This thesis will be concerned with articulating and defending a form of realist social theory entitled "emergentist Marxism". As such its principal objective is less to investigate or review the voluminous literature on "social realism" and more to show the ways in which Marxian social theory can be legitimately "constructed" as a specific "materialistic" application of ontological and methodological realism in the human sciences. The significance of this research is that it functions simultaneously as a contribution to the social science component of Roy Bhaskar's philosophical realism and as a Marxist commentary upon and perhaps intervention against it. The latter is less certain, however, because Bhaskar's depth realism appears to be consistent with the form of anti-reductive materialism defended here. "Realism" or "emergentism" refers to an ontological position denoting a stratified social world of irreducible levels, of which persons, practices and structures are the most fundamental, all of which are efficacious by virtue of the properties and powers which pertain to each of them. "Materialism" denotes the ontological position that the material structures of social systems vertically explain social and cultural structures without "explaining them away". Thus "emergentist Marxism" is an anti-reductive socio-historical ontological materialism and attendant dialectical realist method. Translated into practical social research, it is applied concretely here to the task of theorising the interface between the properties and powers which pertain to human agents and those which pertain to social structures in shaping the constitution and dynamics of social systems.

Spurred by recent developments in the history of emotions, this thesis looks at the place of emotion and irrationality in socialist political philosophy. I give particular attention to the shifting ways that socialists depicted the emotions of revolution. I argue that socialists had a complicated understanding of human nature, drawing on various philosophical discourses and scientific theories to grasp the ‘irrational’ and to relate it to the socialist project. Building on philosophies of ‘the passions’ developed by G.W.F. Hegel and Charles Fourier, Karl Marx sought to grasp the multi-faceted emotional forces of human nature and critique the primacy of acquisitiveness in liberal thought. During the British ‘socialist revival’ of the 1880s and 1890s, theorists like William Morris and E. Belfort Bax sought to follow Marx’s critique of self-interest. They pushed the passion known as ‘sympathy’, ‘solidarity’ or ‘fellowship’ to the fore as an integral and universal source of socialist feeling, which drove the struggle against inhuman conditions of late-Victorian capitalism. Darwinian thinking about the instincts and emotions challenged this ethical conception of ‘the passions’, and socialists sought to reframe the critique of capitalism around biological categories. They emphasised such concepts as the ‘social instinct’ of Karl Pearson and William Trotter’s ‘herd instinct’ to account for the natural need for sociability and the damaging artificiality of economic egoism. The industrial ‘Great Unrest’ of 1910-14, the First World War, and the Russian Revolution of 1917 spurred socialists to an examination of the emotions driving struggle between classes and nations. In the years after the Russian Revolution, the theories of Leninism, instinct theory, and Freudian psychoanalysis shared a moment of intense interest among British socialists. Both opponents of the Bolshevik regime like Bertrand Russell, and defenders of the Soviet state in the new Communist Party of Great Britain like Cedar and Eden Paul, drew on the so-called New Psychology to understand the meaning of 1917, to predict the direction of the revolution, and to inform their own approaches to socialism.

By engaging with ‘realism’ in the context of Socialist Realism in Bulgaria, a notion that inhabits the space in between fine art, ideology and art history, this practice-based research offers new insight into the examination of continuities between fine art during Communism and post-Communism, exploring the relationship between the abstract and the figurative and their functioning both within, and exceeding, the pictorial space of painting. The two main research questions that inform the studio work and underpin this study have been: How can art practice explore the official representations of Socialist Realism in post-Communist Bulgaria in the axis between photography and painting? How can this process affect an understanding of the relationship between abstract and figurative painting within the context of ‘realism’ of Socialist Realism and contemporary fine art in the country? By focusing on these research questions, this study conceptualises the relationship between the abstract and the figurative in the context of Socialist Realism in fine art in Bulgaria and its official representations after the collapse of the Communist regime. This relationship marked one of the central oppositions in fine art during the Communist era in the country, often constituting a dividing line between what was considered ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ art. This study is concerned with the differences in the definitions of ‘realism’ within Socialist Realism in Bulgaria over the years, differences which may be considered as ruptures in its development. Yet it acknowledges these differences within the framework imposed by the Communist ideology. The latter remained unchangeable, yet had a determining impact on the development of fine art throughout the Communist period. Furthermore, the study explores how fragments of this framework are transferred into the post-Communist period, and how they function in state-funded institutional representations of Socialist Realist works and in examples of former ‘official’ artists’ works, as well as in the readings of Socialist Realism after the fall of the Communist regime, readings which fluctuate between the oppositions of ‘official or unofficial’ art, praise or disavowal of Socialist Realism. In order to explore both the ruptures and the continuities, the research looks at Socialist Realism and its specificities in Bulgaria in relation to Socialist Realism in fine art in the Soviet Union and other post-Communist countries in Eastern Europe. The relationship between the abstract and the figurative is situated within this context and explored through a series of transformations of photographic sources into paintings. These transformations are performed by my practice, engaging with the photographic sources’ production, dissemination and display in relation to ‘realism’ in Socialist Realism.

