Second COST-Network Conference 2012

Crisis Management

SECOND COST-Network CONFERENCE 2012

Many intellectuals, Jurgen Habermas among them, argue that the management of the financial crisis undermines democracy. The COST-Network ‘Systemic Risks, Financial Crises and Credit’ invites papers that critically examine this claim.

Do financialization and the management of the financial crisis circumscribe democratic institutions and processes? If yes, what are the mechanisms that restrict democracy?

 

Potential themes include:

–  The sources of power of financial actors

–  The role of knowledge networks in crisis management

–  Conflicting crisis narratives

–  Restructuring the State to accommodate financial capital

–  New hierarchies among nations

–  Diffusion of policy concepts and policy learning processes

–  Resistance and civil society

 

October 11, 2012 to October 13, 2012

Kassel University, Germany

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: 15th June 2012
Successful candidates will be notified by: 30th June 2012
Deadline for papers: 1st Oct 2012
Please send your abstracts to: COST2012@icdd.uni-kassel.de

See: http://www.uni-kassel.de/einrichtungen/icdd/events/cost-conference/cost-conference-2012/call-for-papers.html

For more information: http://www.worldfinancialcrisis.eu/

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

An Evening on Communisation

Communisation SIC

AN EVENING ON COMMUNISATION

An Evening on Communisation: Presentations and Release of Sic Volume 1: International Journal for Communisation

Friday April 20th – 7pm

16 Beaver Street
4th Floor
New York, NY10004

We invite you to join us for an evening of presentations and discussion on the theme of communisation with the release of Sic: International Journal for Communisation (http://communisation.net). Topics include:

–         The periodization of the capital-labor relation

–         The restructuring and crisis of the 1970s

–         The loss of the worker identity

–         The characterizing tendencies of contemporary struggles

–         The relation of communist theory to practice

–         The Sic project itself

Train: 4, 5 to Bowling Green / R to Whitehall / 1, 2 to Wall Street / J to Broad Street

Wine and beer to be served

From the Editorial:

The present journal aims to be the locus for an unfolding of the problematic of communisation. It comes from the encounter of individuals involved in various projects in different countries: among these are the journals Endnotes, published in the UK and in the US, Blaumachen in Greece, Théorie Communiste inFrance, Riff-Raff inSweden, and certain more or less informal theoretical groups in the US (New York and San Francisco). Each of these projects continues its own existence. Also participating are various individuals in France, Germany, and elsewhere, who are involved in other activities and who locate themselves broadly within the theoretical approach taken here.

Communisation

In the course of the revolutionary struggle, the abolition of the division of labour, of the State, of exchange, of any kind of property; the extension of a situation in which everything is freely available as the unification of human activity, that is to say the abolition of classes, of both public and private spheres – these are all ‘measures’ for the abolition of capital, imposed by the very needs of the struggle against the capitalist class. The revolution is communisation; communism is not its project or result.

One does not abolish capital for communism but by communism, or more specifically, by its production. Indeed communist measures must be differentiated from communism; they are not embryos of communism, rather they are its production. Communisation is not a period of transition, but rather, it is revolution itself which is the communist production of communism. The struggle against capital is what differentiates communist measures and communism. The content of the revolutionary activity is always the mediation of the abolition of capital by the proletariat in its relation to capital: this activity is not one branch of an alternative in competition with the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production, but its internal contradiction and its overcoming.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a whole historical period entered into crisis and came to an end – i.e. the period in which the revolution was conceived in different ways, both theoretically and practically, as the affirmation of the proletariat, its elevation to the position of ruling class, the liberation of labour, and the institution of a period of transition. The concept of communisation appeared in the midst of this crisis.

During the crisis, the critique of all the mediations of the existence of the proletariat within the capitalist mode of production (mass party, union, parliamentarism), of organisational forms such as the party-form or the vanguard, of ideologies such as Leninism, of practices such as militantism along with all its variations – all this appeared irrelevant if revolution was no longer to be affirmation of the class – whether it be the workers’ autonomy or the generalisation of workers’ councils. It is the proletariat’s struggle as a class which has become the problem within itself, i.e. which is its own limit. That is the way the class struggle signals and produces the revolution as communisation in the form of its overcoming.

