Each year at POLIS our academics publish on a variety of topics, below you will find links to publications made from 2010 to 2019. We also hold book launches here at POLIS so keep an eye on our events calendar and talks.cam to keep up to date with what’s on.

2019 Publications

With publications from Dennis Grube, Brendan Simms, Jason Sharman, Peter Sloman, Eliza Garnsey, Jeremy Green, Duncan Kelly, Lawrence Hamilton and David Runciman.

2018 Publications

With publications from David Runciman and Michael Kenny.

2017 Publications

With publications from Brendan Simms, Julie Smith, Jason Sharman, Christopher  Brooke, Finbarr Livesey, Bany Turnaoglu, Helen Thompson, Ayse Zarakol, and Holly Porter. 

2016 Publications

With publications from Duncan Bell, Andrew Gamble, Chris Bickerton, Brendan Simms, Iza Hussin and Nazia Mintz-Habib.

2015 Publications

With publications from Christopher Hill, Philippe Bourbeau, Stefano Recchia, Graham Denyer Willis, Aaron Rapport, Julie Smith, Justin Pearce, Lauren Wilcox and Chris Bickerton.

2014 Publications

With publications by David Runciman, Maha Abdelrahman, George Joffé, John Dunn, Charles Jones, Lawrence Hamilton, Laura Diaz Anadon, Joanna Page, and Brendan Simms.

2013 Publications

With publications by Christopher Hill, Peter Nolan, David Runciman, Philippe Bourbeau, Jude Browne, and John Loughlin.

Megaphone Bureaucracy: Speaking Truth to Power in the Age of the New Normal

Dennis Grube

Princeton University Press

In this timely and incisive book, Dennis Grube draws on in-depth interviews and compelling case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to describe how senior bureaucrats are finding themselves drawn into political debates they could once avoid. Faced with a political climate where polarization and media spin are at an all-time high, these modern mandarins negotiate blame games and manage contradictory expectations in the glare of an unforgiving spotlight. Grube argues that in this fiercely divided public square a new style of bureaucratic leadership is emerging, one that marries the robust independence of Washington agency heads with the prudent political neutrality of Westminster civil servants. These “Washminster” leaders do not avoid the public gaze, nor do they overtly court political controversy. Rather, they use their increasingly public pulpits to exert their own brand of persuasive power.

Megaphone Bureaucracy shows how today’s senior bureaucrats are making their voices heard by embracing a new style of communication that brings with it great danger but also great opportunity.

Hitler. Only the world was enough

Brendan Simms

Allen Lane

Adolf Hitler is one of the most studied men in history, and yet the most important things we think we know about him are wrong. As Brendan Simms's major new biography shows, Hitler's main preoccupation was not, as widely believed, the threat of Bolshevism, but that of international capitalism and Anglo-America. These two fears drove both his anti-semitism and his determination to secure the 'living space' necessary to survive in a world dominated by the British Empire and the United States.

Drawing on new sources, Brendan Simms traces the way in which Hitler's ideology emerged after the First World War. The United States and the British Empire were, in his view, models for Germany's own empire, similarly founded on appropriation of land, racism and violence. Hitler's aim was to create a similarly global future for Germany - a country seemingly doomed otherwise not just to irrelevance, but, through emigration and foreign influence, to extinction. His principal concern during the resulting cataclysm was not just what he saw as the clash between German and Jews, or German and Slav, but above all that between Germans and what he called the 'Anglo-Saxons'. In the end only dominance of the world would have been enough to achieve Hitler's objectives, and it ultimately required a coalition of virtually the entire world to defeat him.

Brendan Simms's new book is the first to explain Hitler's beliefs fully, demonstrating how, as ever, it is ideas that are the ultimate source of the most murderous behaviour.

Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order

Jason Sharman

Princeton University Press

What accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war over other civilizations from 1500 onward. In contrast, Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans actually had no general military superiority in the early modern era. J. C. Sharman shows instead that European expansion from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth centuries is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default because local land-oriented polities were largely indifferent to war and trade at sea.

Europeans were overawed by the mighty Eastern empires of the day, which pioneered key military innovations and were the greatest early modern conquerors. Against the view that the Europeans won for all time, Sharman contends that the imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a relatively transient and anomalous development in world politics that concluded with Western losses in various insurgencies. If the twenty-first century is to be dominated by non-Western powers like China, this represents a return to the norm for the modern era.

Bringing a revisionist perspective to the idea that Europe ruled the world due to military dominance, Empires of the Weak demonstrates that the rise of the West was an exception in the prevailing world order.

Transfer state: the search for a guaranteed income and the politics of redistribution in post-war Britain

Peter Sloman

Oxford university Press, October 2019

The idea of a guaranteed minimum income has been central to British social policy debates for more than a century. Since the First World War, a variety of market economists, radical activists, and social reformers have emphasized the possibility of tackling poverty through direct cash transfers between the state and its citizens. As manufacturing employment has declined and wage inequality has grown since the 1970s, cash benefits and tax credits have become an important source of income for millions of working-age households, including many low-paid workers with children.

The nature and purpose of these transfer payments, however, remain highly contested. Conservative and New Labour governments have used in-work benefits and conditionality requirements to 'activate' the unemployed and reinforce the incentives to take low-paid work - an approach which has reached its apogee in Universal Credit. By contrast, a growing number of campaigners have argued that the challenge of providing economic security in an age of automation would be better met by paying a Universal Basic Income to all citizens.

Transfer State provides the first detailed history of guaranteed income proposals in modern Britain, which brings together intellectual history and archival research to show how the pursuit of an integrated tax and benefit system has shaped UK public policy since 1918. The result is a major new analysis of the role of cash transfers in the British welfare state which sets Universal Credit in a historical perspective and examines the cultural and political barriers to a Universal Basic Income.

The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition

Eliza Garnsey

Cambridge University Press

Is Globalisation over?

Jeremy Green

Polity Press

Jeremy Green argues that, although we face grave problems, globalization is not about to end. Setting today’s challenges within a longer historical context, he demonstrates that the global economy is more interconnected than ever before and the costs of undoing it high enough to make a complete breakdown unlikely. Popular analogies between the 1930s and today are misleading. But the governing liberal ideology of globalisation is changing. It is mutating into a hard-edged nationalism that defends free markets while reasserting sovereignty and strengthening borders. This ‘national liberalism’ threatens a much more dangerous disintegration, fuelled by inequality and ecological crisis, unless we radically rethink the international status quo.

Politics and the Anthropocene

Duncan Kelly

Polity Press

The Anthropocene has become central to understanding the intimate connections between human life and the natural environment, but it has fractured our sense of time and possibility. What implications does that fracturing have for how we should think about politics in these new times?

In this cutting-edge intervention, Duncan Kelly considers how this new geological era could shape our future by engaging with the recent past of our political thinking. If politics remains a short-term affair governed by electoral cycles, could an Anthropocenic sense of time, value and prosperity be built into it, altering long-established views about abundance, energy and growth? Is the Anthropocene so disruptive that it is no more than a harbinger of ecological doom, or can modern politics adapt by rethinking older debates about states, territories, and populations?

Kelly rejects both pessimistic fatalism about humanity’s demise, and an optimistic fatalism that makes the Anthropocene into a problem too big for politics, best left to the market or technology to solve. His skillful defence of the potential for democratic politics to negotiate this challenge is an indispensable guide to the ideas that matter most to understanding this epochal transformation.

