Amanda Machin – författare

Political compromise is emerging as a preferred solution for numerous apparently intractable problems. Many have pointed to the rising degree of political polarisation around issues such as climate change, immigration and abortion. These are ‘wicked problems’ that are clearly not conducive to any sort of political consensus. The groups and individuals who are party to these issues disagree, often both fully and fiercely. As an alternative, political compromise seemingly offers a way of respecting difference while simultaneously generating a decision upon which policy can move forward. But proponents of political compromise should also acknowledge its significant weaknesses and dangers. Invoking recent examples from various policy areas to illustrate their claims, the authors assert that compromise can disguise inequality, reduce plurality and heighten uncertainty. In short, compromise can weaken democracy and must not be seen as some sort of political panacea.

This concise, accessible text offers a strong and provocative argument that provides a crucial counterpoint to the promise of compromise. It should prove of interest to students and scholars interested in compromise and consensus as well as democratic governance, social inequality, political apathy and environmental politics.

Political compromise is emerging as a preferred solution for numerous apparently intractable problems. Many have pointed to the rising degree of political polarisation around issues such as climate change, immigration and abortion. These are ‘wicked problems’ that are clearly not conducive to any sort of political consensus. The groups and individuals who are party to these issues disagree, often both fully and fiercely. As an alternative, political compromise seemingly offers a way of respecting difference while simultaneously generating a decision upon which policy can move forward. But proponents of political compromise should also acknowledge its significant weaknesses and dangers. Invoking recent examples from various policy areas to illustrate their claims, the authors assert that compromise can disguise inequality, reduce plurality and heighten uncertainty. In short, compromise can weaken democracy and must not be seen as some sort of political panacea.

This concise, accessible text offers a strong and provocative argument that provides a crucial counterpoint to the promise of compromise. It should prove of interest to students and scholars interested in compromise and consensus as well as democratic governance, social inequality, political apathy and environmental politics.

Expert contributing authors outline how the Anthropocene has triggered the reshaping of academic disciplines, the replacement of conventional categories, the emergence of novel ideas and the engagement with non-Western approaches. They interrogate and question the concept and diagnosis of the Anthropocene, critically evaluating its impact and presenting a range of different viewpoints on its role in socio-political analysis. The Handbook considers the future of the field and identifies challenging new research questions and topics. Ultimately, it examines how environmental political theory can provide hope and resources for political change in the face of a growing ecological crisis.

Presenting cutting-edge analyses, the Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene is an essential resource for students and scholars of political science, sociology, environmental ethics, public policy and philosophy.

The contributions in this book highlight,contextualize and analyze different aspects of social inequality. What are thevarious cause and effects of inequality? How have these changed over recentdecades? Which social policies might be best able to intervene? Written byauthors from a variety of disciplines and geographical regions, thesecontributions provide a rich account of inequality within contemporary society.The role of the state, the media and the market in exacerbating and alleviatingpatterns of equality are all accessed alongside analysis of changing patternsof exclusion and hierarchy.   

Where are all the bodies? Political institutions are populated by living, breathing human beings, who eat, sleep, gesture, desire and suffer. And yet participants of the political realm are often depicted as disembodied minds, detached and distinct from their corporeal existence. Amanda Machin considers six embodied modes of democratic politics: representation, deliberation, disagreement, protest, occupation and counsel. Drawing on diverse thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, Simone de Beauvoir, Donna Haraway and Judith Butler, she offers an absorbing illustration of the ways human bodies are not only the disciplined objects of politics, but the generative subjects of democracy.