Episodi

  • Matthew McManus, "The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism" (Routledge, 2024)

    Matthew McManus, "The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism" (Routledge, 2024)
    Jan 11 2025
    In The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism (Routledge, 2024), McManus presents a comprehensive guide to the liberal socialist tradition, stretching from Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine through John Stuart Mill to Irving Howe, John Rawls, and Charles Mills. Providing a comprehensive critical genealogy of liberal socialism from a sympathetic but critical standpoint, McManus traces its core to the Revolutionary period that catalyzed major divisions in liberal political theory to the French Revolution that saw the emergence of writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine who argued that liberal principles could only be inadequately instantiated in a society with high levels of material and social inequality to John Stuart Mill, the first major thinker who declared himself a liberal and a socialist and who made major contributions to both traditions through his efforts to synthesize and conciliate them. McManus argues for liberal socialism as a political theory which could truly secure equality and liberty for all. An essential book on the tradition of liberal socialism for students, researchers, and scholars of political science and humanities. Matthew McManus is a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan, USA. He is the author of The Political Right and Equality (Routledge) and A Critical Legal Examination of Liberalism and Liberal Rights among other books. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora e 28 min
  • Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti, "Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti, "Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Jan 9 2025
    How should broadly liberal democratic societies stop illiberal and antidemocratic views from gaining influence while honouring liberal democratic values? This question has become particularly pressing after the recent successes of right-wing populist leaders and parties across Europe, in the US, and beyond. Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Alasia Nuti and Gabriele Badano develops a normative account of liberal democratic self-defence that denounces the failures of real-world societies without excusing those supporting illiberal and antidemocratic political actors. This account is innovative in focusing not only on the role of the state but also on the duties of nonstate actors including citizens, partisans, and municipalities. Consequently, it also addresses cases where the central government has at least been partly captured by illiberal and antidemocratic agents. Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti's approach builds on John Rawls's treatment of political liberalism and his awareness of the need to 'contain' unreasonable views, that is, views denying that society should treat every person as free and equal through a mutually acceptable system of social cooperation where pluralism is to be expected. The authors offer original solutions to vexed problems within political liberalism by putting forward a new account of the relation between ideal and non-ideal theory, explaining why it is justifiable to exclude unreasonable persons from the constituency of public reason, and showing that the strictures of public reason do not apply to those suffering from severe injustice. In doing so, the book further politicizes political liberalism and turns it into a framework that can insightfully respond to the challenges of real politics. Alasia Nuti is senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of York. Her work is situated at the intersection of analytical political theory, critical theory, gender studies and critical race theory Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora e 4 min
  • David Lyon, "Surveillance: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    David Lyon, "Surveillance: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Jan 8 2025
    Surveillance is everywhere today, generating data about our purchasing, political, and personal preferences. Surveillance: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2024) shows how surveillance makes people visible and affects their lives, considers the technologies involved and how it grew to its present size and prevalence, and explores the pressing ethical questions surrounding it. David Lyon is former Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Law, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora
  • Benjamin Meiches, "The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)

    Benjamin Meiches, "The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
    Jan 7 2025
    In The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (University of Minnesota Press, 2019),Benjamin Meiches takes a novel approach to the study of genocide by analyzing the ways in which ideas, concepts, and understandings about what genocide is and how it is to be prevented have become entrenched politically and intellectually. At the center of this analysis is what Meiches refers to throughout his text as the hegemonic understanding of genocide. Using what Michel Foucault describes as genealogy, Meiches set out to evaluate the process by which the concept of genocide has become intelligible. In doing so, Meiches offers significant evidence in support of many of the emerging critiques of the field of genocide studies. Meiches also inspires reflective and introspective thinking regarding the ways in which genocide scholarship contributes to the maintenance of a hegemonic understanding of genocide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora
  • Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, "Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

    Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, "Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
    Jan 6 2025
    Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy (Cambridge UP, 2020) traces the role of human rights concerns in US foreign policy during the 1980s, focusing on the struggle among the Reagan administration and members of Congress. It demonstrates how congressional pressure led the administration to reconsider its approach to human rights and craft a conservative human rights policy centered on democracy promotion and anti-communism - a decision which would have profound implications for American attention to human rights. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard combines a comprehensive overview of human rights in American foreign relations with in-depth case studies of how human rights shaped US foreign policy toward Soviet Jewry, South African apartheid, and Nicaragua. Tracing the motivations behind human rights activism, this book demonstrates how liberals, moderates, and conservatives selectively invoked human rights to further their agendas, ultimately contributing to the establishment of human rights as a core moral language in US foreign policy. Grant Golub is a PhD candidate in U.S. and international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His research examines the politics of American grand strategy during World War II. Follow him on Twitter @ghgolub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora e 26 min
  • Todd McGowan, "Universality and Identity Politics" (Columbia UP, 2020)

    Todd McGowan, "Universality and Identity Politics" (Columbia UP, 2020)
    Jan 4 2025
    The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality as a form of domination or a way of speaking for others, and have come to favor a politics of particularism—often derided as “identity politics.” Others, both centrists and conservatives, associate universalism with twentieth-century totalitarianism and hold that it is bound to lead to catastrophe. This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. Todd McGowan argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. McGowan reconsiders the history of Nazism and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He demonstrates that the divide between Right and Left comes down to particularity versus universality. Despite the accusation of identity politics directed against leftists, every emancipatory political project is fundamentally a universal one—and the real proponents of identity politics are the right wing. Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, Universality and Identity Politics (Columbia UP, 2020) offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of twenty-first-century collective struggle. Todd McGowan is professor of film studies at the University of Vermont. His previous Columbia University Press books are The Impossible David Lynch (2007), Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets (2016), and Emancipation After Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution (2019). He is the coeditor of the Diaeresis series at Northwestern University Press with Slavoj Žižek and Adrian Johnston. He is also cohost of the Why Theory podcast, which brings continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory together to examine cultural phenomena. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora e 5 min
  • Eric Storm, "Nationalism: A World History" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    Eric Storm, "Nationalism: A World History" (Princeton UP, 2024)
    Jan 1 2025
    The current rise of nationalism across the globe is a reminder that we are not, after all, living in a borderless world of virtual connectivity. In Nationalism: A World History (Princeton UP, 2024), historian Eric Storm sheds light on contemporary nationalist movements by exploring the global evolution of nationalism, beginning with the rise of the nation-state in the eighteenth century through the revival of nationalist ideas in the present day. Storm traces the emergence of the unitary nation-state--which brought citizenship rights to some while excluding a multitude of "others"--and the pervasive spread of nationalist ideas through politics and culture. Storm shows how nationalism influences the arts and humanities, mapping its dissemination through newspapers, television, and social media. Sports and tourism, too, have helped fashion a world of discrete nations, each with its own character, heroes, and highlights. Nationalism saturates the physical environment, not only in the form of national museums and patriotic statues but also in efforts to preserve cultural heritage, create national parks, invent ethnic dishes and beverages, promote traditional building practices, and cultivate native plants. Nationalism has even been used for selling cars, furniture, and fashion. By tracing these tendencies across countries, Storm shows that nationalism's watershed moments were global. He argues that the rise of new nation-states was largely determined by shifts in the international context, that the relationships between nation-states and their citizens largely developed according to global patterns, and that worldwide intellectual trends influenced the nationalization of both culture and environment. Over the centuries, nationalism has transformed both geopolitics and the everyday life of ordinary people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    51 min
  • Michael Fuerstein, "Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Michael Fuerstein, "Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Jan 1 2025
    Various kind of philosophical considerations have been offered in favor of democracy. By some accounts, democracy realizes some intrinsic value, such as equality or collective autonomy. According to other views, democracy’s value is more instrumental: it tends to produce or promote certain social goods like stability, prosperity, and peace. However, a longstanding alternative tradition locates democracy’s value in its capacity to make social and moral progress. Here, the idea isn’t so much that democracy produces an already-identified social good, but rather that democracy fosters a kind of social and moral discovery. In Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress (Oxford UP, 2024), Michael Fuerstein draws on normative and empirical considerations in proposing a systematic account of democracy’s capacity to foster progress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    1 ora e 10 min