Authoritarian Apprehensions

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Authoritarian Apprehensions

Author : Lisa Wedeen
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2019-09-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226650746

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Authoritarian Apprehensions by Lisa Wedeen Pdf

If the Arab uprisings initially heralded the end of tyrannies and a move toward liberal democratic governments, their defeat not only marked a reversal but was of a piece with emerging forms of authoritarianism worldwide. In Authoritarian Apprehensions, Lisa Wedeen draws on her decades-long engagement with Syria to offer an erudite and compassionate analysis of this extraordinary rush of events—the revolutionary exhilaration of the initial days of unrest and then the devastating violence that shattered hopes of any quick undoing of dictatorship. Developing a fresh, insightful, and theoretically imaginative approach to both authoritarianism and conflict, Wedeen asks, What led a sizable part of the citizenry to stick by the regime through one atrocity after another? What happens to political judgment in a context of pervasive misinformation? And what might the Syrian example suggest about how authoritarian leaders exploit digital media to create uncertainty, political impasses, and fractures among their citizens? Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Wedeen lays bare the ideological investments that sustain ambivalent attachments to established organizations of power and contribute to the ongoing challenge of pursuing political change. This masterful book is a testament to Wedeen’s deep engagement with some of the most troubling concerns of our political present and future.

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Author : Lisa Wedeen
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2019-09-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226650609

Get Book

Authoritarian Apprehensions by Lisa Wedeen Pdf

If the Arab uprisings initially heralded the end of tyrannies and a move toward liberal democratic governments, their defeat not only marked a reversal but was of a piece with emerging forms of authoritarianism worldwide. In Authoritarian Apprehensions, Lisa Wedeen draws on her decades-long engagement with Syria to offer an erudite and compassionate analysis of this extraordinary rush of events—the revolutionary exhilaration of the initial days of unrest and then the devastating violence that shattered hopes of any quick undoing of dictatorship. Developing a fresh, insightful, and theoretically imaginative approach to both authoritarianism and conflict, Wedeen asks, What led a sizable part of the citizenry to stick by the regime through one atrocity after another? What happens to political judgment in a context of pervasive misinformation? And what might the Syrian example suggest about how authoritarian leaders exploit digital media to create uncertainty, political impasses, and fractures among their citizens? Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Wedeen lays bare the ideological investments that sustain ambivalent attachments to established organizations of power and contribute to the ongoing challenge of pursuing political change. This masterful book is a testament to Wedeen’s deep engagement with some of the most troubling concerns of our political present and future.

Ambiguities of Domination

Author : Lisa Wedeen
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2015-09-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780226345536

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Ambiguities of Domination by Lisa Wedeen Pdf

Treating rhetoric and symbols as central rather than peripheral to politics, Lisa Wedeen’s groundbreaking book offers a compelling counterargument to those who insist that politics is primarily about material interests and the groups advocating for them. During the thirty-year rule of President Hafiz al-Asad’s regime, his image was everywhere. In newspapers, on television, and during orchestrated spectacles. Asad was praised as the “father,” the “gallant knight,” even the country’s “premier pharmacist.” Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, did not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a personality cult whose content is patently spurious? Wedeen shows how such flagrantly fictitious claims were able to produce a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens acted as if they revered the leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercised a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult worked to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen‘s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognized the disciplinary aspects of the cult and sought to undermine them. In a new preface, Wedeen discusses the uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011 and questions the usefulness of the concept of legitimacy in trying to analyze and understand authoritarian regimes.

Peripheral Visions

Author : Lisa Wedeen
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2009-08-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780226877921

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Peripheral Visions by Lisa Wedeen Pdf

The government of Yemen, unified since 1990, remains largely incapable of controlling violence or providing goods and services to its population, but the regime continues to endure despite its fragility and peripheral location in the global political and economic order. Revealing what holds Yemen together in such tenuous circumstances, Peripheral Visions shows how citizens form national attachments even in the absence of strong state institutions. Lisa Wedeen, who spent a year and a half in Yemen observing and interviewing its residents, argues that national solidarity in such weak states tends to arise not from attachments to institutions but through both extraordinary events and the ordinary activities of everyday life. Yemenis, for example, regularly gather to chew qat, a leafy drug similar to caffeine, as they engage in wide-ranging and sometimes influential public discussions of even the most divisive political and social issues. These lively debates exemplify Wedeen’s contention that democratic, national, and pious solidarities work as ongoing, performative practices that enact and reproduce a citizenry’s shared points of reference. Ultimately, her skillful evocations of such practices shift attention away from a narrow focus on government institutions and electoral competition and toward the substantive experience of participatory politics.

