Scholarly Works, Political Science
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Browsing Scholarly Works, Political Science by Content Type "Book"
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- The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of WorkDaggett, Cara New (Duke University Press, 2019-08)In The Birth of Energy Cara New Daggett traces the genealogy of contemporary notions of energy back to the nineteenth-century science of thermodynamics to challenge the underlying logic that informs today's uses of energy. These early resource-based concepts of power first emerged during the Industrial Revolution and were tightly bound to Western capitalist domination and the politics of industrialized work. As Daggett shows, thermodynamics was deployed as an imperial science to govern fossil fuel use, labor, and colonial expansion, in part through a hierarchical ordering of humans and nonhumans. By systematically excavating the historical connection between energy and work, Daggett argues that only by transforming the politics of work--most notably, the veneration of waged work--will we be able to confront the Anthropocene's energy problem. Substituting one source of energy for another will not ensure a habitable planet; rather, the concepts of energy and work themselves must be decoupled.
- Citizenship after Trump: Democracy vs. Authoritarianism in a Post-Pandemic EraKlein, Bradley S.; Nelson, Scott G. (Routledge, 2022-04-01)What is the fate of democracy at this moment in American history? In Citizenship after Trump, political theorists Bradley S. Klein and Scott G. Nelson explore the meaning of community in the context of intense political polarization, the surge of far-right nationalism and deepening divisions during the coronavirus pandemic. The book urges all Americans to consider the claims of citizenship amidst the forces consolidating today around narrow conceptions of race, nation, ethnicity and religion – each of which imperil the institutions of democracy and strike at the heart of the nation’s political culture. With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic greatly testing American democracy, the authors examine the political, economic and cultural challenges that are posed after the Trump administration’s exceedingly inept leadership response. They also explore the promise and limits of democracy relative to long-standing traditions of American political thought. Citizenship after Trump thus offers valuable and timely resources for self-critical analysis and will stimulate focused discussions about as-of-yet unexplored regions of America’s political history. With chapters on the media, political economy, fascism and social democracy, the aim of this book is to question what Americans have gotten so wrong, politically, and what kind of vision can lead the country out of a truly dangerous impasse in the years ahead.
- Social Democracy in Sweden: The Threat from a Globalised WorldTsarouhas, Dimitris (I.B. Tauris, 2008-09-30)Social Democracy in Sweden is an important reassessment of European social democracy and the impact of globalization.
- Tempting Fate: Why Nonnuclear States Confront Nuclear OpponentsAvey, Paul C. (Cornell University Press, 2019-11-15)Why would countries without nuclear weapons even think about fighting nuclear-armed opponents? A simple answer is that no one believes nuclear weapons will be used. But that answer fails to consider why nonnuclear state leaders would believe that in the first place. In this superb unpacking of the dynamics of conflict under conditions of nuclear monopoly, Paul C. Avey argues that the costs and benefits of using nuclear weapons create openings that weak nonnuclear actors can exploit. Tempting Fate uses four case studies to show the key strategies available to nonnuclear states: Iraqi decision-making under Saddam Hussein in confrontations with the United States; Egyptian leaders' thinking about the Israeli nuclear arsenal during wars in 1969–70 and 1973; Chinese confrontations with the United States in 1950, 1954, and 1958; and a dispute that never escalated to war, the Soviet-United States tensions between 1946 and 1948 that culminated in the Berlin Blockade. Those strategies include limiting the scope of the conflict, holding chemical and biological weapons in reserve, seeking outside support, and leveraging international non-use norms. Counterintuitively, conventionally weak nonnuclear states are better positioned to pursue these strategies than strong ones, so that wars are unlikely when the nonnuclear state is powerful relative to its nuclear opponent. Avey demonstrates clearly that nuclear weapons cast a definite but limited shadow, and while the world continues to face various nuclear challenges, understanding conflict in nuclear monopoly will remain a pressing concern for analysts and policymakers.
- Unsettling Brazil: Urban Indigenous and Black Peoples’ Resistances to Dependent Settler CapitalismPoets, Desirée (University of Alabama Press, 2024-03)Unsettling Brazil offers a powerful account of five urban Indigenous and Black communities and movements in Brazil that illuminates their struggle for land, dignity, and their ways of life amid historic and ongoing settler colonialism, marked by militarization and dependent capitalist development. The in-depth case studies are the Indigenous movement Aldeia Maracanã and the quilombola community Sacopã in Rio, the Quilombo dos Luízes in Belo Horizonte, the Indigenous movement behind the Pindorama scholarship program in São Paulo, and the Complexo da Maré favela in Rio. For each, Poets vividly documents the intersectional and transnational structures of power that perpetuate the erasure, dispossession, and exploitation of nonwhite populations and the creative ways that Black and Indigenous communities have mobilized to unsettle these structures. Drawing on the knowledge produced by Black and Indigenous organizers and thinkers, Poets argues for an interdisciplinary framework that prioritizes the voices and experiences of these communities. Addressing increasingly salient calls for decolonization, Poets ponders the paradoxical role of rights, citizenship, and the state in the fight for freedom and justice. Unsettling Brazil urges readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about the nation's history and stands in solidarity with those fighting to reclaim their heritage, identity, and land.
- Writing the New World: The Politics of Natural History in the Early Spanish EmpireCaraccioli, Mauro J. (University of Florida Press, 2021-01-11)In Writing the New World, Mauro Caraccioli examines the natural history writings of early Spanish missionaries, using these texts to argue that colonial Latin America was fundamental in the development of modern political thought. Revealing their narrative context, religious ideals, and political implications, Caraccioli shows how these sixteenth-century works promoted a distinct genre of philosophical wonder in service of an emerging colonial social order. Caraccioli discusses narrative techniques employed by well-known figures such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Bartolomé de Las Casas as well as less-studied authors including Bernardino de Sahagún, Francisco Hernández, and José de Acosta. More than mere catalogues of the natural wonders of the New World, these writings advocate mining and molding untapped landscapes, detailing the possibilities for extracting not just resources from the land but also new moral values from indigenous communities. Analyzing the intersections between politics, science, and faith that surface in these accounts, Caraccioli shows how the portrayal of nature served the ends of imperial domination. Integrating the fields of political theory, environmental history, Latin American literature, and religious studies, this book showcases Spain’s role in the intellectual formation of modernity and Latin America’s place as the crucible for the Scientific Revolution. Its insights are also relevant to debates about the interplay between politics and environmental studies in the Global South today.