Since then, within the contradictory course of the capitalist mode of production, the affirmation of the proletariat and the liberation of labour have lost all meaning and content. There is no longer a worker’s identity facing capital and confirmed by it. This is the revolutionary dynamic of the present struggles which display the active denial of the proletarian condition against capital, even within ephemeral, limited bursts of self-management or self-organisation. The proletariat’s struggle against capital contains its contradiction with its own nature as class of capital.

The abolition of capital, i.e. the revolution and the production of communism, is immediately the abolition of all classes and therefore of the proletariat. This occurs through the communisation of society, which is abolished as a community separated from its elements. Proletarians abolish capital by the production of a community immediate to its elements; they transform their relations into immediate relations between individuals. These are relations between singular individuals that are no longer the embodiment of a social category, including the supposedly natural categories of the social sexes of woman and man. Revolutionary practice is the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-transformation.

A Problematic

This minimal approach of communisation constitutes neither a definition, nor a platform, but exposes a problematic:

* The problematic of a theory – here the theory of revolution as communisation – does not limit itself to a list of themes or objects conceived by theory; neither is it the synthesis of all the elements which are thought. It is the content of theory, its way of thinking, with regards to all possible productions of this theory

* The analysis of the current crisis and of the class struggles intrinsic to it

* The historicity of revolution and communism

* The periodisation of the capitalist mode of production and the question of the restructuring of the mode of production after the crisis at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s

* The analysis of the gender relation within the problematic of the present class struggle and communisation

* The definition of communism as goal but also as movement abolishing the present state of things

* A theory of the abolition of capital as a theory of the production of communism

* The reworking of the theory of value-form (to the extent that the revolution is not the affirmation of the proletariat and the liberation of labour)

* The illegitimacy of wage-demands and others in the present class struggle

By definition no list of subjects coming under a problematic can be exhaustive.

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The Post-Colonial State – Tariq Amin-Khan

THE POST-COLONIAL STATE – TARIQ AMIN-KHAN

Global Capitalism

 

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415891592/ New book on the Post-Colonial State: Tariq Amin-Khan, The Post-Colonial State in the Era of Capitalist Globalization: Historical, Political and Theoretical Approaches to State Formation. New York: Routledge, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-89159-2.  State formation in post-colonial societies differed greatly from the formation of the Western capitalist state. The latter has been extensively studied, while a coherent grasp of the post-colonial state – despite the recent ethnographical explorations – has remained elusive. Amin-Khan provides a critical, historical and contemporary understanding of post-colonial state formations in Asia andAfrica, and articulates how this process differed for Latin American states.  A common signifier of the post-colonial state is the retention of the unitary colonial state structure by its ruling classes. This legacy has reinscribed the colonial-era social relations in post-colonial societies, and consolidated the power of the ‘overdeveloped’ civil and military bureaucracy. At the same time, the US was able to remove ‘nationalist’ leadership in Africa and Asia to create client post-colonial states that have remained beholden to Western states, transnational corporations and international financial institutions. The analysis of these developments shows that the vast majority of post-colonial states have remained proto-capitalist – with feudal landholders and bureaucratic elite having a stranglehold on state power. In contrast, those few countries (India, South Africa and others) that have emerged as capitalist post-colonial states have been able to partly shake off the colonial legacy and loosen the noose of imperialist domination. The final two chapters ground theory by concretely analyzing the nature and development trajectories of the states of India and Pakistan as two distinct examples respectively of capitalist and proto-capitalist states – which can be generalized as the two state forms prevalent in post-colonial societies.

Original source: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/now-out-tariq-amin-khan-the-post-colonial-state-in-the-era-of-capitalist-globalization

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The Capitalist Mode of Power – Videos

Capitalism

THE CAPITALIST MODE OF POWER – VIDEOS

THE CAPITALIST MODE OF POWER: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
A conference of the Forum on Capital as Power
York University, October 20-21, 2011

The conference hosted ten panels, including keynote addresses by Randall Wray, Bob Jessop and Michael Perelman, as well as a faculty guest presentation by Jonathan Nitzan.

Videos: http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/320/07/20111020_forumoncasp_cmp_conference_videos_web.htm

Conference page: http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/320/

***

Recent additions and updates to the Bichler & Nitzan Archives: http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/perl/latest

Free to repost and circulate with due attribution under the Creative Commons License (attribution-noncommercial-no derivative). To unsubscribe, reply to this email with “unsubscribe” in the subject field.

