Democratising Conservative leadership selection traces the effects of democracy on the British Conservative Party, specifically looking at how changes in the ways the Conservatives elect their leaders have altered their mandate to lead.

The book includes analysis of the original undemocratic ‘system’ whereby a leader ’emerged’ from a shadowy process of consultation, and of the six elections between 1965 and 1997 where the parliamentary Conservative Party alone chose the Party leader. This historical perspective is followed by in-depth analysis of the three contests since 2001 that have taken place under the ‘Hague rules’, according to which ordinary Party members have the final say. This is the most comprehensive account yet published of the operation of those rules on the Conservative Party and the legitimacy of its leadership, and of the 2005 election of David Cameron.

This book will be essential reading for students, academic specialists and anyone interested in the recent history and contemporary practice of British Conservatism.

In David Cameron’s review of the first edition of this book, he praised its ‘road map for a sustained Conservative recovery’ and is now following its prescription, leading to a successful Tory revival. Revised and significantly expanded this is the first book to consider Cameron and the Tories’ future. Calling the first edition ‘a compelling, and often persuasive read’, David Cameron’s detailed review of “After Blair” has been held up by the “Guardian” as the best description of his policies yet. His strong association with the book continued when he referred to it in his famous Keith Joseph lecture last spring. In this revised and expanded edition, O’Hara places Cameron in the context of Conservative history, explaining Cameron’s intellectual and political roots in a way that no other book has. Including new, exclusive interviews with Cameron’s principal advisors and strategists, a summary of the threat from the right to the Tories’ new direction, and an analysis of Cameron’s potential, this is the essential book on British politics today.

This book argues that the novelist Joseph Conrad’s work speaks directly to us in a way that none of his contemporaries can. Conrad’s scepticism, pessimism, emphasis on the importance and fragility of community, and the difficulties of escaping our history are important tools for understanding the political world in which we live. He is prepared to face a future where progress is not inevitable, where actions have unintended consequences, and where we cannot know the contexts in which we act. Heart of Darkness uncovers the rotten core of the Eurocentric myth of imperialism as a way of bringing enlightenment to ‘native peoples’ – lessons which are relevant once more as the Iraq debacle has undermined the claims of liberal democracy to universal significance. The result can hardly be called a political programme, but Conrad’s work is clearly suggestive of sceptical conservatism. The difficult part of a Conradian philosophy is the profundity of his pessimism – far greater than Oakeshott, with whom Conrad does share some similarities (though closer to a conservative politician like Salisbury). Conrad’s work poses the question of how far we as a society are prepared to face the consequences of our ignorance.

The internet may be a utopia for free expression, but it also harbours nihilistic groups and individuals spreading bizarre creeds, unhindered by the risk-averse gatekeepers of the mass media – and not all are as harmless as the Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua or Sexastrianism.

With few entry barriers, ready anonymity and no centralised control, the internet offers wired extremists unprecedented access to a potential global audience of billions. Technology allows us to select the information we wish to receive – so those of a fanatical bent can filter out moderating voices and ignore countervailing arguments, retreating into a virtual world of their own design that reaffirms their views.

In The Devil’s Long Tail, Stevens and O’Hara argue that we misunderstand online extremism if we think intervention is the best way to counter it. Policies designed to disrupt radical networks fail because they ignore the factors that push people to the margins. Extremists are driven less by ideas than by the benefits of participating in a tightly-knit, self-defined, group. Rather, extreme ideas should be left to sink or swim in the internet’s marketplace of ideas.

The internet and the web are valuable creations of a free society. Censoring them impoverishes us all while leaving the radical impulse intact.

We can now shop, vote, congregate – some would even argue we can have sex – on an entirely new plane of existence: the Internet. While this new place provides illimitable opportunities, it also raises new concerns. In this revelatory new book, O’Hara and Stevens tackle the thorny issues which crop up in this unprecedented boundaryless, and often unregulated space. Arguing that the lack of Internet access can deprive the poor of services and information that are essential to their status as equal citizens in society, they also discuss uncertainty about future technologies undermines our personal liberty – we can never be sure how the web of information we leave around ourselves will be used in years to come. Bringing together the important social, political and philosophical issues surrounding the Internet, this book will grip the attention of anyone who wishes to understand the broader issues involved everytime they click on their web browser.

