David Bates
Post:
I am Principal Lecturer and Director of the Politics and International Relations Programme at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent.
Research:
First, I am interested in contemporary radical political thought, particularly post-Marxism and anti-capitalism/anti-globalisation. My recent work has dealt specifically with the writings of Antonio Gramsci, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. In particular, I am concerned with the intersections between Marxism, post-Marxism, anarchism, and post-anarchism. Currently I am working towards a theoretical assessment of current social movements and points of struggle - specifically though not exclusively Occupy.
Second, I am concerned with issues of political participation, specifically though not exclusively in liberal democratic societies, and in particular how active political engagement might be encouraged. I am currently involved in a number of research projects which address this issue.
Third, I am interested in the political role of 'the intellectual' in contemporary societies, both in terms of political philosophy, and the relationship with wider movements of social change.
For more on my publications, see http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/view/creators/Bates=3AD=2E=3A=3A.html
Supervisors: Professor Norman Geras (1996-2000). Examiners: Professor David McLellan and Professor Hillel Steiner. Successfully defended in December 2000. Thesis Title: "Intellectuals and Emancipation"
Phone: 01227 782388
Address: Politics and International Relations Programmes
Department of Psychology, Politics and Sociology
Canterbury Christ Church University
North Holmes Road
Canterbury
CT11QU
I am Principal Lecturer and Director of the Politics and International Relations Programme at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent.
Research:
First, I am interested in contemporary radical political thought, particularly post-Marxism and anti-capitalism/anti-globalisation. My recent work has dealt specifically with the writings of Antonio Gramsci, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. In particular, I am concerned with the intersections between Marxism, post-Marxism, anarchism, and post-anarchism. Currently I am working towards a theoretical assessment of current social movements and points of struggle - specifically though not exclusively Occupy.
Second, I am concerned with issues of political participation, specifically though not exclusively in liberal democratic societies, and in particular how active political engagement might be encouraged. I am currently involved in a number of research projects which address this issue.
Third, I am interested in the political role of 'the intellectual' in contemporary societies, both in terms of political philosophy, and the relationship with wider movements of social change.
For more on my publications, see http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/view/creators/Bates=3AD=2E=3A=3A.html
Supervisors: Professor Norman Geras (1996-2000). Examiners: Professor David McLellan and Professor Hillel Steiner. Successfully defended in December 2000. Thesis Title: "Intellectuals and Emancipation"
Phone: 01227 782388
Address: Politics and International Relations Programmes
Department of Psychology, Politics and Sociology
Canterbury Christ Church University
North Holmes Road
Canterbury
CT11QU
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Journal Articles by David Bates
Books by David Bates
http://www.scienceandsociety.com/contents_july09.pdf
Critique review: Volume 36, Issue 3, 2008
While seeking to avoid the excesses of such ‘symbolic violence’, this chapter aims to locate Hardt and Negri’s work within the cross-cutting currents of modern socialism, and crucially to understand the labelling strategies which they themselves deploy in the field of revolutionary politics. Why specifically, do they find it necessary to reject the label of ‘anarchism’? Why do they make often rather cryptic reference to ‘leninism’? What game are they playing, and why do they feel a need to play it? What are their intentions? How can we read Hardt and Negri? Antonio Negri has paid a higher price than most in the struggle against global capitalism and we can learn a great deal both from his work and activism. That said, in what follows I will subject his work – along with Michael Hardt’s – to a robust critique, drawing on marxist, anarchist, postmarxist, and postanarchist thinking, so as to assess the cogency of their arguments in the context of radical politics today.
"
Conference Papers by David Bates
David Bates
Canterbury Christ Church University
david.bates@canterbury.ac.uk
The publication of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy in 1985 marked the birth of ‘post-Marxism’ as a counter-hegemonic philosophical movement. This movement considered ‘the critique of essentialism… as the sine qua non of a new vision for the Left conceived in terms of a radical plural democracy’. (See Mouffe, 1993: frontis.) The response from the ‘old’ left was ‘robust’. For Wood (1986) Laclau and Mouffe’s work was representative of a form of retreat of the left, a retreat evident initially in the work of Nicos Poulantzas. And Geras (1987) provocatively maintained that Laclau and Mouffe’s approach ought not to be viewed as ‘post-Marxism’ so much as a form of ‘ex-Marxism’, and an ex-Marxism ‘without substance’ to boot.
