Political Interventions

Pierre Bourdieu, one of the most influential critical social theorists of the second half of the twentieth century, once described sociology as “a combat sport.” This comprehensive collection of his writings on politics and social science, from early 1960s articles on the Algerian War of Independence to the last text he published before his death, proves that this vision was enduring throughout his life—as well as a serious scholar Bourdieu was always an outspoken public intellectual. Political Interventions includes many texts hitherto unavailable in English and, placing them in their historical context, reconstructs Bourdieu’s vision of academic study and political activism as two sides of the same process: the decoding and critique of social reality in order to transform it.

Why does political conflict seem to consistently interfere with attempts to provide aid, end ethnic discord, or restore democracy? To answer this question, Agency and Ethics examines how the norms that originally motivate an intervention often create conflict between the intervening powers, outside powers, and the political agents who are the victims of the intervention. Three case studies are drawn upon to illustrate this phenomena: the British and American intervention in Bolshevik Russia in 1918; the British and French intervention in Egypt in 1956; and the American and United Nations intervention in Somalia in 1993. Although rarely categorized together, these three interventions shared at least one strong commonality: all failed to achieve their professed goals, with the troops being ignominiously recalled in each example. Lang concludes by addressing the dilemma of how to resolve complex humanitarian emergencies in the twenty-first century without the necessity of resorting to military intervention.

These thirteen essays by noted philosophers and social theorists continue a timely celebration and examination of Jürgen Habermas's unfinished project of reconstructing enlightenment rationality. Focusing on the cultural and political aspects of Habermas's work, the essays take up critical theory and political practice, the sociology of political practice, historical-philosophical reflections on culture, moral development in childhood and society, and the foundations of critical social theory. Essays in a companion volume, Philosophical Interventions in the Unfinished Project of Enlightenment, look at the metaphysical aspects of Habermas's work. Together, the two volumes underscore the richness and variety of Habermas's project. Contributors Johann P. Amason, Andrew Arato, Seyla Benhabib, Hauke Brunkhorst, Cornelius Castoriadis, Jean Cohen, Helmut Dubiel, Klaus Eder, Günter Frankenberg, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Axel Honneth, Johann Baptist Metz, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler, Claus Offe

We live in a visual age. Images and visual artefacts shape international events and our understanding of them. Photographs, film and television influence how we view and approach phenomena as diverse as war, diplomacy, financial crises and election campaigns. Other visual fields, from art and cartoons to maps, monuments and videogames, frame how politics is perceived and enacted. Drones, satellites and surveillance cameras watch us around the clock and deliver images that are then put to political use. Add to this that new technologies now allow for a rapid distribution of still and moving images around the world. Digital media platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, play an important role across the political spectrum, from terrorist recruitment drives to social justice campaigns. This book offers the first comprehensive engagement with visual global politics. Written by leading experts in numerous scholarly disciplines and presented in accessible and engaging language, Visual Global Politics is a one-stop source for students, scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the crucial and persistent role of images in today’s world.

In an age when Jon Stewart frequently tops lists of most-trusted newscasters, the films of Michael Moore become a dominant topic of political campaign analysis, and activists adopt ironic, fake personas to attract attention—the satiric register has attained renewed and urgent prominence in political discourse. Amber Day focuses on the parodist news show, the satiric documentary, and ironic activism to examine the techniques of performance across media, highlighting their shared objective of bypassing standard media outlets and the highly choreographed nature of current political debate.

Diplomatic Interventions argues that war is a social construction. In so doing, it unsettles the definition of intervention, as a coercive interference by one state in the affairs of another, to examine the range of communicative or 'diplomatic' practices which through their presence modify the experience of war. The tension between claims that war is pervasive and that war is a social construct is analysed in relation to a range of moral, legal, military, economic, cultural, and therapeutic interventions. The concluding chapter highlights how the book itself is a critical intervention that requires us look at again from a new angle at international practice.

According to a widely shared notion, foreign affairs are exempted from democratic politics, i.e. party-political divisions are overcome-and should be overcome-for the sake of a common national interest. This book shows that this is not the case. Examining votes in the US Congress and several European parliaments, the book demonstrates that contestation over foreign affairs is barely different from contestation over domestic politics. Analyses of a new collection of deployment votes, of party manifestos, and of expert survey data show that political parties differ systematically over foreign policy and military interventions in particular. The left/right divide is the best guide to the pattern of party-political contestation: support is weakest at the far left of the spectrum and increases as one moves along the left/right axis to green, social democratic, liberal and conservative parties; amongst parties of the far right, support is again weaker than amongst parties of the centre. An analysis of parliamentary debates in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom about the interventions in Afghanistan and against Daesh in Iraq and Syria shows that political parties also differ systematically in how they frame the use of force abroad. For example, parties on the right tend to frame their country's participation in the US-led missions in terms of national security and national interests whereas parties on the left tend to engage in 'spiral model thinking', i.e. they critically reflect on the unintended consequences of the use of force in fuelling the conflicts with the Taliban and Daesh.

This book critically explores the practices of peacebuilding, and the politics of the communities experiencing intervention. The contributions to this volume have a dual focus. First, they analyse the practices of western intervention and peacebuilding, and the prejudices and politics that drive them. Second, they explore how communities experience and deal with this intervention, as well as an understanding of how their political and economic priorities can often diverge markedly from those of the intervener. This is achieved through theoretical and thematic chapters, and an extensive number of in-depth empirical case studies. Utilising a variety of conceptual frameworks and disciplines, the book seeks to understand why something so normatively desirable – the pursuit of, and building of, peace – has turned out so badly. From Cambodia to Afghanistan, Iraq to Mali, interventions in the pursuit of peace have not achieved the results desired by the interveners. But, rather, they have created further instability and violence. The contributors to this book explore why. This book will be of much interest to students, academics and practitioners of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, international intervention, statebuilding, security studies and IR in general.