Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2023
On June 12 th 2019, in the middle of the UK Conservative Party's leadership contest, journalist M... more On June 12 th 2019, in the middle of the UK Conservative Party's leadership contest, journalist Marie le Conte tweeted 'so this is my first proper leadership contest as an actual Westminster person and honestly it's such a hoot…huge fan of the drama'. This tweet is exemplary of a wider phenomenon. Politics is the activity through which power and resources are allocated across societywho gets what, when and how. Politics, and what it does to all of our lives, is consequential. Yet, despite this, many of those who pay the most attention to politics do so from the position of a fan, engaging with it in the way that others engage with entertainment forms like sport and television shows. Previous studies have paid attention to the fandoms and anti-fandoms that develop around individual politicians and movementsin other words, they maintain a focus on the behaviours and actions of these fans of politics. By contrast, in this paper we explore the construction of politics itself as an object of fandom, asking what happens to politics when it is treated in this way. The activity of politics can be socially constructed by humans to serve some purpose. Thus, who does the constructing and how they do this, affects what it becomes. Our claim is that constructing politics as an object of fandom (i.e. constructing it as 'the drama') affects politics itself.
Donald Trump has enjoyed a nearly 30-year relationship with World Wrestling Entertainment as a bu... more Donald Trump has enjoyed a nearly 30-year relationship with World Wrestling Entertainment as a business partner, fan, in-ring performer and 2013 Hall of Fame Inductee. Noting this long running involvement, it has become a widespread contention that Trump’s style as a political campaigner owes a debt to his experiences within the world of professional wrestling. Taking such claims seriously, this article argues that an engagement with concepts developed within professional wrestling studies would benefit political studies by offering new analytical approaches for the study of the political phenomenon that is Donald Trump. Providing a brief introduction to professional wrestling studies, this article outlines how the concepts of kayfabe, smart fandom and marking out help address a key question for political scholars: how to explain a cynical American electorate’s engagement with and emotional investment in the campaign of such an obvious political fraudster.
This article draws out the significant similarities between the political insurgencies of Jesse V... more This article draws out the significant similarities between the political insurgencies of Jesse Ventura in 1999 and Donald Trump in 2016, charting their own premillennial political collaborations as members of the Reform Party, before identifying wider lessons for studies of contemporary celebrity politicians through a comparison of their individual campaigns. Its analysis is based upon the concept of the ‘politainer’, introduced by Conley and Schultz, into which it incorporates Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of the carnival fool. The heterodox nature of both Ventura and Trump’s political campaign styles, it argues, is in part explained by the nature of the cultural spheres within which their public personas were produced; specifically, the fact that these personas, which they carried over from the entertainment to political spheres, were produced within genres of popular culture generally positioned as having ‘low’ cultural value. This, it argues, furnished both with an anti-establis...
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2019
Using the case study of abortion policy across the United Kingdom, this article takes a feminist ... more Using the case study of abortion policy across the United Kingdom, this article takes a feminist institutionalist approach to advance our understanding of state architecture and party competition within decentralised political systems. Despite increasing divergences across the United Kingdom in relation to abortion policy, contemporary debates around abortion access have rarely become politicised. Moreover, as this article demonstrates, when they have, the subject has been framed by politicians as a constitutional matter, relating to legislative competencies, rather than considered in terms of women’s rights. This framing, we argue, is linked to the specific constitutional arrangements of the post-devolution UK and the political strategies of the parties operating within them. Drawing upon parliamentary debates and interviews with political representatives to map the circumstances driving changes to abortion policy in the United Kingdom, this article introduces important comparative...
Analogies between politics and pro-wrestling have a long pedigree and are almost always meant neg... more Analogies between politics and pro-wrestling have a long pedigree and are almost always meant negatively. What if, however, pro-wrestling is standing on its head in such analogies and must be turned right side up again? Building off arguments presented by Warden, Chow and Laine, this article argues that when approached as a specific form of embodied labor, embedded within the industry-specific performance convention known as kayfabe, a truer political analogy might compare pro-wrestling with the Proletkult, the cultural organization born amidst the 1917 Russian Revolutions to develop a new "proletarian culture" and usher in a socialist society. This is not to claim pro-wrestling offers a modern-day mirror of the historical Proletkult. Rather, drawing upon the work of Alexander Bogdanov, the leading intellectual force behind the Proletkult, this identifies pro-wrestling's latent potential to act as an anti-hierarchical, egalitarian organizational form able to platform human creativity with the goal of developing proletarian culture.
While party research has seen a number of conceptual developments in recent years, it has not kep... more While party research has seen a number of conceptual developments in recent years, it has not kept pace with parties becoming more territorial as a result of the increasing importance of sub-national and supranational governance. This article lays down a framework for conceptualising and analysing multi-level parties (MLPs). We propose a synthesis of the formal and non-formal aspects of power; the former highlighting party rules and procedures, the latter focusing upon the ideational structures – norms and competing ideologies/discourses – within which party members operate. For empirical research on the MLP we propose to focus on autonomy and influence to measure the extent of (formal and non-formal) multi-levelness and to grasp better the strategies of regional branches vis-à-vis the centre.
While clear lines of accountability are normally considered a sine qua non of any modern democrac... more While clear lines of accountability are normally considered a sine qua non of any modern democracy, this article argues that too much accountability can be as problematic as too little. Through the application of a number of analytical ‘hooks’ drawn from the accountability studies literature, it argues that if the coalition government’s rhetorical commitment to a shift from a ‘Big State’ to a ‘Big Society’ is implemented, it may well flounder due to its inability to reconcile the centrifugal forces of devolution and localism with the centripetal forces of political accountability and public expectation. Indeed, without a more aggressive, sophisticated and indeed honest approach to accountability, the ‘Big Society’ is unwittingly likely to forge an even ‘Bigger State’.
To briefly summarise the argument presented last time. The ‘Underparts Gnomes’ argument, taken fr... more To briefly summarise the argument presented last time. The ‘Underparts Gnomes’ argument, taken from the TV show South Park, was the titular Gnomes’ business plan which ran along the lines: “Stage 1 Collect Underpants. Stage 2 ? Stage 3 Profit! As the Gnomes explain to the boys in the episode, they haven’t worked out what the middle stage is yet, but until they do they keep collecting underpants anyway.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2023
On June 12 th 2019, in the middle of the UK Conservative Party's leadership contest, journalist M... more On June 12 th 2019, in the middle of the UK Conservative Party's leadership contest, journalist Marie le Conte tweeted 'so this is my first proper leadership contest as an actual Westminster person and honestly it's such a hoot…huge fan of the drama'. This tweet is exemplary of a wider phenomenon. Politics is the activity through which power and resources are allocated across societywho gets what, when and how. Politics, and what it does to all of our lives, is consequential. Yet, despite this, many of those who pay the most attention to politics do so from the position of a fan, engaging with it in the way that others engage with entertainment forms like sport and television shows. Previous studies have paid attention to the fandoms and anti-fandoms that develop around individual politicians and movementsin other words, they maintain a focus on the behaviours and actions of these fans of politics. By contrast, in this paper we explore the construction of politics itself as an object of fandom, asking what happens to politics when it is treated in this way. The activity of politics can be socially constructed by humans to serve some purpose. Thus, who does the constructing and how they do this, affects what it becomes. Our claim is that constructing politics as an object of fandom (i.e. constructing it as 'the drama') affects politics itself.
Donald Trump has enjoyed a nearly 30-year relationship with World Wrestling Entertainment as a bu... more Donald Trump has enjoyed a nearly 30-year relationship with World Wrestling Entertainment as a business partner, fan, in-ring performer and 2013 Hall of Fame Inductee. Noting this long running involvement, it has become a widespread contention that Trump’s style as a political campaigner owes a debt to his experiences within the world of professional wrestling. Taking such claims seriously, this article argues that an engagement with concepts developed within professional wrestling studies would benefit political studies by offering new analytical approaches for the study of the political phenomenon that is Donald Trump. Providing a brief introduction to professional wrestling studies, this article outlines how the concepts of kayfabe, smart fandom and marking out help address a key question for political scholars: how to explain a cynical American electorate’s engagement with and emotional investment in the campaign of such an obvious political fraudster.
