The Age of Precarity
The Age of Precarity

Author: Dario Gentili

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1788733827

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When Crisis Becomes the Norm: What Can We Do to Demand Change? Crisis dominates the present historical moment. The economy is in crisis, politics in both its past and present forms is in crisis and our own individual lives are in crisis, made vulnerable by the fluctuations of the labor market and by the undoing of social and political ties we inherited from modernity. Yet, traditional views of crises as just temporary setbacks do not seem to hold any longer; this crisis seems permanent, with no way out and no alternatives on the horizon. Reconstructing a political genealogy of the term from the Greek world to today's neoliberalism, this book demonstrates that crisis, understood as a "choice" between revolution and conservation, is a peculiarity of the modern era that does not apply to the present day. However, since its origin, the trope of crisis has proven to be one of the most effective instruments of social discipline and administration. The analytical trajectory followed by this book - which spans from Plato to Hayek, from the juridical and medical science of antiquity to the current technocracy, passing through the "weapons of criticism" of Marx and Gramsci - finally identifies, following Benjamin and Foucault, precariousness as the "form of life" that characterizes crisis understood as an art of government. But we still need to answer the question: "How can we recreate the possibility of political alternatives?"

Crisis As an Art of Government
Crisis As an Art of Government

Author: Dario Gentili

Publisher: Repeater

Published:

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781910924938

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With the sentence "There is crisis, therefore there is no alternative," governments throughout the world justify and legitimize the most unpopular political and economic decisions. Such decisions have the peculiarity to except the common parliamentary and political procedures. They come from an elite of technicians that justify them because they are dictated by some sort of superior necessity. Through a genealogical reconstruction of the use of the term "crisis," I intend to demonstrate that such statements are not only rhetorical strategies, but also the expression of a particular art of government. Calling "endless crisis" or even "secular stagnation" an economic crisis which without significant interruptions has lasted at least since the Seventies is another way to speak of crisis as art of government. Crisis as art of government is the political definition of the economic crisis in the neoliberal age. However, despite the specifically neoliberal traits of crisis as art of government, it has very ancient origins, that only a genealogical method can reveal. Indeed, now like then, the technicians - in the ancient Greek magistrates and physicians - are appointed to administrate the crisis. In this way, crisis as art - as "technique" - of government will appear as a less inescapable destiny than the current discourse about the economic crisis wants us to believe.

State of Crisis
State of Crisis

Author: Zygmunt Bauman

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-07-17

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 0745685293

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Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.

Public Servants
Public Servants

Author: Johanna Burton

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2016-11-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0262034816

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Essays, dialogues, and art projects that illuminate the changing role of art as it responds to radical economic, political, and global shifts. How should we understand the purpose of publicly engaged art in the twenty-first century, when the very term “public art” is largely insufficient to describe such practices? Concepts such as “new genre public art,” “social practice,” or “socially engaged art” may imply a synergy between the role of art and the role of government in providing social services. Yet the arts and social services differ crucially in terms of their methods and metrics. Socially engaged artists need not be aligned (and may often be opposed) to the public sector and to institutionalized systems. In many countries, structures of democratic governance and public responsibility are shifting, eroding, and being remade in profound ways—driven by radical economic, political, and global forces. According to what terms and through what means can art engage with these changes? This volume gathers essays, dialogues, and art projects—some previously published and some newly commissioned—to illuminate the ways the arts shape and reshape a rapidly changing social and governmental landscape. An artist portfolio section presents original statements and projects by some of the key figures grappling with these ideas.

Art and Politics Now
Art and Politics Now

Author: Susan Noyes Platt

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781877675799

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This is a critical analysis of contemporary politically engaged art.

