Lisa Wedeen's Books

Ambiguities of Domination

Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Ambiguities of Domination

Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Treating rhetoric and symbols as central rather than peripheral to politics, Lisa Wedeen’s groundbreaking book offers a compelling counterargument to those who insist that politics is primarily about material interests and the groups advocating for them. During the thirty-year rule of President Hafiz al-Asad’s regime, his image was everywhere. In newspapers, on television, and during orchestrated spectacles. Asad was praised as the “father,” the “gallant knight,” even the country’s “premier pharmacist.” Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, did not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a personality cult whose content is patently spurious? Wedeen shows how such flagrantly fictitious claims were able to produce a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens acted as if they revered the leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercised a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult worked to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen‘s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognized the disciplinary aspects of the cult and sought to undermine them. In a new preface, Wedeen discusses the uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011 and questions the usefulness of the concept of legitimacy in trying to analyze and understand authoritarian regimes.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

271

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022634553X

ISBN 13

9780226345536

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

If the Arab uprisings initially heralded the end of tyrannies and a move toward liberal democratic governments, their defeat not only marked a reversal but was of a piece with emerging forms of authoritarianism worldwide. In Authoritarian Apprehensions, Lisa Wedeen draws on her decades-long engagement with Syria to offer an erudite and compassionate analysis of this extraordinary rush of events—the revolutionary exhilaration of the initial days of unrest and then the devastating violence that shattered hopes of any quick undoing of dictatorship. Developing a fresh, insightful, and theoretically imaginative approach to both authoritarianism and conflict, Wedeen asks, What led a sizable part of the citizenry to stick by the regime through one atrocity after another? What happens to political judgment in a context of pervasive misinformation? And what might the Syrian example suggest about how authoritarian leaders exploit digital media to create uncertainty, political impasses, and fractures among their citizens? Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Wedeen lays bare the ideological investments that sustain ambivalent attachments to established organizations of power and contribute to the ongoing challenge of pursuing political change. This masterful book is a testament to Wedeen’s deep engagement with some of the most troubling concerns of our political present and future.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

286

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022665074X

ISBN 13

9780226650746

Peripheral Visions

Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen

By: Lisa Wedeen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Peripheral Visions

Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen

By: Lisa Wedeen

The government of Yemen, unified since 1990, remains largely incapable of controlling violence or providing goods and services to its population, but the regime continues to endure despite its fragility and peripheral location in the global political and economic order. Revealing what holds Yemen together in such tenuous circumstances, Peripheral Visions shows how citizens form national attachments even in the absence of strong state institutions. Lisa Wedeen, who spent a year and a half in Yemen observing and interviewing its residents, argues that national solidarity in such weak states tends to arise not from attachments to institutions but through both extraordinary events and the ordinary activities of everyday life. Yemenis, for example, regularly gather to chew qat, a leafy drug similar to caffeine, as they engage in wide-ranging and sometimes influential public discussions of even the most divisive political and social issues. These lively debates exemplify Wedeen’s contention that democratic, national, and pious solidarities work as ongoing, performative practices that enact and reproduce a citizenry’s shared points of reference. Ultimately, her skillful evocations of such practices shift attention away from a narrow focus on government institutions and electoral competition and toward the substantive experience of participatory politics.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

324

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226877922

ISBN 13

9780226877921

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

286

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022665074X

ISBN 13

9780226650746

Peripheral Visions

Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen

By: Lisa Wedeen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Peripheral Visions

Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen

By: Lisa Wedeen

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

324

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226877922

ISBN 13

9780226877921

Ambiguities of Domination

Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Ambiguities of Domination

Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria

By: Lisa Wedeen

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

271

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022634553X

ISBN 13

9780226345536

State of Repression

Iraq Under Saddam Hussein

By: Lisa Blaydes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

State of Repression

Iraq Under Saddam Hussein

By: Lisa Blaydes

A new account of modern Iraqi politics that overturns the conventional wisdom about its sectarian divisions How did Iraq become one of the most repressive dictatorships of the late twentieth century? The conventional wisdom about Iraq's modern political history is that the country was doomed by its diverse social fabric. But in State of Repression, Lisa Blaydes challenges this belief by showing that the country's breakdown was far from inevitable. At the same time, she offers a new way of understanding the behavior of other authoritarian regimes and their populations. Drawing on archival material captured from the headquarters of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'th Party in the wake of the 2003 US invasion, Blaydes illuminates the complexities of political life in Iraq, including why certain Iraqis chose to collaborate with the regime while others worked to undermine it. She demonstrates that, despite the Ba'thist regime's pretensions to political hegemony, its frequent reliance on collective punishment of various groups reinforced and cemented identity divisions. At the same time, a series of costly external shocks to the economy—resulting from fluctuations in oil prices and Iraq's war with Iran—weakened the capacity of the regime to monitor, co-opt, coerce, and control factions of Iraqi society. In addition to calling into question the common story of modern Iraqi politics, State of Repression offers a new explanation of why and how dictators repress their people in ways that can inadvertently strengthen regime opponents.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