— 
Jonathan Nitzan
Political Science | Social and Political Thought
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto, Ontario, M3J-1P3
Canada
Voice: (416) 736-2100, ext. 88822
Fax: (416) 736-5686
Email: nitzan at yorku.ca
Website:http://bnarchives.net

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Communisation and Its Vicissitudes

Communisation

COMMUNISATION AND ITS VICISSITUDES

Endnotes and Blaumachen are holding a discussion on communisation with a presentation of the journal Sic (International Journal for Communisation).

Next Sunday (18/3) 6pm at Colorama (52-56 Lancaster Street, London SE1)

We will also talk about:
– Communisation and Politics
– Struggles in Greece

Please join us and distribute to all those you think will be interested.

Some information about Sic & Communisation

Sic aims to be the locus for an unfolding of the problematic of communisation. It comes from the encounter of individuals involved in various projects in different countries: among these are the journals Endnotes, published in the UK and the US, Blaumachen in Greece, Théorie Communiste in France, Riff-Raff in Sweden, and certain more or less informal theoretical groups in the US (New York and San Francisco). Each of these projects will continue to exist on their own. Also participating are various individuals in France, Germany, and elsewhere, who are involved in other activities and who locate themselves broadly within the theoretical approach taken here.

Communisation

In the course of the revolutionary struggle, the abolition of the division of labour, of the State, of exchange, of any kind of property; the extension of a situation in which everything is freely available as the unification of human activity, that is to say the abolition of classes, of both public and private spheres – these are all ‘measures’ for the abolition of capital, imposed by the very needs of the struggle against the capitalist class. The revolution is communisation; communism is not its project or result.

One does not abolish capital for communism but by communism, or more specifically, by its production. Indeed communist measures must be differentiated from communism; they are not embryos of communism, rather they are its production. Communisation is not a period of transition, but rather, revolution itself is the communist production of communism. The struggle against capital is what differentiates communist measures and communism. The content of revolutionary activity is always the mediation of the abolition of capital by the proletariat in its relation to capital. This activity does not constitute an alternative in competition with the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production, but rather the latter’s internal contradiction and its overcoming.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a whole historical period entered into crisis and came to an end – the period in which the revolution was conceived in different ways, both theoretically and practically, as the affirmation of the proletariat, its elevation to the position of ruling class, the liberation of labour, and the institution of a period of transition. The concept of communisation appeared in the midst of this crisis.

During the crisis, the critique of all the mediations of the existence of the proletariat within the capitalist mode of production (mass parties, unions, parliamentarism), of organisational forms such as the party-form or the vanguard, of ideologies such as Leninism, of practices such as militantism in all its variations – all this appeared irrelevant if revolution was no longer to be an affirmation of the class, whether it be workers’ autonomy or the generalisation of workers’ councils. It is the proletariat’s struggle as a class that has become the problem, i.e. has become its own limit. This is how the class struggle signals and produces the revolution as communisation in the form of its overcoming.

In the contradictory course of the capitalist mode of production since the 1970s the affirmation of the proletariat and the liberation of labour have lost all meaning and content. There is no longer a worker’s identity facing capital and confirmed by it. The revolutionary dynamic of contemporary struggles consists in the active denial – against capital – of the proletarian condition, even within ephemeral, limited bursts of self-management or self-organisation. The proletariat’s struggle against capital contains its contradiction with its own nature as a class of capital.

The abolition of capital, i.e. the revolution and the production of communism, is immediately the abolition of all classes and therefore of the proletariat. This occurs through the communisation of society, which is abolished as a community separated from its elements. Proletarians abolish capital by the production of a community immediate to its elements. In this way they transform their relations into immediate relations between individuals – between singular individuals that are no longer the embodiment of a social category, including the supposedly natural categories of the social sexes of woman and man. Revolutionary practice is the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity, i.e. self-transformation.

A Problematic

This minimal approach of communisation constitutes neither a definition, nor a platform, but exposes a problematic.

