Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism canvasses an array of thinkers from the past to the present as it examines fundamental political, philosophical, ethical, economic, anthropological, and scientific aspects of the ferment between Darwinian biology and classical liberalism. Early chapters focus on classical thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith, while later chapters provide analyses of present-day classical liberals, focusing especially on F.A. Hayek, Thomas Sowell, and Larry Arnhart, the most prominent advocates of 'contemporary' classical liberalism. Thematically, the volume falls into three parts. Part I examines foundational matters, arguing that Darwinism and classical liberalism hold incompatible visions of morality, human nature, and individual autonomy. This section also contends that the free market's spontaneous order is fully compatible with a teleological (or non-Darwinian) view of the universe. Part II turns to contemporary applications, contending that Darwinism and classical liberalism are at odds in their views of (or implications about) limited government, vital religion, economic freedom, and the traditional family. This section also argues that, since its inception, Darwinism has attenuated core tenets and values of classical liberalism and Western civilization. Part III of the volume contains alternative views to those in the first two parts, adding critical diversity to the book. Respectively, these chapters hold that Darwinian evolution simply has little to say about classical liberalism; an evolutionary account of human volition is fully compatible with the individual choice presupposed in classical liberalism; and evolutionary naturalism, unlike religious alternatives, provides a strong foundation for freedom, morality, and the traditional family.

In the presidential campaign of 1948, Henry Wallace set out to challenge the conventional wisdom of his time, blaming the United States, instead of the Soviet Union, for the Cold War, denouncing the popular Marshall Plan, and calling for an end to segregation. In addition, he argued that domestic fascism--rather than international communism--posed the primary threat to the nation. He even welcomed Communists into his campaign, admiring their commitment to peace. Focusing on what Wallace himself later considered his campaign's most important aspect, the troubled relationship between non-Communist progressives like himself and members of the American Communist Party, Thomas W. Devine demonstrates that such an alliance was not only untenable but, from the perspective of the American Communists, undesirable. Rather than romanticizing the political culture of the Popular Front, Devine provides a detailed account of the Communists' self-destructive behavior throughout the campaign and chronicles the frustrating challenges that non-Communist progressives faced in trying to sustain a movement that critiqued American Cold War policies and championed civil rights for African Americans without becoming a sounding board for pro-Soviet propaganda.

Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia is widely recognized as one of the most influential works of modern political philosophy. Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World is the first book to introduce students to Nozick's ideas for a rights-based minimal libertarian state, and to apply them to current political realities of the modern American welfare state. Mark D. Friedman begins by clearly introducing the reader to Nozick's argument for natural rights and how his theory of rights undermines claims for social justice, and enables libertarians to rebut the most common objections to their doctrine. Through this introduction, the book goes on to critique a wide range of America's state operations with chapters addressing particular rights that are violated by the state, such as those pertaining to expression and property, while others address the state's intervention in a discrete aspect of modern life, such as education and healthcare showing that with few exceptions they are morally impermissible.Friedman argues that aside from a few morally legitimate functions, there are viable private sector alternatives to the services the state now provides and that reducing the liberal democratic state to its core functions would not produce the sort of moral catastrophe that might make us reconsider our commitment to individual rights. So, what is to be done? Friedman concludes with thoughts regarding the most effective means of moving our politics in a more libertarian direction.

Judaism, Liberalism, and Political Theology provides the first broad encounter between modern Jewish thought and recent developments in political theology. In opposition to impetuous associations of Judaism and liberalism and charges that Judaism cannot engender a universal political order, the essays in this volume propose a new and richly detailed engagement between Judaism and the political. The vexed status of liberalism in Jewish thought and Judaism in political theology is interrogated with recourse to thinking from across the Continental tradition.

This text assesses the historical and modern significance and emergence of global forces and its impact on nation states. In particular, the power of globalisation comprises two inter-locking factors: economic power and the hegemony of neo-liberalism. Drawing on a range of examples, the book assesses the legacy of globalisation and its impact on the disciplinary development of social science and its enduring impact on the contemporary social world.

International peace parks--transnational conservation areas established and managed by two or more countries--have become a popular way of protecting biodiversity while promoting international cooperation and regional development. In "Transforming the Frontier," Bram Buscher shows how cross-border conservation neatly reflects the neoliberal political economy in which it developed.

