Alison J Ayers
Biographic Data
| ID | 269301 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alison J Ayers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alison J |
| FAMILY NAME | Ayers |
| SIGNATURE | AYERS A J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Simon Fraser University |
| ORCID | 0009-0007-0415-4751 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 137 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The Fire This Time
The era since the Great Recession of 2008/9 has witnessed the rise and increased sway of numerous authoritarian-right movements, regimes and leaders across the globe. Such political developments remain inadequately understood; yet several commonplaces have emerged. First, a tendency to eschew critical enquiry of the range of forces on the radical right, in favour of collapsing such political developments into generalisations such as 'populism'. S…
A Global Political Economy of Democratisation
The late-twentieth century is often portrayed as an ‘Age of Democratisation’, with democracy heralded as the best of all political systems. Yet democracy has multiple meanings, values and significances. The start of the twenty-first century has witnessed a massive revival of interest in the meaning and role of democracy, not least as democracy understood in one highly particular sense has been increasingly recognised to be in crisis. This book pr…
Democracy against Neoliberalism
Procedural (formal, liberal, capitalist or bourgeois) democracy is the political form of neoliberalism, and it dominates political thought and state practice today. This modality of management of class relations is currently in crisis, expressed through the evacuation of politics, the erosion of civil liberties and the emergence of authoritarian governance. This article offers a Marxist critique of neoliberal democracy, concluding that neoliberal…
Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory
The Rise of a 'New Slavery'? Understanding African unfree labour through neoliberalism
This article analyses the widely reported increase of unfree labour in Africa through neoliberalism, arguing that, far from an individual relationship of domination epiphenomenal to global political-economic restructuring, unfree labour must be understood as a social relationship of insecurity and exploitation whose acceleration in recent decades is traceable to broader shifts in the relations of production and social reproduction. These include …
An illusion of the epoch
Beyond Myths, Lies and Stereotypes
Commentators across the political spectrum have increasingly drawn attention to a ‘new scramble for Africa’. This ‘new scramble’ marks the latest chapter of imperialist engagement, with not only Western states and corporations but also those of ‘emerging economies’ seeking to consolidate their access to African resources and markets. The ‘new scramble for Africa’ involves therefore significant transformations related to shifts in global politico-…
At the Gates of Fortress North America
The events of 11 September 2001, as Judith Butler has noted, were experienced by Westerners as “a loss of their First Worldism.” North American deep integration is characterized, therefore, as an effort to retrieve a sense of invulnerability under the putative conditions of globalization and insecurity. As the powerful business lobby, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), asserted, “in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11,…
Sudan's uncivil war
It is commonplace to characterise political violence and war in Africa as ‘internal’, encapsulated in the apparently neutral term ‘civil war’. As such, accounts of political violence tend to focus narrowly on the combatants or insurrectionary forces, failing to recognise or address the extent to which political violence is historically and globally constituted. The article addresses this problematic core assumption through examination of the case…
Imperial Liberties
Notions of empire and imperialism have increasingly returned to the lexicon of mainstream theorisation of the international. Much of this literature identifies a ‘new’ imperialism, distinct from the supposed postand non-imperial global(ising) order of the Westphalian state system. The article contends that such accounts occlude our understanding of the ‘long’ history of imperialism. It argues that the putatively post-imperial institutions and dis…
Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory
This book seeks to provide the most comprehensive and sustained engagement and critique of neo-Gramscian analyses available in the literature. In examining neo-Gramscian analyses in IR/IPE, the book e
We All Know A Democracy When We See One”
‘Democratisation’ and ‘good governance’ have come to constitute a fundamental aspect of Western interventions in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the former Eastern bloc, particularly in the post-Cold War period. Despite a vast literature on ‘democratisation,’ there has been a paucity of analysis which interrogates the great-power-defined agendas of democratisation. The naturalism of a particular vision or model of democracy is such that its promo…
Demystifying democratisation
The contest to define ‘democracy’ has become a fundamental concern of global politics. As Noam Chomsky has argued, the guardians of world order have sought to establish democracy in one sense of the term, while blocking it in others. The article interrogates the theoretical and material underpinnings of the great-power-defined agenda of democratisation. It argues that the democratisation project seeks to constitute (neo)liberal polities with a pr…