This initial polemical encounter between ‘old’ and ‘new’ left was prior to the epochal shift brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is perhaps better understood in the context of the ‘crisis of socialism’, a crisis brought about by a ‘defeat’ of the social democratic project by neo-liberalism. Post Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Laclau (and with Mouffe) continued to develop the arguments put forward in 1985, to the realities faced by the left after 1989.
This paper will re-evaluate Laclau and Mouffe’s political philosophy in light of the criticisms of the ‘Marxist’ left, and the more current realities faced by the socialist project. How have these ‘realities’ impacted on our understanding of the possibilities for socialist’ strategy, or a ‘radical democratic’ politics? I will assess Laclau and Mouffe’s arguments pertaining to hegemony, ‘articulation’, and the relationship between ‘universalism’ and ‘particularism’. These issues will be addressed through an exploration of the significance of Laclau and Mouffe’s work for an understanding of the political role of the intellectual both in relation to the socialist tradition and ‘radical democracy’.
Abstract
This paper draws critically on the thought of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000; 2005; 2009) in order to explore the possibilities of a politics of radical engagement in the context of the so called information age. For Hardt and Negri, the advent of what Castells (2000) terms the ‘informational society’ has created the potential for new ‘networks’ of radical political engagement, new modes of ‘horizontal’ communication, and a new form of ‘commons’. This process enables those wishing to resist the ‘biopower’ of ‘Empire’ to organise and create a new politics, a politics of the ‘multitude’ against exploitation. This new politics involves not only resistance and ‘refusal’, but also the prefiguration in the present of an alternative possible future (or futures). Hardt and Negri have applied their conceptual apparatus to recent high profile political struggles. For example, commenting on the ‘Arab Spring’, they write:
'Although these organised network movements refuse central leadership, they must nonetheless consolidate their demands in a new constituent process that links the most active segments of the rebellion to the needs of the population at large. The insurrections of Arab youth are certainly not aimed at a traditional liberal constitution that merely guarantees the division of powers and a regular electoral dynamic, but rather at a form of democracy adequate to the new forms of expression and needs of the multitude.' (Guardian, March 2011)
This paper will subject Hardt and Negri’s position on this and on other struggles, such as Occupy X and the resent anti-austerity protests, to critical analysis. Moreover, the paper will pose a number of wider questions, including: To what extent do these protests challenge more traditional models of ‘organisation’? Is the Marxist left mistaken when, for example, it criticises Occupy X for a lack of ‘strategic’ direction? What spaces of opposition to ‘viral capitalism’ are possible in light of current realities?
Full text not available from this repository.
Abstract
This paper draws critically on the thought of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000; 2005; 2009) in order to explore the possibilities of a politics of radical engagement in the context of the so called information age. For Hardt and Negri, the advent of what Castells (2000) terms the ‘informational society’ has created the potential for new ‘networks’ of radical political engagement, new modes of ‘horizontal’ communication, and a new form of ‘commons’. This process enables those wishing to resist the ‘biopower’ of ‘Empire’ to organise and create a new politics, a politics of the ‘multitude’ against exploitation. This new politics involves not only resistance and ‘refusal’, but also the prefiguration in the present of an alternative possible future (or futures). Hardt and Negri have applied their conceptual apparatus to recent high profile political struggles. For example, commenting on the ‘Arab Spring’, they write:
'Although these organised network movements refuse central leadership, they must nonetheless consolidate their demands in a new constituent process that links the most active segments of the rebellion to the needs of the population at large. The insurrections of Arab youth are certainly not aimed at a traditional liberal constitution that merely guarantees the division of powers and a regular electoral dynamic, but rather at a form of democracy adequate to the new forms of expression and needs of the multitude.' (Guardian, March 2011)
This paper will subject Hardt and Negri’s position on this and on other struggles, such as Occupy X and the resent anti-austerity protests, to critical analysis. Moreover, the paper will pose a number of wider questions, including: To what extent do these protests challenge more traditional models of ‘organisation’? Is the Marxist left mistaken when, for example, it criticises Occupy X for a lack of ‘strategic’ direction? What spaces of opposition to ‘viral capitalism’ are possible in light of current realities?
ERIS - European Review of International Studies by David Bates
Informationen zur Zeitschrift
ISSN: 2196-6923
ISSN Online: finden Sie hier in Kürze
Volume 1, 2014
Erscheinungsweise: 2mal jährlich
und ein Sonderheft im Jahr
mit ca. 200 Seiten im Format B5–17x24
Sprache: Englisch
Aktuelle Ausgabe:
Heft 1-2014 erscheint im März 2014
Information zu Preisen und Abonnements
Hinweise für Autoren
Fachinformation budrich intern - Sonderausgabe Zeitschriften
The European Review of International Studies (ERIS) seeks to be a journal to which those who wish to know what is happening in ‘European’ International Relations can turn. It aims to achieve this goal by an extensive review section of monographs published in European languages and review articles of the literature on substantive themes or significant developments in different European academic communities. Its other principal goal is to publish original articles and from time to time translations of existing major articles not readily available in English.
