democracy
Against transparency: Surveillant assemblages, partition and the limits of digital democracy
In this short book, just 64 pages, Clare Birchall addresses the shifting relationships between data and citizens to unpack what big data, transparency and openness, mean for democracy and the government of subjects. It stands as an interesting read alongside Zuboff’s (2019) voluminous The age of surveillance capitalism, not only for the contrast in page count, but also for the distinct theoretical take and the greater focus on the role of the State.
Peak neoliberalism
Neoliberalism has become a ubiquitous term in popular and academic debates, used to describe a diverse and varied array of things. As a result, it has come to mean many different things to many different people. It is used as a concept to analyze organizational governance and restructuring, the marketization of organizational thinking and bureaucracy, the social reproduction of corporate managers, and the transformation of corporate governance. And much more besides. Neoliberalism’s increasing conceptual ubiquity has come at a significant price though.
Party organization in the digital age
Introduction
Well before the publication of Paolo Gerbaudo’s third book, The digital party, I knew that I had to read it – not only because its subtitle refers directly to my own two major research interests (political organization and digital technology), but also because of Gerbaudo’s reputation as a highly prolific and equally respected scholar.
Political parties: Exploring the inner life of party organizations
Issue Editors: Emil Husted, Martin Fredriksson, Mona Moufahim, and Justine Grønbæk Pors
Most contemporary analyses resist studying parties for what they obviously are: organizations. (Panebianco, 1988: 3).
‘Why did it work this time?’ David Graeber on Occupy Wall Street
It has been two years since Occupy emerged on the global scene, inspired by an on-going wave of protest movements and upheavals. Like its predecessors, the movement was met with great skepticism – not least by many self-acclaimed leftist academics and journalists. How could a political movement, one objection went, be of any significance and endurance if it failed or refused to produce a clear, univocal agenda? How could it affect society or politics beyond the border of its own tent camp?
