Governing Affect

Roberto E. Barrios presents an ethnographic study of the aftermaths of four natural disasters: southern Honduras after Hurricane Mitch; New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina; Chiapas, Mexico, after the Grijalva River landslide; and southern Illinois following the Mississippi River flood. Focusing on the role of affect, Barrios examines the ways in which people who live through disasters use emotions as a means of assessing the relevance of governmentally sanctioned recovery plans, judging the effectiveness of such programs, and reflecting on the risk of living in areas that have been deemed prone to disaster. Emotions such as terror, disgust, or sentimental attachment to place all shape the meanings we assign to disasters as well as our political responses to them. The ethnographic cases in Governing Affect highlight how reconstruction programs, government agencies, and recovery experts often view postdisaster contexts as opportune moments to transform disaster-affected communities through principles and practices of modernist and neoliberal development. Governing Affect brings policy and politics into dialogue with human emotion to provide researchers and practitioners with an analytical toolkit for apprehending and addressing issues of difference, voice, and inequity in the aftermath of catastrophes.

"Roberto E. Barriospresents an ethnographic study of the aftermaths of four natural disasters: southern Honduras after Hurricane Mitch; New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina; Chiapas, Mexico, after the Grijalva River landslide; and southern Illinois following the Mississippi River flood. Focusing on the role of affect, Barrios examines the ways in which people who live through disasters use emotions as a means of assessing the relevance of governmentally sanctioned recovery plans, judging the effectiveness of such programs, and reflecting on the risk of living in areas that have been deemed prone to disaster. Emotions such as terror, disgust, or sentimental attachment to place all shape the meanings we assign to disasters as well as our political responses to them. The ethnographic cases in Governing Affect highlight how reconstruction programs, government agencies, and recovery experts often view postdisaster contexts as opportune moments to transform disaster-affected communities through principles and practices of modernist and neoliberal development. Governing Affect brings policy and politics into dialogue with human emotion to provide researchers and practitioners with an analytical toolkit for apprehending and addressing issues of difference, voice, and inequity in the aftermath of catastrophes."--

Governing Affects explores the neoliberal transformation of state governance in Europe towards affective forms of dominance exercised by customer-oriented neo-bureaucracies and public service providers. By investigating the rise of affective labour in contemporary European service societies and the conversion of state administrations into business-like public services, the authors trace the transformative power of neoliberal political thought as it is put into practice. The book examines new affective modes of subjectivation and activation of public employees, as well as their embodiment of affective requirements, to successfully guide and advise citizens. Neoliberalism induces a double agency in neo-bureaucrats: entrepreneurialism is coupled with affective skills for the purpose of governing clients in their own best interests. These competences are unevenly distributed between the genders, as their affective dispositions differ historically. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of Foucault and Bourdieu, the book offers innovative insights into recent processes of state transformation, affective subjectivation, and changes in labour relations. By combining theory building on governance with empirical research in key areas of state power, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in a broad range of disciplines, including political science, political sociology, and critical governance studies.

"This book explores the political dilemmas around security forces in war-torn countries. Well-governed military and police forces are central to sustained peace after civil war, and efforts to restructure security forces are major components of peacebuilding and stabilization efforts. As international actors have attempted to strengthen oversight and curb abuse, however, they have run into thorny political obstacles. Varied outcomes have raised questions about the value of international assistance for strengthening state institutions"--

Neoliberalism is among the most commonly used concepts in the social sciences. Furthermore, it is one of the most influential factors that have shaped the formation of public policy and politics. In Governing Practices, Michelle Brady and Randy Lippert bring together prominent scholars in sociology, criminology, anthropology, geography, and policy studies to extend and refine the current conversation about neoliberalism. The collection argues that a new methodological approach to analyzing contemporary policy and political change is needed. United by the common influence of Foucault’s governmentality approach and an ethnographic imaginary, the collection presents original research on a diverse range of case studies including public-private partnerships, the governance of condos, community and state statistics, nanopolitics, philanthropy, education reform, and pay-day lending. These diverse studies add considerable depth to studies on governmentality and neoliberalism through a focus on governmental practices that have not previously been the focus of sustained analysis.

This book explains why governance is polycentric and what that means in practice, using examples of complex natural resource management.

Governing the Global Economy explores the dynamic interaction between politics and economics, between states and markets and between international and domestic politics. The contributors study how the governance of the global economy is shaped by interaction between international institutions, domestic politics and multinational enterprises, from a wide range of theoretical perspectives and methods. Presenting a fresh approach to the study of international political economy, this volume covers: the systemic characteristics of the liberal world order, the role of international institutions, domestic economic politics and policies the strategies and behaviour of multinational enterprises. The volume also includes topical discussion of the challenges to the global economy from the recent financial crisis and analysis of economic politics, in particular the regions of Africa and Europe as well as the countries of Japan and South Korea. With contributions from prominent scholars in political science, economics and business studies, who have all contributed greatly to advancing the study of political economy over the last decade, Governing the Global Economy aims to bridge the gap between undergraduate textbooks and advanced theory. It is essential reading for all students and scholars of international political economy and globalization.