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Politics and War in Lebanon: Unraveling the Enigma
by Mordechai NisanLebanon is an exceptionally misunderstood country; its religious politics are typically misrepresented and denigrated in Western political commentary. Politics and War in Lebanon offers a lucid examination of Lebanese society and politics. Mordechai Nisan examines Lebanon in its own termson its own cultural turf. He then points to the causes of political disintegration in 1975 and explores the capacity of Lebanon to recover and retain its unique national poise.Avoiding disorienting Western stereotypes, Nisan presents Lebanon in its own native frame of reference, as a multi-ethnic country that operates according to its immutable and enigmatic political forms. Lebanon is different from other Arab countries, as demonstrated through its very complex electoral system, its tradition of cross-elite cooperation, and its special sense of Lebanese national identity that differentiates it from its overbearing Syrian neighbor.Nisan explores intra-Maronite Christian feuds, identifies Syria's occupation strategy, analyzes the violence of the Palestinians, and studies Israel's failed policy strategy and the role of Hezbollah in the Lebanese power equation. Lebanon is caught between its special historical identity as a country ofpoise, creativity, and liberty and the interminable warfare in the streets and villages of the country. Although its future appears dim, its resilience enabled it to prevail in the past, and may yet continue to do so.
Politics and the Academy: Arnold Toynbee and the Koraes Chair
by Richard CloggFirst Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Politics and the Airlines (Routledge Revivals)
by David CorbettFirst Published in 1965 Politics and the Airlines looks into the making of airline policy in five countries, Australia, Britain, Canada, India, and the United States. It shows the part played by political parties, ministers, government departments, regulatory bodies, and the boards of management of airlines themselves. In four of the countries the major airlines are publicly owned and have been involved in the cut and thrust of political controversy between enthusiasts for public enterprise and their opponents. In those countries where publicly owned and privately owned airlines compete, the politics of the airlines industry are particularly interesting. Dr Corbett’s study of these mixed, regulated airlines industries deal with the subject in a new way and presents a general analysis. His analysis could equally well be applied to other industries which are at present constructed along the same lines. The discussion is presented against a background of the history of a fascinating industry and Dr Corbett maintains that the advantage of this form of industry lies in its political efficiency as much as in its attractions to consumers and employees. This is a must read for those interested in the history of aviation industry, public policy, and public administration.
Politics and the Art of Commemoration: Memorials to struggle in Latin America and Spain (Interventions)
by Katherine HiteMemorials are proliferating throughout the globe. States recognize the political value of memorials: memorials can convey national unity, a sense of overcoming violent legacies, a commitment to political stability or the strengthening of democracy. Memorials represent fitful negotiations between states and societies symbolically to right wrongs, to recognize loss, to assert distinct historical narratives that are not dominant. This book explores relationships among art, representation and politics through memorials to violent pasts in Spain and Latin America. Drawing from curators, art historians, psychologists, political theorists, holocaust studies scholars, as well as the voices of artists, activists, and families of murdered and disappeared loved ones, Politics and the Art of Commemoration uses memorials as conceptual lenses into deep politics of conflict and as suggestive arenas for imagining democratic praxis. Tracing deep histories of political struggle and suggesting that today’s commemorative practices are innovating powerful forms of collective political action, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, Latin American studies and memory studies.
Politics and the Bomb: The Role of Experts in the Creation of Cooperative Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreements (Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics)
by Sara Z. KutchesfahaniEpistemic communities represent networks of knowledge-based experts that help articulate cause-and-effect relationships of complex problems, define the self-interests of a state, or formulate specific policies for state decision makers. However, the role of these scientists and knowledgeable professionals in nuclear policy formulation is poorly understood. Thoroughly documented and making excellent use of source material, Politics and the Bomb provides refreshingly new empirical evidence and theoretical analysis of the importance of scientists and experts behind the creation of new non-proliferation agreements. Simply not another book on nuclear proliferation, Sara Z. Kutchesfahani explores the differences in the emergence, composition, and influence mechanisms of the epistemic communities behind the nuclear non-proliferation policy formulation in Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program. In doing so she eloquently demonstrates how the role of these non-proliferation experts lead to the possibility of creating more effective non-proliferation policies in the future and hints at the need to sustain non-proliferation epistemic communities in all countries that can provide input to the global proliferation problem until it is solved.
