The Present Politics Of The Past

This timely book examines austerity's conflicted meanings, from austerity chic and anti-austerity protest to economic and eco-austerity. Bramall's compelling text explores the presence and persuasiveness of the past, developing a new approach to the historical in contemporary cultural politics.

History, Heritage and Tradition in Contemporary British Politics explores the use of the past in modern British politics. It examines party political perspectives on British history and the historical process and also looks at the ways in which memory is instituted within the parties in practice, through archives, written histories, and commemorations. It focuses in particular on a number of explicit negotiations over historical narratives: the creation of the National Curriculum for History, Conservative attempts to re-assess their historical role in 1997, the assertion of a "lost" social democratic tradition by the SDP and New Labour and the collapse of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s narrative memory in 1988-91. This book shows how history, heritage, and tradition are used to present parliamentary politics as intrinsically "historic" and suggests that the disappearance of active political pasts leaves contemporary politicians unable to speak of radically different futures.

Latin American opinion surveys consistently point to Peruvian citizens' deep distrust of their elected rulers and democratic institutions. The 2011 presidential and legislative elections in Peru, along with the regional and municipal polls of the previous year, showed once again the degree of political fragmentation in contemporary Peru and the weakness of its party system. Fractured Politics examines the history of political exclusion in Peru, the weakness of representative institutions, and the persistence of localized violent protest. It also evaluates the contribution of institutional reforms in bridging the gap between state and society, including Peru's Law on Political Parties, administrative decentralization, and the experience of the Defensoría, or ombudsman's office. The chapters, by leading scholars of Peruvian politics, emerge from a conference, held in 2009 in Saint Antony's College Oxford. Julio Cotler, from the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP), was the keynote speaker.

Debates about the role and nature of the state are at the heart of modern politics. However, the state itself remains notoriously difficult to define, and the term is subject to a range of different interpretations. In this book, distinguished state theorist Bob Jessop provides a critical introduction to the state as both a concept and a reality. He lucidly guides readers through all the major accounts of the state, and examines competing efforts to relate the state to other features of social organization. Essential themes in the analysis of the state are explored in full, including state formation, periodization, the re-scaling of the state and the state's future. Throughout, Jessop clearly defines key terms, from hegemony and coercion to government and governance. He also analyses what we mean when we speak about 'normal' and 'exceptional' states, and states that are 'failed' or 'rogue'. Combining an accessible style with expert sensitivity to the complexities of the state, this short introduction will be core reading for students and scholars of politics and sociology, as well as anyone interested in the changing role of the state in contemporary societies.

Each phrase in the title of this work gives a clue as to its purpose and agenda. "Thepresent politics of the past" refers to the conditions that have arisen in the recent politicsof advanced liberal states with indigenous populations (such as the U.S., Canada,Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Australia) where "the past" is an issue or even at stake incontemporary struggles.

A comprehensive and unique overview of elections and voting in Canada from Confederation to the recent spate of minority governments, this book examines changes in the composition of the electorate, as well as the technology and professionalization of election campaigns.

Excerpt from Is History Past Politics? A brief review of Mr. Freeman's Philosophy of History will serve to set our chosen motto in a'clear light. He regarded Greek politics as the beginning of the world's state life. For him the Achaian League of Greek cities was the historic fore runner of the Federal Union of these United States. For him the real life of ancient history lay not in its separation from the affairs of our own time, but in its close connection with them. (office of the Historical Professor, For him the records of Athenian archons and Roman consuls were essential parts of the same living European history as the records of Venetian doges and English kings. It mattered little to this large-hearted, broad-minded historian of Comparative Politics whether he was writing of free Hellas or free England, of Magna Graecia or the United States. He wrote political articles on the Eastern Question and the Danube provinces for the Manchester Guardian or Saturday Review in the same spirit in which he wrote historical essays. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.