Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Political Theory offers fresh and thought-provoking perspectives on some of the most pressing political concerns of our times.

The volume includes a dozen articles that draw upon a wide spectrum of social sciences and humanities (political science, sociology, international studies, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural studies) to explore the historically-grounded contemporaneity and the interdisciplinarity of political theory. It represents the joint endeavor of the editor and 12 outstanding scholars affiliated with renowned academic institutions spanning four continents.

The contributors shed light on and provide insights into a broad range of issues that are of current relevance in the domains of both theory and practice. The book covers considerable ground as it grapples with a variety of topics (democracy, justice, civil society, torture), thinkers (Camus, Rawls, Habermas, Derrida) and frameworks (Marxism, critical theory, public choice, feminism).

The central contention of the book is that the destiny of humankind will depend increasingly upon our collective intellectual and practical capacity to shape the global configuration of capital, power and knowledge that is emerging in the matrix of late modernity.

The Crime of Torture

The crime of torture
JustinClemens and RussellGrigg

All questioning is a forcible intrusion. When used as an instrument of power it is like a knife cutting into the flesh of the victim. The questioner knows what there is to find, but he wants to touch it and bring it to light. He sets to work on the internal organs with the sureness of a surgeon. But he is a special kind of surgeon, one who keeps his victim alive in order to find out more about him, and, instead of anaesthetizing, deliberately stimulates pain in certain organs in order to find out what he wants to know about the rest of the body.

Elias Canetti1

Torture is senseless violence, born in fear. The purpose of ...

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