Politics and the Concept of the Political: The Political Imagination
by James WileyA recent trend in contemporary western political theory is to criticize it for implicitly trying to "conquer," "displace" or "moralize" politics. James Wiley’s book takes the "next step," from criticizing contemporary political theory, to showing what a more "politics-centered" political theory would look like by exploring the meaning and value of politics in the writings of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, Paul Ricoeur, Hannah Arendt, Sheldon Wolin, Claude Lefort, and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. These political theorists all use the concept of "the political" to explain the value of politics and defend it from its detractors. They represent state-centered, republic-centered and society-centered conceptions of politics, as well as realist, authoritarian, idealist, republican, populist and radical democratic traditions of political thought. This book compares these theorists and traditions of "the political" in order to defend politics from its critics and to contribute to the development of a politics-centered political theory. Politics and the Concept of the Political will be a useful resource to general audiences as well as to specialists in political theory.
Politics and the Ends of Identity (Routledge Revivals)
by Kathryn DeanFirst published in 1997, this volume responds to the issue that identity can no longer be taken for granted, and features contributions from experts in politics, history and social theory on the concepts of identity politics and selfhood in cultures around the world. Stemming from the work of Erik Erikson, on the concept of identity, these articles expand to include Islam, Japan, India and America, along with a contemplation of international ideas of national sovereignty. They argue as a whole against notions of a growing global homogeneity of identity and against an ‘end to history’.
Politics and the Environment: From Theory to Practice
by Graham Smith David Benson James Connelly Clare SaundersPolitics and the Environment has established itself as one of the most comprehensive textbooks in this area. This new edition has been completely revised and updated whilst retaining the features and the theory-to-practice focus which made the first two editions so successful. This text is designed to introduce students to the key concepts and issues which surround environmental problems and their political solutions. The authors investigate the people, movements and organisations that form and implement these policies, and explore the barriers which hinder successful introduction of international environmental politics. The 3rd edition has been expanded to include: The shift in focus in environmental politics from sustainable development to climate change governance An extensive discussion on climate change: including institutional, national and global responses in the aftermath of the Kyoto protocol An increased international focus with more case studies from the UK, Europe, Australia and North America More discussion of global environmental social movements: including the US environmental organisations, in particular the Green Party and the environmental justice groups This textbook is an invaluable and accessible resource for undergraduates studying environmental politics.
Politics and the Environment: Risk and the Role of Government and Industry
by Australia Michael Howes Griffith University'An evenhanded, realistic and thoughtful approach to identifying environmental problems and management goals' Stephen Zavestoski, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, University of San Francisco '...a theoretically advanced yet accessible treatment of environmental governance, drawing on an impressive range of material to investigate the roles of states and industries in addressing environmental problems.' Harriet Bulkeley, Department of Geography, University of Durham 'Written in the vein of critical optimism, this book is pitched at the right level to inspire people trying to make pragmatic changes to their governmental and industrial systems: trying to make a difference where it counts.' Timothy Doyle, Associate Professor in Geographical and Environmental Studies, University of Adelaide What is the future for our environment? We face serious risks of major industrial accidents and global environmental degradation, yet new technological developments promise a standard of living unimaginable only a few generations ago. Michael Howes outlines the ways in which governments have responded to environmental risk over the past four decades. He examines the key environmental issues and the claims of envirosceptics, offering a new strategy for making major administrative decisions in the face of uncertainty. He explains how governments have developed environmental policy, and the ongoing tensions between science, industry, the state, social movements, and electoral politics. In a clear, straightforward manner, he shows how to use the work of theorists Ulrich Beck, Michel Foucault and John Dryzek to analyse environmental policy. He also develops a new method of measuring the effectiveness of environmental governance in developed countries. Howes draws on a wide array of sources from business, government, environment groups, academic research, and NGOs to illustrate his arguments, with comparisons between the environmental policies of the UK, the USA and Australia.
