Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
The gap between personal and formal politics has been widening globally and locally. As personal politics have become more inclusive and egalitarian inspired by new social movements, neoliberal ideologies have undermined democracy, increasing isolation, inequality, poverty, disease and environmental threat. Yet this paradox may also offer a path to transformation.
Using international evidence and examples, The Antidote explores what we can learn from the equalisation of personal roles and relationships that’s been taking place, to help us reconnect with ourselves and each other and make possible more participatory and liberatory policy and politics. It sets out the barriers we face and offers a route map to bring an end to the destructive effects of unfettered neoliberal ideology, economics, policy and politics.
“Just at a time when many are so near to despair at the sight of a rising far right, racist populism and the corporate capture of governments, Peter Beresford wonderfully gives us a comprehensive vision of how a new politics can be created to secure humanitarian solidarity and environmentally sustainable change.” Rt Hon John McDonnell MP
“Wholly original and timely, and steeped in the current moment, this is a book to savour slowly and to remain in frequent dialogue with.” Peter Barham, psychologist, historian and author
“Beresford provides a comprehensive and thought-provoking analysis of the consequences of neoliberalism and offers a guide to how we can challenge its damaging social consequences.” Lee Gregory, University of Nottingham
Peter Beresford OBE is Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia and Co-Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the national disabled people’s organisation. He has long term lived experience of welfare benefits and mental health services, and is also Emeritus Professor at Brunel University London and the University of Essex, and Honorary Professor at Edge Hill University.
He is a long-standing advocate of participation and empowerment as an activist, educator, researcher and writer. He has published over 30 books, and many chapters and journal articles, writing regularly for The Guardian and other mainstream and online media.
Introduction
Part One: Neoliberalism’s Destructive Agenda
1. Policing and a Very Neoliberal Murder
2. Ideological Damage: From the Personal to the Global
3. Fake News Politics
4. The Politics of Disconnection
5. Divide and Rule
6. Alienated Even from Ourselves
7. Betraying Intimacy
Part Two: New Routes for a Different Politics
8. Changing Our Approach to Making Change
9. Starting with Our Own Lives
10. What the New Social Movements Can Tell Us
11. A New Watchword: ‘Only Connect’ on Equal Terms
Part Three: Building a Politics of Inclusive Connection
12. What’s Wrong with the New Communication?
13. Towards Truly Inclusive Communication
14. Learning from What We Know
15. Education for Empowerment and Change
16. Working Together: Building Alliances, Including Everyone
17. Rethinking Solidarity: Extending Connection
18. Conclusion and Next Steps