Table Of Content

Challenging Power ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY Journalism in an Age of Terror: Covering and Uncovering the Secret State, John Lloyd Modernity and the Political Fix, Andrew Gibson Capitalism’s Holocaust of Animals: A Non-Marxist Critique of Capital, Philosophy and Patriarchy, Katerina Kolozova Right-Wing Culture in Contemporary Capitalism: Regression and Hope in a Time Without Future, Mathias Nilges Ethics Under Capital: MacIntyre, Communication, and the Culture Wars, Jason Hannan Challenging Power Democracy and Accountability in a Fractured World Cynthia Kaufman BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © Cynthia Kaufman, 2020 Cynthia Kaufman has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Charlotte Daniels Cover image: View of the collapsed Rana Plaza building from a nearby rooftop (© Zuma Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-3905-3 PB: 978-1-3501-3904-6 ePDF: 978-1-3501-3906-0 eBook: 978-1-3501-3907-7 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. Dedicated to the memory of Rina Rehman, Berta Cáceres, and Eric Garner. vi Contents Acknowledgments viii Preface ix Introduction 1 1 States of Irresponsibility: Rana Plaza, Accountability, and Power 23 2 The Ethics of Accountability Democracy 35 3 Democracy in Crisis 59 4 Politics beyond the Polis, Democracy beyond Elections 73 5 The Destructive Powers That Need to be Held to Account 95 6 Accountability 127 7 Building Accountability Democracy 163 8 Acting Well in a Traumatized World 185 Notes 193 Bibliography 205 Index 211 Acknowledgments Many friends and colleagues helped along the way with inspiration, detailed reading comments, suggestions for books to read, and encouragement. I would like to especially thank Joann Martin, Sunita Vatuk, Ricardo Blaug, Rebecca Gordon, Susanne Jonas, Michael S. Schudson, Katherine Sklar, Fred Block, Marian Mabel, Ron Hayduk, Derek Tenant, Raul Pacheco, Ishmael Tarik, Amy Merrill, and Dean Birkenkamp. I feel deep appreciation for the encouragement and quiet time given by my family, Rosa and Carlos Davidson. Finally, special thanks go to the team at Bloomsbury for being such a pleasure to work with, and to the anonymous reviewers who really helped bring what I was doing into focus. Preface I grew up with a deep sense of alienation. My two parents, my brother, and I moved a lot, and my parents were not social people. They tended to talk about what was wrong with the people around us, to keep to themselves, and to connect deeply only with our extended families, which were bi-coastal, and also on the move. My father’s family is Jewish, and most of them have a sense of unease in the world, that is almost certainly related to the pogroms they fled at the turn of the last century. My mother grew up in ultrarich Greenwich Connecticut, at that time one of the wealthiest towns in the United States, in the mostly Irish community of people who worked as servants. My Irish immigrant grandmother was a nanny to the ultrarich. My Azorean grandfather painted the interiors of their houses. I spent most of my formative years in San Diego in white middle- class suburbs. As I came into my teen years, I felt the world around me to be intolerably dull and devoid of any sense that anything mattered. I escaped two years early from my mostly white and middle-class high school because it felt like a prison. I mean that in a spiritual sense. It was not a high-security prison experienced by low-income people of color in the United States. But for a person like myself, curious to find what was engaging about life, it felt like it was crushing my soul. I made friends with kids from around our region who were artists and