Politics and the European Commission: Actors, Interdependence, Legitimacy (Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science #Vol. 36)
by Andy SmithThe European Commission is an organization which has come to fascinate or repulse a range of national politicians, journalists and social scientists. In contrast to the prevailing image of the Commission as a 'bureaucrat's paradise', however, and by using the results of original research, this book deliberately sets out to investigate this organization's relationship to politics. It does so first by developing a variety of case-studies (health, development aid, preparations for Eastern enlargement, etc.) as a means of studying the relationships, networks and interdependencies which link commissioners and Commission officials to national politicians, civil servants and interest groups. Second, by looking in detail at how the Commission publicizes its work, notably through producing public information and liaising with the media, fresh light is shone upon the complex question of the Commission's legitimacy. Politics and the European Commission provides a framework for generating new information about, and interpretations of, the power struggles at the heart of the EU.
Politics and the General in Supreme Command: Law Reform and Averting Unjust War (War, Conflict and Ethics)
by Richard AdamsThis book argues for reform of the convention that, when politicians decide on a course of action, the general in supreme command obeys without question.The entire spread‑out chain of command is unified in the general, who offers the only connection between the military and politics. Offering the sole connection between the military and politics, only the general can turn political directions into military command and capacitate war. Thus, the general has unique opportunity to resist unconscionable direction to launch an unjust war or to conduct or expand war unjustly. This book argues for reform, so the general has the right in law to refuse direction which is lawful, but awful. The legal capacity to refuse would mean the general would be expected to act responsibly, not merely as the unresisting pawn of politics. Such reform, creating legal opportunity for the supreme command to refuse lawful but unconscionable directives, might avert unjust war.This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, civil‑military relations, and international relations.
Politics and the Imagination
by Raymond GeussIn politics, utopians do not have a monopoly on imagination. Even the most conservative defenses of the status quo, Raymond Geuss argues, require imaginative acts of some kind. In this collection of recent essays, including his most overtly political writing yet, Geuss explores the role of imagination in politics, particularly how imaginative constructs interact with political reality. He uses decisions about the war in Iraq to explore the peculiar ways in which politicians can be deluded and citizens can misunderstand their leaders. He also examines critically what he sees as one of the most serious delusions of western political thinking--the idea that a human society is always best conceived as a closed system obeying fixed rules. And, in essays on Don Quixote, museums, Celan's poetry, Heidegger's brother Fritz, Richard Rorty, and bourgeois philosophy, Geuss reflects on how cultural artifacts can lead us to embrace or reject conventional assumptions about the world. While paying particular attention to the relative political roles played by rule-following, utilitarian calculations of interest, and aspirations to lead a collective life of a certain kind, Geuss discusses a wide range of related issues, including the distance critics need from their political systems, the extent to which history can enlighten politics, and the possibility of utopian thinking in a world in which action retains its urgency.
Politics and the Internet in Comparative Context: Views from the cloud (Routledge Research in Political Communication)
by Dan Mercea Paul G. Nixon Rajash RawalFor many years now we have witnessed the developing use of the internet and associated technologies by political actors and organisations. Claims and counter claims have been made as its suitability as a tool to help in the struggle to re-invigorate political participation in democracies across the globe has been contested. This book charts the shifting sands of political activity in the digital age. It interrogates the hybrid nature of modern politics as online and offline actions blur the boundaries of traditional politics between ‘real-life’ co-presence and the booming virtual domain of politics. By so doing, it critically reflects on the latest scholarship on the subject while concurrently advancing stimulating new insights into it. Encapsulating both the range and the diverse velocities of change in different political arenas and geographical locations, this volumes seeks to map out a path if not towards the politics of tomorrow then towards a better comprehension of the politics of today. Featuring a range of international and comparative case studies presenting research on the UK, US, Italy, France, Spain, Romania, Africa and China, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Politics and Media, Political Communication, New Media studies, Public Administration, Sociology, Communication Studies, Computing and Information and Communications Technologies.
