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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > General
For most of the twentieth century, social thinkers devoted their attention mainly to the issues of economic class. They generally dismissed the more primordial bonds of racial, ethnic, and national identities as irrational anachronisms that either communism or the liberal frameworks of democracy would dissolve. Today, communism is nearly dead and liberalism is on the wane. At the same time, older ethno-racial tribalisms, along with some newly invented ones, have shattered our illusions of a rationally manageable world. They find expression in chauvinistic nationalisms, multiculturalist ideologies, vicious civil wars, "ethnic cleansing" of whole regions, intensified racial and ethnic strife, a resurgence of prejudice, scapegoating, hate groups, and nativism, as well as new group-based challenges to the individualistic focus of Western liberalism. Bringing together prominent historians, sociologists, and political scientists, New Tribalisms examines early conceptions of racial and ethnic pluralism in the United States. The volume also confronts some of the causes, implications, and possible outcomes of resurgent tribalisms in the country and around the world.
How are the Germans coming to terms with reunification? Four issues are at the heart of this process and form the basis of this study. First, the question of the new German identity second, the role of nationalism in the new republic third, the role of inherited ideologies and finally, the role of Germany in Europe and the wider world. These issues are examined in terms of transformations in the political culture in eastern Germany, metamorphoses in the political ideology and philosophy of the former West Germany and relations with the political discourse of the West in general.
"The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and to me, at definite instances in our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one." With these words, William James, one of the great minds of American philosophy, captures the power of pragmatism, a theory first developed by Charles S. Peirce. Pragmatism explores the various theories of truth, meaning, and reality to discover their "cash value" when implemented. Exactly what happens to our understanding of the world when this or that perspective is adopted? Most important of all, do the proposed theories really work when their principles are put into practice? Unless the consequences of these competing positions are tested, we will never know if any of them can help us to make better sense of the world we live in so that the problems we face as individuals and as a society can be resolved. William James, the leading proponent of pragmatism and chief advocate for critically evaluating theoretical positions vying for our attention, remains a prominent figure in the distinguished history of Americdan philosophy.
In 2009, the artist Anna Ostoya created a booklet with textual collages using an essay by the political theorist Chantal Mouffe, 'Politics and Passions: The Stakes of Democracy' (2002). In the essay, Mouffe critiqued the then-dominant 'beyond left and right' politics of neoliberalism and warned of its dangers - the rise of right-wing populist parties. Fascinated by Mouffe's strikingly prophetic ideas, as well as her bold call to fight the status quo in order to radicalise democracy and to prevent violence, Ostoya returned to the booklet in 2019. She composed for it a series of portraits based on sketches of people on the New York City subway and on reproductions of her paintings and collages from the preceding decade. She also conducted a conversation with Mouffe about the politics of the last forty years, about the contemporary moment and about art, which is included in this publication.
This book examines the contribution of mass media to modern democracies, in comparative perspective. Part I deals with the conceptualization and implementation of a systematic framework to assess democratic media performance, both in terms of media systems and content. Part II studies media effects on the quality of democracy.
Rival understandings of the meaning and practice of the religious and the secular lead to rival public perspectives about religion and religious freedom in North America. This book explores how debates over the American Office of Religious Freedom and its International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA, 1998) and very recent debates over the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom (2013) have pitted at least six basic, but very different meanings of the religious and the secular against each other in often undisclosed and usually unproductive ways. Properly naming this 'religious problem' is a critical first step to acknowledging and conciliating their practically polar political prescriptions. It must be considered how we are to think about religion in political offices, both the Canadian and the American experience, as an essentially contested term, and one which demands better than postmodern paralysis, what the author terms political theology. This is especially critical since both of these cases are not just about how to deal with religion at home, but how to engage with religion abroad, where real peril, and real practical policy must be undertaken to protect increasingly besieged religious minorities. Finally, a principled pluralist approach to the religious and the secular suggests a way to think outside the 'religious problem' and productively enlist and engage the forces of religion resurging around the globe. The book will be of great use to scholars and students in religion and foreign affairs, secularization, political theology, and political theory, as well as professionals and policy makers working in issues relating to religion, religious freedom, and foreign affairs.
