Tag: political

Free Download Barzoo Eliassi, "Narratives of Statelessness and Political Otherness: Kurdish and Palestinian Experiences "
English | ISBN: 3030766977 | 2021 | 315 pages | PDF | 9 MB
This book argues that citizenship is an inadequate solution to the problem of statelessness based on a critical investigation of the lived experiences of Kurdish and Palestinian diasporas in western Europe. It examines how statelessness affects identity formations, homelessness, belonging, non-belonging, otherness, voices, status, (non)recognition, (dis)respect, (in)visibility and presence in the uneven world of nation-states. It also demonstrates that the undoing of non-sovereign identities’ subjection to structural subalternization and everyday inferiorization requires rights in excess of the mere acquisition of juridical citizenship, which tends to assume national sameness. That assumption in turn involves sovereign practices of denial and assimilation of ethnic alterity. The book therefore highlights the necessity of de-ethnicizing and decolonizing unitary nation-states that are based on the politico-cultural supremacy of a single, "core" ethnicity as the sovereign legislator ofthe rules and regimes of national belonging and un-belonging. It therefore broaches questions of "majority" and "minority," mobility, nationalism, home-making, equality, difference and universalism in the context of the nation-state and illustrates how stateless peoples such as Kurds and Palestinians endure and challenge their subordinate position in a hierarchical (geo-)political order and how in so doing remain bound by political otherness.

Free Download Mohsen Moheimany, "NGOs, Policy Networks and Political Opportunities in Hybrid Regimes: A Case Study of Islamic Republic of Iran "
English | ISBN: 9813362235 | 2021 | 370 pages | PDF | 7 MB
This book discusses the diversity and resilience in a hybrid regime where civil society organisations are either provided with complex sets of opportunities or face severe constraints. By studying the case of Iran between 1997 and 2013, it shows how the Islamic Republic regime went into two opposite directions under two presidencies and played in-between supporting and suppressing advocacy NGOs. After accommodating a novel theoretical framework enabling scholars to identify the contributing factors of diversity in the regime, four case-study chapters are designated for comparing the women’s rights and environmental NGOs across local and national governments. These two political and technical policy areas demonstrate the different scopes of freedoms for advocacy NGOs. The contrasting narratives of the civil activists and policymakers imply paradoxes and shifts in the arrangement of opportunities for action and advocacy, although the leadership and structure of the regime remained unchanged during the period of study.

Free Download Elías J. Palti, "Misplaced Ideas?: Political-Intellectual History in Latin America "
English | ISBN: 0197774946 | 2024 | 224 pages | EPUB, PDF | 533 KB + 9 MB
Is there a Latin American thought? What distinguishes it from the thought of other regions, particularly from European thought? What are its main expressions in political, cultural, and social life? How has it evolved historically? As the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea Aguilar stated: "hardly any other society has so zealously sought for the features of its own identity."

Free Download Material figures : political economy, commercial culture, and the aesthetic sensibility of Charles Baudelaire By Baudelaire, Charles; Murphy, Margueritte S.; Baudelaire, Charles
2012 | 252 Pages | ISBN: 9042035269 | PDF | 2 MB
Ideological debates about economics and aesthetics raged hotly in nineteenth-century France. French political economy was taking shape as a discipline that would support free-market liberalism, while l’art pour l’art theories circulated, and utopian systems with aesthetic and economic agendas proliferated. Yet, as this book argues, the discourses of art and literature worked in tandem with market discourses to generate theories of economic and social order, of the model of the self-individuating and desiring subject of modernity, and of this individual’s relationship to a new world of objects. Baudelaire as a poet and art critic is exemplary: Rather than a disaffected artist, Baudelaire is shown to be a spectator desirous of both art and goods whose sensibilities reflect transformations in habits of perception. The book includes chapters on equilibrium and utility in economic and aesthetic theory, on the place of the aesthetic in press coverage of the industrial exhibitions, on the harmonic theories of Baudelaire’s early art criticism, aimed at a bourgeois audience, on Baudelaire’s radical cosmopolitanism learned through viewing "objects" on display at the Universal Exhibition of 1855, and on Les Fleurs du Mal and Le Spleen de Paris, where language makes visible the traits of a new material world

Free Download Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait By Maurice Meisner
2006 | 232 Pages | ISBN: 0745631061 | PDF | 2 MB
Revolutionary and ruler, Marxist and nationalist, liberator and despot, Mao Zedong takes a place among the iconic leaders of the twentieth century. In this new book, Maurice Meisner offers a balanced portrait and in-depth account of the man who defined modern China.