Politics and the Media in Twenty-First Century Indonesia: Decade of Democracy (Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia)
by Krishna SenEvery political aspirant and activist knows the media are important. But there is little agreement on how an increasingly diversified media operate in post-authoritarian transitions and how they might promote, or impede, the pathways to a sustainable liberal democracy in the 21st century. This book examines the role of the media during Indonesia’s longest experiment with democratisation. It addresses two important and related questions: how is the media being transformed, both in terms of its structure and content, by the changing political economy of Indonesia after the fall of Suharto? And what is the potential impact of this media in enabling or hampering the development of democracy in Indonesia? The book explores the relation between the working of democratisation, by examining the role of ethnic identity and nationalism; increasingly cheaper and diversified means of media production, challenging state monopolies of the media; the reality of personalised and globalised media; and the challenging of the connection between a free media and democracy by global capitalism and corporate control of the media. The book argues that the dominant forces transforming Indonesia today did not arise from the singular point of Suharto’s resignation, but from a set of factors which are independent from, but linked to, Indonesia’s internal politics and which shape its cultural industries.
Politics and the Media: Intersections and New Directions
by Jane Hall"The book is well versed in the scholarly literature as well as pop-culture references found in contemporary television shows and movies. But what stands out in the volume’s research is its utilization of interviews conducted by the author that provide a range of perspectives on the media and politics from the vantage points of U.S. senators, journalists, critics, and activists." —Kirkus Reviews "Jane Hall has written a brilliant analysis that is educational, entertaining and important. Her comprehensive and timely book will be required reading for scholars, and will be invaluable for general readers and anyone interested in the relationship between politics and the media." - Kenneth T. Walsh, veteran White House correspondent, adjunct professorial lecturer in communication, and author of 10 books on the presidency including Presidential Leadership in Crisis. "Finally, as current a book as possible incorporating scholarly work on the media and politics and up-to-date examples and suggested exercises that are sure to rivet student interest. From its coverage of a tweeting President constantly assailing the media to trenchant analyses of coverage of the BLM movement, immigration and how the media treats women candidates this book is a must- adopt for Media and Politics classes. It is also an excellent add on for classes on American Politics and Campaigns and Elections." - Karen O’Connor, Jonathan N. Helfat Distinguished Professor of Politics, Founder Women and Politics Institute, American University. "The book is very timely and it has good case studies for students to discuss in class. It has chapters on race- and gender-related issues. You can use it as the main textbook, or you can assign it as supplementary reading material." —Ivy Shen, PhD. Southeast Missouri State University Politics and the Media: Intersections and New Directions examines how media and political institutions interact to shape public thinking and debates around social problems, cultural norms, and policies. From the roles of race and gender in American politics to the 2020 elections and the global coronavirus pandemic, this is an extraordinary moment for politicians, the news media, and democracy itself. Drawing from years of experience as an active political media analyst, an award-winning journalist and professor of politics and the media, Jane Hall explores how media technologies, practices, and formats shape political decision-making; how political forces influence media institutions; and how public opinion and media audiences are formed. Students will gain an understanding of these issues through a combination of scholarship, in-depth interviews, and contemporary case-studies that will help them develop their own views and learn to express them constructively.
Politics and the Media: Intersections and New Directions
by Jane Hall"The book is well versed in the scholarly literature as well as pop-culture references found in contemporary television shows and movies. But what stands out in the volume’s research is its utilization of interviews conducted by the author that provide a range of perspectives on the media and politics from the vantage points of U.S. senators, journalists, critics, and activists." —Kirkus Reviews "Jane Hall has written a brilliant analysis that is educational, entertaining and important. Her comprehensive and timely book will be required reading for scholars, and will be invaluable for general readers and anyone interested in the relationship between politics and the media." - Kenneth T. Walsh, veteran White House correspondent, adjunct professorial lecturer in communication, and author of 10 books on the presidency including Presidential Leadership in Crisis. "Finally, as current a book as possible incorporating scholarly work on the media and politics and up-to-date examples and suggested exercises that are sure to rivet student interest. From its coverage of a tweeting President constantly assailing the media to trenchant analyses of coverage of the BLM movement, immigration and how the media treats women candidates this book is a must- adopt for Media and Politics classes. It is also an excellent add on for classes on American Politics and Campaigns and Elections." - Karen O’Connor, Jonathan N. Helfat Distinguished Professor of Politics, Founder Women and Politics Institute, American University. "The book is very timely and it has good case studies for students to discuss in class. It has chapters on race- and gender-related issues. You can use it as the main textbook, or you can assign it as supplementary reading material." —Ivy Shen, PhD. Southeast Missouri State University Politics and the Media: Intersections and New Directions examines how media and political institutions interact to shape public thinking and debates around social problems, cultural norms, and policies. From the roles of race and gender in American politics to the 2020 elections and the global coronavirus pandemic, this is an extraordinary moment for politicians, the news media, and democracy itself. Drawing from years of experience as an active political media analyst, an award-winning journalist and professor of politics and the media, Jane Hall explores how media technologies, practices, and formats shape political decision-making; how political forces influence media institutions; and how public opinion and media audiences are formed. Students will gain an understanding of these issues through a combination of scholarship, in-depth interviews, and contemporary case-studies that will help them develop their own views and learn to express them constructively.