The problematic of a theory, here the theory of revolution as communisation, does not limit itself to a list of themes or objects conceived by theory; neither is it the synthesis of all the elements which are thought. It is the content of theory, its way of thinking, with regards to all possible productions of this theory:

    • the analysis of the current crisis and of the class struggles intrinsic to it;
    • the historicity of revolution and communism;
    • the periodisation of the capitalist mode of production and the question of the restructuring of the mode of production after the crisis at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s;
    • the analysis of the gender relation within the problematic of the present class struggle and communisation;
    • the definition of communism as goal but also as movement abolishing the present state of things;
    • a theory of the abolition of capital as a theory of the production of communism;
    • the reworking of the theory of the value-form (to the extent that the revolution is not the affirmation of the proletariat and the liberation of labour).

By definition no list of subjects coming under a problematic can be exhaustive.

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Politics at a Distance from the State

John Holloway

POLITICS AT A DISTANCE FROM THE STATE

A conference titled ‘Politics at a distance from the state’ is being held on 29th and 30th of September 2012 at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.

The conference is intended as a space at which academics and activists sympathetic to or supportive of ‘politics at a distance from the state’ can openly and freely explore, discuss and debate this idea and form of politics. The conference arose in the light of the visit later this year to Rhodes University by John Holloway and Jacques Depelchin, both of whom will be in attendance at the conference. The conference seeks to consider anti-statist politics in South Africa and beyond.

Political practices in South Africa, since the end of Apartheid, have been dominated by state-centric forms of politics under the hegemony of the African National Congress (ANC). Although state-centred struggle and the capturing of state power were embedded – as important trajectories – within the anti-Apartheid organizations of the 1970s and 1980s, there was also a pronounced anti-statist tendency that sought to build alternative forms of communality in a pre-figurative way. Of significance in this regard was the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Black trade union movement. In large part, with the de-mobilization of anti-Apartheid struggles in the 1990s and a technocratic, neo-liberal programme pursued vigorously by the ANC state since 1994, anti-statist politics in contemporary South Africa are heavily compromised and marginalised. This form is politics is also rarely discussed in the academia. The conference, in its South African focus, seeks to revisit the struggles of the 1970s and 1980s and, in so doing, to identify and articulate the anti-statist moments inherent in them. Activists centrally involved in the BCM, UDF and trade union movement will be present to facilitate and contribute to these discussions. The three leading academics in South Africa who presently think and theorise about politics at a distance from the state will also be in attendance, namely, Michael Neocosmos, Richard Pithouse and Lucien van der Walt (co-author of Black Flame, 2009). As well, community activists and groups in South Africa supportive of and pursuing ‘at a distance’ politics, such as the shack-dweller movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, will be present.

The conference seeks to locate South African politics in the broader, more global, debates and activism. Academically, John Holloway’s book Change the World without Taking Power (2002) ignited an intense debate a decade ago about emancipatory politics and change; this work though spoke directly to the lived experiences and everyday politics of the Zapatista movement in southern Mexico. His overall critique of state-centred change is not an entirely new argument but his Autonomist Marxist perspective is certainly rich in nuanced insights about the prospects for interstitial revolution today. Jacques Depelchin, the highly esteemed Congolese historian, has – with Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba – tried to rethink politics in the Congo in Africa. The critique of state-centric emancipation has deep roots in Anarchist theory (and practice), and reaches back to the debates between Marx and Bakhunin. Over the last few decades, post-Anarchism (as a ‘fusion’ of Anarchism and post-Structuralism) has emerged (for instance the works of Richard Day and David Graeber), claiming that many of the localized struggles taking place globally have anarchistic principles (such as pre-figuration) embedded within them. Simultaneously, a range of other (often older, ex-Marxist) scholars – in the ongoing light of Paris ’68 – have constantly highlighted the significance of anti-statist politics (beyond ‘the political’) for authentic emancipatory processes. Of particular importance in this regard are Jacques Ranciere and Alain Baidou – it is from the latter that the title for the conference is taken.

Crucial differences exist between the different theoretical and political tendencies highlighted above. But they all share a comment interest in questioning emancipation in and through the state, and in exploring the possibilities and actualities of a lived immanent politics (some call it a living communism) taking place in the interstices of the current capitalist and hierarchical order. It is this shared common interest that forms of the basis for the ‘at a distance’ conference.

