ABSTRACT This paper contributes to urban political theory by drawing on Foucault’s concept of a ‘micro-physics of power’ and his genealogy of political rationality. Conceptually, it develops the notion of spatio-temporalization to reflect on the power of space and time; and genealogically, it examines the relationship between modern state formation and urbanization. Overall, the paper argues that the modern city emerges from a dialectical interplay of statist spatio-temporal homogenization and closure, and urban spatio-temporal heterogenization and initiation. This perspective enables to understand the unique political characteristics of city life and demonstrates the analytical value of space and time in political theory.

ABSTRACT Russia uses performance to project strength abroad and sustain legitimacy at home. This article analyses how the state stages media events, rituals and official narratives to construct power beyond its material capacity. Drawing on Bourdieu, Scott, Foucault, Ringmar, and Weber, it examines military parades, Putin’s speeches, state media coverage of the war in Ukraine, narratives of NATO encirclement, and the choreographed 2014 annexation of the Crimea. These performances create what Stoner calls a “myth of authoritarian competence”. Internationally, they signal great power status; domestically, they foster unity and normalise authority. Yet, economic strain and military setbacks expose this performative power’s fragility.

ABSTRACT This paper documents and examines the efforts of the UK government to manage COVID-19. Arguing that these efforts were influenced by commitments to neoliberal biopolitics and governmental strategies of control, it draws from a range of sources to contrast the UK response with alternative aspirations and applications of power in Vietnam and China. Findings highlight the social and political nature of the pandemic, illustrating how different values and strategies generated distinct policies and experiences. This contrast reveals the development and efficacy of new forms of control, alongside alternatives to neoliberal biopolitics that seek to protect and produce life in new ways.

ABSTRACT This article examines the daily practices of Palestinian workers within the settler economy as forms of resistance that penetrate and undermine settler-colonial domination. While existing scholarship emphasises systematic Israeli violations against Palestinian labour, it often neglects the power of workers to develop everyday resistance practices. By centring labour as a site of daily struggle and drawing on nine semi-structured interviews with Palestinian workers in the settler economy, the article offers new insights into lived experience under settler colonialism and argues that workers’ everyday practices penetrate settler sovereignty, producing an intertwined form of sovereignty that challenges colonial domination over the land.

ABSTRACT As an ethnic minority with unequal access to social, political, and ecomonic resources, the Kurds of Iran face significant challenges in attaining elite status and exercising influence within the broader society. This phenomenographic study investigates how eliteness is perceived and definerd by twenty-two members of the Kurdish community in Iran. The analysis identifies a hierarchy of seven categories of eliteness, ranging from charismatic figures to totalitarian leaders, which are structured into a phenomenographic outcome space. This study offers insights into leadership and power dynamics in Iranian Kurdistan, highlighting the diverse forms eliteness can take and the complexities of minority-majority relations.

ABSTRACT By comparing the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Extinction Rebellion Australia (XR Aus), this article seeks to answer how different types of social movement organizations (SMOs) can establish and maintain higher inclusiveness. This research draws upon concepts and theories from literature to systematically examine the impacts of institutionalization, repertoires of contention, engagement strategies, leadership, and trust on inclusiveness in diversity, equity and procedural justice. Most importantly, institutionalization is a ‘double-edged’ sword. Both SMOs struggle with diversity; minimal institutionalization can achieve higher equity, but the less institutionalized group (XR Aus) evidenced lower procedural justice, impacting the perceived level of equity.

ABSTRACT In this discussion, I argue that the concept of soft power tends to be located in an actor-oriented and intentionalist understanding of social power and therefore pays scant attention to power as process in time and its structural determinants. This is problematic when turning to the normative component of soft power, i.e. the perception of legitimacy, and questions concerning the non-deliberative nature of international power. I conclude that the very vagueness and elusiveness of the concept of soft power leaves room for more structure-oriented, historically informed, and less intentionalist paths of research on international power.

ABSTRACT Now and then, a new concept emerges with a nomenclature that creates buzz in the world of international relations. Soft power is such a concept, popularized by the illustrious political scientist Joseph Nye. The Harvard professor has straddled academia and policymaking as a former Assistant US Secretary of Defense. Nye viewed the concept of soft power through both prisms and wanted to employ it for research and policy purposes in a time of American overreliance on hard power. This paper traces the evolution of the concept of soft power and analyzes different types of hard power, referred to here as coercive power because this term captures its intent more clearly.