What are the prospects of the Middle East region moving 'from a warfare to a welfare'? A group of leading scholars of the MIddle East and North Africa (political scientists, economists, sociologists, strategic analysts, and historians) adopt a common political economy approach to answer this much debated question.
John Locke's treatises on government make frequent reference to the Hebrew Bible, while references to the New Testament are almost completely absent. To date, scholarship has not addressed this surprising characteristic of the treatises. In this book, Yechiel Leiter offers a Hebraic reading of Locke's fundamental political text. In doing so, he formulates a new school of thought in Lockean political interpretation and challenges existing ones. He shows how a grasp of the Hebraic underpinnings of Locke's political theory resolves many of the problems, as well as scholarly debates, that are inherent in reading Locke. More than a book about the political theory of John Locke, this volume is about the foundational ideas of western civilization. While focused on Locke's Hebraism, it demonstrates the persistent relevance of the biblical political narrative to modernity. It will generate interest among students of Locke and political theory; philosophy and early modern history; and within Bible study communities.
In politics, individual political behavior is often ascribed to class and ethnic identity. How does this happen? In this text, Needler shows how the individual constructs his or her political identity, and develops ideologies that guide their political behavior. Intended as an alternative to traditional introductory texts in politics and political science, this book is, at the same time, a survey and introduction to political theory, a survey and introduction to comparative and American politics, and a review of contemporary international relations. These topics are combined in a novel and creative way so as to provide a readable and informative text for undergraduate students or laypersons. The author's fresh approach will be welcomed by teachers in politics and political science.
The 1973 military coup which overthrew the democratically elected left wing government of Salvador Allende gave previously peripheral elements of the right the opportunity to exercise almost unlimited political and economic power. However, with the return to democracy in 1990, the right had to adapt to electoral politics. This book examines whether it is conforming to the rules of the electoral game or still harking back to the golden age of military politics, a question of paramount importance to the future of Chile's still nascent democracy.
Aa Socialist revolution breaks out in the United States in 1914. A Berekely, CA Socialist Congressman wife records the intrique and actions of these days in her diary. Hundreds of years later the diary is found and the information in it changes history. Jack London's uses many footnotes to define phrases and events because they wouldn't be understood by future generations but in opur times we know the meanings. This is one of London's great political adventure novels whick is a must reading for London followers. This was the first London book your publisher read in the early 1970's which led him to form the Jack London Democratic Socialist Club in Oakland/Berkeley. It also was the motivation for the book "The Oakland Statement" another political ficton novel of the early 2000's in the USA. A Collector's Edition.
How safe is Turkey's liberal democracy? The rise to power in 2002 of the right-leaning Islamic Justice and Development Party ignited fears in the West that Turkey could no longer be relied upon to provide a buffer against the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Once hailed by the West as a model of secularism and moderation in the Muslim world, Turkey is now seen to be under the influence of the 'creeping Islamisation' of the JDP (or AKP as it is known in Turkey). Yet to what extent has this affected the lives of Turkish citizens? Evangelia Axiarlis here explores the contribution of the JDP to civil liberties and basic freedoms, long suppressed by secular and statist Kemalist ideology, and how this has remained unexamined despite more than a decade in government. In this - the first detailed study of the policies and ideology of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's government - the author examines the extent to which the JDP has worked to improve civil life in Turkey and critically addresses whether a government built on Islamic principles can champion political reform. Exploring how Islam and democracy are neither monoliths nor mutually exclusive, this is a timely contribution to the wider understanding of political Islam.
