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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2025

        Criminality, political power and conflict

        Critical perspectives

        by José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton, Francisco Gutiérrez Sanín

        In the aftermath of the greed vs. grievance debate and the new wars paradigm, the focus of conflict studies shifted decisively to understanding "predatory" behaviours as the raison d'etre of contemporary conflict. Conflict was viewed as a continuum in which the more you engage in criminal behaviour, the less political you are.This approach has been robustly criticised over the past 15 years; however, in the process, we have been left with unsuitable concepts to handle the complex interactions between civil war, political power and criminality. The departure point here is the understanding of politics and criminality as two historically differentiated domains of human activity. Different, but interrelated, often co-constitutive and overlapping. Here, we empirically and theoretically explore their interactions, connections, and convergences, not focusing solely on irregular actors, thus bringing back the State and elites into this debate.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2025

        Writing power

        Intellectuals, legitimacy, and the making of knowledge

        by Sarah Victoria Alexandra Burton

        Writing power radically rethinks the place of the canon and canonicity as objects and concepts in contemporary academia and the everyday intellectual practices of academics. It is distinctive in its demonstration of how academics' engagements with canons shape their writing practices but also how scholars' writing practices, spaces, proclivities, and desires shape the canon and changing ideas of value in canonicity. The book thinks through frequently discussed problems of legitimacy and knowledge production from fresh perspectives of lived experience and the everyday to offer new insights into the politics of knowledge in contemporary social sciences.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2022

        The power of citizens and professionals in welfare encounters

        The influence of bureaucracy, market and psychology

        by Nanna Mik-Meyer

        This book is about power in welfare encounters. Present-day citizens are no longer the passive clients of the bureaucracy and welfare workers are no longer automatically the powerful party of the encounter. Instead, citizens are expected to engage in active, responsible and coproducing relationships with welfare workers. However, other factors impact these interactions; factors which often pull in different directions. Welfare encounters are thus influenced by bureaucratic principles and market values as well. Consequently, this book engages with both Weberian (bureaucracy) and Foucauldian (market values/NPM) studies when investigating the powerful welfare encounter. The book is targeted Academics, post-graduates, and undergraduates within sociology, anthropology and political science.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2005

        Democracy, social resources and political power in the European Union

        by Niilo Kauppi

        In this book Kauppi develops a structural constructivist theory of the European Union and critically analyses, through French and Finnish empirical cases, the political practices that maintain the Union's 'democratic deficit'. Kauppi conceptualises the European Union as both an arena for political contention and a nascent political order. In this evolving, multi-levelled European political field, individuals and groups construct material and symbolic structures of political power, grounded in a variety of social resources such as nationality, culture, and gender. The author shows how the dominance of both executive political resources and domestic political cultures has prevented the development of European democracy. Supranational executive networks have become more autonomous, reinforcing the dominance of the resources they control. At the same time, national political cultures condition the political status of elected institutions such as the European parliament. The book is particularly suited for undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of European Politics, European Union Studies and International Relations. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2020

        The four dimensions of power

        by Mark Haugaard, Mark Haugaard

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Air power and colonial control

        by David Omissi

        Air policing was used in many colonial possessions, but its most effective incidence occurred in the crescent of territory from north-eastern Africa, through South-West Arabia, to North West Frontier of India. This book talks about air policing and its role in offering a cheaper means of 'pacification' in the inter-war years. It illuminates the potentialities and limitations of the new aerial technology, and makes important contributions to the history of colonial resistance and its suppression. Air policing was employed in the campaign against Mohammed bin Abdulla Hassan and his Dervish following in Somaliland in early 1920. The book discusses the relationships between air control and the survival of Royal Air Force in Iraq and between air power and indirect imperialism in the Hashemite kingdoms. It discusses Hugh Trenchard's plans to substitute air for naval or coastal forces, and assesses the extent to which barriers of climate and geography continued to limit the exercise of air power. Indigenous responses include being terrified at the mere sight of aircraft to the successful adaptation to air power, which was hardly foreseen by either the opponents or the supporters of air policing. The book examines the ethical debates which were a continuous undercurrent to the stream of argument about repressive air power methods from a political and operational perspective. It compares air policing as practised by other European powers by highlighting the Rif war in Morocco, the Druze revolt in Syria, and Italy's war of reconquest in Libya.

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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2018

        How to save politics in a post-truth era

        by Ilan Zvi Baron

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2023

        Made in France

        Societal structures and political work

        by Andy Smith

        How has French society been made, by whom and why? And how in turn has it influenced the French? This book sets out the institutionalized rules and norms that continue to structure France, together with the 'political work' that has recently changed or reproduced these power relations. Exploring a range of age groups and types of social activity, including work, business, entertainment, political mobilizations and retirement, Made in France examines where significant change has occurred over the last four decades. Smith argues that while transformation has occurred in France's financial and education sectors, only relatively marginal shifts have occurred elsewhere in French society. To explain this pattern of continuity and isolated change, the book strongly nuances claims that neo-liberalism, globalization or a rise in populism have been its causes. References to these trends have impacted upon French politics to varying extents, Smith argues; however, France continues to be dominated by issues which are specific to the country and linked to its deep societal structures and history. Smith provides a comprehensive account of French society and politics and in doing so proposes an insightful analytical framework applicable to the comparative analysis of other nations.

