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1396 results in Politics: general interest

Page 1 of 70

How Propaganda Wins
  • The Making of Loyal Audiences in Autocracies
  • Anton Shirikov
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2027
    Print publication:
    31 January 2027
  • Why do millions of Russians trust state television even when its lies seem obvious? How Propaganda Wins offers a bold new answer. This book argues that authoritarian media doesn't just persuade or intimidate but it serves. Drawing on cutting-edge analysis of Russian prime-time propaganda reporting and extensive original surveys, the book introduces the theory of 'service propaganda,' the strategy of winning loyalty by affirming citizens' identities, validating their worldview, and meeting their everyday informational needs. The result is genuine trust that makes citizens receptive to disinformation, resistant to independent journalism, and willing to accept a brutal war. Comparing Russia to autocracies from China to Hungary, and drawing lessons that reach into democratic societies, How Propaganda Wins is a crucial account of how modern propaganda works and what it takes to fight it.

Politics, Grievances, and Protest
  • Student Movements in Latin America's Southern Cone
  • Indira Palacios-Valladares
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2026
    Print publication:
    31 December 2026
  • Politics, Grievances, and Protest draws on one hundred interviews and forty years of media coverage to provide a cross-national analysis of student mobilization in Latin America's Southern Cone. The book explains why student protests increased in Chile starting in the 2000s, while decreasing in neighboring Argentina and Uruguay. Its findings show that when democracies persistently ignore social demands, they may indirectly foster protest growth. In such contexts, the absence of meaningful change fuels anti-establishment grievances, encourages social movement innovation, and facilitates processes of radicalization that can spread widely. In contrast, state responsiveness often produces the opposite effect. These findings challenge long-standing theories that link relatively closed political systems and movement radicalization to decreased mobilization and suggest that grievances play a central role in shaping variation in protest activity. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

Frail Professionalism?
  • Lawyers Ethics after the Post Office and Other Cases
  • Richard Moorhead
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2026
    Print publication:
    31 August 2026
  • Bad lawyering has come under increasing focus though NDAs, SLAPPs, the banking crisis, and latterly the UK's Post Office Scandal, an extraordinary legal scandal spanning more than 20 years that ruined thousands of lives. This book examines the commercial, cultural, legal, and psychological drivers of ethical failure weaving them together with case studies in a compelling account of what is wrong with lawyers' ethics. Rather than concentrating on a few bad apples, it shows how deep-seated traditions, psychological frailties, the complacency and aggression of well-paid lawyers, and the pragmatism, cynicism, and hubris of organisations combines to pollute decision-making and weaken the rule of law. Be it through awful orthodoxies or legality illusions, it shows how a lawyer's naturally uncomfortable relationship with truth and justice can become improper or even criminal. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Studying Public Policy
  • Connecting Theory to Practice
  • 5th edition
  • Michael Howlett, M Ramesh, Anthony Perl
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2026
    Print publication:
    09 July 2026
  • Now in its fifth edition, this established text offers a comprehensive synthesis of policymaking theory and analysis for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. The book integrates foundational and contemporary scholarship through global examples that develop comparative analytical skills. Real-world case examples extend theoretical insights into practice. Its three-part structure builds knowledge systematically: from core concepts and methodologies through the policy cycle to contemporary governance challenges. Students explore theoretical frameworks including pluralism, institutionalism, and conceptual development, while examining continuity, policy feedback, advocacy, and belief systems. Each chapter features learning objectives, revised study questions, and selected readings. This edition reorganizes and expands global coverage, incorporates recent scholarship including constructivist and feminist approaches, and substantially revises chapters on policy design and formulation. A new concluding chapter reinforces practical applications. The text's manageable length supports single-semester courses while providing depth for graduate seminars.

