Political science and theory Books

This book challenges received notions of ontology in political theory and international relations by offering a psychoanalytically informed critique of depoliticisation in prominent liberal, post-liberal, dialogic and agonistic approaches to pluralism in...

This book explicates how debates and documents can be understood, interpreted and analysed as political action. It offers the reader both a theoretical introduction and practical guidance. The authors deploy the perspective that debates are to be...

Language policies impact language choice, language prestige, and language spread. Rising regional integration, both formal and informal, adds to the sensitivity and complexity of language politics, whether in North America, South America or Europe. This...

Where is Egypt headed? Did the people 'bring down the government,' as the thousands of demonstrators in Tahrir Square claimed in January 2011? What has taken place since the fall of the Mubarak regime the following month? Why was political Islam,...

On the eight-hundredth anniversary of the Magna Carta, Women and the Magna Carta investigates what the charter meant for women's rights and freedoms from an historical and legal perspective.

This book analyzes Mexican migrant organizations in the US and their political influence in home communities in Mexico. By connecting multifaceted arenas of Mexican migrant's activism, it traces the construction of transnational political spaces. The...

Examining core issues of post-1967 Arab liberalism, this book brings forth a timely study highlighting the key themes of freedom and democracy championed in the 2011 uprisings as central to Arab liberal thought. The volume aims at confronting the image...

During the early 1980s, large parts of Europe were swept with riots and youth revolts. Radicalised young people occupied buildings and clashed with the police in cities such as Zurich, Berlin and Amsterdam, while in Great Britain and France, 'migrant'...

This book explores the recreation and subsequent development of the British Monarchy during the twentieth century.  Contributors examine the phenomenon of modern monarchy through an exploration of the establishment and the continuing impact of...

Winner of 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award, Shakespeare's Political Wisdom offers careful interpretations of five Shakespearean plays -Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and The Tempest-with a view to the enduring guida

This book explores the professional and social lives of the soldiers who served in the army of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. More than just a fighting force, this army was the setting in which hundreds of thousands of men forged...

The history of international thought is a flourishing field, but it has tended to focus on Anglo-American realist and liberal thinkers. This book moves beyond the Anglosphere and beyond realism and liberalism. It analyses the work of thinkers from...

Certain 19th Century presidencies contrast common perceptions of the office's authority and strength. These presidents were a strong group and were anything but insignificant. They fought substantial battles with Congress and often won. This book seeks...

Shifting to an online world has drastically changed political communication. From producers of news and the consumers receiving it, from how campaigns communicate with voters to how elected officials connect with constituents, technology has disrupted...

This book examines the commemoration of 9/11 in American memorial culture. It argues that the emergence of counter-memories of September 11 has been compromised by the dominance of certain narrative paradigms - or, frames of memory - that have mediated...

In Against Orthodoxy, the author engages some of the most provocative thinkers of the 20th century, including Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Karl Marx, Harry Braverman and Paulo Freire. All of these social and political theorists were...

This study introduces and systematizes the concept of global modernity as a paradigm for the analysis of the contemporary era. Building on Parson's distinction between social, cultural, personal and organismic systems, it presents a four-dimensional...

Accusations of heresy did not arise in a vacuum during the Middle Ages. Polemicists and inquisitors had their own agendas, often involving lay or ecclesiastical politics. Heresy and treason became equated by the thirteenth century, opening the way for...

This timely study explores the dilemmas of US intervention within the broad context of the history of foreign policy in America and with a specific focus on the Obama administration. Framed by three dominant US narratives centred on the desire to feel...

The book chronicles the evolution of the church's political power throughout Poland's unique history. Beginning in the tenth century, the study first details how Catholicism overcame early challenges in Poland, from converting the early polytheists to...

Aristotle's Politics, fundamental to the Western political philosophy canon, has been widely regarded as an ancient handbook for statesmen. While conceding that Aristotle's treatise poses questions to lawmakers, Johnson argues that scholars would benefit...

In this book Paddy McQueen examines the role that 'recognition' plays in our struggles to construct an identity and to make sense of ourselves as gendered beings. It analyses how such struggles for gender recognition are shaped by social discourses and...

Revisiting Iris Marion Young on Normalisation, Inclusion and Democracy presents an innovative collection of politically and theoretically inspiring papers by feminist, queer and postcolonial writers. All authors engage with Young's politics of cultural...

This is the first book-length study of the award-winning historical drama The Tudors. In this volume twenty distinguished scholars separate documented history, plausible invention, and outright fantasy in a lively series of scholarly, but accessible and...