ERIS aims:
• To reflect the European specificities and approaches.
• To be an outlet in English in particular for non-English language authors but including English language authors.
• To make the Anglophone world aware of research in other languages.
• To make non-English language authors aware of research in other non-English academic cultures and languages.
• To encourage transdisciplinarity across the social sciences and humanities among those concerned with international studies broadly defined.
• To be eclectic in terms of concept, method and approach with rigorous international academic standards.
In short, we seek to be a journal to which those who wish to know what is happening in ‘European’ International Relations can turn.
ISSN: 2196-6923 © 2010 Verlag Barbara Budrich – Impressum
Policy Papers by David Bates
Talks by David Bates
http://www.scienceandsociety.com/contents_july09.pdf
Critique review: Volume 36, Issue 3, 2008
While seeking to avoid the excesses of such ‘symbolic violence’, this chapter aims to locate Hardt and Negri’s work within the cross-cutting currents of modern socialism, and crucially to understand the labelling strategies which they themselves deploy in the field of revolutionary politics. Why specifically, do they find it necessary to reject the label of ‘anarchism’? Why do they make often rather cryptic reference to ‘leninism’? What game are they playing, and why do they feel a need to play it? What are their intentions? How can we read Hardt and Negri? Antonio Negri has paid a higher price than most in the struggle against global capitalism and we can learn a great deal both from his work and activism. That said, in what follows I will subject his work – along with Michael Hardt’s – to a robust critique, drawing on marxist, anarchist, postmarxist, and postanarchist thinking, so as to assess the cogency of their arguments in the context of radical politics today.
"
David Bates
Canterbury Christ Church University
david.bates@canterbury.ac.uk
The publication of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy in 1985 marked the birth of ‘post-Marxism’ as a counter-hegemonic philosophical movement. This movement considered ‘the critique of essentialism… as the sine qua non of a new vision for the Left conceived in terms of a radical plural democracy’. (See Mouffe, 1993: frontis.) The response from the ‘old’ left was ‘robust’. For Wood (1986) Laclau and Mouffe’s work was representative of a form of retreat of the left, a retreat evident initially in the work of Nicos Poulantzas. And Geras (1987) provocatively maintained that Laclau and Mouffe’s approach ought not to be viewed as ‘post-Marxism’ so much as a form of ‘ex-Marxism’, and an ex-Marxism ‘without substance’ to boot.
This initial polemical encounter between ‘old’ and ‘new’ left was prior to the epochal shift brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is perhaps better understood in the context of the ‘crisis of socialism’, a crisis brought about by a ‘defeat’ of the social democratic project by neo-liberalism. Post Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Laclau (and with Mouffe) continued to develop the arguments put forward in 1985, to the realities faced by the left after 1989.
This paper will re-evaluate Laclau and Mouffe’s political philosophy in light of the criticisms of the ‘Marxist’ left, and the more current realities faced by the socialist project. How have these ‘realities’ impacted on our understanding of the possibilities for socialist’ strategy, or a ‘radical democratic’ politics? I will assess Laclau and Mouffe’s arguments pertaining to hegemony, ‘articulation’, and the relationship between ‘universalism’ and ‘particularism’. These issues will be addressed through an exploration of the significance of Laclau and Mouffe’s work for an understanding of the political role of the intellectual both in relation to the socialist tradition and ‘radical democracy’.
Abstract
This paper draws critically on the thought of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000; 2005; 2009) in order to explore the possibilities of a politics of radical engagement in the context of the so called information age. For Hardt and Negri, the advent of what Castells (2000) terms the ‘informational society’ has created the potential for new ‘networks’ of radical political engagement, new modes of ‘horizontal’ communication, and a new form of ‘commons’. This process enables those wishing to resist the ‘biopower’ of ‘Empire’ to organise and create a new politics, a politics of the ‘multitude’ against exploitation. This new politics involves not only resistance and ‘refusal’, but also the prefiguration in the present of an alternative possible future (or futures). Hardt and Negri have applied their conceptual apparatus to recent high profile political struggles. For example, commenting on the ‘Arab Spring’, they write:
'Although these organised network movements refuse central leadership, they must nonetheless consolidate their demands in a new constituent process that links the most active segments of the rebellion to the needs of the population at large. The insurrections of Arab youth are certainly not aimed at a traditional liberal constitution that merely guarantees the division of powers and a regular electoral dynamic, but rather at a form of democracy adequate to the new forms of expression and needs of the multitude.' (Guardian, March 2011)
This paper will subject Hardt and Negri’s position on this and on other struggles, such as Occupy X and the resent anti-austerity protests, to critical analysis. Moreover, the paper will pose a number of wider questions, including: To what extent do these protests challenge more traditional models of ‘organisation’? Is the Marxist left mistaken when, for example, it criticises Occupy X for a lack of ‘strategic’ direction? What spaces of opposition to ‘viral capitalism’ are possible in light of current realities?
