Bringing together the Soviet historical experience and Stalin-era art in novels, films, poems, songs, painting, photography, architecture and advertising, Dobrenko examines Stalinism's representational strategies and demonstrates how real socialism was begotten of Socialist Realism.

Stefano Guzzini's study offers an understanding of the evolution of the realist tradition within International Relations and International Political Economy. It sees the realist tradition not as a school of thought with a static set of fixed principles, but as a repeatedly failed attempt to turn the rules of European diplomacy into the laws of a US social science. Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy concentrates on the evolution of a leading school of thought, its critiques and its institutional environment. As such it will provide an invaluable basis to anyone studying international relations theory.

A philosophical consideration of Soviet Socialism that reveals the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporary anticapitalist discourse and theory This book, a philosophical consideration of Soviet socialism, is not meant simply to revisit the communist past; its aim, rather, is to witness certain zones where capitalism's domination is resisted--the zones of countercapitalist critique, civil society agencies, and theoretical provisions of emancipation or progress--and to inquire to what extent those zones are in fact permeated by unconscious capitalism and thus unwittingly affirm the capitalist condition. By means of the philosophical and politico-economical consideration of Soviet socialism of the 1960 and 1970s, this book manages to reveal the hidden desire for capitalism in contemporaneous anticapitalist discourse and theory. The research is marked by a broad cross-disciplinary approach based on political economy, philosophy, art theory, and cultural theory that redefines old Cold War and Slavic studies' views of the post-Stalinist years, as well as challenges the interpretations of this period of historical socialism in Western Marxist thought.

This book examines traditional balance of power theory from a political-economic perspective, using historical examples, to draw out distinctions between the liberal and realist approach and how this affects grand strategy. The realist view of the balance of power theory includes implicit assumptions that economic assets can be turned quickly into power, and that states always respond to threats quickly and only with a view to the 'short-run'. These assumptions drive many of the expectations generated from traditional balance-of-power theory, discouraging realists from looking at domestic sources of power, which in turn undermined their ability to frame strategic decisions properly. By thinking about how power must be managed over time, however, we can model the choices policy-makers confront when determining expenditures on defense, while keeping an eye on the impact of those costs on the economy. By emphasizing the role of the state, identifying different causal patterns in domestic politics, and demonstrating the importance of systemic competition, this book aims to establish why a neo-classical realist approach is not only different from a liberal approach, but also superior when addressing questions on grand strategy. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, international political economy, grand strategy and IR theory in general. Mark R. Brawley is Professor of Political Science at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is author of several books on International Relations, specialising in the connections between political economic issues and security.

An analysis of the ways in which capitalism has presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system.

Drawing together leading scholars, the book provides a revealing new map of the US political economy in cross-national perspective.

Political Economy Goes to the Movies provides an introduction to political economy using a wide range of popular films and documentaries as the objects of analysis. The work helps readers to understand and analyze the economic and related political, cultural, and ecological relationships depicted in selected films. This is achieved through the lens of past and present economic theories and in the context of debates over the dynamic influence of economics on individual life chances. Film may have more to teach us about the real world than the abstractions of certain economic theories. A world of income inequality, child labor in mills and mines, local rebellions against land seizures, and wars triggered by economic conflicts provide the context for many films mirroring real world events. Some films depict the interacting and intersecting political, economic, cultural, and ecological contexts within and between variant economic relationships, whereas other films show “catastrophes” such as economic depressions, disruptive social transitions, violent revolutions, and existential environmental degradation – a world in disequilibrium. Films allow us to see a panoply of human social relationships and related problems, even to explore cataclysmic moments in our species life, but not to necessarily see the why of these relationships and problems. Simultaneously, mainstream economics has severe constraints on what can be analyzed. Film exposes this weakness of the mainstream model. Twelve Years a Slave, Trumbo, The Big Short and others are analyzed for their realism by referencing documented historical social events, and behavioral economics provides further data for analyzing the realism of social interaction within the films. Exploring events and contexts absent from the typical economics text or the basic level economics classes, this work is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy in both economics and politics departments, as well as those of pluralist economics and Marxist economics.

It's the Political Economy, Stupid brings together internationally acclaimed artists and thinkers, including Slavoj Žižek, David Graeber, Judith Butler and Brian Holmes, to focus on the current economic crisis in a sustained and critical manner. Following a unique format, images and text are integrated in a visually stunning bespoke production by activist designer Noel Douglas. What emerges is a powerful critique of the current capitalist crisis through an analytical and theoretical response and an aesthetic-cultural rejoinder. By combining artistic responses with the analysis of leading radical theorists, the book expands the boundaries of critique beyond the usual discourse. It's the Political Economy, Stupid argues that it is time to push back against the dictates of the capitalist logic and, by use of both theoretical and artistic means, launch a rescue of the very notion of the social.

Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.