The British left has confronted a dilemma in forming its attitude towards Israel in the postwar period. The establishment of the Jewish state seemed to force people on the left to choose between competing nationalisms - Israeli, Arab and later, Palestinian. Over time, a number of key developments sharpened the dilemma. My central focus is the evolution of thinking about Israel and the Middle East in the British Labour Party. I examine four critical periods: the creation of Israel in 1948; the Suez war in 1956; the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the 1980s, covering mainly the Israeli invasion of Lebanon but also the intifada. In each case, entrenched attitudes were called into question and longer-term shifts were triggered in the aftermath. The evolution of Labour's debates shows important contrasts with thinking in the Communist Party over the same period. There are also continuities and differences between developments in both British parties and their French equivalents. Within the Labour Party (and the French Socialist Party) the virtual consensus of support for Israel was maintained in 1956; was tested but not completely broken in 1967 and more or less collapsed in the early 1980s. Within the British and French communist parties, the initial support for the formation of the Jewish state broke down by the 1956 crisis and the parties adopted a consistently pro-Arab perspective thereafter. However, in the 1980s the extreme anti-zionism of earlier periods was replaced with a more tolerant approach to Jewish nationalism. The left's attitudes did not derive directly from democratic socialist or communist principles. Non-ideological factors including political expediency, linkages between the left and the nationalist movements, intraparty organisational developments and the campaigning activities of certain individuals were critical to understanding the left's policy positions.

Anarchism rarely turns its revolutionary energies towards questions of textual politics. While anarchists have historically offered an uncompromising rejection of state authority, this thesis applies this position to the discourse of anarchism, mapping its critique onto a consideration of the authority in certain key texts. By investigating such anti-authoritarianism, this study marks the beginning of an anarchist theory of textual politics. Understanding the text in both its literary and political guises, this study draws on the work of Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault to interrogate the figure of authority legible within anarchist discourse. Commencing with a critical reappraisal of Emma Goldman's writings on theatre, chapter two compares them to the radical theatre criticism of Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal, establishing the centrality of the question of form, and identifying how anarchism does not depend on the figure of the author in order to produce meaning. Turning to the political texts of anarchism, chapter three deconstructs the work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, bringing his logic of authority to a point of crisis while at the same time maintaining the force of his analysis. Focusing on Michael Bakunin, chapter four shows how critical authority can enforce a univocality on its subject which simultaneously restricts interpretative freedom. Chapter five turns to Goldman's political writing, demonstrating how her textual constructions divorce the reader from the (revolutionary) referent. Returning to literature, chapter six is informed by recent autobiographical theory, and establishes how questions of faith, interpretation and memory underwrite textual authorities in the overlooked genre of anarchist autobiography. Chapter seven ends the study with a consideration of the internally contradictory rhetorical strategies of contemporary anarchist writing. Concluding that anarchist discourse has too long left the figure of authority unchallenged within its own texts, this thesis argues that if anarchism is to maintain the commensurability of its means and ends, new textual forms must be sought.

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Despite the omnipresence of anarchy in IR, anarchist political thought is only partly mobilized by the discipline. IR has been paying a great deal of attention to anarchy, but it failed so far to consistently incorporate anarchism into its conceptual repertoire. Conversely, anarchist theorists have demonstrated only a limited interest in joining debates about international politics. This researchproject addresses the incomplete and partial mobilization of anarchist political philosophy in IR, and offers a more holistic approach to the discipline’s grand themes. Towards this particular end the thesis deploys a series of key-concepts central to classical anarchist thought, and inserts them into the context of contemporary IR-theory. The research departs from the hypothesis that an engagement of anarchism with IR must run through a mobilization of constituent power. Anarchist political theory is somewhat neglected by the discipline of IR. Yet, apart from the evident lack of anarchism in IR there exists another gap in the literature, namely the inconsistent application of constituent power to the study of global politics. While the thesis focuses chiefly on the anarchist contribution to IR-theory, it also argues that this double-lacuna must be addressed jointly. The project hence offers a critical narration of IR key-concepts along the lines of philosophical anarchism - a reading which is supported by the deployment of constituent power. Within this context the centrality of power to the study of IR is discussed, and the discipline’s underlying methodological assumptions are systematically evaluated. The project furthermore assesses anarchist philosophy against the backdrop of constituent force, and establishes a firm connection between the two traditions of political thought. The conceptual implications of an amalgamation of constituent power and anarchist political theory are eventually explored by means of an engagement with a series of IR’s grand themes, most notably ontology, sovereignty, agency, spatiality, and global ethics.