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      • Trusted Partner
        Political ideologies
        May 2017

        Neoliberal power and public management reforms

        by Professor Peter Triantafillou. Series edited by Mark Haugaard

        This book examines the links between major contemporary public sector reforms and neoliberal thinking. The key contribution of the book is to enhance our understanding of contemporary neoliberalism as it plays out in the public administration and to provide a critical analysis of generally overlooked aspects of administrative power. The book examines the quest for accountability, credibility and evidence in the public sector. It asks whether this quest may be understood in terms of neoliberal thinking and, if so, how? The book makes the argument that while current administrative reforms are informed by several distinct political rationalities, they evolve above all around a particular form of neoliberalism: constructivist neoliberalism. The book analyses the dangers of the kinds of administrative power seeking to invoke the self-steering capacities of society and administration itself.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Imperialism and the natural world

        by John M. MacKenzie

        Imperial power, both formal and informal, and research in the natural sciences were closely dependent in the nineteenth century. This book examines a portion of the mass-produced juvenile literature, focusing on the cluster of ideas connected with Britain's role in the maintenance of order and the spread of civilization. It discusses the political economy of Western ecological systems, and the consequences of their extension to the colonial periphery, particularly in forms of forest conservation. Progress and consumerism were major constituents of the consensus that helped stabilise the late Victorian society, but consumerism only works if it can deliver the goods. From 1842 onwards, almost all major episodes of coordinated popular resistance to colonial rule in India were preceded by phases of vigorous resistance to colonial forest control. By the late 1840s, a limited number of professional positions were available for geologists in British imperial service, but imperial geology had a longer pedigree. Modern imperialism or 'municipal imperialism' offers a broader framework for understanding the origins, long duration and persistent support for overseas expansion which transcended the rise and fall of cabinets or international realignments in the 1800s. Although medical scientists began to discern and control the microbiological causes of tropical ills after the mid-nineteenth century, the claims for climatic causation did not undergo a corresponding decline. Arthur Pearson's Pearson's Magazine was patriotic, militaristic and devoted to royalty. The book explores how science emerged as an important feature of the development policies of the Colonial Office (CO) of the colonial empire.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2017

        The divorce of King Lothar and Queen Theutberga

        Hincmar of Rheims's De divortio

        by Rachel Stone, Charles West

        In the mid-ninth century, Francia was rocked by the first royal divorce scandal of the Middle Ages: the attempt by King Lothar II of Lotharingia to rid himself of his queen, Theutberga and remarry. Even 'women in their weaving sheds' were allegedly gossiping about the lurid accusations made. Kings and bishops from neighbouring kingdoms, and several popes, were gradually drawn into a crisis affecting the fate of an entire kingdom. This is the first professionally published translation of a key source for this extraordinary episode: Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims's De divortio Lotharii regis et Theutbergae reginae. This text offers eye-opening insight both on the political wrangling of the time and on early medieval attitudes towards magic, penance, gender, the ordeal, marriage, sodomy, the role of bishops, and kingship.The translation includes a substantial introduction and annotations, putting the case into its early medieval context and explaining Hincmar's sometimes-dubious methods of argument.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2025

        The right in Latin America

        by Ariel Goldstein

        This book provides an in-depth analysis of the rise and influence of both radical and mainstream right-wing movements across Latin America. Through country-specific case studies, it explores the evolution of these groups and their impact on politics, culture, and governance, highlighting key figures and strategies shaping the political landscape in the region.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2023

        Politics, performance and popular culture

        Theatre and society in nineteenth-century Britain

        by Peter Yeandle, Katherine Newey, Jeffrey Richards

        This collection brings together studies of popular performance and politics across the nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective from an archivally grounded research base. It works with the concept that politics is performative and performance is political. The book is organised into three parts in dialogue regarding specific approaches to popular performance and politics. Part I offers a series of conceptual studies using popular culture as an analytical category for social and political history. Part II explores the ways that performance represents and constructs contemporary ideologies of race, nation and empire. Part III investigates the performance techniques of specific politicians - including Robert Peel, Keir Hardie and Henry Hyndman - and analyses the performative elements of collective movements.

      • Trusted Partner
        Computing & IT
        May 2026

        Democratizing AI

        by Annette Zimmermann

        Democratizing AI offers a powerful rethinking of how artificial intelligence should be governed. Challenging the dominance of tech elites in shaping AI's future, Zimmermann argues that AI deployment is a political act-one that must be subject to democratic control. She proposes a practical "playbook" for reclaiming agenda-setting power through civic participation, public ownership, and institutional reform. Engaging with leading critics, Zimmermann defends a risk-sensitive proceduralist approach while acknowledging the deeper structural challenges posed by capitalism, inequality, and democratic fatigue. This book is a call to action: to resist learned helplessness, confront techno-authoritarianism, and shape AI's trajectory in line with democratic values. Thoughtful, urgent, and visionary, the book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of technology and democracy.

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