This article draws out the significant similarities between the political insurgencies of Jesse V... more This article draws out the significant similarities between the political insurgencies of Jesse Ventura in 1999 and Donald Trump in 2016, charting their own premillennial political collaborations as members of the Reform Party, before identifying wider lessons for studies of contemporary celebrity politicians through a comparison of their individual campaigns. Its analysis is based upon the concept of the ‘politainer’, introduced by Conley and Schultz, into which it incorporates Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of the carnival fool. The heterodox nature of both Ventura and Trump’s political campaign styles, it argues, is in part explained by the nature of the cultural spheres within which their public personas were produced; specifically, the fact that these personas, which they carried over from the entertainment to political spheres, were produced within genres of popular culture generally positioned as having ‘low’ cultural value. This, it argues, furnished both with an anti-establis...
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2019
Using the case study of abortion policy across the United Kingdom, this article takes a feminist ... more Using the case study of abortion policy across the United Kingdom, this article takes a feminist institutionalist approach to advance our understanding of state architecture and party competition within decentralised political systems. Despite increasing divergences across the United Kingdom in relation to abortion policy, contemporary debates around abortion access have rarely become politicised. Moreover, as this article demonstrates, when they have, the subject has been framed by politicians as a constitutional matter, relating to legislative competencies, rather than considered in terms of women’s rights. This framing, we argue, is linked to the specific constitutional arrangements of the post-devolution UK and the political strategies of the parties operating within them. Drawing upon parliamentary debates and interviews with political representatives to map the circumstances driving changes to abortion policy in the United Kingdom, this article introduces important comparative...
Analogies between politics and pro-wrestling have a long pedigree and are almost always meant neg... more Analogies between politics and pro-wrestling have a long pedigree and are almost always meant negatively. What if, however, pro-wrestling is standing on its head in such analogies and must be turned right side up again? Building off arguments presented by Warden, Chow and Laine, this article argues that when approached as a specific form of embodied labor, embedded within the industry-specific performance convention known as kayfabe, a truer political analogy might compare pro-wrestling with the Proletkult, the cultural organization born amidst the 1917 Russian Revolutions to develop a new "proletarian culture" and usher in a socialist society. This is not to claim pro-wrestling offers a modern-day mirror of the historical Proletkult. Rather, drawing upon the work of Alexander Bogdanov, the leading intellectual force behind the Proletkult, this identifies pro-wrestling's latent potential to act as an anti-hierarchical, egalitarian organizational form able to platform human creativity with the goal of developing proletarian culture.
While party research has seen a number of conceptual developments in recent years, it has not kep... more While party research has seen a number of conceptual developments in recent years, it has not kept pace with parties becoming more territorial as a result of the increasing importance of sub-national and supranational governance. This article lays down a framework for conceptualising and analysing multi-level parties (MLPs). We propose a synthesis of the formal and non-formal aspects of power; the former highlighting party rules and procedures, the latter focusing upon the ideational structures – norms and competing ideologies/discourses – within which party members operate. For empirical research on the MLP we propose to focus on autonomy and influence to measure the extent of (formal and non-formal) multi-levelness and to grasp better the strategies of regional branches vis-à-vis the centre.
While clear lines of accountability are normally considered a sine qua non of any modern democrac... more While clear lines of accountability are normally considered a sine qua non of any modern democracy, this article argues that too much accountability can be as problematic as too little. Through the application of a number of analytical ‘hooks’ drawn from the accountability studies literature, it argues that if the coalition government’s rhetorical commitment to a shift from a ‘Big State’ to a ‘Big Society’ is implemented, it may well flounder due to its inability to reconcile the centrifugal forces of devolution and localism with the centripetal forces of political accountability and public expectation. Indeed, without a more aggressive, sophisticated and indeed honest approach to accountability, the ‘Big Society’ is unwittingly likely to forge an even ‘Bigger State’.
To briefly summarise the argument presented last time. The ‘Underparts Gnomes’ argument, taken fr... more To briefly summarise the argument presented last time. The ‘Underparts Gnomes’ argument, taken from the TV show South Park, was the titular Gnomes’ business plan which ran along the lines: “Stage 1 Collect Underpants. Stage 2 ? Stage 3 Profit! As the Gnomes explain to the boys in the episode, they haven’t worked out what the middle stage is yet, but until they do they keep collecting underpants anyway.
How do leading Democratic Party figures strive to communicate with and influence their audience? ... more How do leading Democratic Party figures strive to communicate with and influence their audience? Why have some proven more successful than others in advancing their ideological arguments? How do orators seek to connect with different audiences in different settings such as the Senate, conventions and through the media? This thoroughly researched and highly readable collection comprehensively evaluates these questions as well as providing an extensive interrogation of the political and intellectual significance of oratory and rhetoric in the Democratic Party. Using the Aristotelian modes of persuasion ethos, pathos and logos it draws out commonalties and differences in how the rhetoric of Democratic Party politics has shifted since the 1960s. More broadly it evaluates the impact of leading orators upon American politics and argues that effective oratory remains a vital party of American political discourse.
Voices of the UK Left: Rhetoric, Ideology and the Performance of Politics, 2017
This chapter focuses upon Carwyn Jones, First Minister (FM) of Wales since 2009 and conterminousl... more This chapter focuses upon Carwyn Jones, First Minister (FM) of Wales since 2009 and conterminously ‘Welsh Labour Leader’. Through an analysis of Jones’s conference speeches in Wales and England between 2009 and 2015, it explicates the manner in which he has articulated a clear role for Welsh Labour within both Welsh politics and Labour itself. One wherein: (i) Welsh Labour is the party of ‘the people of Wales’, shielding them from Conservative assaults via active state-led interventionist politics; and (ii) this ‘Welsh Labour’ approach both offers lessons for Labour beyond Wales and justifies further devolution of powers to the Welsh Government that Jones leads. Through this ‘Welsh Labour rhetoric’, Jones has successfully positioned himself as the recognized voice of the sub-state party at the state-wide party level (offering valuable insights into the manner in which formally unitary institutions can nevertheless operate informally as multi-level institutions).
Political Studies Review, Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 99–100,, Jan 2014
Freedom after the Critique of Foundations is a rigorous work of political theory with due diligen... more Freedom after the Critique of Foundations is a rigorous work of political theory with due diligence paid to theoretical consistency and ontological clarity. Alexandros Kioupkiolis sets out a philosophical and political perspective as profound as it is intricate. To achieve its aim, the book's argument is split into three parts, each of which identifies and appraises one of three paradigms of freedom: essentialist, liberal and agonist.
In the first and second parts, through insightful discussions of figures such as Marx, Kant and J. S. Mill, Kioupkiolis demonstrates how both essentialist and liberal strands of thought have at their heart a determinism, related to conceptions of the subject, which fixes and contracts the space for freedom. Set against this, in the third section Kioupkiolis dismisses objective ontological foundations and draws upon the work of Cornelius Castoriadis to argue for a conception of freedom as agonistic self-creation – whereby ‘freedom bursts beyond the limits of essential closure and negative liberty’ (p. 7) – concluding with a brief overview of ‘contemporary experiments [such as those which flowed from the Argentine riots in December 2001 and the Greek riots in December 2008] which offer collective embodiments of this understanding of freedom’ (p. 227).
In arguing that Castoriadis' work provides an important source for contemporary radical emancipatory politics, Kioupkiolis achieves his aim. The only query I would raise is his failure to address the critique notably made by Yannis Stavrakakis in The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Politics,1 which is cited herein, that there is a contradiction at the heart of Castoriadis' theory of subjectivity due to his notion of a monadic radical imagination which contains a continuing ‘first matrix of [pre-social] meaning’, post-socialisation. With the monadic psyche at the heart of Castoriadis' autonomous subject – and thus Kioupkiolis' own theory also – it would have been helpful to hear the latter's response to this apparent flaw, beyond noting that Castoriadis' theory of subjectivity ‘features highly contentious elements, such as the notion of a primal self-enclosed monad’ but that this ‘is critically valuable for the cause of freedom' (p. 113).
This book belongs to a growing engagement with Castoriadis, and is an excellent work in its own right which will hopefully find the readership it deserves. The agonistic perspective that Kioupkiolis proposes involves, along the way, his critical engagement with the arguments of other contemporary thinkers such as Laclau, Marchart and Žižek, and therefore represents vital and essential reading for all those interested in agonist politics and the question of freedom.