This thesis critically analyses claims to globality and universalism in the contemporary globalization ideologies; neoliberalism, cosmopolitanism, and alter-globalism. Employing a scale from nationalist, via internationalist, to planetarist, the conclusion is that neither of the ideological discourses have become notably engaged with a truly global conception of world politics. Instead they largely remain committed to internationalism understood as cooperation among nations. This is an important finding in light of the many claims to globality made both by participants in the diverse discourses and their scholarly critics. But crucially signs of an emerging planetarist mode of thinking is registered.

This project investigates the likelihood of a distinctive ideology emerging from what are known as ‘horizontal’ political movements – those which, in brief, aim to operate non-hierarchically guided by principles such as affinity – and furthermore to identify the potential components of such an ideology. The methodology is broadly based on that developed by Freeden, namely an analysis of the conceptual morphology of the ideas put out by horizontal movements. The sources used derive largely from the output of the movements themselves in various forms. I conclude that horizontal politics does have a recognisable ideological configuration, and that this is distinctive from other related ideologies such as anarchism.

This thesis explores how political preferences are shaped by institutions, economic conditions, and personality. Each chapter is a distinct contribution and provides a different perspective on the formation of political preferences and, ultimately, voting behaviour. These different approaches relate to the fields of comparative political economy, behavioural economics, and political psychology. Methodologically, this thesis is empirically applied and the results of these separate enquiries into political preferences are grounded in statistical analysis. A first substantive chapter introduces a median voter data set that provides insight into the ideological position of the electoral centre in over 50 democracies. A second chapter uses this new data and studies cross-national voting behaviour in 18 Western democracies over 1960-2003. It is found that electoral behaviour is closely related to the salience of the following economic institutions: labour organization, skill specificity, and public sector employment. This research shows that political preferences are endogenous to economic institutions and implies the existence of institutional advantages to partisan politics. A third substantive chapter focuses on ideological change in the United States and tests the proposition that voters advance a more liberal agenda in prosperous times and shift towards being more conservative in dire economic times. A reference-dependent utility model relates income growth to political preferences by way of the demand for public goods and the optimal tax rate. This work thus links voting behaviour to economic business cycles and shows that ideological change is endogenous to income growth rates. Finally, a fourth chapter presents the largest study to date of the influence of the big five personality traits on political ideology. In line with prior research in political psychology, it is found that openness to experience strongly predicts liberal ideology and that conscientiousness strongly predicts conservative ideology. A variety of childhood experiences are also studied that may have a differential effect on political ideology based on an individual's personality profile. The findings of this final chapter provide new evidence for the idea that differences in political preferences are deeply intertwined with variation in the nature and nurture of individual personalities. Generally, this thesis provides some new insights into the complex world of political preference formation and does so by exploring the influential role of institutions, economic conditions, and personality.