When Bad Things Happen to Privileged People
When Bad Things Happen to Privileged People

Author: Dara Z. Strolovitch

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023-07-05

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 022679881X

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A deep and thought-provoking examination of crisis politics and their implications for power and marginalization in the United States. From the climate crisis to the opioid crisis to the Coronavirus crisis, the language of crisis is everywhere around us and ubiquitous in contemporary American politics and policymaking. But for every problem that political actors describe as a crisis, there are myriad other equally serious ones that are not described in this way. Why has the term crisis been associated with some problems but not others? What has crisis come to mean, and what work does it do? In When Bad Things Happen to Privileged People, Dara Z. Strolovitch brings a critical eye to the taken-for-granted political vernacular of crisis. Using systematic analyses to trace the evolution of the use of the term crisis by both political elites and outsiders, Strolovitch unpacks the idea of “crisis” in contemporary politics and demonstrates that crisis is itself an operation of politics. She shows that racial justice activists innovated the language of crisis in an effort to transform racism from something understood as natural and intractable and to cast it instead as a policy problem that could be remedied. Dominant political actors later seized on the language of crisis to compel the use of state power, but often in ways that compounded rather than alleviated inequality and injustice. In this eye-opening and important book, Strolovitch demonstrates that understanding crisis politics is key to understanding the politics of racial, gender, and class inequalities in the early twenty-first century.

Good Enough for Government Work
Good Enough for Government Work

Author: Amy E. Lerman

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-06-14

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 022663020X

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American government is in the midst of a reputation crisis. An overwhelming majority of citizens—Republicans and Democrats alike—hold negative perceptions of the government and believe it is wasteful, inefficient, and doing a generally poor job managing public programs and providing public services. When social problems arise, Americans are therefore skeptical that the government has the ability to respond effectively. It’s a serious problem, argues Amy E. Lerman, and it will not be a simple one to fix. With Good Enough for Government Work, Lerman uses surveys, experiments, and public opinion data to argue persuasively that the reputation of government is itself an impediment to government’s ability to achieve the common good. In addition to improving its efficiency and effectiveness, government therefore has an equally critical task: countering the belief that the public sector is mired in incompetence. Lerman takes readers through the main challenges. Negative perceptions are highly resistant to change, she shows, because we tend to perceive the world in a way that confirms our negative stereotypes of government—even in the face of new information. Those who hold particularly negative perceptions also begin to “opt out” in favor of private alternatives, such as sending their children to private schools, living in gated communities, and refusing to participate in public health insurance programs. When sufficient numbers of people opt out of public services, the result can be a decline in the objective quality of public provision. In this way, citizens’ beliefs about government can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with consequences for all. Lerman concludes with practical solutions for how the government might improve its reputation and roll back current efforts to eliminate or privatize even some of the most critical public services.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT: THE ART OF SUCCESS & FAILURE
CRISIS MANAGEMENT: THE ART OF SUCCESS & FAILURE

Author: Yunus D. Saleh

Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group

Published: 2016-07-19

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 1635051517

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No matter where we work or what we do, there is no stopping the fact that, at some point in our lives, we will encounter a crisis. How an individual responsible for dealing with these types of situations reacts is ultimately the deciding factor as to whether or not they come out safely on the other side. Crisis Management: The Art of Success and Failure focuses on different types of crises, symptoms, and models that recurrently threaten business and political environments. Pulling from no better teacher than history itself, Crisis Management is broken into 30 case studies that provide analysis and theoretical approaches that explore both successful and unsuccessful examples of management in the midst of crisis. While focusing primarily on business and politics, Crisis Management is a powerful tool for all readers who wish to understand how to better tackle crises when they arise. Learning how to remain calm and deal with critical situations is a skill that can be learned and mastered.

The Crisis of the Institutional Press
The Crisis of the Institutional Press

Author: Stephen D. Reese

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-10-28

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 1509538046

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As polarized factions in society pull apart from economic dislocation, tribalism, and fear, and as strident attacks on the press make its survival more precarious, the need for an institutionally organized forum in civic life has become increasingly important. Populist challenges amplified by a counter-institutional media system have contributed to the long-term decline in journalistic authority, exploiting a post-truth mentality that strikes at its very core. In this timely book, Stephen Reese considers these threats through a new conception of the ‘hybrid institution’: an idea that extends beyond the traditional newsroom, and distributes across multiple platforms, national boundaries, and social actors. What is it about the institutional press that we value, and around what normative standards could a hybrid institution emerge? Addressing these questions, Reese highlights how this is no time to be passive but rather to articulate and defend greater aspirations. The institutional press matters more than ever: a reality that must be communicated to a public that depends on it. The Crisis of the Institutional Press is an essential resource for students and scholars of journalism, media and communication.