Discourses Of Global Politics

'[A] provocative book which ought to be widely-used in courses and frequently cited in future debates...Jim George has written a lucid and useful guide to the critical theories of international relations which have appeared over the last ten years.' Andrew Linklater, Australian Journal of Political Science This important new text provides a broad-ranging and accessible critique of, and re-introduction to, International Relations drawing on the most significant critical perspectives in recent social science theory. These perspectives are carefully introduced and systematically applied to the dominant traditions in contemporary IR. 'Sure to be the alternative text for international relations courses...I can think of no other book that provides as comprehensive a tour of the presuppositions that guide both the mainstream's and the critics' approaches to interpreting international politics.' D.Campbell 'A very important contribution and an excellent teaching tool...George provides a comprehensive treatment of the philosophical bases of both traditional and critical work in IR.' M.J.Shapiro

This book develops a discourse theory of crisis and change in global politics. Crisis is conceptualized as structural dislocation, resting on difference and incompleteness. Change is seen as the continuous but ultimately futile effort to gain a full identity. The incompleteness and contingent character of the social represents the most important condition for democratic politics to become possible and for a theory of crisis and change to become conceivable. In this new understanding, crisis loses its everyday meaning of a periodically occurring event. Instead, crisis becomes an omnipresent feature of the social fabric. It represents the absence of ground, of social foundation, and it rests within the subject as well as within the social whole.

This book examines the arguments made by political actors in the creation of antagonistic discourses on climate change. Using in-depth empirical research from Sweden, a country considered by the international political community to be a frontrunner in tackling climate change, it draws out lessons that contribute to the worldwide environmental debate. The book identifies and analyses four globally circulated discourses that call for very different action to be taken to achieve sustainability: Industrial fatalism, Green Keynesianism, Eco-socialism and Climate scepticism. Drawing on risk society and post-political theory, it elaborates concepts such as industrial modern masculinity and ecomodern utopia, exploring how it is possible to reconcile apocalyptic framing to the dominant discourse of political conservatism. This highly original and detailed study focuses on opinion leaders and the way discourses are framed in the climate change debate, making it valuable reading for students and scholars of environmental communication and media, global environmental policy, energy research and sustainability.

This book explores two dimensions of contemporary global governance. The first part looks at the relationship between multipolarity and global governance. Thus the position of major players in global governance - namely China, Russia, the Trilateral Dialogue Forum of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), Japan and the EU - is examined. The second part takes a look at particular discourses that inform the debate about global governance. In this context, the book investigates issues such as the relationship between global governance and democracy, global governance and security thinking, and the way international institutions influence national policy. This volume builds on research activities within the network REGIMEN (Research Network on International Governance, Globalization and the Transformation of the State).

Argues that international institutions are becoming increasingly democratized.

As we face new challenges from climate change and the rise of populism in Western politics and beyond, there is little doubt that we are entering a new configuration of world politics. Driven by nostalgia for past certainties or fear of what is coming next, references to normalcy have been creeping into political discourse, with people either vying for a return to a past normalcy or coping with the new normal. This book traces main discourses and practices associated with normalcy in world politics. Visoka and Lemay-Hébert mostly focus on how dominant states and international organizations try to manage global affairs through imposing normalcy over fragile states, restoring normalcy over disaster-affected states, and accepting normalcy over suppressive states. They show how discourses and practices come together in constituting normalization interventions and how in turn they play in shaping the dynamics of continuity and change in world politics.