The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy
The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy

Author: Mark Purcell

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-01-23

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 111829565X

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Arguing that the hegemony of the neoliberal/capitalist nexus must be challenged if we are to address the proliferating challenges facing our world, this inspiring book explains how democracy can revive the political fortunes of the left. Explores issues central to the civil uprisings that swept the world in 2011, drawing profound connections between democracy and neoliberalism in an urban context Features in-depth analysis of key political theorists such as Gramsci; Lefebvre; Rancière; Deleuze and Guattari; and Hardt and Negri Advocates the reframing of democracy as a personal and collective struggle to discover the best in ourselves and others Includes empirical analysis of recent instances of collective action

Precariat: Labour, Work and Politics
Precariat: Labour, Work and Politics

Author: Matthew Johnson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1317622189

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In his recent work, Guy Standing has identified a new class which has emerged from neo-liberal restructuring with, he argues, the revolutionary potential to change the world: the precariat. This, according to Standing, is ‘a class-in-the-making, internally divided into angry and bitter factions’ consisting of ‘a multitude of insecure people, living bits-and-pieces lives, in and out of short-term jobs, without a narrative of occupational development, including millions of frustrated educated youth..., millions of women abused in oppressive labour, growing numbers of criminalised tagged for life, millions being categorised as "disabled" and migrants in their hundreds of millions around the world. They are denizens; they have a more restricted range of social, cultural, political and economic rights than citizens around them’. This present book explores the nature, shape and context of precariat, evaluating the internal consistency and applications of the concept. Demonstrating the sheer breadth and depth of application, the chapters cover a wide-range of topics, from the relationships between precariat and authoritarianism, multitude (another concept to achieve popular consciousness), and place as well as the nature of precarious identities and subjectivities among those working in immaterial labour. The book concludes with a reply by Standing to reviews of Precariat. This book was published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

Historical Dictionary of Democracy
Historical Dictionary of Democracy

Author: Norman Abjorensen

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-06-15

Total Pages: 551

ISBN-13: 1538120747

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Democracy is easy to talk about but hard to define in other than broad generalizations; its history is a long, complex, and contested subject. What this volume seeks to do is to explore the general evolution of political and social thinking that would eventually coalesce into what we now know as democracy, for all its imperfections and shortcomings. The question of just why some societies evolved into a democratic trajectory and others did not continues to engage the interest of historians, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists. Much conjecture surrounds the rise of certain elements we now recognize if not as democratic, then proto-democratic, such as collective decision-making, constraints on the exercise of power and a degree of accountability of the ruler to the ruled. If democracy in the sense of “rule by the people” has two essential qualities – rule by the majority and the equal treatment of free citizens - then its origins, however feeble, are to be found in these early examples of government. Historical Dictionary of Democracy contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 600 cross-referenced entries. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about democracy.

Popular Democracy
Popular Democracy

Author: Gianpaolo Baiocchi

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2016-12-07

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1503600777

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Local participation is the new democratic imperative. In the United States, three-fourths of all cities have developed opportunities for citizen involvement in strategic planning. The World Bank has invested $85 billion over the last decade to support community participation worldwide. But even as these opportunities have become more popular, many contend that they have also become less connected to actual centers of power and the jurisdictions where issues relevant to communities are decided. With this book, Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Ernesto Ganuza consider the opportunities and challenges of democratic participation. Examining how one mechanism of participation has traveled the world—with its inception in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and spread to Europe and North America—they show how participatory instruments have become more focused on the formation of public opinion and are far less attentive to, or able to influence, actual reform. Though the current impact and benefit of participatory forms of government is far more ambiguous than its advocates would suggest, Popular Democracy concludes with suggestions of how participation could better achieve its political ideals.

Reflections on Post-Marxism
Reflections on Post-Marxism

Author: Sim, Stuart

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2022-05-19

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1529221854

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The world has changed dramatically since the emergence of post-Marxism, and a reassessment is needed to determine its significance in the modern world. First published as a special issue of Global Discourse, this book explores the theoretical position of post-Marxism and investigates its significance in recent global political developments such as Brexit, Trump and the rise of the far right. With valuable insights from international contributors across a range of disciplines, the book puts forward a strong case for the continuing relevance of post-Marxism and, particularly, for Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s theory of radical democracy.