Politics and the Mediatization of School Educational Policy: The Dog-Whistle Dynamic
by Grant RodwellDespite increasing prevalence over the past three decades and a clear impact on school education policy and practice, education’s connection to dog-whistle journalism and politics has not yet been fully explored. Addressing this gap, Politics and the Mediatization of School Educational Policy examines the emergence and current impact of dog-whistle politics and journalism on education in Australia, the US and the UK, questioning what is at stake when this political dog whistle is directed at school educational policy and practice. Exploring common targets for dog-whistling, such as teaching standards, teacher quality and specific curriculum areas, such as history, sex and health education, the book considers the broader social issues of xenophobia and racism, as well as the decline of print media and rise of digital news sources in its place, with each chapter including an in-depth discussion using peer-reviewed literature on the subject. Following the trail of dog whistles impacting in school educational policy and practice across these three countries, this book explores: To what extent is the dog-whistle dynamic embedded in school educational policy and practice? To what extent does the dog-whistle dynamic affect our understanding of school educational policy and practice? How might we explain the continued flurry of dog whistles impacting school educational policy and practice? As the phenomenon of the dog whistle intensifies both nationally and internationally, this timely and thought-provoking book is necessary reading for academics, postgraduate researchers and all members of school communities.
Politics and the Novel During the Cold War
by David CauteDavid Cautes wide-ranging study examines how outstanding novelists of the Cold War era conveyed the major issues of contemporary politics and history. In the United States and Western Europe the political novel flourished in the 1930s and 1940s, the crisis years of economic depression, fascism, the Spanish Civil War,the consolidation of Stalinism, and the Second World War. Starting with the high hopes generated by the Spanish Civil War, Caute then explores the god that failed pessimism that overtook the Western political novel in the 1940s. The writers under scrutiny include Hemingway, Dos Passos, Orwell, Koestler, Malraux, Serge, Greene, de Beauvoir, and Sartre. Strikingly different approaches to the burning issues of the time are found among orthodox Soviet novelists such as Sholokhov, Fadeyev, Kochetov, and Pavlenko. Soviet official culture continued to choke on modernism, formalism, satire, and allegory. In Russia and Eastern Europe dissident novelists offered contesting voices as they engaged in the fraught re-telling of life under Stalinism. The emergence of the New Left in the 1960s generated a new wave of fiction challenging Americas global stance. Mailer, Doctorow, and Coover brought fresh literary sensibilities tobear on such iconic events as the 1967 siege of the Pentagon and the execution of the Rosenbergs.
Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen
by Gary LachmanThe gritty business of politics is not something we usually associate with the occult. But esoteric beliefs have influenced the destiny of nations since the time of ancient Egypt and China, when decisions of state were based on portents and astrology, to today, when presidents and prime ministers privately consult self-proclaimed seers. Politics and the Occult offers a lively history of this enduring phenomenon. Author and cultural pundit Gary Lachman provocativly questions whether the separation of church and state so dear to modern political philosophy should be maintained. A few of his fascinating topics include the fate of the Knights Templar and the medieval Gnostic Cathars, the occult roots of America and the French Revolution in Freemasonry, Gurdjieff and the swastika, Soviet interest in UFOs, the CIA and LSD, the Age of Aquarius, the millenarian politics that inform the struggle with Islamic terrorism, fundamentalism, and more.
Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship
by Eric GregoryAugustine -- for all of his influence on Western culture and politics -- was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism. Gregory examines a broad range of Augustine's texts and their reception in different disciplines and identifies two classical themes which have analogues in secular political theory: love -- and related notions of care, solidarity, and sympathy -- and sin -- as well as related notions of cruelty, evil, and narrow self-interest. In providing a constructive argument for Christian participation in liberal democratic societies, Gregory advances efforts to revive a political theology in which love's relation to justice is prominent. "Politics and the Order of Love" will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in a liberal society.