Amartya Sen

Lawrence Hamilton

Polity Press

This book offers a much-needed introduction to Amartya Sen’s extraordinary variety of ideas. Lawrence Hamilton provides an excellent, accessible guide to the full range of Sen’s writings, contextualizing his ideas and summarizing the associated debates. In elegant prose, Hamilton reconstructs Sen’s critiques of the major philosophies of his time, assesses his now famous concern for capabilities as an alternative for thinking about poverty, inequality, gender discrimination, development, democracy and justice, and unearths some overlooked gems. Throughout, these major theoretical and philosophical achievements are subjected to rigorous scrutiny.

Amartya Sen is a major work on one of the most influential economists and philosophers of the last couple of centuries. It will be invaluable to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences and an excellent guide for policy makers, legislators and global activists.

Where Power Stops: The Making and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers

David Runciman

Profile Books

Lyndon Baines Johnson, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, and Donald Trump: each had different motivations, methods, and paths, but they all sought the highest office. And yet when they reached their goal, they often found that the power they had imagined was illusory. Their sweeping visions of reform faltered. They faced bureaucratic obstructions, but often the biggest obstruction was their own character.

However, their personalities could help them as much as hurt them. Arguably the most successful of them, LBJ showed little indication that he supported what he is best known for - the Civil Rights Act - but his grit, resolve, and brute political skill saw him bend Congress to his will.

David Runciman tackles the limitations of high office and how the personal histories of those who achieved the very pinnacles of power helped to define their successes and failures in office. These portraits show what characters are most effective in these offices. Could this be a blueprint for good and effective leadership in an age lacking good leaders?

How Democracy Ends

David Runciman

Profile Books, 2018

Governing England: English Identity and Institutions in a Changing United Kingdom

Edited by Michael Kenny, Iain Mclean and Akash Paun

Oxford University Press

Shadows of Empire: the anglosphere in British Politics

Michael Kenny, Nicholas Pearce

Polity Press

In this book, leading commentators Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce trace the historical origins of this idea back to the shadow cast by the British Empire in the late Victorian era. They show how leading British political figures, from Churchill to Thatcher, consistently reworked it and how it was revived by a group of right-wing politicians, historians and pamphleteers to support the case for Brexit. They argue that, while the contemporary idea of the Anglosphere as an alternative to European Union membership is seriously flawed, it nonetheless represents an enduring account of Britain’s role in the world that runs through the heart of political life over the last century.

Donald Trump: The Making of a World View

Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman

Endeavour Press, January 2017

On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump won the American presidential election, to the joy of some and the shock of many across the globe. Now that Trump is Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful country on Earth, Americans and non-Americans alike have been left wondering what that means for the world. It has been widely claimed that Trump's foreign policy views are impulsive, inconsistent and that they were improvised on the campaign trail.

Drawing on interviews from as far back as 1980, Charlie Laderman and Brendan Simms show that this assumption is dangerously false. Laderman and Simms reveal that Trump has had a consistent position on international trade and America’s alliances since he first flirted with the idea of running for president in the late 1980s. Furthermore, his foreign policy views have deep roots in American history.

This book reveals how the worldview of the 45th President of the United States was formed, what might result if it is applied in policy terms and the potential consequences for the rest of the world.

The UK's Journeys into and out of the EU: Destinations Unknown (Europa EU Perspectives: Reform, Renegotiation, Reshaping) 

Julie Smith

This Routledge Focus aims to investigate and analyse the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Communities (EC) and the European Union (EU). Since joining the EC in 1973, the UK has had a fraught relationship with the organization, declining closer economic union in the eurozone and, often, arguing against closer political union.

While some 67% of the UK’s voters opted to remain in the EC in a referendum held in 1975, by June 2016 a narrow majority favoured leaving the EU. This volume evaluates the UK’s journey into the Union, and examines how the country’s voters came to decide on Brexit, and where the UK’s departure from the EU may lead it.

The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management: On the International Campaign against Grand Corruption

Jason Sharman

Cornell University Press, March 2017

An unprecedented new international moral and legal rule forbids one state from hosting money stolen by the leaders of another state. The aim is to counter grand corruption or kleptocracy ("rule by thieves"), when leaders of poorer countries―such as Marcos in the Philippines, Mobutu in the Congo, and more recently those overthrown in revolutions in the Arab world and Ukraine―loot billions of dollars at the expense of their own citizens. 

This money tends to end up hosted in rich countries. These host states now have a duty to block, trace, freeze, and seize these illicit funds and hand them back to the countries from which they were stolen.

In The Despot's Guide to Wealth Management, J. C. Sharman asks how this anti-kleptocracy regime came about, how well it is working, and how it could work better. Although there have been some real achievements, the international campaign against grand corruption has run into major obstacles. The vested interests of banks, lawyers, and even law enforcement often favor turning a blind eye to foreign corruption proceeds. Recovering and returning looted assets is a long, complicated, and expensive process.

The Emergence of Globalism:
Visions of World Order in Britain and the United States, 1939–1950

Or Rosenboim

Princeton University Press, March 2017

During and after the Second World War, public intellectuals in Britain and the United States grappled with concerns about the future of democracy, the prospects of liberty, and the decline of the imperial system. Without using the term "globalization," they identified a shift toward technological, economic, cultural, and political interconnectedness and developed a "globalist" ideology to reflect this new postwar reality. The Emergence of Globalism examines the competing visions of world order that shaped these debates and led to the development of globalism as a modern political concept.

Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes, Christopher Brooke (Edited by)

'The life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short'

Written during the chaos of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan asks how, in a world of violence and horror, can we stop ourselves from descending into anarchy? Hobbes' case for a 'common-wealth' under a powerful sovereign - or 'Leviathan' - to enforce security and the rule of law, shocked his contemporaries, and his book was publicly burnt for sedition the moment it was published. But his penetrating work of political philosophy - now fully revised and with a new introduction for this edition - opened up questions about the nature of statecraft and society that influenced governments across the world.

From Global To Local:

The making of things and the end of globalisation

Finbarr Livesey

For the past thirty years or more, the global economy has been run based on three big assumptions: globalisation will continue to increase; trade is the route to growth and development; and economic power is moving from West to East. But what if all these are wrong? From Global to Local shows how the world trading structure has already begun to shift, with irrevocable consequences for the global economy. Volatile oil prices, the pressures of sustainability and the availability of new technologies - such as 3D printing and automation - mean that companies, from General Electric to Apple, are beginning to move production away from distant countries and back home.

If robots can make everything, why would companies use Chinese workers? Power is shifting, trade is shrinking and making things is revolutionising. Finbarr Livesey explores the making of this new world economic order, revealing the processes that lie behind it and showing how no one will be left untouched by its arrival.

The Formation of Turkish Republicanism

Banu Turnaoglu

Turkish republicanism is commonly thought to have originated with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the founding of modern Turkey in 1923, and understood exclusively in terms of Kemalist ideals, characterized by the principles of secularism, nationalism, statism, and populism. Banu Turnaoğlu challenges this view, showing how Turkish republicanism represents the outcome of centuries of intellectual dispute in Turkey over Islamic and liberal conceptions of republicanism, culminating in the victory of Kemalism in the republic's formative period.

Drawing on a wealth of rare archival material, Turnaoğlu presents the first complete history of republican thinking in Turkey from the birth of the Ottoman state to the founding of the modern republic. She shows how the Kemalists wrote Turkish history from their own perspective, presenting their own version of republicanism as inevitable while disregarding the contributions of competing visions. Turnaoğlu demonstrates how republicanism has roots outside the Western political experience, broadening our understanding of intellectual history. She reveals how the current crises in Turkish politics—including the Kurdish Question, democratic instability, the rise of radical Islam, and right-wing Turkish nationalism—arise from intellectual tensions left unresolved by Kemalist ideology.