Political Studies Review, Volume 12, Issue 1, page 131, Jan 2014
Fischer and Gottweis have assembled a remarkable book which makes a very real contribution not on... more Fischer and Gottweis have assembled a remarkable book which makes a very real contribution not only to the critical policy studies literature but also to wider political analysis in general. A weighty edited collection, the volume follows in the scholarly footsteps of The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning (1993) (also co-edited by Fischer), building upon and supplementing its assertion of policy arguments, not outputs, as the starting point of analysis. In doing so it develops and advances the scope of the argumentative direction in policy studies via the expansion of the former book's emphasis on argumentation to incorporate key post-publication developments. Specifically, it takes account of the manner in which the argumentative approach, initially heavily indebted to Jürgen Habermas' critical theory, ‘has converged with other developments in the social sciences focused on discourse, deliberation, social constructivism, and interpretive method’ (p. 1). As the editors list, this collection thereby includes ‘contributions based on discourse analysis, deliberative democracy, collaborative planning, interpretive frame analysis, discursive institutionalism, new media, performativity in rhetorical argumentation, narration, images and pictures, semiotics, transformative policy learning, and more’ (p. 7).
This plurality points to both the strength and usefulness of those approaches which fall under the overarching rubric of the titular ‘turn’, but also points to the inherent tensions therein, making for something of a ‘spiky’ shared space within which they can all fit. There is a key division, for example, between what can be broadly branded as deliberative and agonist approaches to argumentative analysis. This is not something the book's contributors shy away from. Indeed, part of what makes this work so valuable is that, in drawing together these different authors and theories, a great emphasis has been placed upon not only laying out research tools but also explicating the philosophical, ontological basis of each approach and their subsequent analytical differences and points of conflict.
The chapters are theoretically rigorous – the authors score well on the intellectual duty of the analyst to ‘show one's workings’ – and consequently this is an extremely valuable book, providing a greater insight into certain perspectives than has previously existed. Vivien Schmidt's excellent chapter on ‘Discursive Institutionalism’, for example, provides the clearest detailing of her perspective's underlying ontology yet without becoming lost in abstraction. Personally I would have liked a final, summarising chapter to draw everything together, but overall the quality of the work collected means this has ‘classic text’ written all over it.
Political Studies Review Volume 11, Issue 2, pages 291–292., May 2013
A detailed case study of the 2011 Welsh referendum, in itself, is a highly valuable prospect, ove... more A detailed case study of the 2011 Welsh referendum, in itself, is a highly valuable prospect, overlooked almost entirely, as it was, outside Wales. But Wyn Jones and Scully's excellent, readable book offers so much more. Its wider focus is probably best encapsulated in the authors' contention that ‘The referendum was important because the process by which this rather bizarre vote came to occur encapsulates so much about characteristic pathologies of Welsh political life’ (p. xi), a declaration they subsequently succeed, wonderfully, to demonstrate. In so doing, the titular referendum, while the central focus of this text, plays a wider role in centring a general overview of the politics of devolution in Wales from the late 1970s to 2011, covering the three Welsh national referenda.
But this book is about not only the referendum's lessons for politics in Wales, but also its lessons regarding referenda in general. Specifically, it contends that the 2011 referendum ‘offers a useful negative role model to the rest of the democratic world: it was an example of How Not to Do It’ (p. 167). Covering all this, Wyn Jones and Scully's comprehensive research encompasses insights from political history, reports on (intra-) party politics, an explication of post-devolution governmental structures and detailed analysis of referendum results and data on identity.
In discussing the development of devolution, the book is, by nature, largely a discussion of intra-party power plays within the hegemonic force in Welsh politics, the Labour Party in Wales. I take issue with one point here: discussing Labour's 2007 special conference to debate entering the ‘One Wales’ coalition with Plaid Cymru, the authors recount, from ‘anonymous sources’, how Neil Kinnock's (anti-coalition) ‘oratory was received very coolly by the delegates’ with vocal support ‘restricted to a small band of hard-core followers’, labelling this a ‘humiliation’ (p. 25). Having attended the conference myself this is an unreasonably skewed account of an event at which the majority who spoke did so against the deal (regardless that a ‘yes’ vote was a known arithmetic certainty beforehand). Furthermore, the attendant judgement that entering ‘One Wales’ signalled that Labour had ‘finally embraced devolution’ (p. 25) conflates the largely anti-nationalist sentiments expressed at the conference with anti-devolution ones – a normative narrative that simplifies the complexity of intra-Labour ideological antagonisms. But this is, regardless, the best text on Welsh devolution I have read in a long time. Highly accessible, it deserves not only a place on course reading lists but a readership beyond academia.
Political Studies Review Volume 11, Issue 2, pages 287–288., May 2013
Andrew Pearmain's interesting book is structured in two parts. The first, ‘Gramsci and His Legacy... more Andrew Pearmain's interesting book is structured in two parts. The first, ‘Gramsci and His Legacy’, looks at the specific legacy of his writings in Britain. The second, entitled ‘Critique of New Labour’, seeks to undertake ‘a Gramscian analysis’ of New Labour via a focus upon ‘ideologies, cultures, interests and principles; terms that Gramsci himself would have deployed to gain an intellectual hand-hold on the phenomenon’ (p. 19). But this is not a work on Gramsci's political theory per se. Readers without a detailed knowledge of Gramsci's substantive ideas will not gain one. Instead, this is a work of first, history and second, analysis – the two elements broadly mapping on to the aforementioned parts.
The first part offers a clearly written history of the uptake and influence of Gramsci's writings in Britain's Marxist intellectual sphere – New Left Review, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), the euro-communists clustered around the journal Marxism Today and so on – through to the revisionists surrounding Neil Kinnock's leadership and what would become New Labour. Sections of this intellectual history are whizzed through, and much has already been written on parts of the subject. (Geoff Andrew's history of the CPGB Endgames and New Times: The Final Years of British Communism 1964–19911 and Alan Finlayson's excellent Making Sense of New Labour,2 for example, have covered the impact of the Marxism Today debates on New Labour's formation/formulation.) Pearmain wears his politics on his sleeve; his work is unapologetically polemical. This can mean, however, that the narrative becomes obviously slanted; it is surely time to dispense with the de rigueur howls of personal disgust about Laclau and Mouffe for their allegedly ‘essentially hollow jargon’ and ‘pompous quotation marks’ (p. 98), etc.
After such a long run-up, the second part, the actual analysis of New Labour, feels short-lived. Here Pearmain applies Gramsci's ideas on technology, ‘Caesarism’ and class struggle, for example, to his subject matter, producing a left-wing critique which, while framed in Gramscian terminology, will be broadly familiar and probably sympathetic to many. Applied analyses of the development and affective history of ideas, as well as the rigorous analytical application of individual thinkers to subjects, is possibly somewhat lacking in the ‘Brit Pol’ literature presently. This easy-to-read book will, it is therefore hoped, provide a gateway to readers, especially undergraduate, to grasp not just Gramsci, but the role of ideas – rather than simply personalities, party mechanics and media spin – in British politics today.
Political Studies Review Volume 10, Issue 3, pages 431–432., Aug 2012
The edited collection, as a classic format, is perhaps underappreciated for its important role as... more The edited collection, as a classic format, is perhaps underappreciated for its important role as a vessel through which academics can push against and manipulate the boundaries of the literatures their works lie within. Their significance in this regard can, as this review aims to show, be even greater when familial collections are viewed in comparison with each other. The two collections considered here focus upon the subject of federalism.
New Directions in Federalism Studies (NDFS) introduces its collected essays by noting that ‘when addressing the relevance of federalism’, academics ‘frequently put on their hats as constitutional scholars, students of national or ethnic studies or political economists’. They have not, however, ‘developed into “federalism scholars” to the extent that, say, “party scholars” have’ (p. 11). With this in mind, the additional value claimed by this text is to be more than a selection of well-crafted analyses. Rather, it stems from the drawing together of essays by members of an identified ‘new wave of federalism studies’ (p. 1) which it seeks to illustrate and affirm (a selection made despite the fact that, as the editors themselves admit, ‘the latent commonalities’ between such ‘new wave’ works are ‘not yet manifest’[p. 11]).