Politics and the Passions, 1500-1850
by Victoria Kahn ; Neil Saccamano & Daniela ColiFocusing on the new theories of human motivation that emerged during the transition from feudalism to the modern period, this is the first book of new essays on the relationship between politics and the passions from Machiavelli to Bentham. Contributors address the crisis of moral and philosophical discourse in the early modern period; the necessity of inventing a new way of describing the relation between reflection and action, and private and public selves; the disciplinary regulation of the body; and the ideological constitution of identity. The collection as a whole asks whether a discourse of the passions might provide a critical perspective on the politics of subjectivity. Whatever their specific approach to the question of ideology, all the essays reconsider the legacy of the passions in modern political theory and the importance of the history of politics and the passions for modern political debates. Contributors, in addition to the editors, are Nancy Armstrong, Judith Butler, Riccardo Caporali, Howard Caygill, Patrick Coleman, Frances Ferguson, John Guillory, Timothy Hampton, John P. McCormick, and Leonard Tennenhouse.
Politics and the Press in Indonesia: Understanding an Evolving Political Culture
by Angela RomanoThis book explores the evolving political culture in Indonesia, by discussing the country's dominant political philosophies, then showing how those philosophies affect the working lives of ordinary Indonesian citizens. It focuses in particular on the working lives of news journalists, a group that occupies a strategic social and political position.
Politics and the Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century (Routledge Library Editions)
by J. A. GunnThis book examines the concept of public interest against the background of English politics from the Civil War to the coming of the Hanoverians. These years witnessed both the rise of the modern notion of the public interest as a part of ordinary political language and the growth of a social philosophy of individualism. The new ideas challenged the status quo, based on order, reason of state and national power, in the name of legitimate self-interest and respect for the rights of the private person. In presenting a complex set of ideas in their historical context, the author examines both abstract philosophies and the issues of the day as recorded in press, pulpit and law courts. A chapter devoted to economic thought includes a re-assessment of the social assumptions of mercantilism.
Politics and the Religious Imagination (Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics)
by John DyckPolitics and the Religious Imagination is the product of a group of interdisciplinary scholars each analyzing the connections between religious narratives and the construction of regional and global politics, combining a set of theoretical and philosophic insights with several case studies that represent varied geographies and religious customs. The past decade has seen increasing interest in the links between religion and politics, and this edited volume seeks to take religion seriously as a motivator of action. Few studies have attempted to bring together the multi-disciplinary work in this burgeoning field of study and this work takes a global perspective, using a variety of contexts including East-West relations to analyze the following key themes: the constructive and destructive hermeneutics of religious stories the relevance and importance of religion as a dominant political narrative the rise of new stories among groups as agents of change the way that religious narratives help to define and constrain the Other the manipulation of religious stories for political benefit This work argues that it is insufficient to judge the relationship of religion and politics through mere institutional or quantitative lenses, and this collection proves that while this promise of the narrative part of the social imaginary has been recognized in political theory to a certain extent, its influence in the realm of empirical political science has yet to be fully considered. Combining the work of a wide range of experts, this collection will be of great interests to scholars of politics, philosophy, religious studies, and the literary influence of religion.
Politics and the Sacred
by Harald WydraThis path-breaking book argues that practices of the sacred are constitutive of modern secular politics. Following a tradition of enquiry in anthropology and political theory, it examines how limit situations shape the political imagination and collective identity. As an experiential and cultural fact, the sacred emerges within, and simultaneously transcends, transgressive dynamics such as revolutions, wars or globalisation. Rather than conceive the sacred as a religious doctrine or a metaphysical belief, Wydra examines its adaptive functions as origins, truths and order which are historically contingent across time and transformative of political aspirations. He suggests that the brokenness of political reality is a permanent condition of humanity, which will continue to produce quests for the sacred, and transcendental political frames. Working in the spirit of the genealogical mode of enquiry, this book examines the secular sources of political theologies, the democratic sacred, the communist imagination, European political identity, the sources of human rights and the relationship of victimhood to new wars.