Who is Mr Lukashenka? Do Belarusians support him out of fear and/or because they are blinkered, or there are other factors that help to explain his longevity as a national leader?The book seeks answers to these questions on the premise that Lukashenka's...

On American Freedom critiques the value of freedom as it is now manifest in America's political, economic, and cultural life in light of a more robust value of freedom coordinated around human dignity and civic participation. Drawing from historic sources

Does the lethal use of drones pose any new or difficult moral problems? Or is the controversy over these weapons merely a distraction from deeper questions regarding the justice of war and the United States' bellicose foreign policy? Opposing Perspectives

Since the late 1970s China has undergone a great transformation, during which time the country has witnessed an outpouring of competing schools of thought. This book analyzes the major schools of political thought redefining China's transformation and...

The understanding of the national will in war needs to move beyond untested maxims that the nation is averse to conflicts which are not costless and quick. To better understand the true American will, one must ask the following: What variables shape the...

This book uniquely applies securitization theory to the mass sexual violence atrocities committed during the Bosnia war and the Rwandan genocide. Examining the inherent links between rape, war and global security, Hirschauer analyses the complexities of...

The events of September 11, 2001 brought global attention to the significance of the Global Jihad. Many asked why the attack had occurred and numerous questions from all sectors of society emerged, in particular, why had they chosen to target the US and...

Individuals have little incentive to vote, acquire political information or contribute campaign funds, because their vote has very little chance of affecting the outcome of an election. Jankowski offers an explanation and evidence for political...

How do the norms of the liberal international order influence the activity of Islamist movements? This book assesses the extent to which Islamist groups, which have traditionally attempted to shield their communities from 'external' moral conceptions,...

In response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, Congress authorized "war" against al Qaeda in the statute known as the 2001 AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force). Meant to be a temporary grant of powers to allow the President to...

This book places the study of public support for the arts and culture within the prism of public policy making. It is explicitly comparative in casting cultural policy within a broad sociopolitical and historical framework. Given the complexity of...

Since ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, five American presidents-Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Obama-have been elected to serve a second term. Presumably, by virtue of their term-limited status, these presidents are free from electoral...

The 1970's witnessed the institution of political liberalism in Greece, which went hand in hand with significant social and economic advancement. Four decades later, the same country is a latter-day 'sick man of Europe'. What went wrong? And why did the...

In this volume, William Davidshofer sets forth an insightful comparative analysis of Marxist and Leninist revolutionary theory. Beginning with the influence of the Hegel's dialectic and the political propositions of historical materialism on Communist...

Robert Wagner was New York City's true New Deal mayor, killed Tammany Hall. The world Wagner shaped delivers municipal services efficiently at the cost of local democracy. The story of Wagner's mayoralty will be of interest to anyone who cares about New...

This book examines the nature of representation in democracy, focusing on constituent evaluations of Congress members and the implications these results have on citizens' influence on government. This analysis elaborates on the complex relationship...

Culture, Politics, and Governing: The Contemporary Ascetics of Knowledge Production is a critical, interdisciplinary approach to how the practices that govern the production of knowledge and culture have material consequences for how we experience...

Drawing on in-depth elite interviews and documents, The Formation of Civil Society in Modern Iran investigates how and why the Iranian reformists used the language and concept of civil society to enhance the reformists' positions of power. Author Melody...

The choices the Supreme Court makes in taking their cases casts an important part of each individual justice's jurisprudence. This book attaches case selection on the high court to a broader institutional context that incorporates the goals of individual...

Since the 2000 presidential election, attention to and scholarship about American elections have exploded alongside myriad proposals for election reform. This book provides a framework for a broader understanding of this critical dimension of American...

Modern campaign messages do not typically focus on a candidate's issue stances and policy proposals. Instead, campaigns use personal stories about candidates reveal greater narratives. Campaigns tell stories about their candidates to make their candidate...

Since the late 1920s, social democracy has been preeminent in the politics of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, through dominant parties and ideological hegemony of the centre-left. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy relates the concept of the Nordic model...

Evaluation has become an important instrument for rational governance and is used in an increasing number of countries and policy fields. Recent global, national and local developments are changing the conditions and functions of evaluation worldwide...

The Science of Stories: Applications of the Narrative Policy Framework in Policy Analysis is the first comprehensive collection of Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) studies, a new framework that empirically examines the role of policy narratives in the...