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The Politics of Big Fantasy
Bringing critical attention to a particular set of science fiction and fantasy films--Larry and Andy Wachowski's The Matrix, George Lucas' Star Wars saga, and Joss Whedon's Avengers--this book utilizes a wide-ranging set of critical tools to illuminate their political ideologies, while also examining any resistant and complicating turns or byways the films may provide. What they all have in common ideologically is that they--or at least the genres they belong to--tend to be regarded as belonging to politically conservative frames of sociocultural reference. With the Star Wars saga, however, this idea is shown to be superficial and weak.
Violent and Vulnerable Performances: Challenging the Gender Boundaries of Masculinities and Femininities
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. As social constructs, masculinities and femininities are continually being challenged and reconstructed, and in so doing, new subjectivities are re/produced. The boundaries of gender thus remain both violent and vulnerable; violent in the Butlerian sense of subject formation and normative gender policing, and vulnerable as they are fraught with possibilities for new ways of gendering and new definitions of sexual difference. This volume thus examines the boundaries of masculinities and femininities through various cultural, socio-historical, and political contexts, and the tensions which arise from the constant challenges and reconstructions. Violent and Vulnerable Performances: Challenging the Gender Boundaries of Masculinities and Femininities contains fourteen chapters which demonstrate the situatedness of gender, and its impacts on race, class, sex, the body, identity, language, work, the family, and further cultural, socio-political, and economic processes.
The Transformation of the Workers' Party in Brazil, 1989–2009
Drawing on historical institutionalism and strategic frameworks, this book analyzes the evolution of the Workers' Party between 1989, the year of Lula's first presidential bid, and 2009, when his second presidential term entered its final stretch. The book's primary purpose is to understand why and how the once-radical Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) moderated the programmatic positions it endorsed and adopted other aspects of a more catch-all electoral strategy, thereby increasing its electoral appeal. At the same time, the book seeks to shed light on why some of the PT's distinctive normative commitments and organizational practices have endured in the face of adaptations aimed at expanding the party's vote share. The conclusion asks whether, in the face of these changes and continuities, the PT can still be considered a mass organized party of the left.
Decentralization and Recentralization in the Developing World
In the 1980s and 1990s, much of the developing world experienced transitions to democracy accompanied by economic liberalization and decentralization of power to subnational governmental bodies. The process of decentralization has been studied intensively, but little attention has been paid so far to the recentralization that has occurred in some countries in the past decade. In this book, J. Tyler Dickovick seeks to illuminate how the processes of decentralization and recentralization are interrelated and what the dynamics of each is. He argues that decentralization occurs as a result of the decline in the power of the presidency, whereas recentralization occurs when the president resolves ...
Middle Powers and the Rise of China
This is the first work to examine the importance and role of middle powers in the key phenomenon of contemporary international politics, the rise of China. This book reviews China's middle-power relations with South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and Brazil.
China and International Relations
Focussing on one of the most influential scholars writing on international relations, Wang Gungwu, this book explores the limitations of Western international relations approaches to China, and explains China’s IR from a non-Western perspective, and demonstrates how the study of Chinese experiences can enrich the IR field.
Democracy and the Left
Although inequality in Latin America ranks among the worst in the world, it has notably declined over the last decade, offset by improvements in health care and education, enhanced programs for social assistance, and increases in the minimum wage. In Democracy and the Left, Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens argue that the resurgence of democracy in Latin America is key to this change. In addition to directly affecting public policy, democratic institutions enable left-leaning political parties to emerge, significantly influencing the allocation of social spending on poverty and inequality. But while democracy is an important determinant of redistributive change, it is by no means the only f...
Conceptualising Comparative Politics
Comparative politics often involves testing of hypotheses using new methodological approaches without giving sufficient attention to the concepts which are fundamental to hypotheses, particularly the ability of these concepts to ‘travel’. Proper operationalising requires deep reflection on the concept, not simply establishing how it should be measured. Conceptualising Comparative Politics – the flagship book of Routledge’s series of the same name – breaks new ground by emphasising the role of thoroughly thinking through concepts and deep familiarity with the case that inform the conceptual reflection. In this thought- provoking book, established academics as well as emerging schola...
Cuban Counterpoints
While Fernando Ortiz's contribution to our understanding of Cuba and Latin America more generally has been widely recognized since the 1940s, recently there has been renewed interest in this scholar and activist who made lasting contributions to a staggering array of fields. This book is the first work in English to reassess Ortiz's vast intellectual universe. Essays in this volume analyze and celebrate his contribution to scholarship in Cuban history, the social sciences--notably anthropology--and law, religion and national identity, literature, and music. Presenting Ortiz's seminal thinking, including his profoundly influential concept of 'transculturation', Cuban Counterpoints explores the bold new perspectives that he brought to bear on Cuban society. Much of his most challenging and provocative thinking--which embraced simultaneity, conflict, inherent contradiction and hybridity--has remarkable relevance for current debates about Latin America's complex and evolving societies.
Democracy as Problem Solving
Case studies from around the world and theoretical discussion show how the capacity to act collectively on local problems can be developed, strengthening democracy while changing social and economic outcomes. Complexity, division, mistrust, and “process paralysis” can thwart leaders and others when they tackle local challenges. In Democracy as Problem Solving, Xavier de Souza Briggs shows how civic capacity—the capacity to create and sustain smart collective action—can be developed and used. In an era of sharp debate over the conditions under which democracy can develop while broadening participation and building community, Briggs argues that understanding and building civic capacity...
