roosevelt.
Andrew Wroe and Jon Herbert (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748627400
- eISBN:
- 9780748671946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748627400.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
In one of the first volumes assessing the full two terms of the George W. Bush presidency, this book has gathered the work of leading American and European scholars. In fifteen chapters, authorities ...
More
In one of the first volumes assessing the full two terms of the George W. Bush presidency, this book has gathered the work of leading American and European scholars. In fifteen chapters, authorities offer assessments of the Bush administration's successes and failures. Extensive attention is paid to Bush's foreign policy, including ‘The War on Terror’, but the focus is broadened to absorb not only the Bush Doctrine and its repercussions, but also his trade and homeland security policies. The president's domestic leadership in economics and social policy is investigated, as are his dealings as president with the other institutions of the U.S. political system.Less
In one of the first volumes assessing the full two terms of the George W. Bush presidency, this book has gathered the work of leading American and European scholars. In fifteen chapters, authorities offer assessments of the Bush administration's successes and failures. Extensive attention is paid to Bush's foreign policy, including ‘The War on Terror’, but the focus is broadened to absorb not only the Bush Doctrine and its repercussions, but also his trade and homeland security policies. The president's domestic leadership in economics and social policy is investigated, as are his dealings as president with the other institutions of the U.S. political system.
Sergei Prozorov
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781474410526
- eISBN:
- 9781474418744
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410526.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The Biopolitics of Stalinism is the first book to investigate Soviet socialism from a biopolitical perspective. While canonical theories of biopolitics of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben and Roberto ...
More
The Biopolitics of Stalinism is the first book to investigate Soviet socialism from a biopolitical perspective. While canonical theories of biopolitics of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito have focused on liberal and fascist rationalities of biopolitics, the case of Stalinism exemplifies an alternative mode of biopolitics, oriented less towards protecting life than towards transforming it in accordance with a transcendent ideal of communism. The book reconstructs this rationality in the early Stalinist project of the Great Break (1928-1932) and its subsequent modifications during the High Stalinist period. It then addresses the question of biopolitics on the level of the subject, tracing the way how the ‘new Soviet person’ was to be constructed in governmental practices and the role violence and terror played in this construction. On the basis of this reconstruction of the Stalinist rationality of biopolitics, this book also contributes to the theoretical debate on affirmative biopolitics, advancing a new interpretation of the relation between ideas and lives in political practice. Bringing the fields of biopolitics and Soviet studies together, this book will be of interest to a wide readership in political theory, history, sociology and cultural studies.Less
The Biopolitics of Stalinism is the first book to investigate Soviet socialism from a biopolitical perspective. While canonical theories of biopolitics of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito have focused on liberal and fascist rationalities of biopolitics, the case of Stalinism exemplifies an alternative mode of biopolitics, oriented less towards protecting life than towards transforming it in accordance with a transcendent ideal of communism. The book reconstructs this rationality in the early Stalinist project of the Great Break (1928-1932) and its subsequent modifications during the High Stalinist period. It then addresses the question of biopolitics on the level of the subject, tracing the way how the ‘new Soviet person’ was to be constructed in governmental practices and the role violence and terror played in this construction. On the basis of this reconstruction of the Stalinist rationality of biopolitics, this book also contributes to the theoretical debate on affirmative biopolitics, advancing a new interpretation of the relation between ideas and lives in political practice. Bringing the fields of biopolitics and Soviet studies together, this book will be of interest to a wide readership in political theory, history, sociology and cultural studies.
42
Abandoning Historical Conflict?
Abortion Politics, Women's Movements, and the Democratic State
The Absurdity of Bureaucracy
Accelerating Democracy
The Acceptance of Party Unity in Parliamentary Democracies
Access Points
Access to justice for disadvantaged communities
Accidental Activists