In the Service of Power
This article investigates how the idea of universal human rights has been co-opted by the prevailing (neo)liberal consensus in support of processes associated with capitalist globalization. So-called “civil and political” rights form the core of (neo)liberal values upon which free market, laissez-faire economics are based, but the idealism of the dichotomy of first and second generation rights is profoundly ideological. Through an examination of …
The Rise of a 'New Slavery'? Understanding African unfree labour through neoliberalism
This article analyses the widely reported increase of unfree labour in Africa through neoliberalism, arguing that, far from an individual relationship of domination epiphenomenal to global political-economic restructuring, unfree labour must be understood as a social relationship of insecurity and exploitation whose acceleration in recent decades is traceable to broader shifts in the relations of production and social reproduction. These include …
Imperial Liberties
Notions of empire and imperialism have increasingly returned to the lexicon of mainstream theorisation of the international. Much of this literature identifies a ‘new’ imperialism, distinct from the supposed postand non-imperial global(ising) order of the Westphalian state system. The article contends that such accounts occlude our understanding of the ‘long’ history of imperialism. It argues that the putatively post-imperial institutions and dis…
Beyond Myths, Lies and Stereotypes
Commentators across the political spectrum have increasingly drawn attention to a ‘new scramble for Africa’. This ‘new scramble’ marks the latest chapter of imperialist engagement, with not only Western states and corporations but also those of ‘emerging economies’ seeking to consolidate their access to African resources and markets. The ‘new scramble for Africa’ involves therefore significant transformations related to shifts in global politico-…
Democracy against Neoliberalism
Procedural (formal, liberal, capitalist or bourgeois) democracy is the political form of neoliberalism, and it dominates political thought and state practice today. This modality of management of class relations is currently in crisis, expressed through the evacuation of politics, the erosion of civil liberties and the emergence of authoritarian governance. This article offers a Marxist critique of neoliberal democracy, concluding that neoliberal…
Sudan's uncivil war
It is commonplace to characterise political violence and war in Africa as ‘internal’, encapsulated in the apparently neutral term ‘civil war’. As such, accounts of political violence tend to focus narrowly on the combatants or insurrectionary forces, failing to recognise or address the extent to which political violence is historically and globally constituted. The article addresses this problematic core assumption through examination of the case…
In the Service of Power
This article investigates how the idea of universal human rights has been co-opted by the prevailing (neo)liberal consensus in support of processes associated with capitalist globalization. So-called “civil and political” rights form the core of (neo)liberal values upon which free market, laissez-faire economics are based, but the idealism of the dichotomy of first and second generation rights is profoundly ideological. Through an examination of …
Demystifying democratisation
The contest to define ‘democracy’ has become a fundamental concern of global politics. As Noam Chomsky has argued, the guardians of world order have sought to establish democracy in one sense of the term, while blocking it in others. The article interrogates the theoretical and material underpinnings of the great-power-defined agenda of democratisation. It argues that the democratisation project seeks to constitute (neo)liberal polities with a pr…
The Fire This Time
The era since the Great Recession of 2008/9 has witnessed the rise and increased sway of numerous authoritarian-right movements, regimes and leaders across the globe. Such political developments remain inadequately understood; yet several commonplaces have emerged. First, a tendency to eschew critical enquiry of the range of forces on the radical right, in favour of collapsing such political developments into generalisations such as 'populism'. S…
We All Know A Democracy When We See One”
‘Democratisation’ and ‘good governance’ have come to constitute a fundamental aspect of Western interventions in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the former Eastern bloc, particularly in the post-Cold War period. Despite a vast literature on ‘democratisation,’ there has been a paucity of analysis which interrogates the great-power-defined agendas of democratisation. The naturalism of a particular vision or model of democracy is such that its promo…
At the Gates of Fortress North America
The events of 11 September 2001, as Judith Butler has noted, were experienced by Westerners as “a loss of their First Worldism.” North American deep integration is characterized, therefore, as an effort to retrieve a sense of invulnerability under the putative conditions of globalization and insecurity. As the powerful business lobby, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), asserted, “in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11,…
An illusion of the epoch
Demystifying democratisation