The collected pieces cover a number of topics – including electoral patterns, party politics and ethnic conflict management in federal/multi-level systems – and a number of cases, among others, Spain, Germany, the UK, Australia and Switzerland. As is usual, these analyses are topped and tailed by an introduction and conclusion by the editors. The former offers a valuable explanation of the collection's aim (see above) and background to the development of ‘federalism studies’. Here it highlights the generally comparativist nature of such contemporary studies and their debt to the growth of ‘new institutionalism’. The latter feels more like a summary of the preceding chapters than a reflexive intervention into the literature it styles itself as. However, the claim that new institutionalism faces a ‘slowdown’ as it gets ‘old’ is worth debating, as is the claim that federalism has had ‘a period of growth’ and now finds itself in ‘a period of consolidation’ (p. 205). The linked claim, moreover, that ‘[t]he existing supply of federal experiments will keep us busy for quite a while’ may signify a danger that in viewing the wave as having crested, analysts might become overly complacent. The risk of analytical complacency is already discernible in the collection's broadly shared ontological/epistemological perspective: in charting the impact of new institutionalism the introduction sticks firmly to the rationalist, positivist tradition, making no reference to the more recent discursive/ideational/constructivist (choose your favourite label) current. The analyses themselves stick mostly within this framing, looking at power in terms of ‘formal’ structures to the exclusion of ‘non-formal’ ones (ideological tendencies, normative traditions, etc.).
Perhaps, therefore, what NDFS demonstrates is not only the development of a ‘new wave of federalism studies’, but the narrowness of its present focus. It is often the case that feminist analyses are ghettoised in ‘specialist’ books. Viewed as a counterpart to NDFS, therefore, the existence of Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance (FFMG) and its appreciable size/length (sixteen chapters) appears testament to just such an elision: as the book's introductory chapter notes, ‘[t]he long-established federalism literature ignores issues of gender’ (p. 1), and indeed, the terms ‘gender’ and ‘feminism’ are not even present in the previous book's index. The rationalist positivism already noted in NDFS – itself arguably unresponsive to issues of gender and exclusion – is counterpoised in this text by a stress upon institutions, practices, discourses and language (p. 1). The essays herein again cover a number of topics, mixing issues of governance, intra-institutional relations and multi-level power structures (discussed in the other collection) with those of childcare advocacy, women's urban safety, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and reproductive rights (which are entirely missing there).
The analyses are divided into three parts which mix the spatial with the temporal: ‘Older Federations: Australia, Canada, United States’; ‘Europe: Germany, Russia, the UK’; and ‘Newer Federations: India, Mexico, Nigeria’. These parts – of which, in terms of content judged per word, the ‘Older’ federations do best and Europe worst – are framed within two strong, substantive introductory chapters and a conclusion that is summative but also agenda setting. The second introductory chapter by Gwendolyn Gray is particularly valuable; while the first introductory chapter gives a basic rundown of the federalist, multi-level governance and devolution literatures and key issues, Gray's chapter complements and extends the former issue but goes further in setting out the feminist critique of non-gendered analysis and theory-building efforts in federalism studies.
These are both books that university libraries should stock. NDFS is clearly the collection with the broadest scope, but ‘the new wave’– if it does exist as a tangible epistemic entity – should be forced to take on the broad lessons raised in FFMG also. Such an engagement would be to the benefit of all.
Political Studies Review, Volume 9, Issue 3., Sep 2011
Rather than approaching Slavoj Žižek as the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’, On Žižek's Dialectics ins... more Rather than approaching Slavoj Žižek as the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’, On Žižek's Dialectics instead treats his work with the critical respect owed to a philosopher of substance, stripping away the famous pop culture bells and whistles to focus instead upon the bare, almost mechanistic heart of the Slovenian's theoretical project. For this act, putting the man to the test, he is to be applauded not only by those who already respect Žižek's writings, but also by those who remain sceptical or downright cynical about them. Indeed, it is clear that the subject himself appreciates it, as Žižek describes in a blurb his ‘pleasure and anxiety’ at the manner in which, reading the work, he felt ‘the author understanding me better than I understand myself’.
The book is split into two parts. The first focuses upon the Marx–Lacan axis, explicating the apparent ‘homology’ between surplus value and surplus enjoyment (jouissance) whereby the latter supersedes the former. While capitalism seeks to turn all surplus into value, this task is argued to be impossible since said surplus – the ‘indigestible remainder of the process of valorization’ (p. 2) here understood, qua jouissance, as correspondent to a void or lack – is at once the ‘ghost in the machine’ that drives capitalism's permanent revolutionising and the material basis of capitalism's own limit.
The second part seeks to develop the political opportunities this position raises for a leftist politics. Looking to the potential inscribed in Žižek's conception of subjectivity, Fabio Vighi draws out its linkage to his conception of ‘the Act’, positing a process of subtraction and sublimation (unplugging, and reconfiguring, the socio-symbolic order). To this end, he argues, the left should look for ‘brothers’ in the very surplus produced by and excluded from the dynamics of capitalist value formation: that is, the ‘human waste’ of the lumpenproletariat (slum dwellers, etc.).
A tough book at times, this is far from an introductory text and will be all but impenetrable for anyone without a more-than-working understanding of key Lacanian (and Marxist) concepts. The general turgidity of Lacanese does not help in this regard, of course. Nonetheless, this is a serious work and required reading for those wishing to grasp the philosophical underpinnings behind the ‘flash’ of Žižek's rhetoric which power his substantial intellectual enterprise (and it is infinitely more interesting for this).
In addressing its titular question, this book judges the Welsh and Scottish devolved settlements ... more In addressing its titular question, this book judges the Welsh and Scottish devolved settlements as well as the effect of their establishment upon England. The book encapsulates the objectives and goals of devolution against which this judgement is to be made in three principles: (1) improving economic and policy performance; (2) improving the quality of political representation, accountability and engagement; and (3) strengthening the union between the British nations. Successes, with regard to these principles, are explored with reference to the attitudes and behaviour of three groups – the public, interest groups and politicians – with analysis of the similarities and differences between each. Data are drawn from a mixture of documentary evidence, face-to-face interviews and postal surveys. Tabulated evidence abounds.
The chapters themselves are all excellent and fit together seamlessly, their structures and arguments reinforcing each in turn. The analyses produce both expected and surprising results. It is something of a shock, for example, to find that Rhodri Morgan AM, generally seen as a very popular first minister, was less highly evaluated by the Welsh public – both in 2003 and 2007 – than Prime Minister Tony Blair, to the extent that the latter ‘apparently put his devolved counterpoints in the shade’ (p. 152). This is not the normal narrative of either Welsh or Labour politics post-devolution and post-Iraq.
Judged against the aforementioned principles, the editors conclude that the majority of citizens and elected representatives in Wales and Scotland (significantly, AMs and MSPs only) do not believe devolution has brought an improvement in policy outcomes, and they are similarly unconvinced with regard to democratic representation and participation. A clear desire does exist for further devolution of powers in both polities – although the evidence provided from Scotland, comparative to Wales, does not point to greater powers correlating with greater contentment or more positive assessments of governance practices (pp. 72–4, pp. 102–4) – but there is little to no change among the Welsh, Scottish or English with regard to perspectives of Britishness or support for the Union.
Given how multi-level governance has accentuated the effective role of parties' multi-level relations and intra-party distinctions, the failure of this book to address the views of those politicians who deal daily with the newly devolved bodies and their policies despite not belonging to them (i.e. councillors, MEPs and MPs) is a glaring oversight. Nonetheless, and despite this omission, Has Devolution Worked? is an impressive book which, with the right readership, has the capacity for real political influence.
Political Studies Review, 9(1): pp. 103-104., Jan 2011
Including critical analyses of such seemingly disparate subjects as conservative conceptions of ‘... more Including critical analyses of such seemingly disparate subjects as conservative conceptions of ‘ontological evil’, Judith Butler’s politics and the ‘certainty’ held by 9/11 ‘truthers’, the interweaving argumentative thread that links Jodi Dean’s book together frays at times (which is a distinct danger when reworking articles published elsewhere into book form).Yet such a thread does exist and while the focus here is firmly upon the US case, its valuable argument by its very nature transcends national borders.