Oil and the Western Economic Crisis

Helen Thompson

Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

This book explains the place of oil in the economic and political predicaments that now confront the West. Thompson explains the problems that the rising cost of oil posed in the years leading up to the 2008 crash, and the difficulties that a volatile oil market now poses to economic recovery under the conditions of high debt, low growth and quantitative easing. The author argues that the 'Gordian knot' created by the economic and political dynamics of supply and demand oil in the present international economy poses a fundamental challenge to the assumption of economic progress embedded in Western democratic expectations.

Hierarchies in World Politics

Ayse Zarakol

Globalizing processes are gathering increased attention for complicating the nature of political boundaries, authority and sovereignty. Recent examples of global financial and political turmoil have also created a sense of unease about the durability of the modern international order and the ability of our existing theoretical frameworks to explain system dynamics.

In light of the inadequacies of traditional international relation (IR) theories in explaining the contemporary global context, a growing range of scholars have been seeking to make sense of world politics through an analytical focus on hierarchies instead. Until now, the explanatory potential of such research agendas and their implications for the discipline went unrecognized, partly due to the fragmented nature of the IR field.To address this gap, this ground-breaking book brings leading IR scholars together in a conversation on hierarchy and thus moves the discipline in a direction better equipped to deal with the challenges of the twenty-first century.

When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency

Bernardo Zacka

Havard University Press, September 2017

When the State Meets the Street probes the complex moral lives of street-level bureaucrats: the frontline social and welfare workers, police officers, and educators who represent government’s human face to ordinary citizens. Too often dismissed as soulless operators, these workers wield a significant margin of discretion and make decisions that profoundly affect people’s lives. Combining insights from political theory with his own ethnographic fieldwork as a receptionist in an urban antipoverty agency, Bernardo Zacka shows us firsthand the predicament in which these public servants are entangled.

Public policy consists of rules and regulations, but its implementation depends on how street-level bureaucrats interpret them and exercise discretionary judgment. These workers are expected to act as sensible moral agents in a working environment that is notoriously challenging and that conspires against them. Confronted by the pressures of everyday work, they often and unknowingly settle for one of several reductive conceptions of their responsibilities, each by itself pathological in the face of a complex, messy reality. Zacka examines the factors that contribute to this erosion of moral sensibility and what it takes to remain a balanced moral agent in such difficult conditions.

History and Nationalist Legitimacy in Contemporary China: A Double-Edged Sword 

Robert Weatherley and Qiang Zhang 

Palgrave Macmillan, September 2017

This book examines how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has attempted to bolster its nationalist legitimacy through the utilisation of Chinese history. The authors identify two different modes of nationalism - aggressive and consensual - both of which are linked to the historical memory of the late Qing Dynasty and Republican era. Aggressive nationalism dwells on China’s traumatic “century of humiliation” and is intended to incite popular resentment towards former imperialist powers (particularly Japan and the US) whenever they are deemed to still be acting in a provocative manner in their dealings with China.

The aim is to remind the Chinese people that the CCP liberated China from imperialism after 1949 and has since restored national pride. Consensual nationalism is more conciliatory, emphasising common historical ties with the Guomindang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Republican era. Here, the CCP is trying to promote itself as the party of national harmony and unity, with the long-term objective being peaceful reunification with Taiwan. However, the public response in China has not always been supportive of the CCP’s claims to be the sole defender of Chinese national interests. Some critics have suggested that China would have been better off if the KMT had won the civil war instead of the CCP. Others have insisted that the party is hopelessly weak on issues of national importance and that China is no stronger now than it was during the final throes of the much-hated Qing Dynasty. This book will be of interest to research students and scholars of Chinese politics, history and international relations.  

After Rape: Violence, justice and social harmony in Uganda

Holly Porter

Cambridge University Press, January 2017

Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire

Duncan Bell

Princeton University Press, May 2016

Reordering the World is a penetrating account of the complexity and contradictions found in liberal visions of empire. Focusing mainly on nineteenth-century Britain—at the time the largest empire in history and a key incubator of liberal political thought—Duncan Bell sheds new light on some of the most important themes in modern imperial ideology.

The book ranges widely across Victorian intellectual life and beyond. The opening essays explore the nature of liberalism, varieties of imperial ideology, the uses and abuses of ancient history, the imaginative functions of the monarchy, and fantasies of Anglo-Saxon global domination. They are followed by illuminating studies of prominent thinkers, including J. A. Hobson, L. T. Hobhouse, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Herbert Spencer, and J. R. Seeley. While insisting that liberal attitudes to empire were multiple and varied, Bell emphasizes the liberal fascination with settler colonialism. It was in the settler empire that many liberal imperialists found the place of their political dreams.

Can the Welfare State Survive?

Andrew Gamble

Published by Wiley, March 2016

After the most serious economic crash since the 1930s and the slowest recovery on record, austerity rules. Spending on the welfare state did not cause the crisis, but deep cuts in welfare budgets has become the default policy response. The welfare state is seen as a burden on wealth creation which can no longer be afforded in an ever more competitive global economy. There are calls for it to be dismantled altogether.

In this incisive book, leading political economist Andrew Gamble explains why western societies still need generous inclusive welfare states for all their citizens, and are rich enough to provide them. Welfare states can survive, he argues, but only if there is the political will to reform them and to fund them.

The European Union: A Citizen's Guide

Chris Bickerton

Published by Penguin Books Ltd, May 2016

The essential Pelican introduction to the European Union - its history, its politics, and its role today

For most of us today, 'Europe' refers to the European Union. At the centre of a seemingly never-ending crisis, the EU remains a black box, closed to public understanding. Is Europe ruled by Germany or by European bureaucrats? Does a single European economy exist after all these years of economic integration? And should the EU have been awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2012? Critics tell us the EU undermines democracy. Are they right?

In this provocative volume, political scientist Chris Bickerton provides an answer to all these key questions and more at a time when understanding what the EU is and what it does is more important than ever before.

Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation

Brendan Simms

Published by Penguin Books Ltd, April 2016

Britain has always had a tangled, complex, paradoxical role in Europe's history. It has invaded and been invaded, changed sides, stood aloof, acted with both brazen cynicism and the cloudiest idealism. Every century troops from the British isles have marched across the mainland in pursuit of a great complex of different goals, foremost among them the intertwined defence of parliamentary liberty in Britain and the 'Liberties of Europe'. Dynastically Britain has been closely linked to countries as varied as Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and France.

In this bracing and highly enjoyable book, Brendan Simms describes the highlights and low-points in the Euro-British encounter, from the Dark Ages to the present. The critical importance of understanding this history is shown in the final chapter, which dramatizes the issues around British relations with the European Union and the how, far from being a narrowly legalistic or financial concern, a referendum on continued membership raises all kinds of fascinating questions about both the United Kingdom's own horizons and what it can offer to the Union's vision of itself.

Britain's Europe is a vital intervention at a moment of both great danger and great opportunity.

The Politics of Islamic Law: Local Elites, Colonial Authority, and the Making of the Muslim State

Iza R Hussin

Published by The University of Chicago Press, March 2016

In The Politics of Islamic Law, Iza Hussin compares India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of ‘Islamic law.’ She demonstrates that not only is Islamic law not the shari’ah, its present institutional forms, substantive content, symbolic vocabulary, and relationship to state and society—in short, its politics—are built upon foundations laid during the colonial encounter.
           
