Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought New Theories of the Political

This book explores the impact of poststructuralism on contemporary political theory by focussing on problems and issues central to politics today. Drawing on the theoretical concerns brought to light by the ‘poststructuralist’ thinkers Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze and Max Stirner, Newman provides a critical examination of new developments in contemporary political theory: post-Marxism, discourse analysis, new theories of ideology and power, hegemony, radical democracy and psychoanalytic theory. He re-examines the political in light of these developments in theory to suggest new ways of thinking about politics through a reflection on the challenges that confront it. This volume will be of great interest to students of postmodernism and poststructuralist theory in political science, philosophy, sociology, philosophy and cultural studies.

1. Politics of the Ego: Stirner’s Critique of Liberalism 2. Ressentiment and Radical Politics 3. New Reflections on the Theory of Power: A Lacanian Perspective 4. Spectres of Stirner: A Contemporary Critique of Ideology 5. Derrida’s Deconstruction of Authority 6. On the Politics of Violence: Terror, Sovereignty and Law7. Spectres of the Uncanny: the ‘Return of the Repressed’ in Politics 8. Towards a Poststructuralist Politics of Universality Conclusion

Saul Newman is a Research Fellow at UWA and a Lecturer in Politics at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. His research focuses on contemporary and Continental political and social theory. He is the author of From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power (Lexington 2001).