The conference is specifically designed for academics and activists with a particular interest in engaging constructively with politics at a distance from the state. This gathering is the first of its kind in post-Apartheid South Africa and it should appeal not only to individuals and groups within South Africa but also to individuals and groups outside South Africa who wish to engage through an interchange of ideas and practices with like-minded academics and activists in Africa.

The format for the conference has yet to be decided upon. But it will be as informal as possible yet very vigorous and engaging. It will entail a number of conversations in which all will equally participate.

For any further information, please contact:
Kirk Helliker, Sociology, Rhodes University: k.helliker@ru.ac.za
Richard Pithouse, Politics, Rhodes University: r.pithouse@ru.ac.za 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Workers, State and Development in Brazil

Brazil

WORKERS, STATE AND DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL

A book launch of Ben Selwyn’s ‘Workers, State and Development in North East Brazil: Powers of Labour, Chains of Value’ (Manchester University Press, 2012)

8 March 2012, Russell Square: College Buildings, 4418, London
5:15 PM – 7:00 PM

Within the field of development studies, the importance of class relations is usually relegated to lesser status than the roles of states and markets in generating and allocating resources. This book argues that processes of class formation, struggle, and crucially, the changing balance of class forces between capital and labour constitute a key determinant of different patterns of capitalist development. Workers, state and development in Brazil illuminates these key issues in political economy through a detailed empirical investigation of the nexus between class dynamics and developmental processes and outcomes in North East Brazil’s São Francisco valley. It details how workers in the valley’s export grape sector have utilized their structural and associational power to win concessions from employers, contributing to a progressive pattern of regional capitalist development. Based on a stimulating engagement with and critique of World Systems Theory and the Global Commodity Chains approach, this book will be of wide-ranging interest to those interested in understanding how global dynamics impact on local development. It will appeal to students and researchers interested in processes of capitalist development, class formation and dynamics, North East Brazilian political economy and International Political Economy.

Ben Selwyn is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Development Studies in the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex

Contents
Introduction.
1. Global commodity chains, labour history and capitalist development.
2. Emergence of export grape production in North East Brazil.
3. Grape workers: structural power and associational power.
4. Women workers.
5. Managing labour.
6. Class compromise.
7. Conclusions.
Bibliography.

234x156mm 256pp
HB 978-0-7190-8531-4 £65.00
4 line illustrations, 1 map, 19 tables

Manchester University Press
Oxford Road
ManchesterM13 9NR

**END**

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Japan Society of Policial Economy – 59th Annual Conference

Global Crisis

JAPAN SOCIETY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY – 59th ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Call for Participation for the 59th annual conference of JSPE

The Japan Society of Political Economy invites you to its 59th annual conference “The Global Economic Crisis and State: Alternative Approaches for Monetary and Fiscal Policies” which take place on September 17 (S aturday) and 18 (Sunday), 2011, at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan

Program: http://www2.rikkyo.ac.jp/web/jspe/pdf/2011_JSPE_conference_program.pdf

This year we will have three plenary sessions (2 in Japanese 1 in English) and 21 parallel sessions (17 in Japanese and 4 in English). 13 English papers will be presented.

The program includes English Sessions on: 2007-9 Global Crisis and the Future of Capitalism, 2007-9 Global Crisis and Developing Economies, 2007-Global Crisis and Beyond, and 2007-9 Global Crisis and State. Plenary sessions are: (In English) Alain Lipietz “Fears and Hopes: The Crisis of the Liberal-Productivist Model and its Green Alternative”, (In Japanese) “Discussing the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Nuclear Disaster”, and “The Global Economic Crisis and State: Alternative Approaches for Monetary and Fiscal Policies”

Contact: Prof. Nobuharu Yokokawa (Chairman of the JSPE Committee for International Communication and Exchange) E-mail: yokokawa@cc.musashi.ac.jp Postal Address: c/o Prof. Toshiaki Ohtomo, Department of Economics, Rikkyo University, 3-34-1 Nishi-Ikebukuro,Toshima-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 171-8501 Tel: +81-3-3985-2281

 

JSPE Website: http://www2.rikkyo.ac.jp/web/jspe/callforpapers.html and http://www.jspe.gr.jp/drupal/en_cfp2011

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

State Crime

State Crime

STATE CRIME

State Crime – The Journal of the International State Crime Initiative

We are delighted to announce the arrival of State Crime, the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to state crime scholarship. The journal is interdisciplinary and international and seeks to develop deeper understandings of state crime and institutional deviance. Topics on which articles are invited include: torture; genocide and other forms of government and politically organised mass killing; war crimes; state-corporate crime; state-organised crime; natural disasters exacerbated by government (in)action; asylum and refugee policy and practice; state terror; political and economic corruption; and resistance to state violence and corruption. The journal is keen to feature both empirical and theoretical studies.

