Black Sea Politics presents a variety of experiences of civil society, looking at representation, participation and power relations in countries such as Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Caucasus area. A rare combination of the ""insider"" perspectives of regional experts and the ""outsider"" views of international experts, this book presents vital new insights on an under-studied region with growing importance in international relations as witnessed by the confrontations between Russia and the West in the Ukranian election crisis.

Does patriotic pride inevitably develop into nationalistic aggression? Is this exacerbated by the global outreach of the media? And what is the relationship between mainstream politics and increasingly vocal far-right groups in Britain and the United States, Germany and Russia? Nationalist Myths and the Modern Media addresses these questions from a variety of angles, exploring topics ranging from the War on Terror to Holocaust denial, from the ""sanctity"" of Rasputin to the ""martyrdom"" of Rudolf Hess.

This book illuminates a vital facet of right-wing thought in the first decades of the twentieth century, which had a powerful hold on Europe's intellectual elite. Prominent literary figures, such as Alfred Orange, Ezra Pound, Hilaire Belloc and the Chestertons, led a revolt against liberal parliamentary democracy in Britain. This group--a self-identifying Nietzschean elite eager to lead the masses--despised parliaments as representing and embodying a ""nation."" Tom Villis examines the literary works, private papers, correspondence and memoirs of the leaders of this anti-Semitic, anti-modern,...

Labour's Thinkers seeks to examine the key ideas emphasised by the twelve individuals whom the authors judge to have made the most significant development to the political thought of the Labour Party since the 1930s. Hickson and Beech argue the Labour Party is a party of values but often not of ideas. The number of people involved in the serious discussion of ideas in the Labour Party is relatively small and intellectuals are often viewed with suspicion in what is, or was, a party set up to represent the interests of the working classes. The formulation and development of ideas are therefore...

This fresh and original study analyses how power presents itself in dramatic performance in these two increasingly economically and politically important continents.
Emotion and politics play a hugely important role in the politics of Asia and Africa but, as this book sets out, too much of western political research into the subject concentrates on apparent deficiencies - on the weakness of institutions, defects in the bureaucracy or markets, poor management of elections, absent judicial autonomy. Viewing political performance through Western eyes in this way - where politics is primarily...

The second British application to join the European Communities (EC) was made during Harold Wilson's second Labour government. It ended in failure with French President Charles de Gaulle's veto in November 1967. Harold Wilson and Europe traces the development of Britain's policy towards the EC from the veto to the end of Wilson's government in June 1970. Based on detailed archival research, Melissa Pine traces Wilson's efforts to forge stronger bonds with EC states while managing both a cabinet divided on the issue, and a complex broader foreign policy. This fascinating insight into...

The means by which the Conservative Party have determined their party leadership have produced some of the most dramatic political theatre of the last four decades. We have seen the Conservative Party's increasing inability, especially in the post-Thatcher era, to agree on how to select a leader and, once selected, whether that person should remain as leader. Here Timothy Heppell observes how the dominance of ideology has been immensely disadvantageous to post-Thatcherite Conservatism. Rather than empowering incumbents to project their leadership credentials outwards to the electorate and...

How do those living in diaspora form their own national and transnational identity? The Greek Idea offers a new critical paradigm from which to explore these identities. Drawing upon postcolonial theory, Maria Koundoura addresses and analyzes the cultural material that produced Greece's representation as both Europe's origin and ""other."" The long association of Greece and English Literature began with English travellers' ""discovery"" of Greece in the late-eighteenth century and the reinforcement of the myth which placed Greece as the location of Western culture. However Greece now...

The 1976 IMF crisis was a seminal event in modern British political and economic history. This study, based on vital original source material, including interviews with leading actors, probes economic thought and practice by governments and questions much received wisdom, especially that the effect of the IMF crisis was a shift to the monetarist orthodoxy and right-wing economic liberalism of the 1980s--to be embraced by all parties including New Labour.

The size of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) belied its influence; many saw it as a microcosm of the communist-capitalist struggle. It had a powerful presence in British society despite being a minority movement. Based upon newly available sources, Neil Redfern re-examines the movement and its relationship to imperialism. He traces the history of British communism from its gradualist roots and finds that, despite World War I, the 1917 revolution and mass movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America, CPGB remained Euro-centred and reformist rather than revolutionary, even supporting...