Based on extensive research in southern Africa with the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation and Development Project, Buscher explains how the successful promotion of transfrontier conservation as a "win-win" solution happens not only in spite of troubling contradictions and problems, but indeed because of them. This is what he refers to as the "politics of neoliberal conservation," which receives its strength from effectively combining strategies of consensus, antipolitics, and marketing. Drawing on long-term, multilevel ethnographic research, Buscher argues that transfrontier conservation projects are not as concerned with on-the-ground development as they are purported to be. Instead, they are reframing environmental protection and sustainable development to fit an increasingly contradictory world order.

Sir Charles Dilke was born in 1843 and died in 1911. His career is one of the mysteries and tragedies of nineteenth-century history.In the summer of 1885 he was the youngest man in the outgoing cabinet and Gladstone's most likely successor as leader of the Liberal Party. But his great expectations were shattered when in July 1885 Donald Crawford, a Liberal candidate, began divorce proceedings against his twenty-two-year-old wife, citing Dilke as co-respondent. There were two hearings, during the second of which Mrs Crawford made the most sensational allegations and in the end Dilke lost. He maintained his innocence to his dying day and despite his public disgrace there were many who believed him.First published in 1958, "Dilke" is a story with a climax as exciting as it is mysterious and which bears continuing relevance to the private lives of public figures.

There has been a recent outpouring of memoirs and biographies of the 'great men' of the southern African liberation movements. But the writing of critical reflective histories of these movements by non-partisan, independent scholars is still in its infancy. This collection of essays illustrates the intertwined histories of southern African liberation struggles and those of regional and international solidarity movements from the 1960s to the establishment of a non-racial democracy in South Africa in 1994, reflecting the new directions currently taken by 'indigenous' southern-African based scholars, and those writing from abroad. Distinct from the polemical, hagiographic, justificatory or partisan accounts that have flowed since the inception of the liberation struggles, the essays probe beyond the heroic portrayals of armed struggles and nationalist resistance to examine the fissures and tensions that existed within them. The essays also provide insights into the more troubling and darker aspects of the movements' histories: human rights abuses perpetrated by the 'liberators'; the important, if ambiguous, roles played by other southern African states which hosted, and provided succour for, the ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in exile; the support provided to the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) by the Lesotho government and the ways in which the fractious and personality-dominated politics of the organisation contributed to its weakness and ultimate eclipse by the ANC; the relationship between Muslims in Northern Mozambique and that country's liberation movements. These essays also seek to present more nuanced accounts of the solidarity movements that flourished alongside the liberation and exile movements, such as the British-based Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), which in the 1970s found itself at odds both with international interest groups pursuing constructive engagement with the South African government and with elements in the country's grassroots movements. Even this organisation, committed to the downfall of systemic racial domination in South Africa, was beset by its own tensions of race, and had a difficult relationship with Black Britons. The collection's uniqueness lies in drawing together internal and external struggles in exile. And it provides new insights into the relationships that exiles and guerrillas developed with host societies and solidarity organisations, both within the southern African region, and in the United Kingdom.

In Economies of Abandonment, Elizabeth A. Povinelli explores how late liberal imaginaries of tense, eventfulness, and ethical substance make the global distribution of life and death, hope and harm, and endurance and exhaustion not merely sensible but also just. She presents new ways of conceptualizing formations of power in late liberalism—the shape that liberal governmentality has taken as it has responded to a series of legitimacy crises in the wake of anticolonial and new social movements and, more recently, the “clash of civilizations” after September 11. Based on longstanding ethnographic work in Australia and the United States, as well as critical readings of legal, academic, and activist texts, Povinelli examines how alternative social worlds and projects generate new possibilities of life in the context of ordinary and extraordinary acts of neglect and surveillance. She focuses particularly on social projects that have not yet achieved a concrete existence but persist at the threshold of possible existence. By addressing the question of the endurance, let alone the survival, of alternative forms of life, Povinelli opens new ethical and political questions.

This book compares the trajectories of states and societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America under neoliberalism, a time marked by serial economic crises, escalating social conflicts, the re-militarisation of North-South relations and the radicalization of social and nationalist forces. Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros bring together researchers and activists from the three continents to assess the state of national sovereignty and the challenges faced by popular movements today. They show that global integration has widened social and regional inequalities within countries, exacerbated ethnic, caste, and racial conflicts, and generally reduced the bureaucratic capacities of states to intervene in a defensive way. Moreover, inequalities between the countries of the South have also widened. These structural tensions have all contributed to several distinct political trajectories among states: from fracture and foreign occupation, to radicalization and uncertain re-stabilization. This book re-draws the debate on the political economy of the contemporary South and provides students of international studies with an important collection of readings.