The politics of attack
  • Communiqués and insurrectionary violence
  • Michael Loadenthal
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • Since the early 2000s, global, underground networks of insurrectionary anarchists have carried out thousands of acts of political violence. This book is an exploration of the ideas, strategies, and history of these political actors that engage in a confrontation with the oppressive powers of the state and capital. The vast majority of these attacks have been claimed via online communiqués through anonymous monikers such as the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI). The emphasis of the insurrectionary, nihilist-infused anarchism is on creating war-like conditions for opposing capitalism, the state, and that which perpetuates structural violence (e.g. racism, poverty, speciesism, gender roles). To connect the various configurations of post-millennial, insurrectionary resistance, the book explores explore three of its most identifiable components, the FAI, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (CCF), and emergent networks in Mexico. In his discussion of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, conflict theorist Richard Rubenstein points to a two-stage understanding advocated by Vietnamese leader and military strategist General Vo Nguyen Giap. The book also examines the strategy of Blanquism, the contribution of "classical anarchists," the influence of theorists such as Tiqqun and The Invisible Committee. It seeks to construct the basis for an insurrectionary framework based around a shared politic. The feminist methodology and ethic of research adds a great deal, including a reading of identity politics, standpoint theory, action-orientated research, and embedded, emotive and sincere participatory involvement. The design and methodological intent of the book is to embrace a "militant" form of inquiry which is counter to the project of securitization.

New Labour and the European Union
  • Blair and Brown’s logic of history
  • Oliver Daddow
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • New Labour came to power in 1997 promising to modernize Britain and make it fit for the twenty-first century. This book studies Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's combined attempt to sell the idea of a European future to the British people. It is about the art of rhetoric, persuasion and the techniques of modern political communication, and the 'Europe question' in British politics. It traces the progressivist elements of New Labour's discourse on British European policy with reference to the place perceptions of history occupied in Blair and Brown's speeches on foreign policy. The book explains the idea of 'norm entrepreneurship' and how it can be adapted to help us think through New Labour's handling of British European policy. It focuses on various aspects of the politics, language and decision-making style of New Labour. Theoretical approaches to Euroscepticism to help us understand, through the empirical data in the speeches, how Blair and Brown constructed their identity as 'Europeans' against their perceived 'sceptical' opponents. The method of discourse analysis used to study the strategies Blair and Brown put in place to realize their goals, is discussed. The book presents the evidence on the ways in which the Prime Minister and Chancellor discursively constructed the Europe question as a matter of protecting and/or advancing vital British national interests. Trapped between a broadly hostile media and an apathetic public, Blair and Brown failed to provide the necessary leadership to see Britain to a European future.

Irish adventures in nation-building
  • Bryan Fanning
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book examines the debates and processes that have shaped the modernisation of Ireland since the beginning of the twentieth century. There are compelling justifications for methodological nationalism using research and analysis focused on the jurisdiction of a nation-state. The nation-state remains a necessary unit of analysis not least because it is a unit of taxation and representation, a legal and political jurisdiction, a site of bounded loyalties and of identity politics. The book argues that nationalism in twenty-first-century Ireland is even more powerful and socially embedded than it was in de Valera's Ireland. It considers what kind of Ireland Pearse wanted to bring about. Pearse proposed a model that was very different from the already dominant Catholic model that did much to incubate modern Ireland. Beyond this, Catholicism offered a distinct response to modernity aimed at competing with the two main secular ideologies: liberalism and socialism. Women have been marginalised in most of the debates that shaped Ireland even where they were directly affected by them. One of the most picked-over episodes in twentieth-century Irish history has been the conflict surrounding the Mother and Child Scheme. The book examines this conflict as a starting point of an analysis of the place of women in post-independence Ireland. It further addresses the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, the name given to a period of rapid economic growth that was likened to the performance of East Asian 'tiger' economies.

Crossing the floor
  • Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy
  • Geoff Horn
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • Reg Prentice remains the most high-profile politician to cross the floor of the House of Commons in the post-war period. His defection was reflective of an important 'sea change' in British politics; the end of the post-war consensus and the start of the Thatcher era. This book examines in detail the key events surrounding Prentice's transition from a front-line Labour politician, serving as a cabinet minister in the Labour Government (1974-79), through to his dramatic decision to join the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher. It focuses on the shifting and uncertain political climate in Britain during the 1970s, as the post-war settlement came under pressure from adverse economic conditions, militant trade unionism and an assertive Labour Left. This biographical treatment provides an important case study of the crisis that afflicted social democracy, highlighting the emerging divisions within the Labour Party, the fragmentation and underlying weakness of the Labour Right, and the potential for an SDP-style split. The realignment of the party system became an important and ever-present undercurrent in British politics during the 1970s. The question of how best to maintain the unity of a deeply divided party became a major consideration influencing the policy positions adopted by the Labour leadership under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. The trajectory of Prentice's career was closely connected to the prospects of realignment, whilst his political journey from Labour to Conservative was indicative of the turbulent and transitional nature of a watershed period in recent history.