The Logic of Violence in Civil War

Author : Stathis N. Kalyvas
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 20 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2006-05-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781139456920

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The Logic of Violence in Civil War by Stathis N. Kalyvas Pdf

By analytically decoupling war and violence, this book explores the causes and dynamics of violence in civil war. Against the prevailing view that such violence is an instance of impenetrable madness, the book demonstrates that there is logic to it and that it has much less to do with collective emotions, ideologies, and cultures than currently believed. Kalyvas specifies a novel theory of selective violence: it is jointly produced by political actors seeking information and individual civilians trying to avoid the worst but also grabbing what opportunities their predicament affords them. Violence, he finds, is never a simple reflection of the optimal strategy of its users; its profoundly interactive character defeats simple maximization logics while producing surprising outcomes, such as relative nonviolence in the 'frontlines' of civil war.

Palmyra

Author : Paul Veyne
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 111 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2018-10-05
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9780226600055

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Palmyra by Paul Veyne Pdf

Located northeast of Damascus, in an oasis surrounded by palms and two mountain ranges, the ancient city of Palmyra has the aura of myth. According to the Bible, the city was built by Solomon. Regardless of its actual origins, it was an influential city, serving for centuries as a caravan stop for those crossing the Syrian Desert. It became a Roman province under Tiberius and served as the most powerful commercial center in the Middle East between the first and the third centuries CE. But when the citizens of Palmyra tried to break away from Rome, they were defeated, marking the end of the city’s prosperity. The magnificent monuments from that earlier era of wealth, a resplendent blend of Greco-Roman architecture and local influences, stretched over miles and were among the most significant buildings of the ancient world—until the arrival of ISIS. In 2015, ISIS fought to gain control of the area because it was home to a prison where many members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood had been held, and ISIS went on to systematically destroy the city and murder many of its inhabitants, including the archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, the antiquities director of Palymra. In this concise and elegiac book, Paul Veyne, one of Palymra’s most important experts, offers a beautiful and moving look at the history of this significant lost city and why it was—and still is—important. Today, we can appreciate the majesty of Palmyra only through its pictures and stories, and this book offers a beautifully illustrated memorial that also serves as a lasting guide to a cultural treasure.

Capitalism and the Emergence of Civic Equality in Eighteenth-Century France

Author : William H. Sewell Jr.
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 421 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2021-04-28
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780226770468

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Capitalism and the Emergence of Civic Equality in Eighteenth-Century France by William H. Sewell Jr. Pdf

"William H. Sewell, Jr. turns to the experience of commercial capitalism to show how the commodity form abstracted social relations. The increased independence, flexibility, and anonymity of market relations made equality between citizens not only conceivable but attractive. Commercial capitalism thus found its way into the interstices of this otherwise rigidly hierarchical society, coloring social relations and paving the way for the establishment of civic equality"--

A Treasury of Royal Scandals

Author : Michael Farquhar
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2001-05-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0140280243

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A Treasury of Royal Scandals by Michael Farquhar Pdf

From Nero's nagging mother (whom he found especially annoying after taking her as his lover) to Catherine's stable of studs (not of the equine variety), here is a wickedly delightful look at the most scandalous royal doings you never learned about in history class. Gleeful, naughty, sometimes perverted-like so many of the crowned heads themselves-A Treasury of Royal Scandals presents the best (the worst?) of royal misbehavior through the ages. From ancient Rome to Edwardian England, from the lavish rooms of Versailles to the dankest corners of the Bastille, the great royals of Europe have excelled at savage parenting, deadly rivalry, pathological lust, and meeting death with the utmost indignity-or just very bad luck.

