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Concepts at Work: On the Linguistic Infrastructure of World Politics
Piki Ish-Shalom, Editor
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Concepts are socially and linguistically constructed and used for multiple purposes, such as justifying war in the name of democracy; or, using the idea of democracy to resist Western intervention and influence. In this fascinating and novel edited collection, Piki Ish-Shalom and his team of authors interrogate the "conceptions of concepts" in international relations. Using theoretical frameworks from Gramsci and Bourdieu, among others, the authors show that not interrogating the meaning of the language we use to talk about international relations obscures the way we understand (or portray) IR. The authors examine self-determination, winning in war, avoidance of war, military design and reform agenda, vagueness in political discourse, "blue economy," friendship, and finally, the very idea of the "international community" itself. As the author asserts, Bourdieu's sociology of field and Gramsci's political theory combined "offer us a sociopolitical theory of relations of power and domination concealed by doxic knowledge and taken-for-granted rules, in which essential contested concepts and political-serving conceptions can and do play an important role."
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Talking about Self-Determination
Chapter 3. The Concept of Success in (and of) War
Chapter 4. The Ambivalence of (Not) Being in a “War”
Chapter 5. Encountering Nomads in Israel Defense Forces and Beyond
Chapter 6. Political Concepts and Vagueness
Chapter 7. Shifting Tides
Chapter 8. Enabling Critique
Chapter 9. The Conceptual Virtues of the International Community as an Empty Signifier
Figure 1. International community across years: The figure shows the percentage of speeches in the UNGA in a given year in which the term “international community” was mentioned (n = 4,264; 1992–2014).
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