"In the last two decades especially, we have witnessed the rise of 'celebrity' forms of global humanitarianism and charity work, spearheaded by entertainment stars, billionaires, and activist NGOs (e.g. Bob Geldof, Bono, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Bill Gates, George Soros, Save Darfur, Medeçins Sans Frontières). This book examines this new phenomenon, arguing that celebrity humanitarianism legitimates, and indeed promotes, neoliberal capitalism and global inequality.Drawing on Slavoj Žižek's work, the book shows how celebrity humanitarianism, far from being altruistic, is significantly contaminated and ideological: it is most often self-serving, helping to promote institutional aggrandizement and the celebrity 'brand'; it advances consumerism and corporate capitalism, and rationalizes the very global inequality it seeks to redress; it is fundamentally depoliticizing, despite its pretensions to 'activism'; and it contributes to a 'postdemocratic' political landscape, which appears outwardly open and consensual, but is in fact managed by unaccountable elites"--

"This book claims that there is a negativity at the core of all social articulations that provides the basis for a universal politics. Drawing principally on the work of Slavoj Žižek, the book suggests that the social is punctured by an impossibility-an incompletion-which rather than serving as a barrier to politics, lays a foundation for shared struggle. The book thus argues for a negative universality, rooted not in a positive element (e.g., identity-based politics) but a discordant one, so that under our current global capitalist system, solidarity is to be forged on the basis of social antagonism (i.e., shared experiences of exploitation and marginalization). Such a conception of shared struggle avoids the trap of both a neocolonial universalism (e.g., the rights of white men parading as universal rights) and the narrow particularism of identity-based politics. Most importantly, it foregrounds the struggles of the systematically dispossessed and excluded (the permanently unemployed, migrants, refugees, sweatshop laborers, etc.), who stand as symptom of our global capitalist order. The book compares "negative universality" with four competing contemporary versions of universalism-conservative, liberal, postcolonial, and Marxist. It also brings "negative universality" into dialogue with present-day critics of universalism-postmodernists, post-Marxists, queer theorists, decolonial pluriversalists, and new materialists. Finally, it examines what a universal politics might look like today in the context of such key global sites of struggle as climate change, the refugee crisis, the Palestinian question, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Political Islam, workers' struggles, the Bolivian state under Morales, the European Union, and COVID-19"--

"This book critically analyzes important current issues in international development-growth, poverty, inequality, participation, consumption, corruption, gender, race, LGBT politics, revolution, universalism-by deploying key psychoanalytic concepts-enjoyment, fantasy, antagonism, fetishism, envy, drive, perversion, hysteria. It draws on the work of Lacan and Žižek, and on psychoanalytic postcolonial and feminist scholarship"--

In this innovative book, Ilan Kapoor and Gavin Fridell rethink development politics psychoanalytically, investigating its unconscious. Whereas mainstream development politics is organized around stability and rationality, psychoanalysis points to disharmony and irrationality, helping to explain the development subject's often self-defeating behaviour -- for example being seduced by growth and shopping, despite being aware of the inherent perils of inequality and climate crisis. Rethinking Development Politics reassesses development in relation to three significant schools of thought: Modernization; (neo)Marxist political economy; and Postdevelopment/Decoloniality. It exposes how all three disavow the unconscious temptations of development, resulting in the rationalization of the market, the undervaluation of fantasy and fetishism, and the advocacy of an uncritical politics of authenticity. The book distinguishes the psychoanalytic approach from its predecessors by focusing on contemporary case studies, including digital and green modernization, trade, neopopulism, anti-racist training, and radical politics in present-day Iran. Crucially, these case studies speak to the extent to which the unconscious may be a political resource for reconfiguring development politics to put the subaltern first. Proposing a distinctive method of inquiry, Rethinking Development Politics will be of great interest to students, academics, and researchers in development studies, psychology, sociology, international relations, political science, and peace and conflict studies. Its critical analysis will also be of great use to global agency officials, corporate policy-makers, public policy institutions, and activist and advocacy organizations.