Free Download Macro Cultural Psychology: A Political Philosophy of Mind By Carl Ratner
2011 | 544 Pages | ISBN: 0195373545 | PDF | 3 MB
This book articulates a bold, new, systematic theory of psychology, culture, and their interrelation. It explains how macro cultural factors — social institutions, cultural artifacts, and cultural concepts — are the cornerstones of society and how they form the origins and characteristics of psychological phenomena. This theory is used to explain the diversity of psychological phenomena such as emotions, self, intelligence, sexuality, memory, reasoning, perception, developmental processes, and mental illness. Ratner draws upon Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural psychology, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological psychology, as well as work in sociology, anthropology, history, and geography, to explore the political implications and assumptions of psychological theories regarding social policy and reform. The theory outlined here addresses current theoretical and political issues such as agency, realism, objectivity, subjectivism, structuralism, postmodernism, and multiculturalism. In this sense, the book articulates a systematic political philosophy of mind to examine numerous approaches to psychology, including indigenous psychology, cross-cultural psychology, activity theory, discourse analysis, mainstream psychology, and evolutionary psychology.

Free Download Lisa Baron, "Life of the Party: A Political Press Tart Bares All"
English | 2011 | ISBN: 080653415X | EPUB | pages: 223 | 0.7 mb
The award-winning columnist, regular TV and radio contributor and former campaign advisor presents a no-holds-barred, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of big time politics where young, drunk, eager twentysomethings, Godophiles and press tarts co-exist to shape the nation’s laws. Original.

Free Download Islam as Political Religion: The Future of an Imperial Faith By Shabbir Akhtar
2010 | 312 Pages | ISBN: 0415781469 | PDF | 2 MB
This comprehensive survey of contemporary Islam provides a philosophical and theological approach to the issues faced by Muslims and the question of global secularisation. Engaging with critics of modern Islam, Shabbir Akhtar sets out an agenda of what his religion is and could be as a political entity. Exploring the views and arguments of philosophical, religious and political thinkers, the author covers a raft of issues faced by Muslims in an increasingly secular society. Chapters are devoted to the Qur’an and Islamic literature; the history of Islam; Sharia law; political Islam; Islamic ethics; and political Islam’s evolving relationship with the West. Recommending changes which enable Muslims to move from their imperial past to a modest role in the power structures of today’s society, Akhtar offers a detailed assessment of the limitations and possibilities of Islam in the modern world. Providing a vision for an empowered yet rational Islam that distances itself from both Islamist factions and Western secularism, this book is an essential read for students and scholars of Islamic studies, religion, philosophy and politics.

Free Download John P. Turner, "Inquisition in Early Islam: The Competition for Political and Religious Authority in the Abbasid Empire "
English | ISBN: 1780761643 | 2013 | 248 pages | PDF | 4 MB
In 833 CE, the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun began a period of inquisition (mihna), one which continued until his successor al-Mutawakkil decreed its end, fifteen years later. During this period, the Caliphs in power strove to promote ‘correct belief’ in the ‘createdness’ of the Qur’an, thus ordering the interrogation of religious scholars on the subject and disqualifying, beating or even executing those who answered incorrectly. Here, John P. Turner examines and analyses this major episode, viewing it as the pivotal point for the era in question and ultimately for the state of relations between the temporal authorities and religious law. Inquisition in Early Islam focuses on the shifting control over matters of belief and orthodoxy, from the Caliph to the religious scholars, and explores the relationships between heresy, power and the articulation and definition of law and doctrine. Turner does so by exploring the mihna within its context, asking questions such as, why was it so pivotal? Why was it begun? Why did it end? When did the meaning of the Caliph’s position in society shift?

Free Download Adrian Albala, "Indigenous Political Representation in Latin America "
English | ISBN: 3031339134 | 2023 | 268 pages | PDF | 6 MB
This book presents a comparative analysis of the struggles of Latin American indigenous peoples for effective representation in national political systems in the region. Through a detailed exploration of the political dynamics of indigenous groups and examples of mechanisms of political representation, the studies in this book reveal how power relations, cleavages and indigenous civil society organizations are essential to our understanding of indigenous political participation. These studies closely inspect how collective action builds up at local level in grassroots organizations, and how it then articulates or not with larger mechanisms of regional and national political representation, providing a more comprehensive and comparative assessment of why and when representation works and fails for indigenous people.