Dean’s basic message, directed at the political left, is perhaps that ‘When democracy appears as both the conditions of politics and the solution to the political condition, neoliberalism can’t appear as the violence it is’ (p. 18). The book is framed as responding to an apparently tacit acceptance of defeat by the American left, signified in their failure to respond actively to the electoral victories of George W. Bush.The left did not lose, she argues, they quit, and this failure of responsibility derives from the American left’s acquiescence to neoliberalisation under Clinton and guilty enjoyment of both the values and freedoms that underpin it. As Dean puts it, the left – particularly the ‘academic and typing left’ – celebrated ‘the imaginary freedoms of creativity and transformation’ (p. 3) offered by ‘communicative capitalism’ with its multiplicity of information technology and proliferation of contents, choices and voices.
From this perspective, Dean argues, the left adopted a self-conception of themselves as defeated victims and thus sidestepped the hugely important reality which was their paucity of ideas and the apparent unpopularity and outmoded nature of those that remained. Assuming the role of weak, suffering victim, the left adopted the perfect cynical position of moral correctness combined with a reneging of responsibility. Communicative capitalism provides a perfect environment for this outlook which in turn fosters these very conditions: everyone is presumed to be a producer as well as a consumer of content (media) and in such conditions – ‘a deluge of circulating, disintegrating spectacles and opinions’ (p. 24) – messages get lost. Speech, opinion and participation are fetishised as democracy, but the end result is the removal/impeding of true activism alongside the promotion of its ‘image’ in a passive pseudo-activism (blogging, online petitions, etc.).
There is pessimism at the heart of Dean’s book, which is not necessarily a bad thing. As Slavoj Žižek (who furnishes Dean’s basic theoretical framework) has argued, pessimistic predictions at the level of possibilities can actually mobilise actors in counteraction. Viewed thus, as both an academic analysis and a call to action, this book works. Nonetheless, a summarising conclusion would certainly have helped.
Political Studies Review, 9 (1): pp. 67-68. , Jan 2011
A collection of critical essays, the majority of Balakrishnan’s Antagonistics consists of extende... more A collection of critical essays, the majority of Balakrishnan’s Antagonistics consists of extended book reviews previously published in the New Left Review. The purpose of the book, so its introduction explains, is to chronicle and bring into ‘sharper relief’ (p. vii) the second decade of the post-Cold War status quo. This introduction is a blistering read as preface to an exciting intellectual prospect: charting the effacement of once definitionally indispensable narrative coordinates and conceptual distinctions in the present situation of omnipresent capitalism (‘state’, ‘revolution’, ‘war’), Balakrishnan critically locates the succeeding essays as attempts to develop a form of writing and position taking that might further the goal of radical transformation in this epoch.
Balakrishnan is well aware of the impossibility of intellectual neutrality in doing this and notes by way of Carl Schmitt the polemical nature of all political terms, concepts and images. In this light, the neologism of the title is meant, so he writes, to evoke both a notion of rational polemics of political (‘over-politicised’) reason and ‘to index a historical moment in which some of the presuppositions of criticism – most vitally the test of and passage to action – are missing’ (p. xi). Following Gramsci’s edict to understand and evaluate adversaries’ positions and reasons, the essays are fair and scrupulous wherever the subject sits upon the ideological spectrum, from the far right to left. Indeed, in this manner, both in style and political perspective, the book does what the New Left Review generally does so well. It should be taken as no slight, therefore, to depict it – stylistically and intellectually – as a lesser companion piece to Perry Anderson’s magnificent Spectrum (2005).
Antagonistics is structured in three parts: recent macrohistories of the co-evolution of capitalism and the interstate system; reflections on politics as per the genesis, identity and motives of the state; and two reflections on Machiavelli, a figure to whom Balakrishnan has turnedfor insights regarding the defeat and prospects for renewal of revolutionary causes.The book covers, across its breadth, such disparate thinkers as Schmitt, de Tocqueville, Habermas and Hardt and Negri, to name but a few. Considered as a whole, however, the book never manages fully to live up to its opening promise. Possibly due to the constraining nature of the book review format, the collected essays – while always well written and interesting – never manage to catch fire. There is plenty of narrative and intellectual elan throughout, but the promised polemic is a little too cauterised.
This book aims to investigate the nature of collective identities (particularly political identit... more This book aims to investigate the nature of collective identities (particularly political identities), and by so doing to widen EU analyses through recognition of the multiple identities within nation states. As the subtitle suggests, it concentrates on three case studies of regions within European nation states – Wales (UK), Flanders (Belgium) and Silesia (Poland). Each analysis attempts to identify and chart the development of distinct regional and ethnic cultural groups – an assessment expounded via reference to historical, economic and political contexts and to perceptions of identities in relation to their multi-polity situations.
Methodologically, these case study analyses are based upon qualitative focus group research – investigating in each case, as the editors put it, the views ‘of the majority group within the region, and minority groups identified by ethnicity and territoriality’ (p. 4). The weight readers apportion to the book's conclusions will, to a large extent, relate to feelings regarding this methodological choice. Is Wales, for example, really best approached through focus groups distinguishing between English- and Welsh-speaking Welsh, ‘English incomers’ and the Pakistani community? Valuably, the methodological rationale is explained and justified in an appendix – including issues of group selection, recruitment and conduct – which facilitates the formulation of such judgements.
The book is structured in three parts: a discussion of theoretical and conceptual issues, specifically regarding collective identities (ch. 2); the three case studies' findings (chs 3–5); and a comparison between the findings and a concluding discussion of their implications for the multi-level democratic institutions (chs 6–7). The first part – regarding issues of theory/conceptualisation – is somewhat synoptic to the detriment of any clear, rigorous underlying theoretical framework.
The case studies chapters provide detailed, grounding social-historical descriptions. Each is detailed and of interest, but John Loughin's Welsh case stands out due to its analysis of divergences/convergences between mass and elite opinions (the latter gained via supporting semi-structured interviews). The Silesia and Flanders cases omit this mass/elite distinction and thus lack such insights, to the detriment of the subsequent comparative analysis, which also excludes it.
The book concludes that regional collectivities see themselves primarily in terms of regional identity, with little or no evidence of strong identity with Europe, and (the Flemish excepted) with the strongest identification being with their local community, family and friends. Serious questions are thus raised as to whether ‘national’ identity is the ‘most important’ collective identity; the book concludes, vaguely, that EU political processes may need ‘to restructure’ in light of this.
Political Studies Review, 8(2): 266-267., May 2010
This is the first ‘The State of the Nations’ book in three years and those already familiar with ... more This is the first ‘The State of the Nations’ book in three years and those already familiar with the series should know what to expect by now: high-quality, in-depth, specifically focused chapters on each of the compositional parts of the post-devolution UK, buttressed by a wealth of detailed analyses on cross-polity issues such as financing, divergent policy styles and questions of multi-level governance and intergovernmental relations. In all of these regards the book fulfils positive expectations, yet this alone undersells a text that is arguably among the most interesting and important on its topic thus far.
This book charts the apparent shift to what the excellent introduction labels ‘the second phase of devolution’: as Alan Trench puts it (in an apparently unintentionally damning indictment of said titular ‘state’), while ‘between 2005–2007, relatively little of interest happened’ (p. 1), 2007 marked a step change beyond devolution's ‘initial phase’. The 2007 elections resulted in nationalists governing at Holyrood and – in coalition – in Cardiff Bay. The Government of Wales Act 2006 allowed ‘primary legislation in all but name’ (p. 58). And devolved governance returned in Northern Ireland. In charting this (retrospectively) transitional period and the changes it has wrought, the book is lively and detailed, interesting and fascinating.
One concern exists, however. The book rightly notes that, politically, framing issues solely in terms of what is best for Scotland or Wales but not the UK as a whole has probably aided nationalist positions (p. 5), something which Labour – unionist by electoral interest and ideology – has dangerously overlooked. Yet despite the book's emphasis on cross-polity, interconnected analysis, a similar aiding by framing is sometimes apparent. For example, Jones and Scully seemingly conflate the opposition of Welsh Labour MPs to coalition with the nationalists as related to an alleged lack of reconciliation with devolution, while in the same breath describing their ‘significant capacity for mischief-making’ (p. 77). In doing so they echo a familiar ideological narrative and it is not hard to imagine their probable interpretation of the far from cursory role that the Welsh Affairs Select Committee has taken in scrutinising Legislative Competency Orders (LCOs). Similarly, in describing the ‘encroachment’ of Scottish and Welsh Labour and Conservative MPs upon the ‘Scotland and Wales branches’ of their parties (p. 216), Akash Paun portrays them as somehow external or alien to their regional party.