Drawing on extensive archival work in English, Arabic, and Malay—from court records to colonial and local papers to private letters and visual material—Hussin offers a view of politics in the colonial period as an iterative series of negotiations between local and colonial powers in multiple locations. She shows how this resulted in a paradox, centralizing Islamic law at the same time that it limited its reach to family and ritual matters, and produced a transformation in the Muslim state, providing the frame within which Islam is articulated today, setting the agenda for ongoing legislation and policy, and defining the limits of change. Combining a genealogy of law with a political analysis of its institutional dynamics, this book offers an up-close look at the ways in which global transformations are realized at the local level. 

Biofuels, Food Security, and Developing Economies

Nazia Mintz-Habib

Published by Routledge, January 2016

The last decade has witnessed major crises in both food and energy security across the world. One response to the challenges of climate change and energy supply has been the development of crops to be used for biofuels. But, as this book shows, this can divert agricultural land from food production to energy crops, thus affecting food security, particularly in less developed countries.

The author analyses the extent to which biofuels feedstocks fit within the national food security strategy, agro-export orientation, and rural development plans and policies of developing economies. Two case studies, from Tanzania in East Africa and Borneo in Malaysia, are considered in detail, using the non-edible crop of jatropha as an example of how compromises can be reached to balance food and energy goals as well as export markets. The author develops a novel integrated approach, the Institutional Feasibility Study, as the basis of her analysis.

She addresses key issues such as: how do global initiatives for green growth, energy security and sustainable development incorporate biofuels industry development? Does global biofuels trade present meaningful foreign and local investment opportunities for developing countries? To what extent does biofuels feedstock production help with poverty reduction and agricultural sector modernization? What role do the EU and the US commitments to biofuels blending targets play in the rapid industry development in developing countries? How does the biofuels industry fit within existing formal and informal institutional frameworks? Who are the winners and losers in the biofuels global value chain?

Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century

Christopher Hill

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, November 2015

In the years since 9/11, followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, public attention the world over has been on foreign policy. From the United States to Yemen, from China to Venezuela, the quality of the decisions taken by politicians and diplomats has been under the closest scrutiny. What is more, with the increased personal mobility created by globalization, many individuals and groups now focus as much on international events as on affairs within their own state. Diasporas, company managers, humanitarian volunteers and other non-state actors are aware of the necessity for effective diplomacy to secure the outcomes they hope for. 

This revised and retitled new edition of the author's acclaimed The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy provides the concepts and analysis needed to make sense of contemporary developments in this key site of political action. It provides a clear and engaging synthesis of what foreign policy means in the twenty-first century and shows how it can vary according to regime, level of development and geopolitical position. Stressing the interplay between context and shared dilemmas, it examines how actors – including the many non- and sub-state entities which have developed international strategies – engage, and attempt to manage their differences, within a network of complex multilateral relationships. 

Written by a leading scholar of international renown, this new edition has been updated throughout, with particular attention given to contemporary issues such as soft power, transnational security challenges and the role of regional actors such as the European Union. 

Security: Dialogue Across Disciplines

edited by Philippe Bourbeau

Published by Cambridge University Press, November 2015

Security is a vital subject of study in the twenty-first century and a central theme in many social science disciplines. This volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorized and studied across different disciplines. The book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms, and methods developed to study security; and, second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Readers across nine fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualizations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world. Analytically sharp yet easy to read, this is a cutting-edge volume exploring what security is and what it means in today's world.

The book:

• Proposes an innovative and multidisciplinary approach to security
• Offers a rich and unparalleled understanding of how security is understood and studied within the social sciences with contributions from leading academics in the respective fields
• Provides a coherent and structured multidisciplinary dialogue on security

Reassuring the Reluctant Warriors: U.S. Civil-Military Relations and Multilateral Intervention

by Stefano Recchia

Published by Cornell University Press, September 2015

Why did American leaders work hard to secure multilateral approval from the United Nations or NATO for military interventions in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, while making only limited efforts to gain such approval for the 2003 Iraq War? In Reassuring the Reluctant Warriors, Stefano Recchia draws on declassified documents and about one hundred interviews with civilian and military leaders to illuminate little-known aspects of U.S. decision making in the run up to those interventions. American leaders, he argues, seek UN or NATO approval to facilitate sustained military and financial burden sharing and ensure domestic support. However, the most assertive, hawkish and influential civilian leaders in Washington tend to downplay the costs of intervention, and when confronted with hesitant international partners they often want to bypass multilateral bodies. In these circumstances, America's senior generals and admirals- as reluctant warriors who worry about Vietnam-style quagmires- can play an important restraining role, steering US policy towards multilateralism.

The Killing Consensus:  Police, Organized Crime and the Regulation of Life and Death in Urban Brazil

by Graham Denyer Willis

Published University of California Press May 2015

We hold many assumptions about police work — that it be solely the responsibility of the state, or that only police officers be given the right to kill in the name of public safety or self defence. But in The Killing Consensus, Graham Denyer Willis shows how in Sao Paulo, Brazil, killing and the arbitration of “normal” killing in the name of social order is actually conducted by two groups— the police and organized crime — both operating by parallel logics of murder. Based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, Denyer Willis traces how homicide detectives routinely categorize two types of killing: the first resulting from “resistance” to police arrest -often broadly defined-, the second at the hands of a crime 'family' known as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). Death at the hands of police happens regularly, while the PCC’s centralized control and strict moral code among criminals has also routinised killing, ironically making the city feel safer for most residents (the overall number of homicides is down by as much as 80% in some places). Via the arbitrations, street level experiences and sense making of death by homicide detectives, this book examines how a regulation of killing has emerged in Sao Paulo among these two groups.  In a fractured urban security environment like that of many other cities in the global south, where killing mirrors patterns of inequitable urbanization and historical exclusion on class, gender and racial lines, Denyer Willis' grounded research finds that the city’s cyclical periods of relative peace and dizzying violence can best be understood through an unspoken but mutually observed consensus on the right to kill. This consensus hinges on common notions and street level practices of who can die, where, how, and by whom, raising acute questions about whether sovereign power can be exercised by consensus. (From publisher's website.)

Waging War, Planning Peace: U.S Noncombat Operations and Major Wars

by Aaron Rapport

Published Cornell University Press April 2015

As the U.S. experience in Iraq following the 2003 invasion made abundantly clear, failure to properly plan for risks associated with postconflict stabilization and reconstruction can have a devastating impact on the overall success of a military mission. In Waging War, Planning Peace, Aaron Rapport investigates how U.S. presidents and their senior advisers have managed vital noncombat activities while the nation is in the midst of fighting or preparing to fight major wars. He argues that research from psychology—specifically, construal level theory—can help explain how individuals reason about the costs of postconflict noncombat operations that they perceive as lying in the distant future. (From publisher's website.)

The Palgrave Handbook of National Parliaments and the European Union

edited by Julie Smith, Claudia Hefftler, Christine Neuhold, Olivier Rozenberg

 Published Palgrave Macmillan February 2015

The Palgrave Handbook of National Parliaments and the European Union offers a comprehensive picture of the European activities of national parliaments in all the 28 member states of the EU. In the aftermath of the Lisbon Treaty, it questions whether national legislatures do matter in European governance. With contributions from both academics and practitioners, this volume integrates the latest constitutional and legal developments as well as the consequences of the economic crisis in every country in the EU. Special emphasis is also placed on the actual parliamentary practices relating to European affairs. In addition, the volume includes some cross-sectional entries on key issues such as parliamentary administration and inter-parliamentary cooperation. By covering a large number of aspects and cases, this collection provides a unique source for assessing the degree of actual parliamentary and democratic control of the European governance at the domestic level. (From publisher's website.)

