Congratulations to Dr Albena Azmanova, in our Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS), on receiving the Michael Harrington Book Award.

The annual award, from the American Political Science Association (APSA), recognises ‘an outstanding book that demonstrates how scholarship can be used in the struggle for a better world’.

Albena’s book, Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia, was published by Columbia University Press in 2020.

Capitalism on Edge analyses the mutation of neoliberal capitalism into a more malignant social form Albena terms “precarity capitalism.” Drawing on history, political theory and political economy to reveal the insecurity afflicting a majority of the population under precarity capitalism, Albena provides fresh approaches to thought about radical change in which capitalism is overcome or subverted, rather than stabilized or overthrown.

Albena, Reader of Political and Social Thought at BSIS, comments: ‘This award is precious to me as it marks a critical moment in a journey that began more than 30 years ago when, as a student at Sofia University in Bulgaria, I became involved with the dissident movement against the communist dictatorship. That experience influenced my writing and led me to pursue lines of inquiry that challenge the entrenched views of the day. Receiving the award is also an inspiration to live to its terms of using scholarship in the struggle for a better world.’

Find out more about the Michael Harrington Book Award on the APSA webpages. For more information on the Capitalism on Edge book, see the Columbia University Press website.