Tue - September 13, 2005

Emmanuel Todd: The Specter of a Soviet-Style Crisis 


A comment: we tend to think of the principle of evolution as being somehow central to human progress. Through natural selection, the sick and weak fall and the strong live on to reproduce a stronger race. Yet, as Todd seems to imply below, in order for human life to continue, we need a "feeling of collective solidarity". To be stronger, we need to have a feeling that we're all in it together. Common risk, common purpose - these are necessary components of social life. If we continue to allow our morality to be guided by an abstract justice drawn from the principle of natural selection, then what chance do we have as a species? -- NiK

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 By Marie-Laure Germon and Alexis Lacroix

    Le Figaro
 
   Monday 12 September 2005

According to this demographer, Hurricane Katrina has revealed the decline of the American system. Research engineer at the National Institute of Demographic Studies, historian, author of Après l'empire [After the Empire], published by Gallimard in 2002 - an essay in which he predicted the "breakdown" of the American system - Emmanuel Todd reviews for Le Figaro the serious failures revealed by the storm. 

Posted at 10:17 AM     Read More  

Fri - July 29, 2005

classic zizek quote: 


"Abstract pacifism is intellectually stupid and morally wrong—one must oppose a threat. Of course the fall of Saddam's regime would have been a relief to a large majority of the Iraqi people. Of course militant Islam is a horrifying ideology ... although this (all these reasons for war) is true, the war is wrong". 

Posted at 02:35 PM     Read More  

Wed - April 13, 2005

Shameless self-promotion 


My Book review has been published!

Read it here: http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/psrpsg/reviews/2004-05.html  

Posted at 01:21 PM     Read More  

Tue - February 22, 2005

AUTOPSY interview with Michael Hardt 


Here is the text of an interview published to the AUTOPSY listserv on January 24, 2005

Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire and Multitudes, answers questions from the list's subscribers. 

Posted at 09:59 AM     Read More  

Tue - January 25, 2005

Review: 'Global Governmentality: Governing international spaces' 


Wendy Larner and William Walters (eds.), Global Governmentality: Governing international spaces (London: Routledge, 2004, 261 pp., no price given).

Reviewed by Nicholas Kiersey

With the publication of Hardt and Negri’s Empire, many scholars of international studies have found a new interest in Foucault’s theories of biopolitics and governmentality. However, this interest has yet to yield substantive debate within the discipline. Global Governmentality, a new edited volume of twelve essays, represents a noteworthy effort to rectify this situation. 

Posted at 11:36 PM     Read More  

Sat - December 4, 2004

Good Review of 'Empire' from Voice of the Turtle 


http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=211

This is a really great review that says something important about Empire which many people aren't getting. That is, Hardt and Negri weren't simply arguing that because Empire is a process of global constitutionalism we should assume that the US would go begging for consent from a global community of states before intervening in Iraq. 

Posted at 05:49 PM     Read More  

Thu - December 2, 2004

Comments on Hardt & Negri's 'Empire' (Part III) 


Yesterday I noted that critical IR scholars have argued that very concept of Empire fundamentally undermines the possibility of an exclusively inter-state understanding of international politics. Empire, to these scholars, is a fundamentally different kind of order to that described by the mainstream. However, even among these critical scholars, there is a wide range of understandings of what it means to speak of Empire. Moreover, lots of folks are talking about Empire. And not all of these would be comfortable with the claim that they were part of the formal academic discipline of IR. Nevertheless, it is important to review these contributions if we wish to understand who is talking about empire, and why. I want to cast a wide net in this regards for the simple reason that the recognized formal academic discipline of IR theory is not the only source of this debate. 

Posted at 12:56 PM     Read More  

Wed - December 1, 2004

Comments on Hardt & Negri's 'Empire' (Part II) 


Yesterday I set up some basic problems that critical scholars of IR have identified with the mainstream of the discipline. I did this in a very broad-brush fashion and I would like to revisit these issues more in depth in the future. However, for my immediate purposes, I want to switch now to how some of the issues I addressed yesterday are being played out in a recent controversy that has emerged in IR theory: the question of Empire. 

Posted at 11:06 PM     Read More  

Tue - November 30, 2004

Comments on Hardt & Negri's 'Empire' (Part I) 


I've been asked to talk to a Senior class on International Relations (IR) theory this Friday about Hardt and Negri's Empire. Its a book that has come in for a lot of criticism for a wide variety of reasons, some of which I am inclined to agree with. Nevertheless, many criticisms of the book only engaged with superficial dimensions of its argument. Delving deeper, especially into the questions it raises about Biopower and the like, it becomes quickly evident that many critics of Empire have been extremely narrow minded about Hardt and Negri's thesis. Often to the extent that they completely miss the point. 

Posted at 03:45 PM     Read More  

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