Political Identity and Conflict in Central Angola, 1975-2002

by Justin Pearce

 Published Cambridge University Press June 2015

This book examines the internal politics of the war that divided Angola for more than a quarter-century after independence. In contrast to earlier studies, its emphasis is on Angolan people’s relationship to the rival political forces that prevented the development of a united nation. Justin Pearce’s argument is based on original interviews with farmers and town dwellers, soldiers and politicians in Central Angola.

He uses these to examine the ideologies about nation and state that elites deployed in pursuit of hegemony, and traces how people responded to these efforts at politicisation. The material presented here demonstrates the power of the ideas of state and nation in shaping perceptions of self-interest and determining political loyalty. Yet the book also shows how political allegiances could and did change in response to the experience of military force. In so doing, it brings the Angolan case to the centre of debates on conflict in post-colonial Africa.

Bodies of Violence: Theorising Embodied Subjects in International Relations

by Lauren B Wilcox

Published Oxford University Press January 2015

According to conventional international relations theory, states or groups make war and, in doing so, kill and injure people that other states are charged with protecting. While it sees the perpetrators of violence as rational actors, it views those who are either protected or killed by this violence as mere bodies: ahistorical humans who breathe, suffer and die but have no particular political agency. In its rationalist variants, IR theory only sees bodies as inert objects. Constructivist theory argues that subjects are formed through social relations, but leaves the bodies of subjects outside of politics, as "brute facts." According to Wilcox, such limited thinking about bodies and violence is not just wrong, but also limits the capacity of IR to theorize the meaning of political violence. By contrast to rationalist and constructivist theory, feminist theory sees subjectivity and the body as inextricably linked. This book argues that IR needs to rethink its approach to bodies as having particular political meaning in their own right. By engaging with feminist theories of embodiment and violence, Bodies of Violence provides a more nuanced treatment of the nexus of bodies, subjects and violence than currently exists in the field of international relations. (From publisher's website.)

Race and Racism in International Relations

Confronting the Global Colour Line

Edited by Alexander Anievas, Nivi Manchanda, Robbie Shilliam

Published by Routledge November 2014

International Relations, as a discipline, does not grant race and racism explanatory agency in its conventional analyses, despite such issues being integral to the birth of the discipline. Race and Racism in International Relations seeks to remedy this oversight by acting as a catalyst for remembering, exposing and critically re-articulating the central importance of race and racism in International Relations.
Focusing especially on the theoretical and political legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of the "colour line", the cutting edge contributions in this text provide an accessible entry point for both International Relations students and scholars into the literature and debates on race and racism by borrowing insights from disciplines such as history, anthropology and sociology where race and race theory figures more prominently; yet they also suggest that the field of IR is itself an intellectually and strategic field through which to further confront the global colour line.

Drawing together a wide range of contributors, this much-needed text will be essential reading for students and scholars in a range of areas including Postcolonial studies, race/racism in world politics and international relations theory.

The Longest Afternoon

The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo

By Brendan Simms

Published by Penguin September 2014

On 18 June 1815, at a farmhouse in Belgium, the fate of Europe was decided. Brendan Simms’ gripping, minute-by-minute account tells the story of how, against all the odds, a small band of soldiers defied Napoleon and won the Battle of Waterloo.

Europe had been at war almost continuously for over twenty years. After a short respite in exile, Napoleon returned to France and threatened another generation of fighting across the devastated and exhausted continent. Near Waterloo in present-day Belgium two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe.

Unknown either to Napoleon or Wellington, the battle would be decided by an elite group of British and German troops given the task of defending the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte. This book tells their extraordinary tale, brilliantly capturing the fear, chaos and chanciness of battle and drawing on many previously untapped eye-witness reports. It shows how, through determination, cunning and fighting spirit, some 400 soldiers frustrated many thousands of French attackers for long enough to deny victory to Napoleon – and change the course of history.

The Longue Durée of the Far-Right

An International Historical Sociology

Edited by Alexander Anievas, Richard Saull, Neil Davidson, Adam Fabry

Published by Routledge August 2014

This volume brings together a number of international scholars to offer an original analysis of far-right movements and politics, challenging the existing literature through a very different methodological and theoretical perspective. The approach offered here is that of ‘longue durée’ analysis, whereby the far-right is understood as an evolving subject of capitalist modernity. The authors argue that an assessment of the contemporary characteristics of the far-right needs to consider the ways in which it is a product of deeper and longer-term structures of socio-economic and political development, than, for example, the inter-war crises of capitalism. The book aims to provide a critical and theoretically-informed assessment of the history of the far-right that centres on the international as key to any understanding of its evolution, and which distinguishes between the fascist and non-fascist variants as an essential precondition for comprehending the far-right presence in contemporary politics.

Egypt's Long Revolution: Protest Movements and Uprisings

By Maha Abdelrahman

Published by Routledge August 2014

The millions of Egyptians who returned to the heart of Cairo and Egypt’s other major cities for 18 days until the eventual toppling of the Mubarak regime were orderly without an organisation, inspired without a leader, and single-minded without one guiding political ideology. This book examines the decade long protest movements which created the context for the January 2011 mass uprising. It tells the story of Egypt’s long revolutionary process by exploring its genealogy in the decade before 25 January 2011 and tracing its development in the three years that have followed.

The book analyses new forms of political mobilisation that arose in response to ever-increasing grievances against authoritarian politics, deteriorating living conditions for the majority of Egyptians as a consequence of neo-liberal policies and the machinery of crony capitalism, and an almost total abandoning by the state of its responsibilities to society at large. It argues that the increasing societal pressures from different quarters such as labour groups, pro-democracy movements and ordinary citizens during this period culminated in an intensifying culture of protest and activism that was vital in the lead up to the dramatic overthrow of Mubarak. It, also, argues that the features of these new forms of activism and political mobilisation have contributed to shaping the political process since the downfall of Mubarak.

Based on research undertaken since 2002, Egypt’s Long Revolution is an essential resource for scholars and researchers with an interest in social movements, comparative politics and Middle East Politics in general.

North Africa’s Arab Spring

Edited by George Joffé

Published by Routledge August 2014

This book addresses issues surrounding the evolution of the Arab Spring in North Africa. After a general introduction and explanation of the events on a region-wide basis, it turns to examine aspects of each of the countries concerned. The role of the Muslim Brotherhood during the Nasser regime and in the contemporary situation is compared, together with an analysis of the emergence of new political parties in Egypt. The book analyses the links between social media and satellite television during the revolution in Egypt. This is followed by a study of the intellectual and cultural background to the Tunisian revolution and an analysis of the new political parties in Tunisia. It also looks at the revolution process in Libya and concludes with a study of why there was no revolution in Algeria and how the Moroccan monarchy was able to sideline those who challenged it at the price of constitutional changes that are essentially cosmetic.

This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of North African Studies. 

 Breaking Democracy’s Spell

By John Dunn

Published by Yale University Press July 2014

In this timely and important work, eminent political theorist John Dunn argues that democracy is not synonymous with good government. The author explores the labyrinthine reality behind the basic concept of democracy, demonstrating how the political system that people in the West generally view as straightforward and obvious is, in fact, deeply unclear and, in many cases, dysfunctional. Consisting of four thought-provoking lectures, Dunn’s book sketches the path by which democracy became the only form of government with moral legitimacy, analyses the contradictions and pitfalls of modern American democracy, and challenges the academic world to take responsibility for giving the world a more coherent understanding of this widely misrepresented political institution. Suggesting that the supposedly ideal marriage of liberal economics with liberal democracy can neither ensure its continuance nor even address the problems of contemporary life, this courageous analysis attempts to show how we came to be so gripped by democracy’s spell and why we must now learn to break it. 