This thesis is concerned with main cultural discourses of the second phase of Communism in Romania (1964-1989), period largely identical with that of Ceauşescu’s rule. A secondary aim of the thesis is to look at the post-1989 continuations of these publicly influential discourses with the aim of understanding how the educational system (HE, in particular) is positioned in relation to the cultural domain. With regard to the Communist period, the main assertion of the thesis is that analysis of these discourses reveals an underlying cultural mechanism equivalent with a central mode of governance employed by the Communist party. According to this assertion, the mission of this cultural mechanism, with origins in Lenin’s drastic distinction between the party and the proletariat and in the idea that the party must bestow consciousness on the proletariat, is to create and regulate positive avatars (heroes imbued with the best of humanity) for each social category so as to fulfill and safeguard the aims of the Party. For this reason, this device has been entitled the hero-mirror mechanism. The device has also been linked with religion and theology. This perspective has found that the mirror-mechanism corresponds to the notion of “imago Dei,” and its axes to the notions of “kenosis” and “imitatio Dei.” The assessment of these cultural discourses via the mirror-mechanism results in three dimensions of research, each with its own universes of investigation, and each with its own findings. In the first dimension, the mirror-mechanism deals with discourses as identity, and thus with the deconstruction of Romanian identity. If, as observed, the mirror-mechanism receives its first major blow in the 1980s and begins to crumble after 1989, what has replaced it since and with what implications for Romanian identity? The second dimension views the same discourses as mainly intellectual. Here, the notion of ‘inner utopia’ is highlighted as a dominant and recurring theme, and, therefore, as possibly the dominant feature of the Romanian cultural/political scene during and after Communism. If, because of the notion of ‘inner utopia,’ ‘true education’ is viewed as lying outside the provinces of formal institutions, what then is the educational role ascribed to the public space in relation to the HE system? Finally, the third dimension assesses these discourses in terms of their claims for anti-Communist resistance while providing a typology for elucidating such claims.

This thesis seeks to conceptualise an anarchist response to the politics of security. Understanding security as a discourse of conceptual and political mastery, and as therefore resistant to incorporation within a framework of emancipation, it argues that anarchism offers theoretical and practical resources through which creative insurrections in the political-metaphysical fabric of security might be made. The thesis is built around an ethnography of UK-based anti-militarist activism, interpreting a variety of practices, tactics and strategies through a conception of anarchism which emphasises prefigurative direct action and a ceaseless resistance to relations and discourses of domination and hegemony. Three central interventions in the logics of security are identified. The first involves the subversion of the hegemonic ontology of agency which can be identified across both traditional and critical understandings of security; those anti-militarists under examination do not appeal to „the state‟ to redress their grievances and insecurities, preferring instead to „directly‟ engage in practices of security. The second intervention emphasises those forms of anti-militarism which can be seen to subvert the security/insecurity binaries themselves, and to open spaces and possibilities beyond the totalising frameworks which constitute our contemporary politics of security. The third examines those moments and movements where, as they subvert these binaries, anti-militarists prefigure forms of subjectivity which displace those forms of rationality and relationality which underpin the politics of security (and militarism). Together these three interventions destabilise the politics of security in ways which offer powerful opportunities for rethinking and resisting contemporary forms of political domination and violence. This also functions as an argument about the politics of resistance, which is conceptualised here not as a programmatic, strategic or confrontational posture, but a tactical, prefigurative and anarchic exploration of becoming otherwise.

The key theoretical concern of this doctoral research is to trace the way in which Marx discovered and developed the determinations of the revolutionary subjectivity of the working class. In order to achieve this, a critical reading of Marx's 'early writings' from the perspective of his later works was carried out in the first part of the thesis. Specifically, the analysis attempted to find in both the insights and limitations of the former and clues towards the direction that Marx's later development would take. One of the original results of my reassessment of Marx's early work is to uncover the methodological significance of those texts for Marx's re-appropriation of Hegel's dialectical method and the consequent determination of social science as practical criticism. The second part of my investigation consists in a critical analysis of the ways in which these early insights crystallised in the writing of Capital. The aim of this critical reading of Marx's most important work is to provide a reconstruction which goes beyond traditional Marxist theories and their unresolved tension between the forms of objectivity and the forms of subjectivity of capitalist society. In particular, my thesis is that most readings of Marx tend to see revolutionary subjectivity as abstractly free and as the opposite of the subjectivity alienated in capital. My own investigation of Marx's critical theory aims to show that, for him, emancipatory subjectivity itself is a social form of the alienated subjectivity of the modern individual. I show that the genesis of that emancipatory subject can be found in the transformations in the materiality of social life brought about by the real subsumption of humanity to capital. Finally, the investigation attempts to thematise the intrinsic connection between these questions of subjectivity and Marx's dialectical method.

