On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Two and a half years on, the war rages on unabated. Instead of focusing on negotiating a ceasefire and ultimately peace agreement, Ukraine requests permission to use Western long-range missiles to attack locations on Russian territory, supposedly as a way of bringing about an end to the war. The USA and UK have not given their permission yet (BBC, 14 September 2024), but a further round of escalation is clearly on the horizon. The left in Europe has struggled to find a coherent position on the war and the divisions between different positions are deepening. In this blog post, I will further reflect on what is at stake in the Ukraine war from a left perspective.
Thursday 26 September 2024
Friday 20 September 2024
Exiting the Factor: Review of Alexander Gallas’ book on strikes and class formation beyond the industrial sector.
In
his major, two-volume publication Exiting
the Factory: Strikes and Class Formation beyond the Industrial Sector (Bristol
University Press, 2024), Alexander Gallas asks ‘what are the class effects of
non-industrial strikes – or in how far do they contribute to working class
formation?’ (Vol.1, P.12). He successfully demonstrates that collective action
in non-industrial sectors too results in class consciousness. Work may change
in certain parts of the world towards non-industrial sectors, but workers will
always struggle collectively to defend themselves against capitalist
exploitation. In this review, I will highlight some of the key achievements of
Gallas’ publication.
Tuesday 27 August 2024
Organizing Insurgency: Workers Movements in the Global South - Review of book by Immanuel Ness!
How
can working class gains obtained in struggle from employers be secured more
permanently? How can capitalism be challenged successfully on a road towards a
socialist future? In his book Organizing Insurgency: Workers Movements inthe Global South (Pluto Press, 2021), Immanuel Ness is clear in his answer.
Workers require a more permanent organization, including a strong trade union
and political party: “If workers form a strong revolutionary organizational
force, that resistance will be sustained and far more successful” (p. 62). In
other words, working class power is reflected in strong organization. According
to Ness, “[c]lass struggle is inevitable, but working-class power requires the
strength of organization of a union and political party to advance and
consolidate its interests” (p. 100). In this review, I will highlight several
key contributions of the volume, but also make some critical observations.
Wednesday 17 July 2024
The New Cold War – Reviewing Gilbert Achcar’s latest book
In
his latest book The New Cold
War (The Westbourne Press, 2023) Gilbert Achcar provides a fascinating
account of the triangular relationships between the USA, Russia and China from
the early 1990s onwards. Two chapters published at the end of the 1990s are
complemented with up-to-date assessments of current conflicts between the US
and NATO with Russia over Ukraine and US – Chinese rivalries in the South China
Sea. In this blog post, I will assess Achcar’s many insights, but also add a
notion of caution re the theoretical framework underpinning his book.
Monday 1 July 2024
A Vital Frontier - Review of Andrea Muehlebach's book on Water Insurgencies in Europe
In her new book A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe
(Duke University Press, 2023) Andrea Muehlebach explores the struggles over
water at the financial frontier. In this remarkable book she is able to combine
in her analysis the highest and most abstract level of profit-making, i.e.
financialization, while at the same time working from the bottom up, assessing
the implications this has got on people’s everyday lives as well as revealing
the continuing struggles against this predatory model of exploitation and
expropriation. As she points out, ‘I am as an ethnographer most committed to
historically grounded, contextually specific, often also nonlinear and
surprising social struggles. I am thus more interested in attending to the
granularities and specific genealogies of political protest’ (P.23). It is this
granularity which especially sets her book apart from other recent publications
in the area of water struggles. The reader can almost feel the atmosphere of
heated debate, strong determination as well as utter frustration by those, who
find themselves at the wrong end of the water industry.
Tuesday 21 May 2024
Nottingham Save Our Services Campaign
In the dim light of austerity’s dawn, Nottingham finds itself at a crossroads. Grappling with the dire consequences of sweeping budget cuts and a community destabilised, the fight against the cuts has brought the city alive. As city councils nationwide contend with the fallout of austerity measures, the struggle of Nottingham’s residents epitomises the realities knocking on the door of communities up and down the country. In this guest post, Niamh Iliff discusses how in the face of adversity, grassroots movements have emerged to unify the city across a variety of local organisations against the measures and supporting those in the city who are struggling.
Friday 26 April 2024
The Geopolitics of Global Capitalism and Ukraine
In
Adam D. Morton’s and my latest co-authored essay in Socialist
Register 2024 we deliver a contribution to understanding contemporary
geopolitics without shying away from placing our concerns within an analysis of
capitalism. Spotlighting
contributions across the social sciences we demonstrate a common tendency to
avoid any reference to capitalism as a totality. Instead, mainstream approaches
commonly strive for an emphasis on a multiplicity of contingent social factors
shaping geopolitics that results in mystifying economic development. We therefore
argue that there is a common allergy to capitalist totality as well as
historical materialism that grips the international theory of (1) the
science-envy of structural realism; (2) constructivist ideas-centred accounts
of geopolitical change based on contingency; and (3) approaches that focus on
the discursive production and indeterminacy of geopolitics.
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