The journal will be published twice yearly by Pluto Press from April 2012. Details of the editorial board and peer review arrangements can be found in the Editorial Board and Notes for Contributors section at: http://www.statecrime.org/journal. Articles should be limited to 8,000 words and written and submitted in accordance with the guidelines for authors.

All queries should be directed to the editorial board at journal@statecrime.org

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Developments in Contemporary Citizenship

Big Society

DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTEMPORARY CITIZENSHIP

CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH GROUP
KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
CALL FOR PAPERS
DEADLINE: MAY 2^nd 2011

The European Studies Postgraduate Research Group at King’s College London is pleased to announce a call for papers for their forthcoming research seminar, Developments in Contemporary Citizenship.

The institution of citizenship is undergoing a period of intense scrutiny in academia and political practice. The widening and deepening of the European Union, the social inclusion of migrant populations and the economic inequalities emphasised by the repercussions of the financial crisis are just a few examples of processes which today urge a renewed assessment of citizenship as a normative ideal and a political project.

The seminar is free and open to all. We hope to engage a range of speakers from interdisciplinary backgrounds in debate over theoretical conceptualizations of citizenship (Panel One) as well as case studies of the forms of and provisions for modes of citizenship in dynamically changing societies (Panel Two). The discussions will be chaired by Dr Stathis Kouvelakis and Dr Nagore Calvo of King’s College London. 

Key areas include (but are not limited to):
– The theoretical and social relevance of the concept of citizenship
– Citizenship, nationhood and the State
– Citizenship as inclusion: immigration, race, ethnicity
– Citizenship beyond national borders: the European Union and global rights
– Crisis, recession and economic rights
– Inclusion and exclusion on the local level: citizenship ‘from below’?

We aim to create a space for open discussion and critical development of original work. Papers should be of around 15 minutes’ duration, followed by discussion from the audience. Academics, researchers and postgraduate students are encouraged to send abstracts of no more than 250 words proposing articles, working papers, discussion pieces on theoretical debates or empirical case studies that can offer a new perspective to the debate.

Date: 10th June 2011
Place: King’s College London, Waterloo Campus

Abstracts should be sent to Simon McMahon at simon.mcmahon@kcl.ac.uk by Monday 2nd May at the latest. Speakers will be contacted during the following week.

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Diminishing Returns? Feminist Engagements with the Return to ‘The Commons’

Feminism

DIMINISHING RETURNS? FEMINIST ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE RETURN TO ‘THE COMMONS’

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An international workshop hosted by the Kent Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality and Kent Law School

Wednesday 23 March 2011
Kent Law School
Canterbury, UK*
12-6pm

With presentations by:

Rosemary Coombe (York University, Canada)
Radhika Desai (University of Manitoba, Canada)
Denise Ferreira da Silva (Queen Mary, UK)
Nina Power (Roehampton, UK)

Discussed by:

Donatella Alessandrini (Kent, UK)
Brenna Bhandar (Kent, UK)

The day will consist of two sessions, broken up with a light lunch (provided) and followed by dinner (not provided). Please join us for part or all of the day. More information about the theme of the workshop can be found below.

The event is free but spaces are limited. To book a spot please register by emailing Stacy Douglas at: S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk before 1 March 2011.

*There are some funds available for postgraduate students who wish to travel to Kent for the workshop. If you are interested please email Stacy Douglas at S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk with a brief case for support as well as an estimated cost for your train travel. Information about traveling to Kent can be found here.

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Background:

Garrett Hardin’s now infamous essay “Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) stands as a Hobbesian analogy for what he claims are the inherent destructive capacities of human beings that perpetually stand in the way of realizing a free community of individuals with shared resources. Hardin’s essay suggests that, when faced with the responsibility of sharing the commons, individual human self-interest – or fear of it – will win out over practices of collectivity, sharing, and mutual aid.