The aim of this research is to establish the bond between Friedrich Nietzsche and the anarchists, through the apparatus of elective affinity , and to challenge the boundaries of several anarchist trends especially 'classical' and 'post' anarchism and 'ideologies' like anarchism and libertarian Marxism. Moreover, it highlights the importance of reading Nietzsche politically, in a radical way, to understand his utility for the contemporary anarchist movement. The review of the literature concerning the Nietzsche-anarchy relationship shows the hitherto limited bibliography and stresses the possibility of exploring this connection, with the methodological help of Michael Löwy s concept of elective affinity . The research opens with a discussion of anarchism, following the dominant model for categorizing anarchist traditions, presenting its basic features and currents and drawing on its historical development. This leads to the introduction of two points (the questioning of the anarchist canon and the exposure of the diversity that basic anarchist concepts bear among different anarchist currents) which contest the rigid ideological perception of anarchism in favour of a fluid and dynamic anarchy. There emerges the elective affinity with Nietzsche, serving a double goal: the unification of the distinct anarchist tendencies and the definition of the anarchist parameters in relation to other ideologies. The following section of the thesis examines Nietzsche, by presenting the evolution of his philosophical thought and the fundamental theses of his perception of politics. It, then, continues with a detailed analysis of the main concepts of his philosophy based on the interpretation made by Gilles Deleuze, Alexander Nehamas and Keith Ansell-Pearson, thus structuring its interpretative context for establishing the Nietzsche-anarchy connection. This establishment is realized in a dual way. Firstly, by exploring the elective affinity through the presence of Nietzsche in the thought and politics of anarchist/libertarian thinkers (Goldman, Landauer, Benjamin) and currents (post-anarchism), and secondly by recognizing the anarchist worldview in the Nietzschean philosophy. The first path (Nietzsche in anarchism) shows how Nietzsche has interacted with or has been absorbed by the anarchist way of thinking, whereas the second path (anarchism in Nietzsche) reveals the affinal worldview of the two parts by extensively using the interpretation context mentioned above. The final section of the thesis applies the whole analysis above on a Nietzschean reading of the December 08 revolt in Athens based on the Of the Three Metamorphoses discourse from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What has been found is the existence of a clear bond, between Nietzsche and the anarchists, which even reaches the upper levels of Löwy s elective affinity , that is Nietzschean Anarchism as a result of the two parts interactive fusion. The significance of this finding is that the relevant affinity may contribute to an alternative, to the dominant, perception of anarchism as an ideology. It may also designate its special features together with its weaknesses, meaning the objections of Nietzsche to certain aspects of the anarchist practices and worldview (violence, resentment, bad conscience), thus opening a whole new road of self-criticism for the anarchists of the twenty first century. In addition, the location and analysis of the elective affinity serves the debunking of the Nietzschean concepts used by conservative and right-wing readings in order to appropriate Nietzsche, and of the accusations that the German philosopher had unleashed against anarchists, which reveals his misunderstanding of anarchist politics.

Political theorists agree that some form of unity is necessary for culturally diverse citizens to act collectively and take collectively binding decisions. But they seldom specify what they mean by such unity; agreement on political values, an emotional bond between citizens, shared fundamental ends? Moreover, these political theorists often aim to be of practical use and intend to shape the ideas and guide the actions of political elites. But they neglect to examine how these elites already conceive unity and it is not clear whether they can, as these are the ideas they seek to shape or alter. This thesis responds to these two gaps, making three contributions: it clarifies why studying existing ideas helps political theorists to be ‘practical’; it clarifies how unity is conceived by political theorists and by political elites; and it argues that one conception of unity is not only most defensible but also plausible within two contexts. I develop my argument as follows. In chapter 1 I show that political theorists remain unclear about what they mean by unity, while often aiming to be ‘practical’; and in chapter 2 I explain why such practicality entails studying the ideas of the elites theorists intend to influence and I outline how to study these. In chapter 3 I present and analyse four hitherto implicit conceptions of unity advanced by political theorists; and in chapters 4 and 5 I show how British and Dutch political elites, respectively, conceive unity in different ways. In chapter 6 I show the implications of how political elites think about unity for political theorists, so I can argue for one of their conceptions of unity in chapter 7. I thus show that paradoxically, in a time when multiculturalism is often considered divisive, a ‘multicultural’ conception of unity proves both most defensible and plausible.

Freedom is undoubtedly a central concept employed by Hannah Arendt in her political thought, yet I believe that it remains open to further interpretation. This thesis attempts to outline what Arendt means by the term and the implications of it for her thought more broadly. Advancing a nuanced methodology which seeks to understand the relationship between Arendt’s primary concepts, this thesis examines how a large body of terms come together to form her unique and heavily politicised theory of freedom. These ideas are often related to Arendt’s philosophy of speech, which draws heavily upon ancient Greek political understanding. The thesis proceeds with reference to her critique of totalitarian language and the problems that she associates with it, which is then compared specifically with the Greek account of rhetoric. From here the thesis proceeds toward Arendt’s ideal of political discourse which it is suggested also is heavily grounded in the German hermeneutic tradition. Combining the Greek and German influences, I conclude that Arendt’s account of freedom should be labelled freedom as rhetoric. Building upon this observation it is then claimed that Arendt is best understood as advancing a form of hermeneutic republicanism.