Debbie Ging

Peadar Kirby

Michael Cronin

This is the first sustained and broad-ranging critique of the legacies of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger boom. Contributors identify the damaging impact that the free market has had on a wide range of areas of public life such as the media and the pharmaceutical industry and also examine its influence on health, education, state surveillance, immigrants, the welfare state, consumerism and the Irish language. Challenging the notion that there is no alternative for Ireland but the present economic and political dispensation, experts map out an alternative politics that could create spaces for hope and renewal in contemporary Ireland. In a society whose public debates have been largely dominated by the instrumentalist logic of stockbroker economists and the regressive populism of talk-radio shock jocks, Transforming Ireland offers a more substantial and considered analysis, uncovering the hidden sides of everyday aspects of Irish life. It reveals that, virtually unnoticed by the media, there exist lively debates in today’s Ireland which draw on international insights about globalization to probe how it is reshaping Irish society. Covering four principal topics -- culture and society, media and social change, social control and power and politics -- this impressive volume opens new and hopeful perspectives for students and the general reader.

Challenges, Critiques, Resources

Transforming Ireland

"Essays explore role of the Irish and Ireland in Latin America, emphasizing the Catholic Church in 1970s and 1980s. Not a definitive study, but suggestive of some important issues"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Links and Lessons

Ireland and Latin America

Tadhg O’Mahony

This book addresses the global need to transition to a low-carbon society and economy by 2050. The authors interrogate the dominant frames used for understanding this challenge and the predominant policy approaches for achieving it. Highlighting the techno-optimism that informs our current understanding and policy options, Kirby and O’Mahony draw on the lessons of international development to situate the transition within a political economy framework. Assisted by thinking on future scenarios, they critically examine the range of pathways being implemented by both developed and developing countries, identifying the prevailing forms of climate capitalism led by technology. Based on evidence that this is inadequate to achieve a low-carbon and sustainable society, the authors identify an alternative approach. This advance emerges from community initiatives, discussions on postcapitalism and debates about wellbeing and degrowth. The re-positioning of society and environment at the core of development can be labelled “ecosocialism” – a concept which must be tempered against the conditions created by Trumpism and Brexit.

Pathways Beyond Techno-Optimism

The Political Economy of the Low-Carbon Transition

Luke Gibbons

Shows how transnational corporations use lobby groups to shape EU policy. New updated edition

Culture, Society and the Global Economy

Reinventing Ireland

Ernest Garcia

Mercedes Martinez-Iglesias

This book deals with one of the most pressing social and environmental issues that we face today. The transition to a post-carbon society, in which the consumption of fossil fuels decreases over time, has become an inevitability due to the need to prevent catastrophic climate change, the increasing cost and scarcity of energy, and complex combinations of both of these factors. As the authors point out, this will not only entail political adjustments and the replacement of some technologies by others, but will be accompanied by social and cultural changes that bring about substantial modifications in our societies and ways of life. This book examines whether the current conditions, which date back to the crisis that began in 2007, favour a benign and smooth transition or will make it more difficult and prone to conflict. It argues that, even if this transformation is unavoidable, the directions it will take and the resulting social forms are much less certain. There will be many post-carbon societies, the authors conclude, and any number of routes to social change. Transitioning to a Post-Carbon Society therefore represents a significant contribution to global debates on the environment, and is vital reading for academics, policymakers, business leaders, NGOs and the general public alike.

Degrowth, Austerity and Wellbeing

Transitioning to a Post-Carbon Society

Has politics reached breaking point? Rather than defending liberalism or abandoning it, how can a socially just and ecological alternative be built? Peadar Kirby investigates the causes of our current multifaceted global crisis by drawing on the work of Karl Polanyi. This book explores Polanyi's theory that social disruptions result from the attempt to run society according to the rules of the market. Drawing on these ideas, it outlines pathways towards an alternative future that overcome weaknesses in Marxism. Linking the ecological, political and socio-economic crises, Kirby identifies that an alternative socio-ecological model is emerging, consistent with the insights of Polanyi. Karl Polanyi and the Contemporary Political Crisis is an urgent intervention into key debates on the future of politics, on the low-carbon transition, on automation and on the emerging world order.

Peadar Kirby

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