Concepts in Crisis ― On Sovereignty and Other Political Delusions

For political theory to reflect, and reflect upon, not just Western political societies but the politics of an interrelated world, its basic concepts must be re-thought in a new key. In Concepts in Crisis Joan Cocks argues that these concepts require revision because the practical conditions on which their old definitions hinged have decomposed. With a focus on concepts of violence, sovereignty, and progress Cocks constructs her argument using three case studies: the confrontation between Anglo-American settlers and Native American tribes, the search for Jewish sovereignty in the new state of Israel and the world’s reaction to the attacks on the United States on 9/11. Concepts in Crisis unsettles and refocuses these concepts so that they can better capture and illuminate the political experience of those at the receiving end of power across the globe today.

Joan Cocks is Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA. She is the author of Passion and Paradox: Intellectuals Confront the National Question (2002) and The Oppositional Imagination: Feminism, Critique and Political Theory (1989).