More recently, there has been a resurgence in political theory and political philosophy in addressing the concept of “the commons”. Some of the most popularly cited references to the idea can be found in the work of Slavoj Žižek (2009) and Hardt and Negri (2009). This work has further been expounded upon in international conferences devoted to the “Idea of Communism” in London (2009) and Berlin (2010).  Steeped in the philosophy of Spinoza, Hardt and Negri use a notion of the common that “…does not position humanity separate from nature, as either its exploiter or its custodian, but focuses rather on the practices of interaction, care, and cohabitation in a common world, promoting the beneficial and limiting and detrimental forms of the common” (2009). For Žižek, the commons is comprised of culture (“primarily language, our means of communication and education, but also shared infrastructure such as public transport, electricity, post, etc…”), external nature (“from oil to forests and the natural habitat itself”), and internal nature (“the biogenetic inheritance of humanity”), and are all increasingly enclosed by the forces of global capital. It is the process of our exclusion from these commons (“our own substance”) that Žižek argues should effectively proletarianize us into fighting for something more than capitalist liberal democracy – a system whose laissez-faire violence is justified through the empty gesture of “universal inclusion” without any material bite. Žižek’s answer to this political conundrum is a call for communism.

And yet, the past century has seen vast and varied critical feminist engagements with historically changing concepts of communism and “the commons”. Struggles for universal suffrage, critiques of universality, denouncements of the hollowing out of the welfare state as a result of neoliberalisation, and challenges to the concept of the human, are all examples of a rich and diverse feminist tradition of engagement with the concept of “the commons”. Given the popular return to the idea of the commons, what more does feminist analysis have to give to this conversation? Does the concept still have potential for future feminist projects? If so, what is this potential and what do these projects look like? How do they resonate – or not – with those of the past? Further, given the broader theme of the workshop series, what role – if any – does the “the state” play in these imaginings?

The Kent Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality (KCLGS) and Kent Law School invite you to participate in a workshop exploring the contemporary feminist work of Rosemary Coombe, Radhika Desai, Denise Ferreira da Silva, and Nina Power as it resonates or clashes with these questions. For more information or to register, email S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk or visit www.kent.ac.uk/law/kentclgs/. 

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Radical Democracy Conference

Radical Politics

RADICAL DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE

Call for Papers: Radical Democracy Conference

April 4 – April 5, 2011, New York, NY

Paper Abstracts Submission Deadline: January 31

Notification Date: February 18

Full Papers Deadline: March 21

The Department of Politics at The New School for Social Research, in collaboration with the Institute of Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, is sponsoring a two-day graduate student conference interrogating the concept, history, and implications of radical democracy. Striving to assess the legacy of antiquity on contemporary radical democratic theory, as well as explore the work of contemporary theorists such as Abensour, Arendt, Castoriadis, Mouffe, Negri, Ranciere, and Wolin, we invite you to submit abstracts on any theme pertaining to the history, meaning, development and application, or critique of the concept OF “radical democracy.”

We strongly encourage submissions that touch upon any of the following themes, however, papers exploring other relevant topics and issues are also strongly encouraged:

    • Promises, limits and critiques of the concept of radical democracy

    • Ancient democratic thought in relation to modernity and post-modernity

    • Technology and the mediums of (radical) democracy

    • Consensus building/agonistic democracy

    • Engendering radical democracy: race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class

    • Post-Leftist democratic politics

    • Radical democracy and anarchism

    • Relationship between radical democracy and traditional regime forms such as oligarchy, liberalism, republicanism, socialism, communism

    • Exploring the relationship between radical democracy and key concepts in political theory such as: participatory/direct democracy; agency and autonomy; state and nation; capitalism; imperialism; anarchy and authority, dictatorship and tyranny; sacrifice and violence; revolution and reform

Interested participants should submit a one-page abstract (up to 300 words) that includes institutional affiliation, academic level, and contact information by Monday, January 31.

You will receive a notification of our decision by Friday, February 18.

Full conference papers will be due by Monday, March 21.

Please submit your abstract at radicaldemocracy@newschool.edu

For more information about the conference, please visit our Web site at: http://constituentpower.blogspot.com

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