376

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691211752

ISBN 13

9780691211756

Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt

By: Lisa Blaydes

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt

By: Lisa Blaydes

Despite its authoritarian political structure, Egypt's government has held competitive, multi-party parliamentary elections for more than 30 years. This book argues that, rather than undermining the durability of the Mubarak regime, competitive parliamentary elections ease important forms of distributional conflict, particularly conflict over access to spoils. In a comprehensive examination of the distributive consequences of authoritarian elections in Egypt, Lisa Blaydes examines the triadic relationship between Egypt's ruling regime, the rent-seeking elite that supports the regime, and the ordinary citizens who participate in these elections. She describes why parliamentary candidates finance campaigns to win seats in a legislature that lacks policymaking power, as well as why citizens engage in the costly act of voting in such a context.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

289

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1139495313

ISBN 13

9781139495318

Drug Effects

Khat in Biocultural and Socioeconomic Perspective

By: Lisa Gezon

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Drug Effects

Khat in Biocultural and Socioeconomic Perspective

By: Lisa Gezon

Khat, marijuana, peyote—are these dangerous drugs or vilified plants with rich cultural and medical values? In this book, Lisa Gezon brings the drug debate into the 21st century, proposing criteria for evaluating psychotropic substances. Focusing on khat, whose bushy leaves are an increasingly popular stimulant and the target of vehement anti-drug campaigns, she explores biocultural and socioeconomic contexts on local, national, and global levels. Gezon provides a multidisciplinary examination of the plant’s direct physical and psychological effects, as well as indirect social and structural effects on income and labor productivity, identity, gendered relationships, global drug discourses, and food security. This sophisticated, multi-leveled analysis cuts through the traditional battle lines of the drug debate and is a model for understanding and evaluating psychotropic substances around the world.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

249

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

131543007X

ISBN 13

9781315430072

Courting Conflict

The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza

By: Lisa Hajjar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Courting Conflict

The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza

By: Lisa Hajjar

Annotation This is a meticulously documented examination of Israeli military courts in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

312

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520241940

ISBN 13

9780520241947

The Silicon Valley of Dreams

Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy

By: David Pellow,Lisa Sun-Hee Park

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Silicon Valley of Dreams

Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy

By: David Pellow,Lisa Sun-Hee Park

Examines the environmental racism at the foundation of the Silicon Valley economy Next to the nuclear industry, the largest producer of contaminants in the air, land, and water is the electronics industry. Silicon Valley hosts the highest density of Superfund sites anywhere in the nation and leads the country in the number of temporary workers per capita and in workforce gender inequities. Silicon Valley offers a sobering illustration of environmental inequality and other problems that are increasingly linked to the globalization of the world's economies. In The Silicon Valley of Dreams, the authors take a hard look at the high-tech region of Silicon Valley to examine environmental racism within the context of immigrant patterns, labor markets, and the historical patterns of colonialism. One cannot understand Silicon Valley or the high-tech global economy in general, they contend, without also understanding the role people of color play in the labor force, working in the electronic industry's toxic environments. These toxic work environments produce chemical pollution that, in turn, disrupts the ecosystems of surrounding communities inhabited by people of color and immigrants. The authors trace the origins of this exploitation and provide a new understanding of the present-day struggles for occupational health and safety. The Silicon Valley of Dreams will be critical reading for students and scholars in ethnic studies, immigration, urban studies, gender studies, social movements, and the environment, as well as activists and policy-makers working to address the needs of workers, communities, and industry.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

315

Publisher

NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814768172

ISBN 13

9780814768174

Adolescent Brain Development

By: Lisa Wright,Stan Kutcher

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Adolescent Brain Development

By: Lisa Wright,Stan Kutcher

Adolescent brain development is a fascinating, newly developing field that has so much to offer almost anyone interested in learning more. Adolescence has only come to be established as a unique developmental phase in the last few decades or so. We now know that the human brain undergoes dramatic developmental changes in the postnatal period, not only early after birth but also extending all the way into adulthood. These changes are not uniform, in that the brain regions undergoing the most change during adolescence are not the same as the regions that changed most in the early life period, and the processes of change also differ as we age. Some of the most important changes that we see during the adolescent period are: 1) pruning (or removal) of excessive neural connections, 2) increases in white matter, the portion of brain matter that allows different regions to communicate with one another, and 3) thinning of the cortex, which is comprised of the outer layers of brain matter. Compared with other areas of the brain, the frontal and temporal cortices undergo the most protracted changes in their structure, implying that developments in these areas play a large role in providing the foundation for adolescent behavioural changes. In this book, we compare adolescent behavioural changes with ongoing changes in the brain and discuss potential implications for health and educational policy-making.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

114

Publisher

Biota Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1615046437

ISBN 13

9781615046430

Book's by Lisa Wedeen

Ambiguities of Domination

Ambiguities of Domination

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Peripheral Visions

Peripheral Visions

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Peripheral Visions

Peripheral Visions

Ambiguities of Domination

Ambiguities of Domination

State of Repression

State of Repression

Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt

Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt

Drug Effects

Drug Effects

Courting Conflict

Courting Conflict

The Silicon Valley of Dreams

The Silicon Valley of Dreams

Adolescent Brain Development

Adolescent Brain Development

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email