The contest to define ‘democracy’ has become a fundamental concern of global politics. As Noam Chomsky has argued, the guardians of world order have sought to establish democracy in one sense of the term, while blocking it in others. The article interrogates the theoretical and material underpinnings of the great-power-defined agenda of democratisation. It argues that the democratisation project seeks to constitute (neo)liberal polities with a pr…
In the Service of Power
This article investigates how the idea of universal human rights has been co-opted by the prevailing (neo)liberal consensus in support of processes associated with capitalist globalization. So-called “civil and political” rights form the core of (neo)liberal values upon which free market, laissez-faire economics are based, but the idealism of the dichotomy of first and second generation rights is profoundly ideological. Through an examination of …
Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory
This book seeks to provide the most comprehensive and sustained engagement and critique of neo-Gramscian analyses available in the literature. In examining neo-Gramscian analyses in IR/IPE, the book e
We All Know A Democracy When We See One”
‘Democratisation’ and ‘good governance’ have come to constitute a fundamental aspect of Western interventions in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the former Eastern bloc, particularly in the post-Cold War period. Despite a vast literature on ‘democratisation,’ there has been a paucity of analysis which interrogates the great-power-defined agendas of democratisation. The naturalism of a particular vision or model of democracy is such that its promo…
Imperial Liberties
Notions of empire and imperialism have increasingly returned to the lexicon of mainstream theorisation of the international. Much of this literature identifies a ‘new’ imperialism, distinct from the supposed postand non-imperial global(ising) order of the Westphalian state system. The article contends that such accounts occlude our understanding of the ‘long’ history of imperialism. It argues that the putatively post-imperial institutions and dis…
At the Gates of Fortress North America
The events of 11 September 2001, as Judith Butler has noted, were experienced by Westerners as “a loss of their First Worldism.” North American deep integration is characterized, therefore, as an effort to retrieve a sense of invulnerability under the putative conditions of globalization and insecurity. As the powerful business lobby, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), asserted, “in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11,…
Sudan's uncivil war
It is commonplace to characterise political violence and war in Africa as ‘internal’, encapsulated in the apparently neutral term ‘civil war’. As such, accounts of political violence tend to focus narrowly on the combatants or insurrectionary forces, failing to recognise or address the extent to which political violence is historically and globally constituted. The article addresses this problematic core assumption through examination of the case…
An illusion of the epoch
Beyond Myths, Lies and Stereotypes
Commentators across the political spectrum have increasingly drawn attention to a ‘new scramble for Africa’. This ‘new scramble’ marks the latest chapter of imperialist engagement, with not only Western states and corporations but also those of ‘emerging economies’ seeking to consolidate their access to African resources and markets. The ‘new scramble for Africa’ involves therefore significant transformations related to shifts in global politico-…
Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory
The Rise of a 'New Slavery'? Understanding African unfree labour through neoliberalism
This article analyses the widely reported increase of unfree labour in Africa through neoliberalism, arguing that, far from an individual relationship of domination epiphenomenal to global political-economic restructuring, unfree labour must be understood as a social relationship of insecurity and exploitation whose acceleration in recent decades is traceable to broader shifts in the relations of production and social reproduction. These include …
Democracy against Neoliberalism
Procedural (formal, liberal, capitalist or bourgeois) democracy is the political form of neoliberalism, and it dominates political thought and state practice today. This modality of management of class relations is currently in crisis, expressed through the evacuation of politics, the erosion of civil liberties and the emergence of authoritarian governance. This article offers a Marxist critique of neoliberal democracy, concluding that neoliberal…
A Global Political Economy of Democratisation
The late-twentieth century is often portrayed as an ‘Age of Democratisation’, with democracy heralded as the best of all political systems. Yet democracy has multiple meanings, values and significances. The start of the twenty-first century has witnessed a massive revival of interest in the meaning and role of democracy, not least as democracy understood in one highly particular sense has been increasingly recognised to be in crisis. This book pr…
The Fire This Time
The era since the Great Recession of 2008/9 has witnessed the rise and increased sway of numerous authoritarian-right movements, regimes and leaders across the globe. Such political developments remain inadequately understood; yet several commonplaces have emerged. First, a tendency to eschew critical enquiry of the range of forces on the radical right, in favour of collapsing such political developments into generalisations such as 'populism'. S…
Law (13 works) · Political economy (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Democracy (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Democratization (4 works)