Bøger udgivet af Pluto Press

This book is a detailed analysis of policing in Northern Ireland. Tracing its history from 1922, Ellison and Smyth portray the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as an organisation burdened by its past as a colonial police force. *BR**BR*They analyse its perceived close relationship with unionism and why, for many nationalists, the RUC embodied the problem of the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, arguing that decisions made on the organisation, composition and ideology of policing in the early years of the state had consequences which went beyond the everyday practice of policing. *BR**BR*Examining the reorganisations of the RUC in the 1970s and 1980s, Ellison and Smyth focus on the various structural, legal and ideological components, the professionalisation of the force and the development of a coherent, if contradictory, ideology.

More than 40,000 children die daily in the developing world from avoidable sickness and disease. Tens of millions of children labour in mines, mills and sweatshops, or scavenge for a living on city streets and dumps. In the so-called developed world, children's lives are similarly blighted by drugs, alcohol, sexual abuse and violence. *BR**BR*Children of the rich are unhealthily obsessed with consumerist desires while children of the poor suffer from lack of opportunity. The global market is responsible for both of these ills.*BR**BR*In Children of Other Worlds Jeremy Seabrook examines the international exploitation of children and exposes the hypocrisy, piety and moral blindness that have informed so much of the debate in the West on the rights of the child. Seabrook insists that the whole question of protecting children's rights must take into consideration the structural abuses of humanity that are inherent in globalisation.

Anyone who considers questions of power cannot help but be struck by the ubiquitous nature, emotional force and political pull of the concept of order. In this book, Mark Neocleous examines the role of the police in the construction of this order.*BR**BR*After an initial exploration of the original relationship between police, state power and the question of order, he focuses on the ways in which eighteenth century liberalism refined and narrowed the concept of the police, a process which masked the power of capital and broader issues of social control. In doing so he challenges the way liberalism came to define policing solely in terms of the question of crime and the rule of law. This liberal definition created a limited and fundamentally misleading understanding of policing which remains in use today. *BR**BR*In contrast, Neocleous argues for an expanded concept of police, adequate to the expansive set of institutions through which policing takes place. These institutions are concerned not just with the maintenance or reproduction of order, but with its fabrication, especially the fabrication of a social order based on wage labour. This project, he argues, should be understood as the project of social security. Grasping this point allows a fuller understanding of the ways in which the state polices and secures civil society, and how order is fabricated through law and administration.

"e;Inspired to contribute to the symbiotic relationship between the academic and activist worlds, Day has decided to pick up the pen instead of the Molotov cocktail. The result is this brilliant book."e;*BR*Ann Hansen *BR*Ann was sentenced to life imprisonment for blowing up a cruise-missile component factory, and is the author of Direct Action: The Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla*BR**BR*"e;If revolutionary politics are to be reconstituted for the twenty-first century, all previously existing radical traditions must not only be remade but placed in new relationships with one another. The anarchism of Richard Day's brilliant Gramsci is Dead is not only an explosive break-out from the demoralizing horizons of contemporary social democracy, but also an exuberant intellectual dance-invitation extended to all mutant Marxists, autonomists and species-being activists eager to catch the strains of a new tune: Red Emma would be proud."e;*BR*Nick Dyer-Witheford, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario and author of Cyber-Marx (1999)*BR**BR*Gramsci and the concept of hegemony cast a long shadow over radical political theory. Yet how far has this theory got us? Is it still central to feminism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anarchism, and other radical social movements today?*BR**BR*Unlike previous revolutionary movements, Day argues, most contemporary radical social movements do not strive to take control of the state. Instead, they attempt to develop new forms of self-organisation that can run in parallel with -- or as alternatives to -- existing forms of social, political, and economic organization. This is to say that they follow a logic of affinity rather than one of hegemony.*BR**BR*This book draws together a variety of different strands in political theory to weave together an*BR*innovative new approach to politics today. Rigorous and wide-ranging, Day introduces and interrogates key concepts. From Hegel's concept of recognition, through theories of hegemony and affinity to Hardt and Negri's reflections on Empire, Day maps academia's theoretical and philosophical concerns onto today's politics of the street. *BR**BR*Ideal for all students of political theory, Day's fresh approach combines Marxist, Anarchist and*BR*Post-structuralist theory to shed new light on the politics and practice of contemporary social*BR*movements.