Nostalgia and the post-war Labour Party
  • Prisoners of the past
  • Richard Jobson
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book examines the impact that nostalgia has had on the Labour Party’s political development since 1951. In contrast to existing studies that have emphasised the role played by modernity, it argues that nostalgia has defined Labour’s identity and determined the party’s trajectory over time. It outlines how Labour, at both an elite and a grassroots level, has been and remains heavily influenced by a nostalgic commitment to an era of heroic male industrial working-class struggle. This commitment has hindered policy discussion, determined the form that the modernisation process has taken and shaped internal conflict and cohesion. More broadly, Labour’s emotional attachment to the past has made it difficult for the party to adjust to the socioeconomic changes that have taken place in Britain. In short, nostalgia has frequently left the party out of touch with the modern world. In this way, this book offers an assessment of Labour’s failures to adapt to the changing nature and demands of post-war Britain.

Rigged
  • Understanding 'the economy' in Brexit Britain
  • Anna Killick
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • Most people find it hard to define ‘the economy’ beyond saying it is ‘to do with money’. This book explores what ‘the economy’ means to people’s lives in Brexit Britain and what goes through their minds when they hear politicians talking about it. Through research with people from a range of backgrounds in a city on the sSouth coast of England conducted between 2016 and 2018, it reveals what they understand about key aspects of ‘the economy’, including employment, austerity, trade and the economic effects of migration.The book comes at a crucial point. There is widespread commentary that those who support Leave attach less importance to ‘the economy’ than those who support Remain. However, political scientists have neglected research into what the term ‘the economy’ means to people. This book suggests that it is a less neutral term, based on shared goals, than it has been in the past. While high- income participants, regardless of their political beliefs or referendum vote, tend to feel connected to what could be described as the official version of ‘the economy’, lower- income participants feel less connected and see both ‘the economy’ and economic expertise as ‘rigged’. These changes are not just the result of the Brexit debate but have longer- term roots. The book highlights the value of political ethnographic methods for researching nebulous concepts such as this one. It will be of interest to a general and political science audience and contributes to debates in political behaviour and political economy.

Labour orators from Bevan to Miliband
  • Edited by Andrew S. Crines, Richard Hayton
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book analyses the oratorical and rhetorical techniques of twelve leading orators who have affected the evolution of Labour Party politics in the post-war period, and demonstrates the important role of oratory. The twelve leading orators are Aneurin Bevan, Hugh Gaitskell, Tony Benn, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Barbara Castle, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, John Smith, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. The book considers how the politician in question used their oratorical skills in relation to three key audiences: the Parliamentary Party; the wider party membership; and the electorate. These audiences relate to three important oratorical arenas, namely Parliament; party conference; public and media engagement (the electoral arena). The book assesses how political rhetoric has been deployed in an effort to advance competing ideological positions within the party, and the role of oratory in communicating Labour's ideology to a wider audience. It argues that oratory remains a significant feature of Labour politics in Britain, and analyses how it has changed over time and in different contexts. A small (but growing) number of scholars have energised the study of rhetoric in British politics, and brought it more mainstream attention in the discipline. The academic study of the art of oratory has received relatively little attention from scholars interested in British politics.

Beslan
  • Six stories of the siege
  • Sue-Ann Harding
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • The cruelty of the September 2004 terrorist attack marks Beslan as Russia's worst hostage crisis. The similarities and differences in the reporting of such a violent, and ultimately calamitous, series of events are the focus of this book. The book investigates ways in which different narratives are constructed from, and in response to, events emerging from situations of violent conflict. It explores the relevance of narratives for, and the contributions of socio- narrative theory towards, understanding, explaining and challenging the behaviour of individuals and the practices of social units and institutions. The book also explores issues of translation and ways in which translation impacts on the (re)construction of narratives. It is written as an act of anamnesis to engender recognition and recollection. The book is essentially a case study in that it investigates in depth a small sample of online reporting written in response to a particular set of events. The socio- narrative theory presented is not just an analytical tool but is itself an object of investigation. The book investigates the Russian- language narrative texts published by a different online news agency by analyzing those texts published by the major Russian agency RIA- Novosti . It then examines the Chechen resistance website Kavkazcenter, and investigates the reports published by Caucasian Knot, a charitably funded Russian civil society website. These chapters strive to determine what narratives, the English-language material, these three Russian news agencies constructed from the reported events in Beslan, and how these narratives were constructed.