Politics

By David Runciman

Published by Profile Books June 2014

In the first title of an exciting new series one of the world's leading political scientists asks the big questions about politics: what is it, why we do we need it and where, in these turbulent times, is it heading? From the gap between rich and poor to the impact of social media, via Machiavelli, Hobbes and Weber, Runciman's comprehensive short introduction is invaluable to those studying politics or those who want to know how life in Denmark became more comfortable than in Syria.

Fusing animation and images from the award winning animators behind RSA Animates, beautifully adapted to both print and digital formats, the Ideas in Profile series boldly reinvents what introductions can and should be in the twenty-first century. Concise, clear, relevant, entertaining, original and global in scope, Politics makes essential reading - and viewing for students and general readers.

Capital, the State, and War

Class Conflict and Geopolitics in the Thirty Years' Crisis, 1914-1945

By Alexander Anievas

Published by University of Michigan Press April 2014

The history of the modern social sciences can be seen as a series of attempts to confront the challenges of social disorder and revolution wrought by the international expansion of capitalist social relations. Alexander Anievas focuses on one particularly significant aspect of this story: the intersocietal or geosocial origins of the two world wars, and, more broadly, the confluence of factors behind the Thirty Years’ Crisis between 1914 and 1945.
Anievas presents the Thirty Years’ Crisis as a result of the development of global capitalism with all its destabilizing social and geopolitical consequences, particularly the intertwined and co-constitutive nature of imperial rivalries, social revolutions, and anti-colonial struggles. Building on the theory of uneven and combined development, he unites geopolitical and sociological explanations into a single framework, thereby circumventing the analytical stalemate between primacy of domestic politics and primacy of foreign policy approaches.

Tibet

An Unfinished Story

By Stefan Halper and Lezlee Brown Halper

Published by Hurst & Company, London April 2014

Tibet’s enduring myth, animated by the tales of Himalayan adventures, British military expeditions, and the novel, Lost Horizons, remains an inspirational fantasy, a modern morality play about the failure of brutality to subdue the human spirit. Tibet also exercises immense ‘soft power’ as one of the lenses through which the world views China.

This book traces the origins and manifestations of the Tibetan myth, as propagated by Younghusband, Madame Blavatsky, Himmler, Acheson and Roosevelt. The authors discuss how, after World War II, Tibet – isolated, misunderstood and with a tiny elite unschooled in political-military realities – misread the diplomacy between its two giant neighbours, India and China, forlornly hoping London or Washington might intervene. The PLA sought nothing less than to deconstruct traditional Tibet, unseat the Dalai Lama and ‘absorb’ this vast region into the People’s Republic, and Lhasa succumbed to China’s invasion in 1950.

Drawing on declassified CIA and Chinese documents, the authors reveal Mao’s collusion with Stalin to subdue Tibet, double-dealing by Nehru, the brilliant diplomacy of Chou En-lai and how Washington see-sawed between the China lobby, who insisted there be no backing for an independent Tibet, and presidents Truman and later Eisenhower, who initiated a covert CIA programme to support the Dalai Lama and resist Chinese occupation. It is an ignoble saga with few heroes, if any, other than ordinary Tibetans.

International Relations: A beginners Guide

By Charles Jones

Published by Oneworld March 2014 

Today, more than ever, we live in a global world. Whether it’s war, economics, politics, or law, our lives are influenced by a complex web of cross-border transactions. Dr Charles Jones ably provides the building blocks to understand these interactions, outlining the competing theories that attempt to explain them. Arguing that the strength of International Relations lies in its contradictions – it’s not a single discipline but a fascinating mess of history, politics, economics, sociology, law, anthropology, and cultural studies – he provides a lively discussion of the limitations of the field, but also why it is so essential.

Covering conflict, history, and theory, and with a major focus on the global economy, this is the perfect primer for aspiring students of International Relations, workers in an international context, and citizens across the globe.

 The Art of Attraction

Soft Power and the UK’s Role in the World

By Christopher Hill and Sarah Beadle

Published by British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences March 2014

The concept of soft power – the ability to influence the behaviour of others and obtain desired outcomes through attraction and co-option – was coined by British Academy Fellow Joseph Nye. Over the past decade, it has been the subject of considerable debate, as governments at home and overseas have sought to exploit their soft power assets in the face of power shifts in order to further their foreign policy objectives.

This report published by the British Academy discusses the nature and relevance of soft power in the context of how and why it matters for the UK. It analyses the UK’s soft power resources and its ability to mobilise them, examines the main dilemmas, and includes a series of recommendations for policy-makers and wider society.

Europe

The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present

By Brendan Simms

Published by Penguin March 2014

Empires have risen and fallen through history, yet by contrast Europe has remained stubbornly fractured, with each attempt to dominate the continent eventually thwarted. In Europe Brendan Simms recounts its compelling history over the last 550 years, from the fall of Constantinople to the rise of modern democracies. It is the story of highly competitive and mutually suspicious monarchies and republics; of empires, revolution, rivalry, unification and utopias.

As Europe’s future seems once more unclear, this acclaimed account is essential for understanding its past.

Creativity and Science in Contemporary Argentine Literature: Between Romanticism and Formalism

By Joanna Page

Published by University of Calgary Press February 2014

With a burgeoning academic interest in Latin American science fiction and cyber-fiction and in representations of science and technology in Latin American literature and cinema, this book adds new understanding to the growing body of interdisciplinary work on the relationship between literature and science in post-modern culture.

Joanna Page examines how contemporary fiction and literary theory in Argentina consistently employ theories and models from mathematics and science to probe the nature of innovation and evolution in literature. Theories of incompleteness, uncertainty, and chaos are often mobilized in European and North American literary and philosophical texts as metaphors for the inadequacy of our epistemological tools to probe the world's complexity. However, in recent Argentine fiction, these generalizations are put to very different uses: to map out the potential for artistic creativity and regeneration in times of crisis. Page focuses on texts by contemporary Argentine writers Ricardo Piglia, Guillermo Martínez and Marcelo Cohen, which draw on theories of formal systems, chaos, emergence, and complexity to counter proclamations of the end of philosophy or the exhaustion of literature in the postmodern era.

This book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how newness and creativity have been theorized, tracing often unexpected relationships between thinkers such as Nietzsche, Deleuze, and the Russian Formalists. It is also the first time that a major study in English has been published on the work of Martínez, Piglia, or Cohen.

A free PDF of the book is available here

 Re-balancing China

Essays on the Global Financial Crisis, Industrial Policy and International Relations

By Peter Nolan

Published by Anthem Press February 2014

Re-balancing China addresses three key sets of issues in China’s political economy. Part One provides an analysis of the profound effect of the global financial crisis upon China’s economy, as well as the positive impact of the massive rescue package that was implemented in response to the crisis.

Part Two focuses on the challenge of globalisation for China’s industrial policy. After more than two decades of industrial policy, China still has a negligible number of large firms that are competitive in global markets. China’s experience presents a fundamental challenge to traditional concepts of industrial policy and development.

Part Three examines China’s international relations – in particular, its relationship with the US and the interactions between the two countries in the East and South China Seas.