This thesis focuses on the influence of William Morris and Edward Carpenter on aspects of the back-to-the-land and simple-life movements between the years 1880- 1910. Specifically, it seeks to define and explore the convergence and divergence of both writers' return-to-nature ideology, and considers their influence on the development of particular groups, who represented some of the multiplicity of backto- the-land ideas and experiments current during this period. The thesis is divided into three main parts; the intellectual framework for the study is broad, and takes into account the historical context, the cultural significance and the character of the material in each section. The first part of the thesis undertakes an expository evaluation of key texts from Morris's and Carpenter's political journalism, lectures and imaginative writing, examining how both writers developed an appropriate language to convey their social and political ideals. The critical method employed uses detailed textual analysis, identifying and discussing the individual qualities of Morris's and Carpenter's back-to-the-land writing, and reflecting on the differing emphases of their utopian rhetoric. The second part of the research explores the take-up of Morris's and Carpenter's ethos in four diverse and little known late-nineteenthcentury journals, concerned with simple-life issues and a return to the land, namely Seed-time, The New Order, Land and Labor and Land and People. It employs the thinking of Pierre Bourdieu and Mikhail Bakhtin to establish an appropriate balance between critical theory and empirical study. Lastly using a historical and descriptive method the thesis uses archival material to examine the nature and extent of both writers' influence on two Cotswold back-to-the-land experiments - the Whiteway Colony and the Chipping Campden Guild of Handicraft. These provide a particular opportunity to consider and compare the practical outcomes of return-to-the-land and simple-life ideologies. The study extends scholarship in this area by significantly re-appraising the relationship between Morris's and Carpenter's back-to-the-land writing, and reinstating Carpenter as a germinal influence. It also increases our understanding of the values and function of the journals in the study, and establishes an insight into the wider cultural assimilation of both writers' ideals.

The major objective of my thesis was to understand why sectors of the reconstructed anarcho-syndicalist trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, were addressing concerns which were identical to sectors of the Marxist Left in other countries of Europe, For my views on anarchism had been informed by a Marxist interpretation of anarchism, which rested on the assumption that anarchism was an agrarian, and/or a petit bourgeois philopsopy which could have little relevance in advanced industrial societies. This anomaly - my experience of anarchist militants within the CUT, and the vision of anarchism expounded by "classical" Marxism - led me to undertake an historical study of the Spanish anarchist movement and a theoretical study of Marxist and anarchist thought. Moreover, in order to understand the demands of the anarchists and the CNT during the 1960's and 1970's, I had to thoroughly study the developments which had taken place within the workers' and student movements during the Francoist period, and the nature of the CUT organisation in exile, factors which would bear heavily on the CNT's attempt at reconstruction. Through extensive interviewing and the use of documents, I tried to piece together the process of anarchist re-emergence in Spain from the mid-1960s, and the nature of the reconstruction of the CUT during the political transition to democracy in Spain in 1976-1979. The overall theme of my thesis centres on the relationship between Marxism and anarchism, and their relationship to historical development and tradition. By emphasising the importance of historical tradition - the political aspect most sorely underestimated in both Marxist and anarchist thought - I hope my thesis will contribute towards the possibility of a more realisable socialist utopia.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is emerging as a significant security organisation in Central Asia, but remains understudies in academia. This thesis analyses SCO using primary research interviews across its member-states, and by drawing on theoretical literatures developed for security and regionalism in the developing world. The role of SCO as a security provider and the nature of cooperation within its framework are examined, challenging existing assumptions. It is argued that the SCO is not an "empty vessel" aimed at countering Western influence, but a framework for cooperation on the primary interest of its member-states,regime security. To this end, it is focussed on addressing non-traditional security challenges within Central Asia, and has developed an institutional framework that takes into account the reservations of its member-states' elites about ceding national sovereignty. The thesis concludes that this approach has enabled SCO to become an important element in its member-states' regional policy. In addition, mainstream literatures on regional institutions are critiqued, in particular the impliciit assumption that cooperation between states that are not pluralistic liberal-democracies is inherently limited. To the contrary, in regions of weak states, regime security provides the basis for a different form of cooperation that should not be dismissed.

This case study examines contemporary Belarus as an example of a modern non-democratic regime. Two sets of questions are answered which relate firstly to the characteristics of the successful authoritarian consolidation which has taken place under President Aliaksandr Lukashenka over the years since his initial election in 1994, and secondly to the factors which have discouraged disloyalty to the authorities and contributed to the marginalisation of any opposition. The thesis argues that a concept of ‘adaptive authoritarianism’ is the most appropriate term to describe the non-democratic system constructed around Lukashenka. The research develops a conceptual framework based on existing models used in comparative politics, which are then applied in a manner which reflects the realities of the political landscape in Belarus by taking a bottom-up approach to identifying and analysing the structures in place. Adaptive authoritarianism is classified as featuring electoral authoritarianism with neopatrimonial tendencies; seeking to claim legitimacy through a mixture of charisma, populism, rational self-interest and resigned acceptance; employing both high-intensity and low-intensity techniques of state coercion; and demonstrating pragmatism, expediency and opportunism to modify and adapt the approaches and policies pursued at any given time, as deemed in the best interests of the incumbent.