Full text not available from this repository.
Abstract
This paper draws critically on the thought of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000; 2005; 2009) in order to explore the possibilities of a politics of radical engagement in the context of the so called information age. For Hardt and Negri, the advent of what Castells (2000) terms the ‘informational society’ has created the potential for new ‘networks’ of radical political engagement, new modes of ‘horizontal’ communication, and a new form of ‘commons’. This process enables those wishing to resist the ‘biopower’ of ‘Empire’ to organise and create a new politics, a politics of the ‘multitude’ against exploitation. This new politics involves not only resistance and ‘refusal’, but also the prefiguration in the present of an alternative possible future (or futures). Hardt and Negri have applied their conceptual apparatus to recent high profile political struggles. For example, commenting on the ‘Arab Spring’, they write:
'Although these organised network movements refuse central leadership, they must nonetheless consolidate their demands in a new constituent process that links the most active segments of the rebellion to the needs of the population at large. The insurrections of Arab youth are certainly not aimed at a traditional liberal constitution that merely guarantees the division of powers and a regular electoral dynamic, but rather at a form of democracy adequate to the new forms of expression and needs of the multitude.' (Guardian, March 2011)
This paper will subject Hardt and Negri’s position on this and on other struggles, such as Occupy X and the resent anti-austerity protests, to critical analysis. Moreover, the paper will pose a number of wider questions, including: To what extent do these protests challenge more traditional models of ‘organisation’? Is the Marxist left mistaken when, for example, it criticises Occupy X for a lack of ‘strategic’ direction? What spaces of opposition to ‘viral capitalism’ are possible in light of current realities?
Informationen zur Zeitschrift
ISSN: 2196-6923
ISSN Online: finden Sie hier in Kürze
Volume 1, 2014
Erscheinungsweise: 2mal jährlich
und ein Sonderheft im Jahr
mit ca. 200 Seiten im Format B5–17x24
Sprache: Englisch
Aktuelle Ausgabe:
Heft 1-2014 erscheint im März 2014
Information zu Preisen und Abonnements
Hinweise für Autoren
Fachinformation budrich intern - Sonderausgabe Zeitschriften
The European Review of International Studies (ERIS) seeks to be a journal to which those who wish to know what is happening in ‘European’ International Relations can turn. It aims to achieve this goal by an extensive review section of monographs published in European languages and review articles of the literature on substantive themes or significant developments in different European academic communities. Its other principal goal is to publish original articles and from time to time translations of existing major articles not readily available in English.
ERIS aims:
• To reflect the European specificities and approaches.
• To be an outlet in English in particular for non-English language authors but including English language authors.
• To make the Anglophone world aware of research in other languages.
• To make non-English language authors aware of research in other non-English academic cultures and languages.
• To encourage transdisciplinarity across the social sciences and humanities among those concerned with international studies broadly defined.
• To be eclectic in terms of concept, method and approach with rigorous international academic standards.
In short, we seek to be a journal to which those who wish to know what is happening in ‘European’ International Relations can turn.
ISSN: 2196-6923 © 2010 Verlag Barbara Budrich – Impressum
"The Politics and International Relations programme has strong research expertise in contemporary radical political thought.
This research focuses on a number of interrelated themes, including:
1) the constitution of modes of political subjectivity (in ‘radical’, liberal, neo-liberal and conservative forms), and the relationship with dominant economic structures and forms of social identity;
2) the link between modes of labour (material, affective, virtual etc.) and projects of emancipatory change;
3) the theoretical understanding of social movements (including anti-globalisation, anti-capitalism, Occupy, etc.) with specific reference to Marxist, post-Marxist, post-anarchist, and autonomist perspectives;
4) the epistemological and ontological basis of emancipatory politics.
For further information, email: david.bates@canterbury.ac.uk
"