This title presents a citizen's working definition of liberalism. What are the basic values and commitments of American liberals? John McGowan sets out to answer that question in this lively and provocative book. Tracing a tradition that extends from James Madison through Franklin Delano Roosevelt to today, McGowan emphasizes liberalism's distribution of power throughout society in order to secure freedom and equality. Liberals locate the effort to achieve legal, political, and social equality as central to securing a just and stable society. They also insist that only an 'effective' freedom that includes the capacity to achieve one's self-chosen goals deserves the name of liberty. By presenting the history of the much-contested values of freedom, equality, and social justice, McGowan offers a clear vision of liberalism's ambitious and inspiring vision for these United States.

In recent years American politics has seemingly become much more partisan, more zero-sum, more vicious, and less able to confront the real problems our nation faces. What has happened?
In "The Second Civil War," respected political commentator Ronald Brownstein diagnoses the electoral, demographic, and institutional forces that have wreaked such change over the American political landscape, pulling politics into the margins and leaving precious little common ground for compromise. "The Second Civil War" is not a book for Democrats or Republicans but for all Americans who are disturbed by our current political dysfunction and hungry for ways to understand it--and move beyond it.

The collapse of communism, the rise of identity politics, and struggles over global governance have combined to create new challenges for the Left: How to do justice to legitimate claims for multiculturalism and democratization without abandoning the Left's historic-and still indispensable-commitment to economic equality? How to broaden the understanding of injustice by adding cultural and political insult to economic injury? Adding Insult to Injury tracks the debate sparked by Nancy Fraser's controversial effort to combine redistribution, recognition, and representation in a new understanding of social justice. The volume showcases Fraser's critical exchanges with leading thinkers, including Judith Butler, Richard Rorty, Iris Marion Young, Anne Phillips, and Rainer Frost. The result is a wide-ranging and at times contentious exploration of varied approaches to rebuilding the Left.

In the wake of the Terror, France's political and intellectual elites set out to refound the Republic and, in so doing, reimagined the nature of the political order. They argued vigorously over imperial expansion, constitutional power, personal liberty, and public morality. In Reimagining Politics after the Terror, Andrew Jainchill rewrites the history of the origins of French Liberalism by telling the story of France's underappreciated "republican moment" during the tumultuous years between 1794 and Napoleon's declaration of a new French Empire in 1804.

Examining a wide range of political and theoretical debates, Jainchill offers a compelling reinterpretation of the political culture of post-Terror France and of the establishment of Napoleon's Consulate. He also provides new readings of works by the key architects of early French Liberalism, including Germaine de Stael, Benjamin Constant, and, in the epilogue, Alexis de Tocqueville. The political culture of the post-Terror period was decisively shaped by the classical republican tradition of the early modern Atlantic world and, as Jainchill persuasively argues, constituted France's "Machiavellian Moment." Out of this moment, a distinctly French version of liberalism began to take shape. Reimagining Politics after the Terror is essential reading for anyone concerned with the history of political thought, the origins and nature of French Liberalism, and the end of the French Revolution."

Across the world political liberalism is being fought for, consolidated and defended. That is the case for nations that have never enjoyed a liberal political society, for nations that have advanced towards and then retreated from political liberalism, for nations that have recently shifted from authoritarian to liberal political systems, and for mature democracies facing terrorism and domestic conflict. This book tests for the contemporary world the proposition that lawyers are active agents in the construction of liberal political regimes. It examines the efficacy of a framework that postulates that legal professions not only orient themselves to a market for their services but can frequently be seen in the forefront of actors seeking to institutionalise political liberalism. On the basis of some 16 case studies from across the world, the authors present a theoretical link between lawyers and political liberalism having wide-ranging application over radically diverse situations in Asia and the Middle East, North and South America, and Europe. They argue that it is not the politics of lawyers alone but the politics of a 'legal complex' of legally trained occupations, centred on lawyers and judges, that drives advances or retreats from political liberalism, that political liberalism itself is everywhere in play, in countries with established democracies and those without liberal politics and that it is now clear that the legal arena is a central field of struggle over the shape of political power. The case studies presented here provide powerful evidence that the nexus of bar and bench in transitions towards or away from political liberalism is a force which has universal application.

Today's conservatives support the idea of limited government, but they have increased government's size and power to new heights. They believe in balanced budgets, but they have boosted government spending, debt, and pork to record levels. They believe in national security but launched a reckless, ideological occupation in Iraq that has made us tangibly less safe. They have substituted religion for politics and damaged both.

In "The Conservative Soul," one of the nation's leading political commentators makes an impassioned call to rescue conservatism from the excesses of the Republican far right, which has tried to make the GOP the first fundamentally religious party in American history. In this bold and powerful book, Andrew Sullivan makes a provocative, prescient, and heartfelt case for a revived conservatism at peace with the modern world, and dedicated to restraining government and empowering individuals to live rich and fulfilling lives.