The Collapse of Complex Societies

Author : Joseph Tainter
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1988
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 052138673X

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The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter Pdf

Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.

Japan

Author : Tetsuo Najita
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 1980-03-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780226568034

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Japan by Tetsuo Najita Pdf

Historians have long been aware of the richness and complexity of the intellectual history of modern Japanese politics. Najita's study, however, is the first in a Western language to present a consistent and broad synthesis of this subject. Najita elucidates the political dynamics of the past two hundred years of Japanese history by focusing on the interplay of restorationism and bureaucratism within the context of Japan's modern revolution, the Meiji Restoration.

The Thaksinization of Thailand

Author : Duncan McCargo,Ukrist Pathmanand
Publisher : NIAS Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8791114462

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The Thaksinization of Thailand by Duncan McCargo,Ukrist Pathmanand Pdf

A major reform package was enacted in Thailand in 1997, coinciding with the promulgation of a new constitution. However, the country's financial problems helped create the conditions for the emergence of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai, or TRT) Party under the leadership of Thaksin Shinawatra, a wealthy telecommunications magnate. Since winning a landslide election victory in 2001, Prime Minister Thaksin has exercised an extraordinary degree of personal dominance over the Thai political scene. This book examines the emergence of the TRT; Thaksin's background; his business activities, relationship with the military, use of rhetoric, and wider political economy networks; and the future of Thai politics.

World Report 2019

Author : Human Rights Watch
Publisher : Seven Stories Press
Page : 957 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2019-02-05
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781609808853

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World Report 2019 by Human Rights Watch Pdf

The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

Show Time

Author : Lee Ann Fujii
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Genocide
ISBN : 1501758543

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Show Time by Lee Ann Fujii Pdf

"Analyzes the political violence in Rwanda alongside mass murder in Bosnia and the lynching of African Americans in the United States during the Jim Crow era to show how violent acts have been 'choreographed' not only to damage and kill victims but also to make an impact on observers, neighbors, and the larger society"--

Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi

Author : Ulf Laessing
Publisher : Hurst & Company
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Arab Spring, 2010-
ISBN : 9781849048880

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Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi by Ulf Laessing Pdf

Why has Libya fallen apart since 2011? The world has largely given up trying to understand how the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi has left the country a failed state and a major security headache for Europe. Gaddafi's police state has been replaced by yet another dictatorship, amidst a complex conflict of myriad armed groups, Islamists, tribes, towns and secularists. What happened? One of few foreign journalists to have lived in post-revolution Tripoli, Ulf Laessing has unique insight into the violent nature of post-Gaddafi politics. Confronting threats from media-hostile militias and jihadi kidnappings, in a world where diplomats retreat to their compounds and guns are drawn at government press conferences, Laessing has kept his ear to the ground and won the trust of many key players. Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is an original blend of personal anecdote and nuanced Libyan history. It offers a much-needed diagnosis of why war has erupted over a desert nation of just 6 million, and of how the country blessed with Africa's greatest energy reserves has been reduced to state collapse.

Direct Democracy Worldwide

Author : David Altman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2010-12-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781139495431

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Direct Democracy Worldwide by David Altman Pdf

Challenging the common assumption that models of direct democracy and representative democracy are necessarily at odds, Direct Democracy Worldwide demonstrates how practices of direct and representative democracy interact under different institutional settings and uncovers the conditions that allow them to coexist in a mutually reinforcing manner. Whereas citizen-initiated mechanisms of direct democracy can spur productive relationships between citizens and political parties, other mechanisms of direct democracy often help leaders bypass other representative institutions, undermining republican checks and balances. The book also demonstrates that the embrace of direct democracy is costly, may generate uncertainties and inconsistencies, and can be manipulated. Nonetheless, the promise of direct democracy should not be dismissed. Direct democracy is much more than a simple, pragmatic second choice when representative democracy seems not to be working as expected. Properly designed, it can empower citizens, breaking through some of the institutionalized barriers to accountability that arise in representative systems.