Join us for a discussion of the newly published book *Walzer and Justice: Spheres of Justice in the 2020s*, a collection of essays that reinterpret and reimagine Michael Walzer’s classic work *Spheres of Justice*.

This article brings Mary Douglas’ theory of the four elementary and universal forms of social ordering‐grid‐group theory‐into juxtaposition with the Klein object-relations tradition in psychoanalysis. Klein and her successors have proposed fundamental orientations‐the paranoid‐schizoid, depressive, and narcissistic “positions”–as universal attributes of personality development. Bion’s theory of containment is considered as a development of Klein’s ideas. The question explored is whether these different models, the first concerned mainly with forms of social behaviour, the second with the dispositions of individuals, have any illuminating relation to one another. This exploration takes the form of a case study of changes which have been taking place in the organisation of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which is the largest institutional embodiment of a wider Tavistock tradition. The argument is that these changes can be understood both in the terms, following Douglas, of its dominant form of “social ordering”, moving from “hierarchy” towards “individualism”, “enclavism”, and “isolation”. And in Klein’s and Bion’s perspective, the shift is away from more “depressive” and “contained??? dispositions and relations. These (contested) changes represent a significant break with the Tavistock earlier traditions, and in this reflect wider changes taking place in society.

The Political QuarterlyVolume 95, Issue 2 p. 372-374 Book Reviews Subversive politics Michael Rustin, Michael Rustin [email protected] Search for more papers by this author Michael Rustin, Michael Rustin [email protected] Search for more papers by this author First published: 22 June 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13392Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume95, Issue2April/June 2024Pages 372-374 RelatedInformation

This article examines the difficulties of making use of psychoanalytic insights to understand and influence political events. In clinical practice, it has often been possible to bring about understanding and change in patients, and in that context, immense developments in psychoanalytic theories and techniques have taken place. But there is no parallel tradition giving rise to the interpretation of unconscious political phenomena although there have been outstanding contributions of this kind by individuals, beginning with Freud's work on group psychology. There have been valuable psychoanalytic understandings of broad social changes, but effective interventions in "here and now" political situations have been few. Some examples of these include Keynes's understanding of the economic consequences of the peace of 1918 which were seen to be relevant mainly after the later peace of 1945 and Mitscherlichs' analysis in the1970s of the German people's "inability to mourn" the catastrophes of the Nazi period. The article concludes with reflections on the conditions which might facilitate effective interpretations of political situations by psychoanalysts today.

This paper examines two major issues related to the concept of identity. The first of these concerns the place of this concept in psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly taking note of its limited presence in the psychoanalytic literature of the British School of psychoanalysis. My argument is that the concept and phenomena of identification has been preferred to that of identity in the discourse of British Object Relations and considers why that might be the case. The second issue concerns the salience of the concept of identity in contemporary political and cultural debate, as this has come to denote differences of a socially-constructed kind such as those of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. In this context, the idea of identity has become an important point of reference in much recent psychoanalytic thinking. The significance of this development will be considered in its relevance for psychoanalytic and wider social practices.

The Political QuarterlyEarly View Book Review Paraphrasing Leibnitz: the worst of all possible worlds? Michael Rustin, Corresponding Author Michael Rustin [email protected] [email protected]Search for more papers by this author Michael Rustin, Corresponding Author Michael Rustin [email protected] [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 10 July 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13286Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

Thomas Piketty's Capitalism and Ideology is the 1150-page 2020 sequel to Capital in the Twentieth Century, a best-selling publishing sensation in 2014 that described the inexorable growth of inequality under capitalism. Capitalism and Ideology develops the thesis of the earlier volume into a micro-historical account of the development of property-based societies. It proposes a strong programme for their reform in the direction of a renewed social democracy. In offering an historical account of the development of capitalism it enables us to reopen debates about political futures, and to locate proposals for change within this trajectory: it historicises the present as a way of arguing that things could be otherwise. Possibly because of its explicitly socialist political argument, it has not so far received the attention and acclaim of its predecessor.

The Political QuarterlyEarly View Book Review Stuart Hall's contribution to criminology Michael Rustin, Corresponding Author Michael Rustin m.j.rustin@uel.ac.uk m.j.rustin@uel.ac.ukSearch for more papers by this author Michael Rustin, Corresponding Author Michael Rustin m.j.rustin@uel.ac.uk m.j.rustin@uel.ac.ukSearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 April 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13123Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

How should a political party that is primarily focused on winning elections respond when it suffers a catastrophic electoral defeat? Some tactical steps have been taken by Keir Starmer, but there has been little engagement in the task of seeking an understanding of the deeper context of events and exploring new and memorable political ideas. One resource for a transformative perspective are the ideas of Raymond Williams: in particular the idea of the 'long revolution', and of the central role of culture and processes of learning. Labour needs to focus some energy on considering such questions: among its other roles, a progressive party needs to have an educative purpose and a diagnostic capacity.