What lurks behind appeals to “community” and a “democracy of the common” as models for the organization of political life is the desire for an existential authenticity that has overcome the contradictions and antagonisms that are part of normal political life under the conditions of democratic pluralism. Placing our hopes in community and the common as alternative, and somehow more authentic, models for the organization of political life always comes at the cost of preparing the ground for abandoning democracy altogether. Real democracy, counterintuitively, does not require community, but it involves distance among those who are represented, those who represent, and those who govern. We might experience this distance as alienating, or as inauthentic, but it allows for what we might call the self-control of self-government. In contrast to appeals to “community” and “the common,” the task of democracy is to negotiate the irreducible pluralism of political life through a normative organization that can be justified to, and is also justifiable by, all those who are subject to such norms.

Chapter 5 traces the regulatory evolution of shareholder – and more broadly, investor – stewardship in the UK, from early investor-led initiatives to the UK Stewardship Code 2020. It begins with the Institutional Shareholders’ Committee, whose statements between 1991 and 2009 gradually reframed activism as stewardship. It then examines the shift to regulator-led stewardship, marked by the Financial Reporting Council’s first-generation UK Stewardship Code (2010/2012), which aimed to foster a market for engagement but remained rooted in shareholder oversight of listed equities. The chapter next assesses the second-generation code (2020), which moves beyond shareholder engagement towards a broader model of investor stewardship. This redefenition embeds ESG considerations, systemic risk, and sustainable value within a principles-based, narrative-driven regime. The analysis also considers the institutional mechanisms supporting implementation and the code’s influence as a global benchmark. While the UK regime has pushed the regulatory frontier, key tensions persist – particularly around enforcement, the translation of normative goals into practice, and the limits of soft law in governing investor conduct.

Chapter 1 introduces some crucial themes of the book, discussing the contraposition between Achilles and Hector in the reception of the Iliad and in modern interpretations of the poem. Both heroes acknowledge causing the destruction of their philoi (’loved ones’) (Hector at 22.104, Achilles at 18.82). Zeus, a deeply emotional god (17.198–218), also causes suffering to humans he loves, a consequence he anticipates from the poem’s start when he grants Thetis’ request (1.511–19). The chapter treats these incidents as examples of a single narrative mechanism: the central characters achieve the opposite of their goals. These instances demonstrate tragic ‘reversal’ (Aristotle) and ‘moral bad luck’ (Williams), highlighting the gap between intention and outcome in the epic’s structure.

This chapter looks in detail at some of the movements and persons in Norway that have engaged in debates about the justice of terrorism against Israelis and Jews. The goal is to show how Jewish victims are consistently made invisible in the arguments that are made about the justification of violence. The common argument is that there is something special about the state of Israel because everybody serves in the military and therefore nobody is really innocent in the just war against the Jewish state. The chapter also looks at the cases of Norwegian and other young, Western radicals who traveled to Palestine in the 1970s and 1980s in order to take part in the war on the side of various Palestinian factions, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Therefore, this chapter links the historical narrative of the book to wider currents of political terrorism that have been explored not least in a German context with groups like the Rote Armee Fraktion.

Chapter 1 reframes how institutional investors exercise power and are held to account in a world shaped by financial intermediation, systemic risk, long-term value concerns, and evolving societal expectations. Tracing the evolution and limits of shareholder governance – including the rise of shareholder activism and the contested promise of shareholder democracy – it introduces the book’s central puzzle: how to institutionalise investor stewardship in ways that are normatively coherent, empirically grounded, and responsive to systemic interdependence. The chapter sets out a model of enlightened shareholder – and more broadly, investor – stewardship, defined by multi-level responsibility, plural accountability, and attention to ‘unseen others’, which reimagines institutional investors as custodians of capital across time, stakeholders, and systems. It outlines the book’s tripartite contribution – conceptual, empirical, and regulatory – and presents its analytical trajectory, interpretive framework, and institutional vision. Anchored in the UK but with global relevance, the chapter sets the stage for rethinking capital’s role in serving public and private interests.

Chapter 2 lays the groundwork for the more detailed discussion that follows in Chapters 3–10. It presents, in broad strokes, general issues that have been considered in research on IA (e.g., its current and potential scope, ethical and legal considerations, and the mosaic of research around the world). The chapter also introduces major studies and samples described in the literature on IA and other relevant topics worldwide, from which the current knowledge of the topic originates. These foundational elements help contextualize the subsequent analyses and provide a framework for interpreting the findings presented in later chapters.

The 1850s saw Britian involved in large-scale combat in India and the Crimea, which left it ill-equipped to intervene in Italy’s war against its Austrian rulers. Though sympathetic to Italy, Britain was more concerned about France’s participation and what was seen as its manoeuvring for greater European power. Britian responded with a massive volunteer movement which wasn’t always taken entirely seriously, and which seeded the potential for the year’s military activities being seen as a literal theatre of war. Charles Kean’s Henry V attempted to ignite pride in Britain’s martial history, but this was countered by the ignominious experiences of British troops in China, and the ‘Pig War’. Barbaric treatment of British soldiers by the military authorities diminished the distance between Britain and its ‘uncivilised’ enemies, and provided a fertile ground for Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which celebrated in King Arthur another figure from the past.

The tour de force of the Chronographia takes place in the rebel Isaak’s skene, surrounded by an army whose war-cry is an acclamation, filled internally with an army ranked concentrically like a council chamber, with Isaak on a throne, controlling everything by his sheer presence. Psellos heads an embassy to persuade him to institutionalize his power by due process, bringing the complementary resources of the Byzantine State: as a rhetor and philosopher he represents its law, traditions, and cultural capital. Together he and Isaak mount a theatre of ideal rule. It is a magnificent double performance culminating in Isaak’s secret assent. Before being formalized, however, news comes of a coup. Psellos had argued for praxis first, then theory, but Keroularios, who led the coup, has seized praxis and, by an embracing irony, the embassy in the protected space was futile. Isaak is emperor already. Though he promises to rule philosophically with Psellos’ advice, he rules alone. The reign is a bitter disappointment and, from that point, the work loses authenticity. Psellos disguises his loss of influence as success and succumbs to the pressures of imperial oversight.

This chapter continues the analysis of the development of anti-Zionism in the Soviet style. Although the rhetoric and symbols could vary, there is a clear connection between the undisguised hatred of Jews that can be found in Russian politicians and thinkers on the extreme right wing of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the anti-Zionism and anti-cosmopolitanism that terrorized Jews in the Soviet Union after World War II and in particular after 1948. The reason was that for many decades Zionism had been seen as a betrayal of real, rooted belonging to Russia. A climax in Stalin’s persecution of Jewish intellectuals came in 1953 with the so-called doctors’ plot. The chapter looks at how the Soviets supported terrorism against Israel as part of the Cold War against the West.