Spoiling the peace?
  • The threat of dissident Republicans to peace in Northern Ireland
  • Sophie A. Whiting
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book assesses the security threat and political challenges offered by dissident Irish republicanism to the Northern Irish peace process. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement failed to end entirely armed republicanism. The movement of Sinn Féin into constitutional politics in a government of Northern Ireland and the eschewing of militarism that followed, including disbandment of the Provisional IRA (PIRA), the decommissioning of weapons and the supporting of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) proved too much for a minority of republicans. This book begins by examining Sinn Féin’s evolution from the margins of political existence to becoming mainstream constitutional players. It then assesses how the compromises associated with these changes have been rejected by republican ‘dissidents’.In order to explore the heterogeneity of contemporary Irish republicanism this book draws upon in-depth interviews and analyses the strategies and tactics of various dissident republican groups. This analysis is used to outline the political and military challenges posed by dissidents to Northern Ireland in a post-Good Friday Agreement context as well as examine the response of the British state towards continuing violence. This discussion places the state response to armed republicanism in Northern Ireland within the broader debate on counter-terrorism after 9/11.

Choosing party leaders
  • Britain’s Conservatives and Labour compared
  • Andrew Denham, Andrew S. Roe-Crines, Peter Dorey
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book is a seminal study of political leadership selection using two of the main parties in British politics as case studies. They have been selected for their dominance of British politics over the course of recent political history. Indeed, the Conservative Party has held office for much of the twentieth century because it was able to project an image of leadership competence and governing credibility. In contrast, the Labour Party’s record in government is shorter because of issues of economic management, leadership credibility and ideological splits due to various interpretations of socialism. Despite these differing track records, both parties have dominated the British political landscape, with occasional interventions from the Liberal Democrats. As an academically informed study, this book explores the criteria by which political leaders are selected by their parties. To do this the book explores the ongoing relevance of Stark’s criteria of effective leadership by adapting it to identify more skills needed to explain how and why some leaders are able to dominate the political scene. The Conservatives tend to choose unifying figures who can lead them to victory, while the Labour Party opts for leaders more likely to unite the party behind ideological renewal. The book also explores the political choices of contemporary leaders, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. Johnson was selected in response to the perceived leadership failures of his predecessor, while Corbyn’s selection represents an ideological shift to the hard left as a response to New Labour and the professionalisation of the centre-left.

Operation Demetrius and its aftermath
  • A new history of the use of internment without trial in Northern Ireland, 1971–75
  • Martin J. McCleery
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • The central premise of this book is that the use of internment without trial in Northern Ireland from 1971 to 1975 has not been given proper academic investigation. The book provides a more comprehensive account of internment and assesses previously unexplored aspects of its use. Three main areas are examined. The high politics and intelligence surrounding the introduction of internment is explored; in doing accepted narratives regarding the measure are challenged. It is demonstrated that there was ample intelligence available on both republican and loyalist paramilitaries. Additionally it is shown that a policy of not interning loyalist paramilitaries was pursued, firstly by Stormont and then Westminster, until 1973. It is argued that the introduction of internment was actively supported by both administrations. The book also highlights that the main consequence of this period was that the IRA was left with enough support to ensure that the conflict would not be over quickly. Finally the book examines the evolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland between 1970 and 1972 outside of Belfast and Derry. This is a substantial part of the book which concentrates on four towns: Lurgan, Newry, Dungannon and Enniskillen. It is shown that the development of the dynamics of the conflict, was certainly more gradual and possibly less inevitable in these areas than in Belfast and to a lesser extent Derry, and did not become uniform across the whole of Northern Ireland until after the introduction of internment.

Masculinities, militarisation and the End Conscription Campaign
  • War resistance in apartheid South Africa
  • Daniel Conway
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book explores the gendered dynamics of apartheid-era South Africa's militarisation. It analyses the defiance of compulsory military service by individual white men, and the anti-apartheid activism of white men and women in the End Conscription Campaign (ECC), the most significant white anti-apartheid movement of South Africa. Militarized, white masculinity was a dominant model of masculinity that white men were encouraged to perform and white women were encouraged to admire. One of the most consistent features of pre-1994 South African society was progressive militarisation, in terms of both military preparedness and activity and the social conditions necessary for war making. The book then analyses the 1984 Citizenship Act as evidence that conscription was a transformative political act for the men who undertook it. The wider peace movement is also analysed as a transgressive sub-cultural space where radical political subjectivities could be formulated. The ECC's use of art, music and satire is assessed as a means to critique the militarisation of South African society. The role of women in the ECC, the feminist activism and the ways in which constructs of white femininity were addressed are also analysed. The book also explores the interconnections between militarisation, sexuality, race, homophobia and political authoritarianism. Finally, it conceptualises the state as premising its response to objectors on a need to assert and reinforce the gendered binaries of militarisation.

