Ronnie D. Lipschutz is Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.. His most recent books are Political Economy, Capitalism and Popular Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, Dec. 2009), The Constitution of Imperium (Paradigm, 2008) and Globalization, Governmentality and Global Politics: Regulation for the Rest of Us? (Routledge, 2005), as well as a text co-authored with Mary Ann Tetreault, Global Politics Because People Matter (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). He is editor of Civil Societies and Social Movements (Ashgate, 2006). He is also author of, among other volumes, Global Environmental Politics: Power, Perspectives and Practice (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004), Lipschutz is one of a group of five UCSC faculty—including Ali Shakouri, Steve Gliessman, Melanie DuPuis and Ben Crow—seeking to develop a curriculum in "Sustainability Engineering and Ecological Design" in the School of Engineering.

 

Professor Lipschutz's current research interests are rather diverse, but they tend to focus on the sources and processes of social change in contemporary political collectivities under conditions of what is often called "globalization." Within this broad context, he is studying the constitution and fragmentation of old and new political units and movements (states, social movements, non-governmental organizations, civil society) in the areas of environment, security and identity (see the list of his recent publications). A key question of interest--albeit hardly a new one--is how to create non-aggressive collective political association and action when markets foster and privilege, individualism and atomization?