Science, Policy and Politics of Modern Agricultural System

Edited by Nazia Mintz-Habib,  Mohamed Behnassi, Shabbir A. Shahid

Published by Springer January 2014

This book arises from a 2011 international conference entitled Climate Change, Agri-Food, Fisheries and Ecosystems: Reinventing Research, Innovation, and Policy Agendas for an Environmentally and Socially-Balanced Growth (ICCAFFE2011), organized by the North-South Center for Social Sciences (NRCS) in collaboration with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Germany and the Institute for Research and Development (IRD), France. Coverage focuses on the agricultural sector and helps improve understanding of the relationships between agriculture and the environment and between human communities and nature, so as to sustainably manage agricultural development. The contributors analyze the interdependence between sustainable agricultural development and environmental, economic and social dynamics; assess the impacts of soil degradation on agricultural productivity; present ways to enhance livestock production and recommend mechanisms for managing links between agro-biodiversity, climate change and livelihoods. Part I examines sustainable agriculture development and environmental, economic and social dynamics, addressing topics such as global climate change, agriculture and challenges including socio-economic factors, adaptation, poverty reduction and water management. Part II covers the impacts of soil degradation on agricultural productivity and discusses the use of expert systems to assess and manage degraded lands, agricultural productivity, land suitability and rehabilitation. Part III focuses on livestock production enhancements, such as feed resources and supplemental feeds for animals, and capacity building for women in dairy management. Part IV shares the outcomes of research in agro-biodiversity, climate change and livelihoods, addressing topics such as co-management of forests, carbon consumption models, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration, and scarce mangrove forests. Current environmental and agro-ecological research focuses on understanding the cause-consequence relationships between specific agricultural practices and land use, and the responses at different levels of ecosystems. This book is intended to contribute to this discussion.

Are South Africans Free?

by Lawrence Hamilton

Published by Bloomsbury 2014

Despite South Africa's successful transition to democracy and lauded constitution, political freedom for the majority of South Africans remains elusive. The poor and unemployed majority are poorly represented and lack power and thus freedom. Under these conditions, the freedom of the privileged minority is also seriously impaired due to the costs of maintaining their relative security and well-being. Lawrence Hamilton is an internationally-known political theorist, who has spent ten years teaching in South African universities. In this unique book he brings ideas - political and philosophical - to the fore to understand a contemporary political conundrum. He outlines the persistent, unresolved problems characterizing contemporary South Africa: poverty and quality of life statistics that are appalling for a middle-income country, levels of inequality that make South Africa one of the most unequal places in the world, skewed economic and political representation that reproduces elites rather than generating opportunities for all and an electoral system that implements the idea of proportional representation so literally that it undermines meaningful representation. Are South Africans Free? aims not only to explain the current state of South Africa but to provide positive new directions and suggestions for institutional change. Hamilton argues that freedom as power in South Africa does not depend on good will, charity or duty, and it goes beyond the complete realization of the political and civil liberties currently safeguarded in its constitution. Such change will depend on courageous leadership, active citizenship, new forms of representation and a macroeconomic policy that offers radical redistribution of actual and potential wealth.

Intellectual Traditions in South Africa: Ideas, Individuals and Institutions 

Edited by Peter Vale, Lawrence Hamilton and Estelle H. Prinsloo

Published by University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2014

This rich volume not only deals with political traditions but gives attention to religious and communal intellectual practices. The scope covers interpretations of traditions such as African nationalism, Afrikaner thought, Black Consciousness, Christianity, feminism, Gandhian ways, Hinduism, Jewish responses, liberalism, Marxism, Muslim voices, Pan Africanism and posivitism. ‘Only by rethinking the ideas that made us can we re-imagine the world,’ says editor Peter Vale. The book’s real value comes from the fact that it takes a great leap to rectify large lacuna in South Africa’s historiography.

Powerful ideas, institutions and individuals have been central to various colonising and apartheid projects to directly control and subordinate much of the population. This form of extreme social engineering often fails, and generated unintended and unforeseen spaces for individual agency and competing ideas. The result was that even completely totalitarian systems of rule cannot completely stamp out individual human ingenuity and imagination.

Freedom Is Power: Liberty through Political Representation

By Lawrence Hamilton

Published by Cambridge University Press 2014

Using the history of political thought and real-world political contexts, including South Africa and the recent global financial crisis, this book argues that power is integral to freedom. It demonstrates how freedom depends upon power, and contends that liberty for all citizens is best maintained if conceived as power through political representation. Against those who de-politicise freedom through a romantic conception of 'the people' and faith in supposedly independent judicial and political institutions, Lawrence Hamilton argues that real modern freedom can only be achieved through representative and participative mechanisms that limit domination and empower classes and groups who become disempowered in the conflicts that inevitably pervade politics. This is a sophisticated contribution to contemporary political theory that will be of interest to scholars and students of history, politics, philosophy, economics, sociology, development studies and Southern African studies.

Transforming US Energy Innovation

Edited by Laura Diaz Anadon, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Matthew Bunn 

Published by Cambridge University Press 2014

One of the greatest challenges facing human civilization is the provision of secure, affordable energy without causing catastrophic environmental damage. As the world's largest economy, and as a world leader in energy technologies, the United States is a particularly important case. In the light of increased competition from other countries (particularly China), growing concerns about the local and global environmental impacts of the energy system, an ever-present interest in energy security, and the realization that technological innovation takes place in a complex ecosystem involving a wide range of domestic and international actors, this volume provides a comprehensive and analytical assessment of the role that the U.S. government should play in energy technology innovation. It will be invaluable for policy makers in energy innovation and for researchers studying energy innovation, future energy technologies, climate-change mitigation, and innovation management. It will act as a supplementary textbook for courses on energy and innovation.

Chinese Firms, Global Firms: Industrial Policy in the Era of Globalisation

By Peter Nolan

Published by Routledge November 2013

China has achieved remarkable, sustained economic growth under the policies of ‘reform and opening up’ put into place since the late 1970s. China’s industrial policies have nurtured a large group of firms with high profits and a high market capitalisation. However, few people in the West can name a single Chinese firm. During the modern era of capitalist globalisation firms from the high income countries have spread their business systems across the world. This has presented a profound challenge for industrial policy in developing countries, including even China, the world’s second largest economy. China is unique among large latecomer developing countries in having reached the position of being a huge, fast-growing economy, with a tremendous impact on the rest of the world, but lacking a substantial group of globally competitive firms. This volume explores this paradox. Fully understanding the industrial policy challenge that the era of capitalist globalisation has produced for China is essential for harmonious international relations.

 The Confidence Trap:

A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present

By David Runciman

Published by Princeton University Press October 2013

Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama.

The Confidence Trap shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them--and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything--a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.

The Securitization of Migration

A study of Movement and Order

By Philippe Bourbeau

Published by Routledge September 2013

The international movement of people is provoking worldwide anxiety and apprehension. Nation-states around the globe, especially Western ones, are cracking down on migration for security reasons. International migration has become a key security issue and is perceived, by some, as an existential security threat.
The Securitization of Migration is about the movement of people and the system of order underpinning the movement. In undertaking a comparative study of Canada and France, the study analyzes the process of securitizing migration. It explores the process of discursively and institutionally integrating international migration into security frameworks that emphasize policing and defence. Drawing upon social theory, migration studies, and Securitization Theory, Philippe Bourbeau seeks to understand the concepts of power underlying security frameworks and how these affect the treatment of migrants and immigrants. This book is one of the first to systematically and comparatively examine the role of political agents, media agents, and contextual factors in the process of securitizing migration.

The book will be of interest to students and scholars concerned with comparative and theoretical approaches to security and migration studies.

The National Interest in Question

Foreign Policy in Multicultural Societies

By Christopher Hill

Published by Oxford University Press August 2013

For three decades multiculturalism has been the focus of fierce debates. At the same time Europeans have worried, at the national level and at that of the European Union, about how to relate to a world in which their influence has been steadily reducing. But the two discussions, on society and on foreign policy, have rarely intersected. The events of 11 September 2001 did shock the citizens of Western countries into an awareness that international politics could literally explode onto their home streets, and generated fear and suspicion about and among minority groups. But the excessive focus on terrorism and on Islam which followed hardly did justice to the deeper processes of transnationally induced change which were at work.

