Bøger udgivet af Pluto Press

This book describes the genesis of America's political and financial domination. *BR**BR*Michael Hudson's study of US financial diplomacy explores the faults built into the core of the World Bank and the IMF at their inception which, he argues, were intended to preserve the US's financial hegemony. Difficult to detect at the time, these problems have since become explicit as the failure of the international economic system has become obvious; the IMF and World Bank were set up to give aid to developing countries, but instead many of the world's poorest countries have been plunged into insurmountable debt crises. *BR**BR*Hudson's critique of the destructive course of the international economic system provides important insights into the real motivations at the heart of these institutions - and the increasing tide of opposition that they face around the world.

Millions of people around the world live in countries torn apart by war, where violence and suffering are part of everyday life. Yet in all those countries there are groups of people working for peace in the midst of war, standing up for human rights and decency. What difference can they make? What can be done to support them, and to help dialogue to happen in the midst of hostility and violence?*BR**BR*This book examines these questions, focusing on the roles that ordinary people can play as peace builders in societies where violence and antagonism have become the norm, where inter-communal relationships are fractured or where institutions and the rule of law have collapsed. *BR**BR*It examines the theory and practice of conflict transformation and its relevance for different cultures and contexts. Using extensive case studies taken from practical workshops - the most frequently used form of conflict intervention - in the Balkans and around the world, it shows both the power and the complexity of such encounters.

In an age of email lists and discussion groups, e-zines and weblogs, bringing together users, consumers, workers and activists from around the globe, what kinds of political subjectivity are emerging? What kinds of politics become possible in a time of information overload and media saturation? What structures of power and control operate over a self-organising system like the internet?*BR*In this highly original new work, Tiziana Terranova investigates the political dimension of the network culture in which we now live, and explores what the new forms of communication and organisation might mean for our understanding of power and politics. Terranova engages with key concepts and debates in cultural theory and cultural politics, using examples from media culture, computing, network dynamics, and internet activism within the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements. *BR*Network Culture concludes that the nonlinear network dynamics that link different modes of communication at different levels (from local radio to satellite television, from the national press to the internet, from broadcasting to rumours and conspiracy theories) provide the conditions within which another politics can emerge. This other politics, the book suggests, does not entail the production of a new political discourse or ideology, but the invention of micropolitical tactics able to stand up to new forms of social control.

'Community' is one of social science's longest-standing concepts. The assumption of much social science has been that humans belong in communities, as social and cultural beings.*BR**BR*The trouble with 'community' is that this is not necessarily so; the personal social networks of individuals' actual experience crosscut collective categories, situations and institutions. Communities can prove unviable or imprisoning; the reality of community life and identity can often be very different from the ideology and the ideal.*BR**BR*In this book, the authors draw on their ethnographic experiences to reappraise the concept and the reality of 'community', in the light of globalisation, religious fundamentalism, identity politics, and renascent localisms. How might anthropology better apprehend social identities which are intrinsically plural, transgressive and ironic? What has anthropology to say about the way in which civil society might hope to accommodate the ongoing construction and the rightful expression of such migrant identities?

The dialogue between large elements of the Western and the Soviet/Russian left has all too often been one of negation rather than affirmation. The Dialogue of Negation pursues this argument and examines the conceptual and strategic richness of hegemony, providing an overview of the key debates which have shaped its historical development. *BR**BR*Jeremy Lester situates the modern evolution of hegemony within an East-West dimension and focuses in particular on the deep-seated difficulties and incompatibilities of much of this interaction. Lester offers a defence of Gramsci's understanding of hegemony as a key element of the revolutionary class struggle. He acknowledges Gramsci's own disputes within the Marxist domain, and celebrates the theoretical and practical legacy he bequeathed to those who continue the struggle to replace capitalism with socialism. Lester provides a critical defence of modernity against the challenge of postmodernity, arguing that it is only within the parameters of modernity that a meaningful form of socialism can succeed. He seeks to highlight the inconsistencies and illogicalities of those theorists who see the transition to some kind of postmodern condition as offering new possibilities for the transcendence of capitalism.

This is a critical overview of the various sources of social and political identity in Northern Ireland. The book examines the key variables of sociology - status, class and gender and, in this case, ethno-religion - and explains why ethno-religious sentiment has become the principle source of political identity. *BR**BR*A range of themes are covered: the role and status of women; the representations of the conflict and peace process in the media; sport; and the importance of popular music.*BR*