Social & Political Theory Books

New and Published Books

1. Tocqueville's Virus

   Utopia and Dystopia in Western Social and Political Thought

   By Mark Featherstone

   Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology

   In the 1850s the social and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville spoke of ‘a virus of a new and unknown kind’ to explain the inexplicable failure of the French Revolution. This book uses Tocqueville’s idea of the virus to explore the fatal relationship between the concepts of utopia and...

   Published May 14th 2012 by Routledge
2. Democracy Building and Civil Society in Post-Soviet Armenia

   By Armine Ishkanian

   Series: Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series

   This volume considers the challenges of democracy building in post-Soviet Armenia, and the role of civil society in that process. It argues that, contrary to the expectations of Western aid donors, who promoted civil society on the assumption that democratization would follow from the...

   Published February 26th 2012 by Routledge
3. Beyond Relativism

   Raymond Boudon, Cognitive Rationality and Critical Realism

   By Cynthia Lins Hamlin

   Series: Routledge Studies in Critical Realism

   This book argues that critical realism offers the theory of cognitive rationality a real way of overcoming the limitations of methodological individualism by recognising both the agents' - and the social structure's - causal powers and liabilities. Cynthia Lins Hamlin persuasively argues that...

   Published January 19th 2012 by Routledge
4. Food, Globalization and Sustainability

   By Peter Oosterveer, David A. Sonnenfeld

   Food is increasingly traded internationally, thereby transforming the organization of food production and consumption globally and influencing most food-related practices. This transition is generating unfamiliar challenges related to sustainability of food provision, the social impacts of...

   Published October 5th 2011 by Routledge
5. Handbook of Human Rights

   Edited by Thomas Cushman

   Series: Routledge International Handbooks

   In mapping out the field of human rights for those studying and researching within both humanities and social science disciplines, the Handbook of Human Rights not only provides a solid foundation for the reader who wants to learn the basic parameters of the field, but also promotes new thinking...

   Published September 7th 2011 by Routledge
6. Political Language and Metaphor

   Interpreting and changing the world

   Edited by Terrell Carver, Jernej Pikalo

   Series: Routledge Innovations in Political Theory

   Until a century ago, a metaphor was just a mere figure of speech, but since the development of discourse analysis a metaphor has become more than merely incidental to the content of the arguments or findings. Students and scholars in political studies know the importance of metaphors in electoral...

   Published February 1st 2011 by Routledge
7. Social Movements: The Key Concepts

   By Graeme Chesters, Ian Welsh

   Series: Routledge Key Guides

   Social Movements: The Key Concepts provides an insightful, contemporary introduction to some of the frequently encountered terms and groups that are central to the study of collective action and social and political activism. Following an A-Z format, the entries defined and discussed are drawn from...

   Published September 28th 2010 by Routledge
8. The Spatial Model of Politics

   By Norman Schofield

   Series: Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy

   Using unique and cutting-edge research, Schofield a prominent author in the US for a number of years, explores the growth area of positive political economy within economics and politics. The first book to explain the spatial model of voting from a mathematical, economics and game-theory...

   Published January 3rd 2010 by Routledge
9. Feminist Theory Reader

   Local and Global Perspectives, 2nd Edition

   Edited by Carole Mccann, Seung-kyung Kim

   Feminist Theory Reader, second edition, continues its unique approach of anthologizing the important works of feminist theory within a multiracial transnational framework. Classic works in feminist theory by scholars such as Simone De Beauvoir, Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Butler, belle hooks, Nancy...

   Published July 19th 2009 by Routledge
10. Ecological Politics and Democratic Theory

    The Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal

    By Mathew Humphrey

    Series: Extremism and Democracy

    This volume examines the reasons why some despair at the prospects for an ecological form of democracy, and challenges the recent ‘deliberative turn’ in environmental political thought. Deliberative democracy has become popular for those seeking a reconciliation of these two forms of politics....

    Published May 20th 2009 by Routledge