Statskundskab

'The stoic, detached, empirical, hard-boiled, penetrating, realist mind of James Burnham is something to behold, to admire, to emulate' - National Review¿¿¿¿¿A classic work of political theory and practise, this book makes available an account of the modern Machiavellians, a remarkable group who have been influential in Europe and practically unknown in the United States: Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. In addition, there is a long section on Machiavelli himself.James Burnham contends that the writings of these men hold the key both to the truth about politics and to the preservation of political liberty.

The 'End of History' is over. How did it end - and comes next?

A must read for everyone rising against the system that is destroying life on earth and our future. Vandana Shiva, World Future CouncilThe End of the Megamachine provides a uniquely comprehensive picture of the roots of the destructive forces that are threatening the future of humankind today. Spanning 5000 years of history, the book shows how the three tyrannies of militarized states, capital accumulation and ideological power have been steering both ecosystems and societies to the brink of collapse. With the growing instability of the Megamachine in the 21st century, new dangers open up as well as new possibilities for systemic change, to which everyone can contribute.

"The price we pay for our modern desire to control the world"--

Exploring the question of human agency amidst a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences, Jane Bennett draws upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers to link a non-anthropocentric model of self to a democratic pluralism and a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live.

This lively and accessible textbook on methodology in social and political science focuses centrally on the debate between positivist and constructivist approaches. Introducing a range of key topics and issues which show how methodological pluralism can be combined with intellectual rigour, it guides students through how they can exploit the manifold ways of knowing as they begin to embark on their own research. The textbook is ideal for undergraduate and master degree students who are taking icourses on philosophy of social science, social and political analysis and research methods.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time.According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "e;shrinking of the present,"e; a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match the future. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "e;slipping slopes,"e; a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life.

Skiftende regeringer sørger for, at den offentlige sektor til stadighed bliver reformeret og forandret. Derfor er forandringsledelse et grundvilkår for de offentlige ledere, der skal omsætte de politiske ideer til ny praksis i organisationerne. Også når der lokalt er skepsis og modstand mod, at opgaver skal løses på nye måder og i nye rammer.Overalt i den offentlige sektor er aktive ledere i gang med at forholde sig til reformer og forandringer. De er konstant på udkigefter nye måder at få ressourcer og resultater til at mødes på for at skabe værdi for borgerne.Forfatternes egen forskning ledsages sammen med ny international forskning i komplekse forandringer af illustrative eksempler fra offentlige organisationer, der har gennemgået reformer og forandringer og har opnået gode resultater.

This book provides students, researchers, and practitioners of speechwriting with a unique insight in the theory, history, and practice of speechwriting.

From a global icon, a bold, essential account of how a fear of gender is fuelling reactionary politics around the worldJudith Butler, the ground-breaking philosopher whose influential work has redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on gender that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilization --and even "man" himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to abolish reproductive justice, undermine protections against violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights.But what, exactly, is so scary about gender? In this vital, courageous book, Butler carefully examines how "gender" has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists. They illuminate the concrete ways that this phantasm displaces anxieties and fears of destruction. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of critical race theory and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality, fuels aggressive nationalism, and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation.An essential intervention into one of the most fraught issues of our moment, Who's Afraid of Gender? is a bold call to make a broad coalition with all those whose struggle for equality is linked with fighting injustice. Imagining new possibilities for both freedom and solidarity, Butler offers us an essentially hopeful work that is both timely and timeless.

No one noticed when capitalism died.Perhaps we were too distracted by the implosion of global finance, or the rise of populism, or the demise of the planet - or all of those cute cats on Instagram. But gradually, quietly, a yet more exploitative new system has taken hold: techno-feudalism.Written in the form of a letter to his late father, who first taught him about the power of new technologies to shape human history, Yanis Varoufakis explains how Big Tech has effected an invisible but fundamental transformation in all our lives.Drawing on stories from Greek Myth and pop culture, from Mad Men to Karl Marx, he explains how the key ingredients of capitalism - profit and markets - have both been replaced. And he exposes the hidden connection between your personal data and the transformative power of 'cloud capital' which means that without our realising it, we are all working every day for the tech giants, for free.