Liberalism and Socialism
Liberalism and Socialism

Author: Matthew McManus

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-08-31

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 3030795373

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In times of pandemic and global economic crisis, little more than a decade after the last, there are serious questions about how the liberal order can stand, who its friends are, and what the future will look like. This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of the principles and stakes at play in the dispute between liberalism and socialism. It explores the 21st century appeal of socialism, particularly to millennials and other relatively young citizens, and shows why modern classical liberalism and neoliberalism have generated tepid support, leading to the resurgence of socialism after it was thought dead and buried due to the dramatic failures of statist models in 1989. The authors put modern socialism and liberalism into renewed dialogue with another to examine whether the two can coexist peacefully, or even reach an overlapping consensus on social reform going forward. It delves into the history and theory of both liberalism and socialism to determine points of overlap and tension, in addition to a cross-disciplinary interpretive analysis of the present epoch to determine how both traditions have evolved since the 20th century. The book is interdisciplinary and provides a broad array of perspectives including a diversity of ideological perspectives ranging from committed Marxists to libertarians. It will be of interest to academics and students in economics and contemporary political culture.

The Priority of Injustice
The Priority of Injustice

Author: Clive Barnett

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2017-11-01

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0820351504

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This original and ambitious work looks anew at a series of intellectual debates about the meaning of democracy. Clive Barnett engages with key thinkers in various traditions of democratic theory and demonstrates the importance of a geographical imagination in interpreting contemporary political change. Debates about radical democracy, Barnett argues, have become trapped around a set of oppositions between deliberative and agonistic theories—contrasting thinkers who promote the possibility of rational agreement and those who seek to unmask the role of power or violence or difference in shaping human affairs. While these debates are often framed in terms of consensus versus contestation, Barnett unpacks the assumptions about space and time that underlie different understandings of the sources of political conflict and shows how these differences reflect deeper philosophical commitments to theories of creative action or revived ontologies of “the political.” Rather than developing ideal theories of democracy or models of proper politics, he argues that attention should turn toward the practices of claims-making through which political movements express experiences of injustice and make demands for recognition, redress, and re pair. By rethinking the spatial grammar of discussions of public space, democratic inclusion, and globalization, Barnett develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the crucial roles played by geographical processes in generating and processing contentious politics.

A Vision for Europe 2020
A Vision for Europe 2020

Author: Rosemary Bechler

Publisher: ERIS

Published: 2020-01-05

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1912475286

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An international all-star cast of thinkers, artists, and policy makers joins forces for a transparent, united, democratic Europe. This 2020 Edition features contributions by Kate Aronoff, Bill McKibben, Evgeny Morozov, Jerome Roos, and more. The European Union was an exceptional achievement. It brought together and in peace peoples speaking different languages and submersed in different cultures, proving that it was possible to create a shared framework of human rights across a continent that was not long ago tormented by murderous chauvinism, racism, and barbarity. It could have been the proverbial Beacon on the Hill, showing the world how peace and solidarity may be snatched from the jaws of age-old conflict and bigotry. But things turned out differently. Today, a common bureaucracy and a common currency divide Europeans who were beginning to unite despite their different languages and cultures. A confederacy of myopic politicians, economically naïve officials, and financially incompetent ‘experts’ submit slavishly to the edicts of financial and industrial conglomerates, alienating people and stirring up a dangerous anti-European backlash. Proud peoples are being turned against each other. Nationalism, extremism and racism are being re-awakened. With contributions from some of the world’s foremost thinkers, artists and politicians covering the full spectrum of concerns for the future of the Union, this volume presents realistic and viable alternatives to the mainstream barrage of dreadful prospects - a true vision for Europe.

The Practice of Freedom
The Practice of Freedom

Author: Richard J. White

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-09-29

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1783486651

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The last two decades have seen a re-birth of practices and principles that connect with the ‘soul’ of left-libertarianism, although they may not explicitly engage with the anarchist tradition. From practices of mapping and land-use planning to local protests and transnational social movements, this book explores a variety of case studies that trace the influences of, and affinities between, anarchist and geographic practice. The chapters explore the vast possibilities of inventive, exploratory libertarian practices from contemporary and historic contexts around the globe. They examine the ways in which various spatial practices have been compatible with left-libertarian principles, and explore the extent to which anarchists, neo-anarchists and libertarian autonomists have animated these waves of protest and forms of resistance. In an age that is desperately in need of critical new directions, this volume shows that a serious (re)turn toward anarchist thought and practice can challenge and inspire geographers to travel beyond their traditional frontiers of geographical praxis. .

Negative Geographies
Negative Geographies

Author: David Bissell

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2021-11

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1496228243

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Negative Geographies is the first edited collection to chart the political, conceptual, and ethical consequences of how the underexplored problem of the negative might be posed for contemporary cultural geography. Using a variety of case studies and empirical investigations, these chapters consider how the negative, through annihilations, gaps, ruptures, and tears, can work within or against the terms of affirmationism. The collection opens up new avenues through which key problems of cultural geography might be differently posed and points to the ways that it might be possible and desirable to think, theorize, and exemplify negation.