This book treats two basic subjects: (1) royalist explanations of the causes of the French Revolution, and (2) royalist defenses of royalist political positions. The royalists began with a simplistic conspiracy theory of history--the Old Regime was right. But then they came up with increasingly sophisticated explanations, thereby making an important contribution to historical explanation. In political thought, they eventually offered a tempered defense of the Old Regime, a call for political elitism in the face of the chaos unleashed by the Revolution, and an early explanation of the organic theory of history, a true contribution to political thought.
This series is organized along thematic lines and aims to fill the gap between journals devoted to the topic and single-appearance edited books.
The newest volume in the Elections in Israel series focuses on the twentieth Knesset elections held in March 2015 following the collapse of the third Netanyahu government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main opposition party, the Zionist Camp, ran a negative personalized election campaign, assuming that Israelis had grown tired of him. Netanyahu, however, achieved a surprising and dramatic victory by enhancing and radicalizing the same identity politics strategies that helped him win in 1996. The Elections in Israel 2015 dissects these and other campaigns, from the perspective of the voters, the media and opinion polls, the political parties, and electoral competition. Several contributors delve into the Left and Arab fear mongering Likud campaign, which produced strategic identity voting. Other contributions analyze in-depth the Israeli party and electoral systems, highlighting the exceptional decline of the mainstream parties and the adoption of a higher electoral threshold. Providing a close analysis of electoral competition, legitimacy struggles, stability and change in the voting behavior of various groups, partisanship, personalization and political polarization, this volume is a crucial record of Israeli political history.
Hands, face, space. Curfews. Don't drink. Bend your knees. Conform, obey, comply - surrender. British life has become infested by bossiness. Boris Johnson won power as one of life's free-wheelers but his first year as PM saw a fever of finger-wagging. The real pandemic? Passive-aggressive ninnying by politicians, scientists and officialdom. From Sage with its graphs to BBC grandees telling us not to sing 'Rule Britannia', the National Trust with its slavery mania, to calorie counts on menus: why won't they leave us alone? Theatre directors beat us over the head with their agitprop. Militant cyclists scream at us from their saddles. Meghan Markle ticks us off for not being more Californian. Bossiness: did it begin when Moses came down from the mountain with his tablets? Cromwell beat Chris Whitty to it by four centuries and banned Christmas. A. Hitler, B. Mussolini and J.V. Stalin: they liked to throw their weight around, but today's self-serving dictators are more subtle. They do it with a caring smile. Tell us it's for our own good. They claim to be liberals! Following his best-selling Fifty People Who Buggered Up Britain and his 2017 Christmas favourite Patronising Bastards, parliamentary sketchwriter Quentin Letts storms back into hard covers with a vituperative howl against the 'bossocracy'. They tell us what to do, what to say, how to think. Letts gives them a prolonged, resonant raspberry. He names the guilty men and women: Dominic Cummings, Prof Neil Ferguson, that strutting self-polisher Nicola Sturgeon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cressida Dick, Michael Gove, even the sainted Sir David Attenborough. Bang! They all take a barrel. And then there's publicity-prone plonker Matt Hancock posing for photographs while doing his 'Mr Fit' press-ups. Reasonable people have had enough of being bossed about. And when reasonable people stop respecting the law, society has a problem.
Militant Islamic fundamentalists blame the ills of their societies on the West and call for the overthrow of local governments and the resumption of Jihad against the Infidels. Ambassador Hoveyda explores the historical and contemporary causes of the current wave of militant Islamic fundamentalism. Despite their terrorist attacks in the West, he also shows why fundamentalists are even more dangerous for Muslim countries that are desperately trying to catch up with the incipient global economy and alleviate their accumulated social and economic problems. If Western colonization and economic domination of the 19th and 20th centuries are to be blamed for the predicament of Muslim countries, Hoveyda points out that Muslims also bear a great responsibility for their situation. He shows how the triumph of fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran in the 12th century triggered the gradual decline of Islamic civilization. He also chronicles the history of militant Islamic movements of the past and present from the Assassins of the late 11th century to Ayatollah Khomeini. Having met his first militant Islamic fundamentalist at the age of four in Syria, where his father was serving as Persian Consul-general, Hoveyda draws upon a lifetime of personal experience as well as scholarship and experiences of others to provide an important insider/outsider examination of a worldwide concern.
