Asef Bayat: Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · democracy, everyday, islam, life, middle east, politics, religion, resistance, social movements, women
The popular view in the West deems the Muslim Middle East as socially and politically stagnant. The Art of Presence challenges this view. It shows how, under often authoritarian rule, the ordinary people discover or create new spaces within which they can voice their concerns and assert their presence. The major venues for social and political change are not simply mass protest or revolutions, even though these do happen; they are rather embodied in what Bayat calls ‘non-movements’, the millions of dispersed poor, women, the young, and other grassroots who act in common.
Publisher Amsterdam University Press, 2010
ISIM Series on Contemporary Muslim Societies
ISBN 978 90 5356 911 5
320 pages
Graeme B. Robertson: The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes: Managing Dissent in Post-Communist Russia (2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, democracy, politics, protest, russia, social movements
Since the end of the Cold War, more and more countries feature political regimes that are neither liberal democracies nor closed authoritarian systems. Most research on these hybrid regimes focuses on how elites manipulate elections to stay in office, but in places as diverse as Bolivia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Thailand, Ukraine and Venezuela, protest in the streets has been at least as important as elections in bringing about political change. The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes builds on previously unpublished data and extensive fieldwork in Russia to show how one high-profile hybrid regime manages political competition in the workplace and in the streets. More generally, the book develops a theory of how the nature of organizations in society, state strategies for mobilizing supporters, and elite competition shape political protest in hybrid regimes.
Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2010
ISBN 0521118751, 9780521118750
304 pages
Alain Joxe: Empire of Disorder (2002)
Filed under book | Tags: · balkans, chechnya, democracy, economy, empire, fascism, globalisation, kosovo, military, neoliberalism, philosophy, politics, serbia, sovereignty, strategy, violence, war, yugoslavia
“Globalization is quickly turning the world into a chaos, leading to an increasing disparity between rich and poor, the rise of an international, rootless ‘noble class,’ and an escalating number of endless cruel little wars. Yet the United States refuses to conquer the world and assume the protective imperial role for the societies it subjugates. Instead, it operates on a case-by-case basis, regulating disorder, repressing the symptoms of despair instead of attacking its cause. For the first time perhaps, humanity has embarked on an ocean of disorder with no final order in sight.”
Translated by Ames Hodges
Edited by Sylvère Lotringer
Publisher Semiotext(e), 2002
Active Agents series
ISBN 1584350164, 9781584350163
221 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-26)
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