A01=Lisa Wedeen
arab
Author_Lisa Wedeen
authoritarianism
autocracy
Category=JPS
Category=NHG
civil war
coup
death
democracy
dictator
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
fake news
fear
government
grief
history
ideology
internet
judgment
loss
media
middle east
misinformation
mortality
mourning
nationalism
neoliberalism
nonfiction
political science
politics
post-truth
power
protest
rebellion
regime change
religion
revolution
sentimentality
spirituality
Syria
tyranny
unknown
unrest
uprising
violence
Product details
- ISBN 9780226650579
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 05 Sep 2019
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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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 citizenries?
Based on extensive fieldwork and drawing material from a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Wedeen lays bare the ideological investments that sustain ambivalent attachments to established organizations of political 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.
Lisa Wedeen is the Mary R. Morton Professor of Political Science and the College, associate faculty in anthropology, and the co-director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Ambiguities of Domination and Peripheral Visions, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
