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This paper offers an engagement with theoretical deficits in some uses of neoliberalism as an explanatory concept. It draws on theories of ideology, of governmentality and of assemblage to offer alternative conceptions of the relationship between neoliberalism and its others, and to illuminate the ambiguous and contradictory role of local governments in the UK in processes of neoliberalisation. The paper develops an analysis of local governments as strategic actors in the 'landscapes of antagonism' generated by current cycles of economic, political and governance change, and argues for more attention to be paid to the relationship between theory, politics and critique.

Scholars of politics, not just international relations, have eschewed the discipline of psychoanalysis. The renewed attacks on Freud and his fractious followers over the last generation apparently discouraged political scientists from exploring the usefulness of psychoanalytic methods. This essay asks whether, and under what circumstances, psychoanalysis can be a useful interpretive approach. What is the significance in human behavior of the unconscious, that is, of motives and forces of which we are commonly unaware? The argument is that in most, if not all, cases, psychoanalytically attuned approaches yield important insights about the wielding of power.

In this article I discuss Bernard Williams' realist conception of legitimacy. According to his critics Williams tacitly incorporates various moral claims, endorses a philosophically suspect 'consensus' view of politics, and employs an unrealistic and moralised conception of political rule. I argue that these criticisms mischaracterise the nature of the basic legitimation demand and the judgements about the acceptability of the state at its core and conclude that political theorists who object to the direction and style of much contemporary political theory should take seriously the possibility of developing an appropriately 'political' political theory on Williamsian lines.

Although there is no conclusive proof that the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 was not the main reason for hewing the churches at Lalibäla out of the rocks, there seem to be enough indications that the incentive for the enterprise is to be looked for in the internal politics in Ethiopia at the turn of the XIIIth century. The fact that the relations with the most important Muslim power of the time were rather friendly, in any case not hostile, may corroborate this view.ATTENTION: Due to copy-right no online publication is provided.

This article advances a crisis theory of financialisation and imperial geo-politics in order to recast key concepts and causal parameters related to the sources of debt and the way in which the Euro-Atlantic area is in danger of complete disintegration. It juxtaposes the concept of 'uneven and combined development' (UCD) to that of 'global fault-lines' (GF), showing the advantages enjoyed by the latter with the inclusion of geo-political and security dimensions as co-constitutive explanatory variables in the understanding of economic crises in general and of the Euro-zone crisis in particular.

AbstractThis study examines the extent to which there has been a rise in ideologically based politics in Japan due to the decline in factionalism in the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The study is based on two cases studies. The first is based on the notion of 'Koizumi's children' recruited by former Prime Minister Koizumi and his allies, who were heavily discouraged from joining a faction. The second model is based on an analysis of a junior MP groups which have played a role in the internal management of the LDP independent of established party organizational structures.

Abstract
This article explores empirically the relation between political parties' institutions and quality of government. I focus on procedures used to nominate presidential candidates given the importance of candidate selection in party politics. Using a panel dataset of Latin American countries, I find robust evidence of a positive relation between the use of democratic procedures, such as primaries, and quality of government. To shed light on the mechanism, I examine why parties use primaries. I find evidence suggestive that the results are mostly driven by the increase in political competition and candidates' pre-electoral incentives.

Internet users on European politics. A comparative analysis of discussions on the Debate Europe forum
European citizenship has introduced a new quality into political communication in the European Union. EU citizens exercise rights such as freedom of expression and participation in the democratic life of the Union. The Debate Europe forum is an example of European platform of exchange of ideas. Content analysis of posts in Polish and English enabled to give an answer to questions about the level of engagement of actors of the communication process, dialog, rationality of debate and the influence of political culture on discussions.

AbstractIn this article I consider Castells's network society trilogy as a key site for examining claims that globalization today is driven by a new paradigm, in which networks and digital technologies play a decisive role in producing revolutionary new forms of economics, politics, culture and society. To theorize this change I draw on a rich, explicit account of non‐linear causal processes found in far‐from‐equilibrium cybernetics, foregrounding the all‐pervasive, constitutive phenomenon of disorder, coming from below as well as above through a multiplicity of networks, old and new, digital and non‐digital.

The article links reflections aboutBrazilian race relations with institutional transnational dialogues betweenBrazil and 'Africa'. I point out that although racial/cultural mixture and the 'brown' census category have traditionally reflected much of national identity inBrazil,Brazil today is increasingly spelling out its blackness, both on the national and international scenes. I highlight that, not by coincidence, this fact is happening at a historical moment when programmes of 'black' affirmative action and other differential politics in favour ofAfro‐descendants are taking off in the country, and also at a time whenBrazil is expanding its geopolitical and economic interests inAfrica.

ABSTRACTIn this article, the origins of the modern metropolis are reconsidered, using the example of Cairo within its Ottoman and global context. I argue that Cairo's Azbakiyya Garden served as a central ground for fashioning a dynastic capital throughout the nineteenth century. This argument sheds new light on the politics of Khedive Ismail, who introduced a new state representation through urban planning and music theatre. The social history of music in Azbakiyya proves that, instead of functioning as an example of colonial division, Cairo encompassed competing conceptions of class, taste and power.

The Union Générale des Travailleurs Sénégalais en France (UGTSF) and its leader, Sally N'Dongo, sought to raise awareness and provide assistance that would create greater understanding, decrease racism, and promote equality and opportunity in postcolonial France. The UGTSF's rise to prominence signified the emergence of a postcolonial African trade union movement that provided advocacy and support. Through the UGTSF, African immigrants involved themselves in some of the most important debates of the era, while addressing critical issues such as racial discrimination and exclusion, the politics of social welfare for immigrant workers, and the challenges of integration.

This article explores how parliamentary debates in postauthoritarian Chile discursively produced and deployed feminized images of victims and survivors of the authoritarian regime to sustain the constitution and establishment of a logic of compensational justice. In describing and delineating the gender politics of representation in these social policy debates, the article also looks at how compensatory justice is constituted along the lines of a neoliberal market mentality. In this way, the article traces how patriarchal power relations and neoliberal governmental rationality are mutually constitutive regimes that require the real and imagined bodies of women as a surface of inscription.

AbstractThe recent literature on Muslim organisations in the Turkish diaspora context is voluminous as is analysis of Kurdish and Alevi grassroots politics against the Turkish state. Yet nothing has been written on those whose political orientation is in line with the secularist‐nationalist ideology of the Turkish Republic, that is, of Kemalists. As a contribution to this endeavour, this paper explores Kemalist actors' mobilisation in Australia. The paper argues that their current activism is related to a threatened economic privilege, a loss of cultural capital and a waning political dominance in the ongoing social life of Turkey.

This article focuses on the way the Anglophone Caribbean succumbed to the overhaul of the European Union sugar trade and how these countries have attempted to restructure their economies in its wake. We show how the protagonists of reform gave a sense of inevitability to the demise of the Commonwealth trade system and conveyed (unrealistic) strategies for how this should be managed for the benefit of the Caribbean. In this way we detail the hegemony of neoliberalism in contemporary trade politics and the need for alternative strategies for rural development in the Caribbean region.