Browse

Through a focus on control (self-organisation) and communication (alternative social media platforms), Anarchist Cybernetics explores the structures and functions of radically participatory and democratic organisation. Discussing some of the structures that organisations can build that allow their members to directly control how the organisation behaves, the book takes inspiration from an often-misunderstood concept: cybernetics. Building of the work of cybernetician Stafford Beer and providing a radical reading of his Viable System Model, Anarchist Cybernetics makes a unique and timely contribution both to academic debates around anarchist organisation and radical politics more generally and to broader public debates about how organisations can be democratised to allow for more participation by their members. With continuing discussions around the world about popular sovereignty and ‘taking back control’, the book outlines a clear set of proposals for how organisations can function effectively in radically democratic ways. While other contributions to these discussions often priorities one side of the communication-organisation relationship over the other, Anarchist Cybernetics addresses both and show how they are interrelated and that effective organisation demands a consideration of both.

This book examines how borders structure the working class, shaping exploitation and resistance. The book uses the example of Britain to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of a Marxist approach and develop insights that have international relevance. In the wake of the 'Brexit referendum' and facing an uncertain future, debate rages as to whether immigration is good or bad for British society, in economic and cultural terms. Within the political mainstream, both sides in this debate share the assumptions that categories based on nationality, citizenship and country of origin are fixed, legitimate, and appropriate for assessing social change, measuring social benefit and harm, and allocating resources. Likewise, both sides of the debate limit their horizons to what is possible within the capitalist mode of production. Given the long history of migration to and from Britain, and the historically recent development of ideas of nation and citizenship, it is necessary to ask how and why borders and the divides they produce have become so deeply rooted and widely accepted, to the point that they appear as a ‘common sense’ division of humanity. Perhaps more importantly, what role do these ideas play in shaping responses to the crisis, and what are the alternatives?

In the current context of neo-liberal policies, market deregulation and global flows, cities around the world have been faced with the increasingly complex challenges of fragmentation and marginalisation, while ideals of close-knit communities, belonging, and citizenship have become ever harder to sustain. To understand processes of marginalisation and resilience from a multiplicity of viewpoints, there has been a growing demand for inclusive ways of knowledge production, taking into account approaches advocated by the civil society sector and knowledges carried by communities which have been encapsulated in the term ‘epistemologies of the South’. This volume seeks to respond to this need by arguing that collaborations between scholars, activists, stakeholders and communities together with artists can be used as a springboard to strengthen resilience in vulnerable urban areas by taking into account different viewpoints expressed through creative practice. It proposes to employ ‘Co-Creation’, reconceptualised as an alternative way to produce knowledge by bringing together academics, activists and artists and involving them in generating shared understandings of neighbourhoods and wider injustices in the city, through commonly-created artistic outputs. The authors use a multi-disciplinary framework to explore the relevance and suitability of Co-Creation as a broadly applicable methodology to challenge marginalisation in various contexts, primarily in Western Europe and Latin America. This comparative approach provides opportunities to test Co-Creation in various contexts and to address different forms of marginalisation including ethnic, racial, social, postcolonial and generational inequalities, and to discuss these experiences in the light of international debates on cohesive cities and active citizenship.

Discrimination, unjust economic policies and violent regimes continue in the 21st century. This book exposes politicians' cruel motives and the resulting outcomes. The book begins with an overview of the role of cruelty in politics, in the design and implementation of state policies and in non-state responses. Cruel acts and policies are worldwide, though the United Nations has set prohibitions on cruelty which represent global standards. If truths about worldwide cruelties become evident, the elimination of such practices should become a key consideration in any future crafting of policies and in the advocacy of values which influence political cultures. Advocacy of humanitarian alternatives to cruelty would depend on the spirit of universal human rights, challenges to oppressive uses of power, and the promotion of policies to address social and economic inequalities. Understanding cruelty can be made easier by theory about patterns which persist irrespective of differences between countries and cultures. Through empirical analysis, human stories and poetic commentary, the book identifies non-destructive exercise of power, courageous public action and compelling humanitarian alternatives as the key to achieving a future in which dignity and equality flourish.

There were more colons used in legislation in 2015 than there were words enacted in 1900. Using analysis from machine readings of all legislation enacted between 1900 and 2015, this book discusses the social impact of increasingly elastic legislative language on the contemporary workings of the British constitution. The hot-button debates of our time — from immigration to European integration, to the creeping power of judges — have, at their core, battles over what policy instructions are authoritative. The book encourages readers to connect the dots of British statecraft, and to understand how, exactly, public demands are transferred into laws that are then implemented with greater and lesser degrees of success. Crucially, it shows that vague legislation has a tremendous impact on policy delivery, disproportionately affecting the weakest, in areas including immigration, homelessness and anti-discrimination.