These are, however, the quibbles of a reviewer particularly attuned to such rhetorical and presentational issues and this book is required reading for anyone interested in UK politics, devolution, governance and the state of the parties.
Political Studies Review, Volume 7, Issue 3, p. 381., Aug 2009
The declared aim of this work, an edited collection of essays by a range of authors, is to consti... more The declared aim of this work, an edited collection of essays by a range of authors, is to constitute a platform from which to develop a ‘second generation’ of governance network research. The research subject itself is here defined in terms of ‘non-hierarchical forms of governance based on negotiated interaction between a plurality of public, semi-public and private actors’ (p. 3) involved in the formulation and implementation of public policy.
The book is structured in four main parts looking at different aspects of network governance: the first focuses upon their dynamics; the second, upon the conditions for their failures; the third on the question of metagovernance; and the fourth on their democratic implications. The book’s ‘theoretical backbone’
is provided by governance network theory, but institutional and democratic theory are also drawn upon strongly with Sørensen and Torfing mapping and demonstrating the similarities and differences between the different main bodies of each theory.
For example, in the first chapter they demonstrate the ‘indispensable’ nature (p. 27) of the three main bodies of (new) institutional theory for governance network research: historical, rational choice and social constructivist institutionalism; as well as a fourth: poststructuralist institutionalism, a significant and highly useful addition by the authors; and they elucidate the
close connection between these theories and those of governance network theory: interdependency theory,
governability theory, integration theory and governmentality
theory – each of the latter being underpinned by one of the former.
Such delineations (and a similar mapping is presented with regard to governance networks and democratic theory) provide a strong theoretical background to the book’s arguments and an intellectual entry to the subject matter for researchers interested in areas other than network governance – intra-party relations for example.
The chapters hang together well, clearly structured within the book’s arguments. Sørensen and Torfing provide a detailed introduction and framework for the debate and authors such as Nils Hering, Mark Bevir and Rod Rhodes, Allan Dreyer Hansen and others contribute often contrasting but interlinked perspectives on fundamental questions.
Despite a number of typographic and other textual errors this
is a highly useful book. As well as providing a cogent theoretical platform of its own from which to launch a new generation of research in this area it should also be of interest to a broader number of readers than its narrow subject title might suggest.
This paper draws upon the research presented to PSA last year in which I outlined the basic struc... more This paper draws upon the research presented to PSA last year in which I outlined the basic structure of Cameron’s rhetoric regarding the need for a/the ‘Big Society’, what I called the Underpants Gnomes” line of argument. This paper focuses in on one of the key rhetorical motifs to emerge from that analysis – the central role played by the concept of ‘responsibility’.
Uploads
Papers by David S Moon
In the first and second parts, through insightful discussions of figures such as Marx, Kant and J. S. Mill, Kioupkiolis demonstrates how both essentialist and liberal strands of thought have at their heart a determinism, related to conceptions of the subject, which fixes and contracts the space for freedom. Set against this, in the third section Kioupkiolis dismisses objective ontological foundations and draws upon the work of Cornelius Castoriadis to argue for a conception of freedom as agonistic self-creation – whereby ‘freedom bursts beyond the limits of essential closure and negative liberty’ (p. 7) – concluding with a brief overview of ‘contemporary experiments [such as those which flowed from the Argentine riots in December 2001 and the Greek riots in December 2008] which offer collective embodiments of this understanding of freedom’ (p. 227).
In arguing that Castoriadis' work provides an important source for contemporary radical emancipatory politics, Kioupkiolis achieves his aim. The only query I would raise is his failure to address the critique notably made by Yannis Stavrakakis in The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, Politics,1 which is cited herein, that there is a contradiction at the heart of Castoriadis' theory of subjectivity due to his notion of a monadic radical imagination which contains a continuing ‘first matrix of [pre-social] meaning’, post-socialisation. With the monadic psyche at the heart of Castoriadis' autonomous subject – and thus Kioupkiolis' own theory also – it would have been helpful to hear the latter's response to this apparent flaw, beyond noting that Castoriadis' theory of subjectivity ‘features highly contentious elements, such as the notion of a primal self-enclosed monad’ but that this ‘is critically valuable for the cause of freedom' (p. 113).
This book belongs to a growing engagement with Castoriadis, and is an excellent work in its own right which will hopefully find the readership it deserves. The agonistic perspective that Kioupkiolis proposes involves, along the way, his critical engagement with the arguments of other contemporary thinkers such as Laclau, Marchart and Žižek, and therefore represents vital and essential reading for all those interested in agonist politics and the question of freedom.
Note
1
2007, pp. 37–65.
This plurality points to both the strength and usefulness of those approaches which fall under the overarching rubric of the titular ‘turn’, but also points to the inherent tensions therein, making for something of a ‘spiky’ shared space within which they can all fit. There is a key division, for example, between what can be broadly branded as deliberative and agonist approaches to argumentative analysis. This is not something the book's contributors shy away from. Indeed, part of what makes this work so valuable is that, in drawing together these different authors and theories, a great emphasis has been placed upon not only laying out research tools but also explicating the philosophical, ontological basis of each approach and their subsequent analytical differences and points of conflict.
The chapters are theoretically rigorous – the authors score well on the intellectual duty of the analyst to ‘show one's workings’ – and consequently this is an extremely valuable book, providing a greater insight into certain perspectives than has previously existed. Vivien Schmidt's excellent chapter on ‘Discursive Institutionalism’, for example, provides the clearest detailing of her perspective's underlying ontology yet without becoming lost in abstraction. Personally I would have liked a final, summarising chapter to draw everything together, but overall the quality of the work collected means this has ‘classic text’ written all over it.
But this book is about not only the referendum's lessons for politics in Wales, but also its lessons regarding referenda in general. Specifically, it contends that the 2011 referendum ‘offers a useful negative role model to the rest of the democratic world: it was an example of How Not to Do It’ (p. 167). Covering all this, Wyn Jones and Scully's comprehensive research encompasses insights from political history, reports on (intra-) party politics, an explication of post-devolution governmental structures and detailed analysis of referendum results and data on identity.
In discussing the development of devolution, the book is, by nature, largely a discussion of intra-party power plays within the hegemonic force in Welsh politics, the Labour Party in Wales. I take issue with one point here: discussing Labour's 2007 special conference to debate entering the ‘One Wales’ coalition with Plaid Cymru, the authors recount, from ‘anonymous sources’, how Neil Kinnock's (anti-coalition) ‘oratory was received very coolly by the delegates’ with vocal support ‘restricted to a small band of hard-core followers’, labelling this a ‘humiliation’ (p. 25). Having attended the conference myself this is an unreasonably skewed account of an event at which the majority who spoke did so against the deal (regardless that a ‘yes’ vote was a known arithmetic certainty beforehand). Furthermore, the attendant judgement that entering ‘One Wales’ signalled that Labour had ‘finally embraced devolution’ (p. 25) conflates the largely anti-nationalist sentiments expressed at the conference with anti-devolution ones – a normative narrative that simplifies the complexity of intra-Labour ideological antagonisms. But this is, regardless, the best text on Welsh devolution I have read in a long time. Highly accessible, it deserves not only a place on course reading lists but a readership beyond academia.
The first part offers a clearly written history of the uptake and influence of Gramsci's writings in Britain's Marxist intellectual sphere – New Left Review, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), the euro-communists clustered around the journal Marxism Today and so on – through to the revisionists surrounding Neil Kinnock's leadership and what would become New Labour. Sections of this intellectual history are whizzed through, and much has already been written on parts of the subject. (Geoff Andrew's history of the CPGB Endgames and New Times: The Final Years of British Communism 1964–19911 and Alan Finlayson's excellent Making Sense of New Labour,2 for example, have covered the impact of the Marxism Today debates on New Labour's formation/formulation.) Pearmain wears his politics on his sleeve; his work is unapologetically polemical. This can mean, however, that the narrative becomes obviously slanted; it is surely time to dispense with the de rigueur howls of personal disgust about Laclau and Mouffe for their allegedly ‘essentially hollow jargon’ and ‘pompous quotation marks’ (p. 98), etc.
