Anarchist Studies Network

A PSA Specialist Group for the Study of Anarchism.

Announcements

ANARCHISTS ORGANISE PISS-UP IN BREWERY

To celebrate the second birthday of the establishment of ASN in November 2007, members organised a tour of Nottingham's Castle Rock Brewery. Hangovers contributed to it taking this long to post up the announcement.

PHD SCHOLARSHIP AVAILABLE IN ANARCHIST STUDIES

The Department of Politics, IR and European Studies (PIRES), Loughborough University, has just announced the availability of a fully funded, three-year PhD scholarship beginning in 2008. For more details contact Dr Dave Berry, PIRES, Loughborough University ([MAILTO] d.g.berry@lboro.ac.uk)

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR MASTERS IN ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE

The masters programme in activism and social change at the Department of Geography, Leeds University is preparing to go into it's second year. You can find all the details, including information on scholarships here

Anarchist Approaches in Empirical Political Analysis

Papers

Jean Allain, 'Anarchy and International Law: The Approaches of Hedley Bull and Noam Chomsky'

Polly Pallister-Wilkins, 'Building a New Theory in the Shell of the Old: How Anarchism Offers an Alternative to the Limits of Social Movement Theory'

Panel Description and Paper Abstracts

Whilst anarchism is increasingly becoming a popular object of investigation – including studies of the key thinkers, ideas and empirical developments within the broad anarchist ‘movement’ – an alternative way in which to incorporate anarchist perspectives in contemporary study is to use anarchist ideas to inform analysis of empirical developments. Indeed, anarchist ideas, such as the inherently coercive nature of the state, the impossibility of representation, and the enhanced productivity achieved through mutual cooperation, are able to inform interesting lines of theory-building, empirical inquiry, and hypothesis construction, which might provide important insights into developments across the social and political world. Despite this, within many academic debates the anarchist perspective is almost entirely absent. This panel aims to bring together people interested in applying anarchist arguments to the study of empirical political phenomenon, and thereby facilitating the development of a more vibrant anarchist perspective within contemporary political analysis. As such, it might include papers providing anarchist perspectives on political behaviour, political institutions, comparative political analysis, international relations, and/or (international) political economy.

Proposals should be submitted to: David J. Bailey POLSIS University of Birmingham B15 2TT Preferably emailed to d.j.bailey@bham.ac.uk