For Rupert Russell, the shock of the Trump-Brexit victories was only the latest in a decade full of them: the unstoppable war in Syria, huge migrant flows into Europe, beheadings in Iraq, children caged at the US border. In Price Wars he sets out on an improbable journey to investigate what caused the wave of chaos that consumed the world in the 2010s.Armed with a notebook, flak jacket and pink socks, Russell travels to modern apocalypses across five continents, embedding with separatist soldiers in the trenches of Eastern Ukraine, gangs of street kids battling over garbage in Caracas, the UN bomb disposal squad in Iraq and cattle raiders in Northern Kenya. He traces the origins of these conflicts back to dramatic and mysterious swings in the prices of essential commodities. He meets with commodity speculators who describe the inner workings of these volatile markets, explaining how food prices can spike even in years of abundant harvests, causing bread riots and revolutions. Oil prices can surge on rumours, enriching and emboldening dictators and terrorists alike. These price shocks, and many others across the decade, triggered local disasters that became global catastrophes. It is chaotic prices, Russell learned, fuelled by banks and hedge funds in New York and London, that have toppled regimes and fractured the West.Price Wars is a page-turning chronicle of discovery and a ground-breaking expose of the power of price to devastate the world.

'It's often said that books are compulsory reading, but this book really is compulsory. You cannot understand slavery, or British Empire, without it' Sathnam Sanghera Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams's landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism, and has influenced generations of historians ever since.Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress.'Its thesis is a starting point for a new generation of scholarship' New Yorker

The first global history of free speech shows we need to understand the past to address the challenges of the future.

How design can transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism: a framework, theoretical grounding, and practical principles.The designed things, experiences, and symbols that we use to perceive, understand, and perform our everyday lives are much more than just props. They directly shape how we live. In Design after Capitalism, Matthew Wizinsky argues that the world of industrial capitalism that gave birth to modern design has been dramatically transformed. Design today needs to reorient itself toward deliberate transitions of everyday politics, social relations, and economies. Looking at design through the lens of political economy, Wizinsky calls for the field to transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism—to combine design entrepreneurship with social empowerment in order to facilitate new ways of producing those things, symbols, and experiences that make up everyday life. After analyzing the parallel histories of capitalism and design, Wizinsky offers some historical examples of anticapitalist, noncapitalist, and postcapitalist models of design practice. These range from the British Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century to contemporary practices of growing furniture or biotextiles and automated forms of production. Drawing on insights from sociology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, environmental and sustainability studies, and critical theory—fields not usually seen as central to design—he lays out core principles for postcapitalist design; offers strategies for applying these principles to the three layers of project, practice, and discipline; and provides a set of practical guidelines for designers to use as a starting point. The work of postcapitalist design can start today, Wizinsky says—with the next project.

Draws on the past two centuries of extraordinary experimentation, good and bad, in pursuit of an 'imaginative surge' to fix our battered societies.

How we became so burdened by red tape and unnecessary paperwork, and why we must do better.We've all had to fight our way through administrative sludge--filling out complicated online forms, mailing in paperwork, standing in line at the motor vehicle registry. This kind of red tape is a nuisance, but, as Cass Sunstein shows in Sludge, it can also also impair health, reduce growth, entrench poverty, and exacerbate inequality. Confronted by sludge, people just give up--and lose a promised outcome: a visa, a job, a permit, an educational opportunity, necessary medical help. In this lively and entertaining look at the terribleness of sludge, Sunstein explains what we can do to reduce it. Because of sludge, Sunstein, explains, too many people don't receive benefits to which they are entitled. Sludge even prevents many people from exercising their constitutional rights--when, for example, barriers to voting in an election are too high. (A Sludge Reduction Act would be a Voting Rights Act.) Sunstein takes readers on a tour of the not-so-wonderful world of sludge, describes justifications for certain kinds of sludge, and proposes "Sludge Audits" as a way to measure the effects of sludge. On balance, Sunstein argues, sludge infringes on human dignity, making people feel that their time and even their lives don't matter. We must do better.

A leading global public intellectual explains how, while America became arrogant and distracted, a three-thousand-year-old civilization is well on the way to becoming the number one power in the world.

Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, this text has more recently been defended as the first scientific treatment of politics, challenging the traditions of ancient and medieval thought and morality.