After such a long run-up, the second part, the actual analysis of New Labour, feels short-lived. Here Pearmain applies Gramsci's ideas on technology, ‘Caesarism’ and class struggle, for example, to his subject matter, producing a left-wing critique which, while framed in Gramscian terminology, will be broadly familiar and probably sympathetic to many. Applied analyses of the development and affective history of ideas, as well as the rigorous analytical application of individual thinkers to subjects, is possibly somewhat lacking in the ‘Brit Pol’ literature presently. This easy-to-read book will, it is therefore hoped, provide a gateway to readers, especially undergraduate, to grasp not just Gramsci, but the role of ideas – rather than simply personalities, party mechanics and media spin – in British politics today.
Notes
1
Lawrence & Wishart, 2004.
2
Lawrence & Wishart, 2003.
New Directions in Federalism Studies (NDFS) introduces its collected essays by noting that ‘when addressing the relevance of federalism’, academics ‘frequently put on their hats as constitutional scholars, students of national or ethnic studies or political economists’. They have not, however, ‘developed into “federalism scholars” to the extent that, say, “party scholars” have’ (p. 11). With this in mind, the additional value claimed by this text is to be more than a selection of well-crafted analyses. Rather, it stems from the drawing together of essays by members of an identified ‘new wave of federalism studies’ (p. 1) which it seeks to illustrate and affirm (a selection made despite the fact that, as the editors themselves admit, ‘the latent commonalities’ between such ‘new wave’ works are ‘not yet manifest’[p. 11]).
The collected pieces cover a number of topics – including electoral patterns, party politics and ethnic conflict management in federal/multi-level systems – and a number of cases, among others, Spain, Germany, the UK, Australia and Switzerland. As is usual, these analyses are topped and tailed by an introduction and conclusion by the editors. The former offers a valuable explanation of the collection's aim (see above) and background to the development of ‘federalism studies’. Here it highlights the generally comparativist nature of such contemporary studies and their debt to the growth of ‘new institutionalism’. The latter feels more like a summary of the preceding chapters than a reflexive intervention into the literature it styles itself as. However, the claim that new institutionalism faces a ‘slowdown’ as it gets ‘old’ is worth debating, as is the claim that federalism has had ‘a period of growth’ and now finds itself in ‘a period of consolidation’ (p. 205). The linked claim, moreover, that ‘[t]he existing supply of federal experiments will keep us busy for quite a while’ may signify a danger that in viewing the wave as having crested, analysts might become overly complacent. The risk of analytical complacency is already discernible in the collection's broadly shared ontological/epistemological perspective: in charting the impact of new institutionalism the introduction sticks firmly to the rationalist, positivist tradition, making no reference to the more recent discursive/ideational/constructivist (choose your favourite label) current. The analyses themselves stick mostly within this framing, looking at power in terms of ‘formal’ structures to the exclusion of ‘non-formal’ ones (ideological tendencies, normative traditions, etc.).
Perhaps, therefore, what NDFS demonstrates is not only the development of a ‘new wave of federalism studies’, but the narrowness of its present focus. It is often the case that feminist analyses are ghettoised in ‘specialist’ books. Viewed as a counterpart to NDFS, therefore, the existence of Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance (FFMG) and its appreciable size/length (sixteen chapters) appears testament to just such an elision: as the book's introductory chapter notes, ‘[t]he long-established federalism literature ignores issues of gender’ (p. 1), and indeed, the terms ‘gender’ and ‘feminism’ are not even present in the previous book's index. The rationalist positivism already noted in NDFS – itself arguably unresponsive to issues of gender and exclusion – is counterpoised in this text by a stress upon institutions, practices, discourses and language (p. 1). The essays herein again cover a number of topics, mixing issues of governance, intra-institutional relations and multi-level power structures (discussed in the other collection) with those of childcare advocacy, women's urban safety, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and reproductive rights (which are entirely missing there).
The analyses are divided into three parts which mix the spatial with the temporal: ‘Older Federations: Australia, Canada, United States’; ‘Europe: Germany, Russia, the UK’; and ‘Newer Federations: India, Mexico, Nigeria’. These parts – of which, in terms of content judged per word, the ‘Older’ federations do best and Europe worst – are framed within two strong, substantive introductory chapters and a conclusion that is summative but also agenda setting. The second introductory chapter by Gwendolyn Gray is particularly valuable; while the first introductory chapter gives a basic rundown of the federalist, multi-level governance and devolution literatures and key issues, Gray's chapter complements and extends the former issue but goes further in setting out the feminist critique of non-gendered analysis and theory-building efforts in federalism studies.
These are both books that university libraries should stock. NDFS is clearly the collection with the broadest scope, but ‘the new wave’– if it does exist as a tangible epistemic entity – should be forced to take on the broad lessons raised in FFMG also. Such an engagement would be to the benefit of all.
The book is split into two parts. The first focuses upon the Marx–Lacan axis, explicating the apparent ‘homology’ between surplus value and surplus enjoyment (jouissance) whereby the latter supersedes the former. While capitalism seeks to turn all surplus into value, this task is argued to be impossible since said surplus – the ‘indigestible remainder of the process of valorization’ (p. 2) here understood, qua jouissance, as correspondent to a void or lack – is at once the ‘ghost in the machine’ that drives capitalism's permanent revolutionising and the material basis of capitalism's own limit.
The second part seeks to develop the political opportunities this position raises for a leftist politics. Looking to the potential inscribed in Žižek's conception of subjectivity, Fabio Vighi draws out its linkage to his conception of ‘the Act’, positing a process of subtraction and sublimation (unplugging, and reconfiguring, the socio-symbolic order). To this end, he argues, the left should look for ‘brothers’ in the very surplus produced by and excluded from the dynamics of capitalist value formation: that is, the ‘human waste’ of the lumpenproletariat (slum dwellers, etc.).
A tough book at times, this is far from an introductory text and will be all but impenetrable for anyone without a more-than-working understanding of key Lacanian (and Marxist) concepts. The general turgidity of Lacanese does not help in this regard, of course. Nonetheless, this is a serious work and required reading for those wishing to grasp the philosophical underpinnings behind the ‘flash’ of Žižek's rhetoric which power his substantial intellectual enterprise (and it is infinitely more interesting for this).
The chapters themselves are all excellent and fit together seamlessly, their structures and arguments reinforcing each in turn. The analyses produce both expected and surprising results. It is something of a shock, for example, to find that Rhodri Morgan AM, generally seen as a very popular first minister, was less highly evaluated by the Welsh public – both in 2003 and 2007 – than Prime Minister Tony Blair, to the extent that the latter ‘apparently put his devolved counterpoints in the shade’ (p. 152). This is not the normal narrative of either Welsh or Labour politics post-devolution and post-Iraq.
Judged against the aforementioned principles, the editors conclude that the majority of citizens and elected representatives in Wales and Scotland (significantly, AMs and MSPs only) do not believe devolution has brought an improvement in policy outcomes, and they are similarly unconvinced with regard to democratic representation and participation. A clear desire does exist for further devolution of powers in both polities – although the evidence provided from Scotland, comparative to Wales, does not point to greater powers correlating with greater contentment or more positive assessments of governance practices (pp. 72–4, pp. 102–4) – but there is little to no change among the Welsh, Scottish or English with regard to perspectives of Britishness or support for the Union.
Given how multi-level governance has accentuated the effective role of parties' multi-level relations and intra-party distinctions, the failure of this book to address the views of those politicians who deal daily with the newly devolved bodies and their policies despite not belonging to them (i.e. councillors, MEPs and MPs) is a glaring oversight. Nonetheless, and despite this omission, Has Devolution Worked? is an impressive book which, with the right readership, has the capacity for real political influence.