Although Mexico began its national life in the 1821 as one of the most liberal democracies in the world, it ended the century with an authoritarian regime. Examining this defining process, distinguished historians focus on the evolution of Mexican liberalism from the perspectives of politics, the military, the Church, and the economy. Based on extensive archival research, the chapters demonstrate that despite widely held assumptions liberalism was not an alien ideology unsuited to Mexico's traditional, conservative, and multiethnic society. On the contrary, liberalism in New Spain arose from Hispanic culture, which drew upon a shared European tradition reaching back to ancient Greece. This volume provides the first systematic exploration of the evolution of Mexican liberal traditions in the nineteenth century. The chapters assess the changes in liberal ideology, the nature of federalism, efforts to create stability with a liberal monarchy in the 1860s, the Church's accommodation to the new liberal order, the role of the army and of the civil militias, the liberal tax system, and attempts to modernize the economy in the latter part of the century. Taken together, these essays provide a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of the transformation of liberalism in Mexico. Contributions by: Christon I. Archer, William H. Beezley, Marcello Carmagnani, Manuel Chust, Brian Connaughton, Robert H. Duncan, Aldo Flores-Quiroga, Alicia Hernandez Chavez, Sandra Kuntz Ficker, Andres Resendez, Jaime E. Rodriguez O., and Jose Antonio Serrano Ortega"

In Beyond Political Liberalism: Toward a Post-Secular Ethics of Public Life, Troy Dostert offers a critical examination of political liberalism, the approach to liberal political theory advanced most forcefully in the later work of John Rawls. Political liberalism's defenders claim that an "overlapping consensus" of shared values holds out the strongest prospects for regulating democratic politics in light of our moral diversity. Dostert contends, however, that the attempt to establish such a consensus in fact works to restrict and control the presence of religious and other moral perspectives that can ennoble and invigorate public life. Dostert argues that there is a steep price to be paid for this conception of politics, for what results is a political vision characterized by a profound distrust and fear of citizens' comprehensive convictions--the animating source of many citizens' political activity. He suggests that a "post-secular" ethics is a more appropriate response to moral diversity than restricting and managing the presence of religion and other moral perspectives in public life. From this perspective we are best served not by looking for epistemic norms of public discourse, as political liberalism counsels, but by encouraging dialogic practices such as forbearance, discipline, creativity, and sincerity. Such practices allow us to negotiate our moral disagreements in a spirit of mutuality, while also remaining open to discovering new formulations of worthwhile political ideals. By drawing on the religious witness of the civil rights movement and the work of theologian John Howard Yoder, Dostert elucidates these core dialogic practices and illustrates their value through aconsideration of the contemporary debates surrounding international debt relief and abortion. Challenging the secular presuppositions of contemporary liberal political theory, Beyond Political Liberalism will appeal to scholars in political philosophy and contemporary theology. It will also interest religious communities and parishes dedicated to political activity.

Dwight D. Eisenhower' election to the presidency in 1952 brought an end to two decades of Democratic rule in the White House. His landslide victory, however, masked intense factionalism within the Republican Party. Whereas conservatives were eager to reverse the domestic and foreign policies of past administrations, liberal Republicans favored active federal involvement in Americans' lives and an internationalist approach to affairs abroad. As political historian Steven Wagner demonstrates, Eisenhower sought a "middle way" between Democrats to his left and conservatives to his right. In American political culture, those who describe themselves as "middle of the road" are often portrayed as unwilling to take a stand or lacking in political sophistication. This was not the case with Eisenhower, whose "middle way" was the result of careful consideration. Despite his party's commitment to limited government, free enterprise, and individual initiative, Eisenhower believed that, in some cases, the federal government needed to intervene. Eisenhower's enormous popularity with the American people assured him reelection and high approval ratings throughout his two terms of office. This popularity did not, however, translate into legislative success; his proposals were often defeated by an unlikely coalition of liberals and conservatives. Nor did Eisenhower's popularity carry over to his party, a fact driven home by the defeat of his vice president, Richard Nixon, in the 1960 presidential election. In the resulting battle for control of the party, conservatives prevailed. Wagner concludes with a candid discussion of the legacy of "Eisenhower Republicanism" and the ways in which the subsequent conservative victory has continued to shape the party to this day.