Medicine, health and Irish experiences of conflict 1914–45
  • Edited by David Durnin, Ian Miller
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 is the first exploration of Irish medical and health experiences during the First and Second World Wars, as well as during the Irish revolutionary period. It examines the physical, mental and emotional impact of conflict on Irish political and social life and medical, scientific and official interventions in Irish health matters. The volume asks: What made Irish medical and health experiences unique? Did the financial exigencies of war impact detrimentally on Irish health care provision? How were psychological and emotional responses to war managed in Ireland? Did Ireland witness unique disease trends? And how did Irish medical communities and volunteers partake in international war efforts? The authors suggest that twentieth-century warfare and political unrest profoundly shaped Irish experiences of medicine and health and that Irish political, social and economic contexts added unique contours to those experiences not evident in other countries. In pursuing these themes, Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 offers an original and focused intervention into a central, but so far unexplored, theme in Irish medical history.

Donors, technical assistance and public administration in Kosovo
  • Mary Venner
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • The reconstruction of Kosovo after 1999 was one of the largest and most ambitious international interventions in a post conflict country. Kosovo was seen by many international actors as a ‘green fields’ site on which to construct the government institutions and practices they considered necessary for future peace and prosperity. For a while Kosovo was close to being a laboratory for the practice of institution building and capacity development. This book looks beyond the apparently united and generally self congratulatory statements of international organisations and donors to examine what actually happened when they tried to work together in Kosovo to construct a new public administration. It considers the interests and motivations and the strengths and weaknesses of each of the major players and how these affected what they did, how they did it, and how successful they were in achieving their goals. Although in general the international exercise in Kosovo can be seen as a success, the results have been uneven. Some public administration institutions perform well while others face ongoing challenges. The book argues that to a significant extent the current day performance of the Kosovo government can be traced to the steps taken, or sometimes not taken, by various international actors in the early years of the international intervention.

The Conservative Party and the nation
  • Union, England and Europe
  • Arthur Aughey
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • This book focuses on the idea of the nation in Conservative Party politics. It represents an attempt to make sense of the way in which flows of sympathy from the past help to shape the changing patterns of Conservatism in the present; it does so by examining one of the party's preoccupations: its claim to be the 'national party'. The first three chapters are concerned mainly with flows of sympathy within Conservatism, the currents of which can still be traced today. The character (or political culture) of the Conservative Party is explored and the significance of the nation in its self-understanding is discussed. The book considers the interconnection of party and patriotism by revisiting one of the key texts for a previous generation, Andrew Gamble's The Conservative Nation. Andrew Gamble believed that Conservative leaders have always been uneasily aware of the fragility of the political raft upon they sail on democratic waters. The book assesses the changing influence on party competition of class and nation, especially how this influences the Conservative Party's electoral identity. It also reflects the impact on the Conservative nation of the British, English and European Questions. A postscript considers the impact of the 2017 general election and makes some final reflections on the party.

The politics of betrayal
  • Renegades and ex-radicals from Mussolini to Christopher Hitchens
  • Ashley Lavelle
  • Published by:
    Manchester University Press
  • The radical who is transformed into a conservative is a common theme in political history. Benito Mussolini, the Italian socialist who became a fascist, is the best-known example, but there have been many others, including the numerous American Trotskyists and Marxists who later emerged as neo-conservatives, anti-communists or, in some instances, McCarthyists.The politics of betrayal examines why several one-time radicals subsequently became parts of the establishment in various countries, including the former Black Panther Party leader turned Republican Eldridge Cleaver, the Australian communist Adela Pankhurst who became an admirer of the Nazis, and the ex-radical journalist Christopher Hitchens, whose defection to the camp of George W. Bush’s neo-conservatives following 11 September 2001 offers one of the most startling examples of the phenomenon in recent times.How and why do so many radicals betray the cause? Is it simply a reaction to political defeat? Were their politics always problematic, even as radicals? Were the ex-radicals psychologically flawed to begin with? What implications does it have for left politics? This book, the first of its kind, answers these and more questions.

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