The Political Anatomy Of Domination

Rereading Marx, Weber, Gramsci and, more recently, Foucault, Béatrice Hibou tackles one of the core questions of political and social theory: state domination. Combining comparative analyses of everyday life and economics, she highlights the arrangements, understandings and practices that make domination conceivable, bearable, even acceptable or reassuring. To carry out this demonstration, Hibou examines authoritarian situations—especially comparing the paradigmatic European cases of fascism, Nazism and Soviet socialism and those of contemporary China or North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Play fool, to catch wise."--proverb of Jamaican slaves Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception--the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage--what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, Scott examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. Scott describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups--their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater--their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally, he identifies--with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign--the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power. His landmark work will revise our understanding of subordination, resistance, hegemony, folk culture, and the ideas behind revolt.

First published in 1987. Our understanding of the nature of power in western societies is currently undergoing a major reassessment. The significance of this reassessment emerges forcefully through comparing the writings of the principal exponents of Critical Theory - Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas - with those of Michel Foucault. Peter Miller suggests that these two traditions embody fundamentally distinct philosophical and sociological principles. He grounds his analysis in the concepts of domination (Critical Theory) and power (Foucault). Miller identifies the notion of subjectivity as central to a differentiation of the respective approaches of Critical Theory and Foucault. For Critical Theory it is the repression of subjectivity which provides the evidence of domination and the rationale for its critique, while for Foucault subjectivity in western societies is fabricated through power and linked to the deployment of specific knowledges. Miller shows that despite the achievements of Critical Theory in bringing to light the repressive nature of advanced industrial societies, its thinking is inadequate as a basis for future analysis and critique. He argues that Foucault's genealogy of the modern subject, which highlights the role of the human sciences in its fabrication, is a more fruitful basis for charting and investigating the mode of operation of contemporary forms of power. The book includes a survey of all published works by Foucault, up to the time of his death in 1984, and commentaries on the writings of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas.

A brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre. In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

Foucault saw the notion of parrhesia (truth-telling) as the most important factor for how governments could and should communicate with their people and vice versa. This important collection compiles and analyses Foucault's views on parrhesia to shed new light on his ideas on the importance of truth-telling in democracies.

Four conjectures relate the prospect of conflict to oil. First, petroleum production integrates local, regional, national, and global levels of political and economic organization. Second, conflict is likely in these forms of integration, especially under conditions of oil scarcity. Third, oil production in the near future is subject to declining supply and increased demand. Fourth, this means that a looming crisis of oil threatens global integration with violence. Therefore, an urgent social science research priority is the investigation of the nexus between oil, integration, and conflict. Tackling these issues in three different world regions - Africa, Latin America, and Russia - this volume assesses the current state of knowledge concerning oil, integration, and conflict and formulates an anthropological research strategy to advance an understanding of oil and its vicissitudes. Offering a strategy for a global anthropology of oil, this volume strengthens the ability of social science to explain and design policy in a world experiencing a global oil crisis. -- Book Description from Website.

As a field of scholarship, gender and politics has exploded over the last fifty years and is now global, institutionalized, and ever expanding. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics brings to political science an accessible and comprehensive overview of the key contributions of gender scholars to the study of politics and shows how these contributions produce a richer understanding of polities and societies. Like the field it represents, the handbook has a broad understanding of what counts as political and is based on a notion of gender that highlights masculinities as well as femininities, thereby moving feminist debates in politics beyond the focus on women. It engages with some of the key aspects of political science as well as important themes in gender and feminist research (such as sexuality and body politics), thereby forging a dialogue between gender studies in politics and mainstream political science. The handbook is organized in sections that look at sexuality and body politics; political economy; civil society; participation, representation and policymaking; institutions, states and governance as well as nation, citizenship and identity. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics contains and reflects the best scholarship in its field.

Development as a Battlefield is an innovative exploration of the multidimensional meanings of – and interactions between – conflict and development. The two phenomena are all too often regarded as ostensibly antagonistic. This was exemplified again in the context of the Arab Spring that erupted in December 2010 and was eventually short-lived in several countries of the Middle-East and North-Africa (MENA) region. This volume – the 8th thematic issue of International Development Policy – is an invitation to reconsider and renew the way social scientists usually seek to make sense of socio-political and economic developments in the MENA region and beyond. Contributors include: Fariba Adelkhah, Yasmine Berriane, Irene Bono, Ayşe Buğra, Raphaëlle Chevrillon-Guibert, Anouck Gabriela Côrte réal-Pinto, Nadia Hachimi Alaoui, Béatrice Hibou, Adriana Kemp, Nora Lafi. Talia Margalit, Marie Vannetzel, Elena Vezzadini, and Merieme Yafout.