Dean’s basic message, directed at the political left, is perhaps that ‘When democracy appears as both the conditions of politics and the solution to the political condition, neoliberalism can’t appear as the violence it is’ (p. 18). The book is framed as responding to an apparently tacit acceptance of defeat by the American left, signified in their failure to respond actively to the electoral victories of George W. Bush.The left did not lose, she argues, they quit, and this failure of responsibility derives from the American left’s acquiescence to neoliberalisation under Clinton and guilty enjoyment of both the values and freedoms that underpin it. As Dean puts it, the left – particularly the ‘academic and typing left’ – celebrated ‘the imaginary freedoms of creativity and transformation’ (p. 3) offered by ‘communicative capitalism’ with its multiplicity of information technology and proliferation of contents, choices and voices.
From this perspective, Dean argues, the left adopted a self-conception of themselves as defeated victims and thus sidestepped the hugely important reality which was their paucity of ideas and the apparent unpopularity and outmoded nature of those that remained. Assuming the role of weak, suffering victim, the left adopted the perfect cynical position of moral correctness combined with a reneging of responsibility. Communicative capitalism provides a perfect environment for this outlook which in turn fosters these very conditions: everyone is presumed to be a producer as well as a consumer of content (media) and in such conditions – ‘a deluge of circulating, disintegrating spectacles and opinions’ (p. 24) – messages get lost. Speech, opinion and participation are fetishised as democracy, but the end result is the removal/impeding of true activism alongside the promotion of its ‘image’ in a passive pseudo-activism (blogging, online petitions, etc.).
There is pessimism at the heart of Dean’s book, which is not necessarily a bad thing. As Slavoj Žižek (who furnishes Dean’s basic theoretical framework) has argued, pessimistic predictions at the level of possibilities can actually mobilise actors in counteraction. Viewed thus, as both an academic analysis and a call to action, this book works. Nonetheless, a summarising conclusion would certainly have helped.
Balakrishnan is well aware of the impossibility of intellectual neutrality in doing this and notes by way of Carl Schmitt the polemical nature of all political terms, concepts and images. In this light, the neologism of the title is meant, so he writes, to evoke both a notion of rational polemics of political (‘over-politicised’) reason and ‘to index a historical moment in which some of the presuppositions of criticism – most vitally the test of and passage to action – are missing’ (p. xi). Following Gramsci’s edict to understand and evaluate adversaries’ positions and reasons, the essays are fair and scrupulous wherever the subject sits upon the ideological spectrum, from the far right to left. Indeed, in this manner, both in style and political perspective, the book does what the New Left Review generally does so well. It should be taken as no slight, therefore, to depict it – stylistically and intellectually – as a lesser companion piece to Perry Anderson’s magnificent Spectrum (2005).
Antagonistics is structured in three parts: recent macrohistories of the co-evolution of capitalism and the interstate system; reflections on politics as per the genesis, identity and motives of the state; and two reflections on Machiavelli, a figure to whom Balakrishnan has turnedfor insights regarding the defeat and prospects for renewal of revolutionary causes.The book covers, across its breadth, such disparate thinkers as Schmitt, de Tocqueville, Habermas and Hardt and Negri, to name but a few. Considered as a whole, however, the book never manages fully to live up to its opening promise. Possibly due to the constraining nature of the book review format, the collected essays – while always well written and interesting – never manage to catch fire. There is plenty of narrative and intellectual elan throughout, but the promised polemic is a little too cauterised.
Methodologically, these case study analyses are based upon qualitative focus group research – investigating in each case, as the editors put it, the views ‘of the majority group within the region, and minority groups identified by ethnicity and territoriality’ (p. 4). The weight readers apportion to the book's conclusions will, to a large extent, relate to feelings regarding this methodological choice. Is Wales, for example, really best approached through focus groups distinguishing between English- and Welsh-speaking Welsh, ‘English incomers’ and the Pakistani community? Valuably, the methodological rationale is explained and justified in an appendix – including issues of group selection, recruitment and conduct – which facilitates the formulation of such judgements.
The book is structured in three parts: a discussion of theoretical and conceptual issues, specifically regarding collective identities (ch. 2); the three case studies' findings (chs 3–5); and a comparison between the findings and a concluding discussion of their implications for the multi-level democratic institutions (chs 6–7). The first part – regarding issues of theory/conceptualisation – is somewhat synoptic to the detriment of any clear, rigorous underlying theoretical framework.
The case studies chapters provide detailed, grounding social-historical descriptions. Each is detailed and of interest, but John Loughin's Welsh case stands out due to its analysis of divergences/convergences between mass and elite opinions (the latter gained via supporting semi-structured interviews). The Silesia and Flanders cases omit this mass/elite distinction and thus lack such insights, to the detriment of the subsequent comparative analysis, which also excludes it.
The book concludes that regional collectivities see themselves primarily in terms of regional identity, with little or no evidence of strong identity with Europe, and (the Flemish excepted) with the strongest identification being with their local community, family and friends. Serious questions are thus raised as to whether ‘national’ identity is the ‘most important’ collective identity; the book concludes, vaguely, that EU political processes may need ‘to restructure’ in light of this.
This book charts the apparent shift to what the excellent introduction labels ‘the second phase of devolution’: as Alan Trench puts it (in an apparently unintentionally damning indictment of said titular ‘state’), while ‘between 2005–2007, relatively little of interest happened’ (p. 1), 2007 marked a step change beyond devolution's ‘initial phase’. The 2007 elections resulted in nationalists governing at Holyrood and – in coalition – in Cardiff Bay. The Government of Wales Act 2006 allowed ‘primary legislation in all but name’ (p. 58). And devolved governance returned in Northern Ireland. In charting this (retrospectively) transitional period and the changes it has wrought, the book is lively and detailed, interesting and fascinating.
One concern exists, however. The book rightly notes that, politically, framing issues solely in terms of what is best for Scotland or Wales but not the UK as a whole has probably aided nationalist positions (p. 5), something which Labour – unionist by electoral interest and ideology – has dangerously overlooked. Yet despite the book's emphasis on cross-polity, interconnected analysis, a similar aiding by framing is sometimes apparent. For example, Jones and Scully seemingly conflate the opposition of Welsh Labour MPs to coalition with the nationalists as related to an alleged lack of reconciliation with devolution, while in the same breath describing their ‘significant capacity for mischief-making’ (p. 77). In doing so they echo a familiar ideological narrative and it is not hard to imagine their probable interpretation of the far from cursory role that the Welsh Affairs Select Committee has taken in scrutinising Legislative Competency Orders (LCOs). Similarly, in describing the ‘encroachment’ of Scottish and Welsh Labour and Conservative MPs upon the ‘Scotland and Wales branches’ of their parties (p. 216), Akash Paun portrays them as somehow external or alien to their regional party.
These are, however, the quibbles of a reviewer particularly attuned to such rhetorical and presentational issues and this book is required reading for anyone interested in UK politics, devolution, governance and the state of the parties.
The book is structured in four main parts looking at different aspects of network governance: the first focuses upon their dynamics; the second, upon the conditions for their failures; the third on the question of metagovernance; and the fourth on their democratic implications. The book’s ‘theoretical backbone’
is provided by governance network theory, but institutional and democratic theory are also drawn upon strongly with Sørensen and Torfing mapping and demonstrating the similarities and differences between the different main bodies of each theory.
For example, in the first chapter they demonstrate the ‘indispensable’ nature (p. 27) of the three main bodies of (new) institutional theory for governance network research: historical, rational choice and social constructivist institutionalism; as well as a fourth: poststructuralist institutionalism, a significant and highly useful addition by the authors; and they elucidate the
close connection between these theories and those of governance network theory: interdependency theory,
governability theory, integration theory and governmentality
theory – each of the latter being underpinned by one of the former.
Such delineations (and a similar mapping is presented with regard to governance networks and democratic theory) provide a strong theoretical background to the book’s arguments and an intellectual entry to the subject matter for researchers interested in areas other than network governance – intra-party relations for example.
The chapters hang together well, clearly structured within the book’s arguments. Sørensen and Torfing provide a detailed introduction and framework for the debate and authors such as Nils Hering, Mark Bevir and Rod Rhodes, Allan Dreyer Hansen and others contribute often contrasting but interlinked perspectives on fundamental questions.
Despite a number of typographic and other textual errors this
is a highly useful book. As well as providing a cogent theoretical platform of its own from which to launch a new generation of research in this area it should also be of interest to a broader number of readers than its narrow subject title might suggest.