This compelling and convincing study represents the culmination of the authors' several decades of research on the pivotal role played by elites in the success or failure of political regimes. Revising the classical theory of elites and politics, John Higley and Michael Burton distinguish basic types of elites and associated political regimes. They canvas political change during the modern historical and contemporary periods to identify circumstances and ways in which the sine qua non of liberal democracy, a consensually united elite, has formed and persisted. The book considers an impressive body of cases, examining how consensually united elites have fostered forty-five liberal democracies and how disunited or ideologically united elites have thus far prevented liberal democracy in more than one hundred other countries. The authors argue that obstacles to the emergence of elites propitious for liberal democracy are more formidable than democratization enthusiasts recognize. They assess prospects for the transformation of disunited and ideologically united elites where they now exist, ask whether current challenges to Western liberal democracies will undermine their consensually united elites, and explore what the rise of the distinctive elite clustered around George W. Bush may portend for America's liberal democracy. The authors' powerful and important argument reframes our thinking about liberal democracy and questions optimistic assumptions about the prospects for its spread in the twenty-first century.

In this major revisionist study, Eric A. Nordlinger poses two critical questions about democratic politics. How are the public policy decisions of the democratic state in America and Europe to be explained? To what extent is the democratic state an autonomous entity, that is, a state that translates its own policy preferences into public policies? On the Autonomy of the Democratic State challenges the central assumption of liberal and Marxist scholars, journalists, and citizens alike-that elected and appointed public officials are consistently constrained by society in the making of public policy. Nordlinger demonstrates that public officials are not only frequently autonomous insofar as they regularly act upon their own policy preferences, but also markedly autonomous in doing so even in the face of opposition from the most politically powerful groups in society: voters, well-organized and financed interest groups, national associations of farmers, workers, employers, and large corporations. Here is a book in which wide-ranging generalizations are tightly bound up with empirical examples and data. Nordlinger systematically identifies the state's many capacities and opportunities for enhancing its autonomy. These are used by public officials to shape, alter, neutralize, deflect, and resist the policy preferences and pressures of societal groups. Even the highly fragmented national state in America is shown to be far more independent of societal demands than claimed by the conventional wisdom.

In Israel's Higher Law, Steven V. Mazie draws on the voices of Israeli citizens to shed new light on the relationship between liberal democracy and religion. By analyzing Israelis' perspectives on a number of divisive issues-including Jewish state symbols, marriage law, public Sabbath observance and funding for religious education-Mazie identifies a rift between Israeli and American understandings of "separation of religion and state" and a gulf between Jewish and Arab citizens' visions for Israel's religion-state arrangement. Mazie's compelling study offers more valuable insight into these dilemmas than any publication to date and proposes new guidelines for resolving them. Israel's Higher Law is the definitive work on the tensions between religion and democracy in Israel. It is a must-read for anyone interested in politics and Jewish studies.

In Poeticized Culture, James Hersh shows the John Rawls' framework of liberal public reason (Political Liberalism, 1993), within which he proposes his scheme of justice as fairness, includes an unacknowledged call for a Richard Rortian "poeticized culture." Hersh argues that, despite Rawls's intentions, his framework within which he proposes justice as fairness demands a Rortian ironic perspective and does not allow for citizens to hold absolute or literal religious beliefs. Hersh argues that this Rortian perspective makes Rawls's justice as fairness the most reasonable scheme for the world's emerging democracies, particularly for those democracies emerging in the Middle East where literal religious beliefs are held with such fervor.

Libertarianism: For and Against offers dueling perspectives on the scope of legitimate government. Tibor R. Machan, a well-known political philosopher with libertarian convictions, argues for a minimal government devoted solely to protecting individual rights to life, liberty, and property. Stressing the sovereignty of each individual, Machan argues in favor of limiting democracy's scope and against the redistribution of wealth, or any other sort of taxation. In opposition to libertarianism, philosopher Craig Duncan defends democratic liberalism, which aims to ensure that all citizens have fair access to a life of dignity. This requires measures to protect equality of opportunity, as well as measures to ensure all have access to a decent minimum standard of living. In a dynamic exchange of arguments, critiques, and rebuttals, the two philosophers cut to the heart of this important debate, articulating and defending competing conceptions of such core values as political freedom and equality.

Liberal values are the hallmark of a civilised society, but depend on an optimistic view of the human condition. Stripped of this essential ingredient, liberalism has become a hollow abstraction. Tracing its effects through the media, politics and the public services, the book argues that hollowed-out liberalism has helped to produce our present discontent. The author teaches politics at Leicester University and is the co-author of "The Essential A-Z Guide to Modern British History", "Whatever Happened to the Tories", "Keith Joseph: A Life", and "The Authorized Biography of Willie Whitelaw."