Drawing from research conducted in Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda, Christianity, Islam, and Liberal Democracy offers a deeper understanding on how Christian and Islamic faith communities affect the political attitudes of those who belong to them and, in turn, prospects for liberal democracy. While many analysts have thought that religious diversity in developing countries is most often an obstacle to liberal democracy that creates political instability, the book concludes just the opposite. Robert A. Dowd draws on narrative accounts, in-depth interviews, and large-scale surveys to show that Christian and Islamic religious communities are more likely to support liberal democracy in religiously diverse and integrated settings than in religiously homogeneous or segregated settings. Religious diversity, in other words, is good for liberal democracy. In religiously diverse environments, religious leaders tend to be more encouraging of civic engagement, democracy, and religious liberty. The evidence, Dowd argues, should prompt policymakers interested in cultivating religiously-inspired support for liberal democracy to aid in the formation of religiously diverse neighborhoods, cities, and political organizations.
Two Italian writers, Gaetano Mosca and Antonio Gramsci, have been very influential in twentieth-century political thought, the first cast as a thoroughgoing conservative, the second as the model of a humanistic Marxist. The author of this provocative book -- the first systematic study of the connection between the two men -- maintains that they are closer to each other than is commonly supposed -- that they in fact belong to the same political tradition of democratic elitism. Maurice A. Finocchiaro argues that Gramsci's political theory is a constructive critique of Mosca's and that the key common element is the attempt to combine democracy and elitism in a theoretical system that defines them not as opposite but as compatible and interdependent. Finocchiaro finds that a critical examination of the major works of the two men demonstrates their shared belief in the viability of democratic elitism and undermines the importance of the distinction between right and left.
"This reference work provides material never before gathered in a single volume. The scholarship is solid, and the text is a delight to read. Unlike most dictionaries, this one should be read from cover to cover. Recommended for all academic and public libraries." Choice
This book identifies the constant and the variable aspects in Hamas' ideology, between the ones articulated in its Charter of 1988, and the ones articulated in its Document of General Principles and Policies issued in 2017. It addresses three main areas: Hamas' view of the borders of the Palestinian state, Hamas' exercise of power in relation to its concept of resistance (shifts in its interpretation of the resistance action), and Hamas' orientation towards the peace process. The book discusses the changes in Hamas' stance towards the borders of the Palestinian statehood (Two States Solution), the Armed Resistance, and the Peace Process. It explains Hamas' perceptions on these issues after assuming power and becoming a government. Additionally, it analyzes the variables that affected Hamas' political calculations and motivations behind its participation in the Political Process and the issuance of the New Political Document in May 2017 that articulated its stance toward the Two States Solution, the Armed Resistance, and the Peace Process.
This book examines what 'republicanism' meant to the Americans who drafted and ratified the United States Constitution, guaranteeing a 'republican form of government' to every state in the Union. M.N.S.Sellers compares the writings and speeches of the founders with the authors they read and imitated to identify the central tenets of American republicanism, and to demonstrate that American republican though directly reflected classical models, rather than a mediating tradition of English or continental political theory.
In Art and Politics, Segal explores the collision of politics and art in seven enticing essays. The book explores the position of art and artists under a number of different political regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, traveling around the world to consider how art and politics have interacted and influenced each other in different conditions. Joes Segal takes you on a journey to the Third Reich, where Emil Nolde supported the regime while being called degenerate; shows us Diego Rivera creating Marxist murals in Mexico and the United States for anti-Marxist governments and clients; ties Jackson Pollock's drip paintings in their Cold War context to both the FBI and the CIA; and considers the countless images of Mao Zedong in China as unlikely witnesses of radical political change. |
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