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"POLITICAL ASPECTS."
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Material Politics
In Material Politics, author Andrew Barry reveals that as we are beginning to attend to the importance of materials in political life, materials has become increasingly bound up with the production of information about their performance, origins, and impact. * Presents an original theoretical approach to political geography by revealing the paradoxical relationship between materials and politics * Explores how political disputes have come to revolve not around objects in isolation, but objects that are entangled in ever growing quantities of information about their performance, origins, and impact * Studies the example of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – a fascinating experiment in transparency and corporate social responsibility – and its wide-spread negative political impact * Capitalizes on the growing interdisciplinary interest, especially within geography and social theory, about the critical role of material artefacts in political life
eBook
The political web : online civic cultures and participation
\"As democracy encounters increasing difficulties, many citizens are turning to the domain of alternative politics, and in so doing, making considerable use of the Web and other new communication technologies. Clearly this is having significant impact, and we see that new modes of political participation and even political cultures are emerging. Yet, we would be foolish to expect some simple 'techno-fix' for democracy; its problems are more complex than that. This volume analyses various factors that shape such Web-facilitated participation, including features of the Web itself as well as broader societal realities. Avoiding simplistic optimism or pessimism, the discussion highlights the tensions and force-fields that impact on participation. The presentation also addresses several key topics in regard to citizens' engagement, such as civic subjectivity, web intellectuals, and cosmopolitanism. While anchored in an extensive literature and wide theoretical vistas, the book is written in a clear and accessible style\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Language of the Gods in the World of Men
In this work of impressive scholarship, Sheldon Pollock explores the remarkable rise and fall of Sanskrit, India's ancient language, as a vehicle of poetry and polity. He traces the two great moments of its transformation: the first around the beginning of the Common Era, when Sanskrit, long a sacred language, was reinvented as a code for literary and political expression, the start of an amazing career that saw Sanskrit literary culture spread from Afghanistan to Java. The second moment occurred around the beginning of the second millennium, when local speech forms challenged and eventually replaced Sanskrit in both the literary and political arenas. Drawing striking parallels, chronologically as well as structurally, with the rise of Latin literature and the Roman empire, and with the new vernacular literatures and nation-states of late-medieval Europe, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men asks whether these very different histories challenge current theories of culture and power and suggest new possibilities for practice.
eBook
Crack-up capitalism : market radicals and the dream of a world without democracy
\"In a revelatory dispatch from the frontier of capitalist extremism, an acclaimed historian of ideas shows how free marketeers are realizing their ultimate goal: an end to nation-states and the constraints of democracy\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Geopolitics of Spectacle
Why do autocrats build spectacular new capital cities? InThe Geopolitics of Spectacle, Natalie Koch considers how autocratic rulers use \"spectacular\" projects to shape state-society relations, but rather than focus on the standard approach-on the project itself-she considers the unspectacular \"others.\" The contrasting views of those from the poorest regions toward these new national capitals help her develop a geographic approach to spectacle.
Koch uses Astana in Kazakhstan to exemplify her argument, comparing that spectacular city with others from resource-rich, nondemocratic nations in central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia.The Geopolitics of Spectacledraws new political-geographic lessons and shows that these spectacles can be understood only from multiple viewpoints, sites, and temporalities. Koch explicitly theorizes spectacle geographically and in so doing extends the analysis of governmentality into new empirical and theoretical terrain.
With cases ranging from Azerbaijan to Qatar and Myanmar, and an intriguing account of reactions to the new capital of Astana from the poverty-stricken Aral Sea region of Kazakhstan, Koch's book provides food for thought for readers in human geography, anthropology, sociology, urban studies, political science, international affairs, and post-Soviet and central Asian studies.
eBook
Intimate Enemies
In the aftermath of a civil war, former enemies are left living side by side-and often the enemy is a son-in-law, a godfather, an old schoolmate, or the community that lies just across the valley. Though the internal conflict in Peru at the end of the twentieth century was incited and organized by insurgent Senderistas, the violence and destruction were carried out not only by Peruvian armed forces but also by civilians. In the wake of war, any given Peruvian community may consist of ex-Senderistas, current sympathizers, widows, orphans, army veterans-a volatile social landscape. These survivors, though fully aware of the potential danger posed by their neighbors, must nonetheless endeavor to live and labor alongside their intimate enemies. Drawing on years of research with communities in the highlands of Ayacucho, Kimberly Theidon explores how Peruvians are rebuilding both individual lives and collective existence following twenty years of armed conflict.Intimate Enemiesrecounts the stories and dialogues of Peruvian peasants and Theidon's own experiences to encompass the broad and varied range of conciliatory practices: customary law before and after the war, the practice ofarrepentimiento(publicly confessing one's actions and requesting pardon from one's peers), a differentiation between forgiveness and reconciliation, and the importance of storytelling to make sense of the past and recreate moral order. The micropolitics of reconciliation in these communities present an example of postwar coexistence that deeply complicates the way we understand transitional justice, moral sensibilities, and social life in the aftermath of war. Any effort to understand postconflict reconstruction must be attuned to devastation as well as to human tenacity for life.
eBook
The politics of freedom of information
Why do governments pass freedom of information laws? The symbolic power and force surrounding FOI makes it appealing as an electoral promise but hard to disengage from once in power. However, behind closed doors compromises and manoeuvres ensure that bold policies are seriously weakened before they reach the statute book.The politics of freedom of information examines how Tony Blair's government proposed a radical FOI law only to back down in fear of what it would do. But FOI survived, in part due to the government's reluctance to be seen to reject a law that spoke of 'freedom', 'information' and 'rights'. After comparing the British experience with the difficult development of FOI in Australia, India and the United States – and the rather different cases of Ireland and New Zealand – the book concludes by looking at how the disruptive, dynamic and democratic effects of FOI laws continue to cause controversy once in operation.
eBook