Habermas is a hugely influential thinker, yet his writing can be dense and inaccessible. This critical introduction offers undergraduates a clear way into Habermas's concept of the 'public sphere' and its relevance to contemporary society. Luke Goode's lively account also sheds new light on the 'public sphere' debate that will interest readers already familiar with Habermas's work.*BR**BR*For Habermas, the 'public sphere' was a social forum that allowed people to debate -- whether it was the town hall or the coffee house, maintaining a space for public debate was an essential part of democracy. Habermas's controversial work examines the erosion of these spaces within consumer society and calls for new thinking about democracy today.*BR**BR*Drawing on Habermas's early and more recent writings, this book examines the 'public sphere' in its full complexity, outlining its relevance to today's media and culture. It will be of interest to students and scholars in a range of disciplines across the social sciences and humanities.

In the endless series of United States military interventions, the 'humanitarian' bombing of Yugoslavia played a key role in gaining support of the centre left for war as an instrument of policy. *BR**BR*Thanks to massive deception and self-deception by media and politicians, even the anti-globalisation movement failed to grasp the implications of the aggressive military globalisation pursued by the United States, from Iraq to Afghanistan and beyond. *BR**BR*In this study, Diana Johnstone identifies the common geopolitical interests running through all these past, present and future military interventions. She argues persuasively that outside intervention creates rather than solves problems and cannot be justified. *BR**BR*Johnstone shows that the 'War in Kosovo' was in reality the model for future destruction of countries seen as potential threats to the hegemony of the 'International Community', led by the United States.

We live in an age of ecocide. Changes of enormous ecological significance are occurring on our planet - the ozone layer is beginning to disintegrate. Since 1970 the world's forests have almost halved. A quarter of the world's fish have been depleted.*BR**BR*70% of biologists believe the world is now in the midst of the fastest mass extinction of species in the planet's 4.5 billion-year history. Biodiversity loss is rated as a more serious environmental problem than the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, or pollution and contamination. How have we come to this, and what can be done to conserve our environment for the future? *BR**BR*Ecocide examines the facts behind the figures to offer a disturbing account of the ecological impact that the human species has on the planet. It shows how we are wilfully destroying our world. Highlighting important countermovements who are working for ecological democracy, this unique book is essential for anyone who cares about conserving our environment for the future.

People who witness acts of terror and violence are often called after the event to bear witness to what they saw. In cases where this violence is inflicted by the state upon its own people, the process of bearing witness is both politically complex and traumatic for the individual involved. Independent trials and commissions have become important mechanisms through which the truth of past violence is sought in democratising states, but to date there has been little close attention to the processes and complexity of the work of such institutions.*BR**BR*Fiona Ross's fascinating study of the process of bearing witness is the first book to examine the gendered dimensions of this topic from an anthropological and ethnographic viewpoint. Taking as a key example the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Ross explores women's relationships to testimony, particularly the extent to which women avoid talking about or are silent about certain forms of violence and suffering. *BR**BR*Offering a wealth of first hand examples, Ross approaches a more subtle understanding of the achievements and the limitations of testimony as a measure of suffering and recovery generally. Is it, she asks, the panacea it is usually seen as? Or do conventional discourses on human rights, suffering and reconciliation oversimplify an altogether more complex and problematic process?

Classical and radical economists have marginalised the role of money, most particularly the role of credit, in driving the machinery of accumulation and exclusion. Although critiques of capitalism from Marxist, feminist and ecological perspectives abound, The Politics of Money is unique in gathering the strengths of these differing critiques into a coherent whole. *BR**BR*The book reviews the role of money in current society through an overview of the history of money creation and a critique of the main theoretical developments in economic thought. Alternative perspectives on money are then presented through a review of a number of radical perspectives but focusing mainly on the work of Marx, Veblen and the social credit perspective of Douglas and the guild socialists.*BR**BR*The authors have drawn upon their varied expertise in economics and the social sciences to produce the foundations of a new political economy that will enable communities to reconstruct their socio-economic fabric through social and political control of money systems.

In the last twenty years, the legacy of Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci has soared to new heights. His work has become one of the most cited sources on power and hegemony. He is often used by anthropologists working on issues of culture and power. *BR**BR*This book explores Gramsci's understanding of culture and the links between culture and power in relation to anthropology. Extensive use is made of Gramsci's own writings, including his pre-prison journalism and prison letters as well as the prison notebooks. *BR**BR*The book also provides an account of the intellectual and political contexts within which he was writing. The challenge Grasmci's approach presents to some common anthropological assumptions about the nature of 'culture' is examined as is the potential usefulness of Gramsci's writings for contemporary anthropologists.

The explosion will not happen today. It is too soon ... or too late.First published in English in 1968, Frantz Fanon's seminal text was immediately acclaimed as a classic of black liberationalist writing. Fanon's descriptions of the feelings of inadequacy and dependence experienced by people of colour in a white world are as salient and as compelling as ever. Fanon identifies a devastating pathology at the heart of Western culture, a denial of difference, that persists to this day. His writings speak to all who continue the struggle for political and cultural liberation in our troubled times.