Critical Theory Books

New and Published Books

1. Weak Constitutionalism

   Democratic Legitimacy and the Question of Constituent Power

   By Joel Colón-Ríos

   Series: Routledge Research in Constitutional Law

   It has been frequently argued that democracy is protected and realized under constitutions that protect certain rights and establish the conditions for a functioning representative democracy. However, some democrats still find something profoundly unsettling about contemporary constitutional...

   Published May 15th 2012 by Routledge
2. International Relations, Meaning and Mimesis

   By Necati Polat

   Series: Interventions

   International Relations, Meaning and Mimesis is an innovative assessment of the uses of theory in making sense of international politics, opening up new pathways to thinking about the basics of the study area. Insights drawn from an interdisciplinary corpus of critical scholarship are synthesized...

   Published April 15th 2012 by Routledge
3. Law, Ethics and the Biopolitical

   By Amy Swiffen

   Law, Ethics and the Biopolitical explores the idea that legal authority is no longer related to national sovereignty, but to the ‘moral’ attempt to nurture life. The book argues that whilst the relationship between law and ethics has long been a central concern in legal studies, it is now the...

   Published April 15th 2012 by Routledge
4. Re-Thinking International Relations Theory via Deconstruction

   By Badredine Arfi

   Series: Interventions

   International Relations (IR) theorists have ceaselessly sought to understand, explain, and transform the experienced reality of international politics. Running through all these attempts is a persistent, yet unquestioned, quest by theorists to develop strategies to eliminate or reduce the...

   Published March 12th 2012 by Routledge
5. Human Security as Statecraft

   Structural Conditions, Articulations and Unintended Consequences

   By Nik Hynek

   Series: Routledge Critical Security Studies

   This book critically investigates the discourses and practices of human security and aims to delve below the stereotypical imageries representing them. Drawing on Foucault and Deleuze, the author approaches human security from a new perspective, with the aim of ascertaining what has...

   Published February 8th 2012 by Routledge
6. Gender, Agency and War

   The maternalized body in US foreign policy

   By Tina Managhan

   Series: War, Politics and Experience

   This book traces practices of militarization and resistance that have emerged under the sign of motherhood in US Foreign Policy. Gender, Agency and War examines this discourse against the background of three key moments of American foreign policy formation: the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s,...

   Published January 26th 2012 by Routledge
7. Politics and the Art of Commemoration

   Memorials to struggle in Latin America and Spain

   By Katherine Hite

   Series: Interventions

   Memorials 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...

   Published November 24th 2011 by Routledge
8. Human Rights and Constituent Power

   Without Model or Warranty

   By Illan Wall

   With the emergence of modern human rights in the Universal Declaration, what remained of a radical political potential of the discourse withdrew: statism and individualism became its authorised foundations and the possibilities of other human rights traditions were denied. The strife that once lay...

   Published October 3rd 2011 by Routledge
9. Divine Violence

   Walter Benjamin and the Eschatology of Sovereignty

   By James Martel

   Divine Violence looks at the question of political theology and its connection to sovereignty. It argues that the practice of sovereignty reflects a Christian eschatology, one that proves very hard to overcome even by left thinkers, such as Arendt and Derrida, who are very critical of it. These...

   Published October 3rd 2011 by Routledge
10. Risk, Power and the State

    After Foucault

    By Magnus Hörnqvist

    Risk, Power and the State addresses how power is exercised in and by contemporary state organisations. Through a detailed analysis of programmatic attempts to shape behaviour linked to considerations of risk, this book pursues the argument that, whilst Foucault is useful for understanding power,...

    Published September 29th 2011 by Routledge-Cavendish