Nicholas Michelsen – författare

Politics and Suicide argues that whilst the historical lineage of suicidal politics is recognised, the fundamental significance of autodestruction to the political remains under examined. It contends that practices like suicide-bombing do not simply embody a strange or abnormal ‘suicidal’ articulation of the political, but rather, that the existence of suicidal politics tells us something fundamental about the political as such and thinking about political violence more broadly.Recent world events have emphatically shown our need for tools with which to develop better understandings of the politics of suicide. Through the exploration of several arresting case-studies, including the ‘Kamikaze’ bombers of World War Two, Jan Palach’s self-immolation in 1969, Cold War nuclear deterrence, and the suicide-terrorist attacks of 9/11 Michelsen asks how we might talk of a political suicide in any of these contexts. The book charts how political processes ‘go suicidal’, and asks how we might still consider them to be political in such a case. It investigates how suicide can function as ‘politics’. A strong contribution to the fields of philosophy and international relations theory, this work will also be of interest to students and scholars of political theory and terrorism & political violence.

Politics and Suicide argues that whilst the historical lineage of suicidal politics is recognised, the fundamental significance of autodestruction to the political remains under examined. It contends that practices like suicide-bombing do not simply embody a strange or abnormal ‘suicidal’ articulation of the political, but rather, that the existence of suicidal politics tells us something fundamental about the political as such and thinking about political violence more broadly.Recent world events have emphatically shown our need for tools with which to develop better understandings of the politics of suicide. Through the exploration of several arresting case-studies, including the ‘Kamikaze’ bombers of World War Two, Jan Palach’s self-immolation in 1969, Cold War nuclear deterrence, and the suicide-terrorist attacks of 9/11 Michelsen asks how we might talk of a political suicide in any of these contexts. The book charts how political processes ‘go suicidal’, and asks how we might still consider them to be political in such a case. It investigates how suicide can function as ‘politics’. A strong contribution to the fields of philosophy and international relations theory, this work will also be of interest to students and scholars of political theory and terrorism & political violence.

The 21st century has been characterized by great turbulence, climate change, a global pandemic, and democratic decay. Drawing on post-structural political theory, this book explores two dominant concepts used to make sense of our disturbed reality: the state and the network. The book explains how they are inextricably interwoven, while showing why they complicate the way we interpret our present. In seeking a better understanding of today’s world, this book argues that we need to pull apart the familiar lines of our maps. By looking beneath and across these lines, an ‘unmapping’ presents new insights and opportunities for a better future.

The 21st century has been characterized by great turbulence, climate change, a global pandemic, and democratic decay. Drawing on post-structural political theory, this book explores two dominant concepts used to make sense of our disturbed reality: the state and the network. The book explains how they are inextricably interwoven, while showing why they complicate the way we interpret our present. In seeking a better understanding of today’s world, this book argues that we need to pull apart the familiar lines of our maps. By looking beneath and across these lines, an ‘unmapping’ presents new insights and opportunities for a better future.

The twenty-first century is witnessing a truly transnational revival of a very old set of ideas. Despite romantic attachments to old symbols, these late modern nationalism movements are not simply replicas of the previous two waves of nationalism in the 1860s and 1920s. Nor is it true that today's nationalism movements want simply to return to the past and effect a nationalist 1930s-style retrenchment. From Putin's macho revivalism, through to Trump's shocking victory and Xi's strongman regionalism, nationalists engage with the economic context of our time and address issues born of globalization. Crucially, in their vision for international relations they seek the destruction of key international norms in a drive to restore a vision of sovereignty predicated on a survivalist understanding of state power.Global Nationalism, edited and framed by Pablo de Orellana and Nicholas Michelsen, brings together the latest research by up-and-coming early career researchers and scholars. Beginning with a succinct history and typology of contemporary nationalism and its predecessors, this book offers analysis of several cases of contemporary nationalism, examining how specific movements define identity, address grievances and propose identity-based solutions. Key themes and lessons emerge from the study of a variety of cases, from the very ideas animating nationalist thought, to their expression in a wide variety of nationalist movements around the world. The reflections on the ecosystem of nationalist ideas and movements offered in this volume are a vital starting point in the study of contemporary nationalism as a global twenty-first century phenomenon.

This volume explores the past, present and future of pessimism in International Relations. The book traces the origins of pessimism in political thought from antiquity through to the present day, illuminating its role in key schools of International Relations and in the work of important international political theorists.