This book attempts to go beyond the emotive political debate to show how foreign policy and domestic society have been becoming more entangled with each other for some time. It focuses on the more established Member States of the European Union and the varying paths which they have taken in coping with the new domestic environment fostered by increased migration, ethno cultural diversity, and transnational relations. It investigates the contrasting approaches taken by the European states to what is loosely called 'multiculturalism', and analyses their impact on the interplay between foreign policy and domestic society, something which is now a structural feature of political life. It concludes with the argument that since domestic society is now taking on some of the diversity associated with international relations, governments can no longer assume a national consensus in their relations with the outside world, let alone the steady homogenisation of world society.

Dialogue, Politics and Gender

Edited by Jude Browne

Published by Cambridge University Press May 2013

Dialogue is promoted by its supporters as a pluralising force capable of accommodating the moral disagreement inevitable in every sphere of human society, but this promise is widely and vehemently challenged. How are we to determine the principles upon which the dialogical exchange should take place? How should we think of ourselves as interlocutors? Should we associate dialogue with the desire for consensus? How should we determine decision-making? What are the gender dynamics of dialogical politics and how much do they matter? This book brings together internationally recognised expert authors from the fields of political and social theory, political philosophy and international relations to consider these controversial questions anew from a range of theoretical positions. The differences of opinions and clashes of views make for a fascinating and highly informative read.

Ideas of Education

Philosophy and Politics from Plato to Dewey

Edited by Christopher Brooke and Elizabeth Frazer

Published by Routledge May 2013

There has always been a strong relationship between education and philosophy - especially political philosophy. Renewed concern about the importance and efficacy of political education has revived key questions about the connections between the power to govern, and the power to educate. Although these themes are not always prominent in commentaries, political writings have often been very deeply concerned with both educational theory and practice. This invaluable book will introduce the reader to key concepts and disputes surrounding educational themes in the history of political thought.

The book draws together a fascinating range of educational pioneers and thinkers from the canon of philosophers and philosophical schools, from Plato and Aristotle, down to Edward Carpenter and John Dewey, with attention along the way paid to both individual authors like Thomas Hobbes and Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as to intellectual movements, such as the Scottish Enlightenment and the Utopian Socialists. Each thinker or group is positioned in their historical context, and each chapter addresses the structure of the theory and argument, considering both contemporaneous and current controversies.

This book will be of interest to students, researchers and scholars of education, as well as students and teachers of political theory, the history of political thought, and social and political philosophy.

Routledge Handbook of Regionalism & Federalism

Edited by John Loughlin, John Kincaid, Wilfried Swenden

Published by Routledge May 2013

Almost all states are either federal or regionalised in some sense. It is difficult to find a state that is entirely unitary and the Routledge Handbook of Regionalism and Federalism necessarily takes in almost the entire world. Both federalism and regionalism have been subjects of a vast academic literature mainly from political science but sometimes also from history, economics, and geography. This cutting edge examination seeks to evaluate the two types of state organization from the perspective of political science producing a work that is analytical rather than simply descriptive.

The Handbook presents some of the latest theoretical reflections on regionalism and federalism and then moves on to discuss cases of both regionalism and federalism in key countries chosen from the world’s macro-regions. Assembling this wide range of case studies allows the book to present a general picture of current trends in territorial governance. The final chapters then examine failed federations such as Czechoslovakia and examples of transnational regionalism - the EU, NAFTA and the African Union.

Covering evolving forms of federalism and regionalism in all parts of the world and featuring a comprehensive range of case studies by leading international scholars this work will be an essential reference source for all students and scholars of international politics, comparative politics and international relations.

The UK Government's 'Big Society' Programme and Catholic Social Teaching

By John Loughlin, Peter Allott, and Richard Crellin

Published by Matthew James Publishing April 2013

The UK Government’s ‘Big Society’ Programme and Catholic Social Teaching explores and analyses the relationship between the UK Government’s ‘Big Society’ programme and CST. Drawing on primary source such as political manifestos and Government White Papers as well as academic works, think tank reports and interviews with key informants, it describes to what extent CST had influenced the Big Society programme but also seeks to evaluate this programme in the light of CST.

This report will be of interest to policy makers, social policy students, Churches, volunteers and community groups and all those who share the values of CST and the concern for the role of faith in public life and who seek a fairer and more just society. The project has been generously supported by the Charles Plater Trust.

 More than Just War

Narratives of the Just War and Military Life

By Charles Jones

 Published by Routledge February 2013

This book raises questions about the just war tradition through a critical examination of its revival and by juxtaposing it with a literary phenomenology of war. Recent public debate about war has leaned heavily on a just-war tradition dating back many centuries. This book examines the recent revival of that tradition in the United States and Britain, arguing that it is less coherent and comprehensive as an approach to the ethical issues arising from war than is generally supposed, and that it is inconsistent in important ways with the theology on which it was originally based. A second line of criticism is mounted through close readings of modern texts in English - from Britain, Australia and the USA – that together constitute a more subjective, bottom-up understanding of the moral dilemmas of military life. In this second tradition the task of representing war is seen as more problematic, and its rationality more questionable, than in just war discourse. Works by William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, James Fennimore Cooper, Stephen Crane, John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Tim O’Brien and Kurt Vonnegut are featured.

The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of security studies, military studies, theology and international relations.

Markets, State and People: Economics for Public Policy

Diane Coyle

Princeton University Press, January 2020

While economic research emphasizes the importance of governmental institutions for growth and progress, conventional public policy textbooks tend to focus on macroeconomic policies and on tax-and-spend decisions. Markets, State, and People stresses the basics of welfare economics and the interplay between individual and collective choices. It fills a gap by showing how economic theory relates to current policy questions, with a look at incentives, institutions, and efficiency. How should resources in society be allocated for the most economically efficient outcomes, and how does this sit with society’s sense of fairness?

Diane Coyle illustrates the ways economic ideas are the product of their historical context, and how events in turn shape economic thought. She includes many real-world examples of policies, both good and bad. Readers will learn that there are no panaceas for policy problems, but there is a practical set of theories and empirical findings that can help policymakers navigate dilemmas and trade-offs. The decisions faced by officials or politicians are never easy, but economic insights can clarify the choices to be made and the evidence that informs those choices. Coyle covers issues such as digital markets and competition policy, environmental policy, regulatory assessments, public-private partnerships, nudge policies, universal basic income, and much more.

Outsourcing Empire: How Company-States Made the Modern World

Jason Sharman

Princeton University Press, 2020

Andrew Phillips and J. C. Sharman explain the rise and fall of company-states, why some succeeded while others failed, and their role as vanguards of capitalism and imperialism. In dealing with alien civilizations to the East and West, Europeans relied primarily on company-states to mediate geographic and cultural distances in trade and diplomacy. Emerging as improvised solutions to bridge the gap between European rulers' expansive geopolitical ambitions and their scarce means, company-states succeeded best where they could balance the twin imperatives of power and profit. Yet as European states strengthened from the late eighteenth century onward, and a sense of separate public and private spheres grew, the company-states lost their usefulness and legitimacy.

What sets good and bad leaders apart in the coronavirus era

Lawrence Hamilton

The Conversation, 07/06/2020

Crises bring out the best and worst of politicians and populations. Folly, fear and fortitude are on display everywhere. In the main, democracies have fared better than non-democracies in handling the coronavirus pandemic. But the record is very varied indeed. What explains this? What can be done about it?