This book analyses the impact of the idea of civilization on the global political order. The inquiry explains Norbert Elias’s pioneering examination of the rise of European civilized self-images. It extends the perspective by discussing the interdependencies between state formation which was central to Elias’s explanation and two inter-related phenomena – European colonial expansion and the evolution of the first universal society of states. Special emphasis is placed on European convictions that other societies would become civilized as a result of colonial civilizing offensives and the mimetic behaviour of non-European regimes. The nineteenth century standard of civilization which embodied that belief was an important junction between state formation, colonial expansion and international society. The book concludes with reflections on the cultural

The book explores tensions in the relationship between citizenship and constitutions. It starts from the proposition that the citizen is a central figure in most if not all constitutional set-ups at the state level, and then highlights the paradox that in many constitutions matters of citizenship are not regulated in detail. The idea of the ‘constitutional citizen’ is developed and explored in Part Two, across chapters looking at the ideal of citizenship, modes of acquisition and loss of citizenship, and citizenship rights. Two themes emerge in those central chapters: the potential role of superordinate constitutional principles such as equality and dignity in filling out the concept of constitutional citizenship and the question as to how states should determine the boundaries of citizenship. Should it be via the constitution as interpreted by courts, or via the legislature as representing the people? Part Three of the book explores some of the challenges which the idea of constitutional citizenship faces today. It looks at the effects of the rise of populist politics in many countries, including the acceleration in some countries of constitutional amendments to mirror an exclusivist concept of the people. Then it turns to the fragmentation of the governance of citizenship. Here we see a turn away from an exclusive focus on the state and an increased impact of international institutions on citizenship. An exploration of the paradox of the simultaneous rise of populism and globalisation forms the centrepiece of the book’s conclusions.

Rational Choice and Political Power is a classic text republished with two new chapters. It critiques the three dimensions of power showing that we can explain everything the dimensions are designed to highlight using the tools of rational choice theory. It argues power is best seen as a property of agents, and can be measured by looking at their relative resources. Breaking down power resources into five abstract categories we can see why groups of individuals can fail to secure their best interests due to the collective action problem. We can also define objective interests in through the lens of collective action. Despite power being seen as a property of agents rational choice models of power provide structural Explanation. The power and luck structure is the relationship in agential resource-holding given agents preferences. The book explains the difference between power and systematic luck – the latter is where groups, including powerful ones – can get what they want without doing anything simply because of their social location in the power and luck structure. The book engages with some feminist critiques of seeing power in rational choice terms and includes some methodological discussion of the relationship of methodological individualism and structuralism and then that the concept of power is essentially contested. This book’s unique interaction with both classical and contemporary debates makes it an essential resource for anyone teaching or studying power in the disciplines of sociology, philosophy, politics or international relations.

This book develops new ways of thinking beyond the nation as a form of political community by seeking to transcend ethnonational categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Drawing on scholarship and cases spanning Pacific Asia and Europe, it steps outside assumptions linking nation to state. Accessible yet theoretically rich, it explores how to think about nationhood beyond narrow binaries and even broader cosmopolitan ideals. Using cutting-edge critical research, it fundamentally challenges the positive connotations of British patriotism and UK politics’ anti-immigrant discourse, pointing to how these continue to reproduce vocabularies of belonging that are dependent on ethnonational and racialised categorisations. With a cross-continental focus, this book offers alternative ways of thinking about togetherness and belonging that are premised on mobility rather than rootedness, thereby providing a constructive agenda for critical nationalism studies.

This book provides crucial insight into the fight back against austerity by local authorities through emerging forms of municipal entrepreneurialism in housing delivery. Capturing this moment within its live context, the book examines the ways that local authorities are moving towards increased financial independence based on their own activities to implement new forms and means of housebuilding activity. The book assesses these changes in the context of the long-term relationship between local and central government and argues that contemporary local authority housing initiatives represent a critical turning point, whilst also providing new ways of thinking about meting housing need. The book provides new ways of thinking about meeting housing need within and beyond the United Kingdom.

The relationship between realism and constructivism in international relations theory is a fraught one. The two paradigmatic framings of IR are often understood, and taught, as being in opposition to each other. The relationship is also an important one. Realism and constructivism are two of the central concepts around which the academic discipline is organized and are often presented as incompatible or paradigmatically irreconcilable. A number of scholars have argued, however, that the two are compatible. But these discussions have tended to be at a theoretical rather than applied level; they have opened up spaces for discussions of the relationship between the two understandings, but they have not necessarily given clear guidance to scholars for how to combine realism and constructivism as parts of a specific research design. In part this is because there are a variety of ways in which one could reasonably combine the two. Realist constructivism is in this sense a space for a conversation between the two understandings, rather than a specific combination of them. This volume provides a set of examples of applications of different realist constructivisms and an analysis of where they fit in this conversation, and how they speak to each other. Providing such a set of examples both helps to establish the range of the possible in the conversation between realism and constructivism as a set of research practices rather than deductive claims and provides examples to junior scholars of how to build research programs that combine constructivism and realism.

This book considers what Britain might learn from Westminster-derived constitutions around the world. The book begins by identifying the deep constitutional crisis of the British body-politic and attempts to introduce a remedy in the form of new constitutional settlement founded upon a written constitution. It explains that the 'unwritten constitution', which grew up over the centuries from a hotchpotch of statutes, judicial decisions, disputed conventions, and traditions has reached the end of its useful life. The book emphasizes the revival of the British democracy through a written constitution, a supreme and fundamental law that is founded upon a broad political and societal consensus. It reviews constitutional proposals that reflect the 'Charter 88 agenda', which has motivated constitutional reformers in Britain for the last three decades. The book traces the decline and fall of the British constitution over the space of 80 years. It describes Britain's current constitutional crisis as the final unravelling of what might be termed the 'Hanoverian constitutional settlement'. It then makes a case for a new written constitution. It emphasizes how a written constitution does not need to be contained in one document but must have a bounded set of such laws that are distinguished from other laws and whose status as the supreme and fundamental law is known, declared and explicit. Exploring the principles of Westminster Model constitutions and their impact on democracy, human rights and good government, the book builds to a bold re-imagining of the United Kingdom's future written framework.