A Framework for Web Science sets out a series of approaches to the analysis and synthesis of the World Wide Web, and other web-like information structures. A comprehensive set of research questions is outlined, together with a sub-disciplinary breakdown, emphasising the multi-faceted nature of the Web, and the multi-disciplinary nature of its study and development. These questions and approaches together set out an agenda for Web Science, the science of decentralised information systems. Web Science is required both as a way to understand the Web, and as a way to focus its development on key communicational and representational requirements. A Framework for Web Science surveys central engineering issues, such as the development of the Semantic Web, Web services and P2P. Analytic approaches to discover the Web’s topology, or its graph-like structures, are examined. Finally, the Web as a technology is essentially socially embedded; therefore various issues and requirements for Web use and governance are also reviewed. A Framework for Web Science is aimed primarily at researchers and developers in the area of Web-based knowledge management and information retrieval. It will also be an invaluable reference for students in computer science at the postgraduate level, academics and industrial practitioners.

Sets out a philosophy of conservatism that is adaptable for the post-New Labour, post-Thatcher era, based on Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott, and scepticism about the ability of rationalist social engineers to achieve their stated aims without risky unintended consequences. It boils conservatism down to two principles: the knowledge principle, that society is too complex and dynamic to model with any confidence; and the change principle, that rationalist thought persistently undervalues existing institutions and practices, and overvalues abstract and potential schemes, so that change always carries a risk.

This ground-breaking and timely book explores how big data, artificial intelligence and algorithms are creating new types of agency, and the impact that this is having on our lives and the rule of law. Addressing the issues in a thoughtful, cross-disciplinary manner, the authors examine the ways in which data-driven agency is transforming democratic practices and the meaning of individual choice.

Leading scholars in law, philosophy, computer science and politics analyse the latest innovations in data science and machine learning, assessing the actual and potential implications of these technologies. They investigate how this affects our understanding of such concepts as agency, epistemology, justice, transparency and democracy, and advocate a precautionary approach that takes the effects of data-driven agency seriously without taking it for granted.

Scholars and students of law, ethics and philosophy, in particular legal, political and democratic theory, will find this book a compelling and invaluable read, as will computer scientists interested in the implications of their own work. It will also prove insightful for academics and activists working on privacy, fairness and anti-discrimination.

From Aristotle to Francis Fukuyama, Machiavelli to Naomi Klein, the Book of Job to Blairite newspeak and from Enron to nanotechnology, Kieron O’Hara presents a lively exploration of trust.

Essential for almost all social interaction, trust holds society together and makes co-operation possible. Ubiquitous, and yet deeply misunderstood, it can take years to build up, and after one false move can disappear overnight. Polls record levels of trust in politicians, businessmen, scientists and others that are at all time lows: a crisis in trust is currently gripping Western culture.

O’Hara moves easily between the great philosophers and sociologists, and the impact of this crisis in our daily lives, animating theory with in-depth case studies, helping us make sense of the daily scares in our newspapers. Is trust declining? Should we be worried? What can we do about it? O’Hara gives few easy answers in this exhilarating ride through politics, literature, philosophy and history.

We live in a knowledge economy. Competition now straddles the world, and competitive advantage will be produced from now on by knowledge and creativity. Acquiring and managing knowledge better has become a political imperative. And yet – what is knowledge? The arguments have changed little since Plato. Arguing against sceptics who claim we have no knowledge at all, philosophers have focused on knowledge of facts, on how to distinguish true knowledge from mere belief. But the knowledge economy is less interested in knowledge about facts as in know-how – the Internet provides anyone with a PC and a phone line with access to billions of documents. We are drowning in information, while being starved of knowledge. What we really want is to get clever things done, in smarter ways. Plato and the Internet argues that what is important is not ‘what facts you know’, but ‘what you know how to do’, and that the essential contrast is not between knowledge and belief, but between knowledge and information. Is the Internet really something new – or a continuation of the past by other means?