![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Liberalism & centre democratic ideologies
The mass movement of people across the globe constitutes a major feature of world politics today. Whatever the cause of the movement - often war, famine, economic hardship, political repression or climate change - the governments of western capitalist states see this 'torrent of people in flight' as a serious threat to their stability and the scale of this migration indicates a need for a radical re-thinking of both political theory and practice, for the sake of political, social and economic justice. This book argues that there is at present a serious gap between the legal and social practices of immigration and naturalisation in liberal democratic states and any theoretical justification for such practices that can be made within the tradition of liberal political philosophy. How can liberal states develop institutions of democratic citizenship and at the same time justifiably exclude 'outsiders' from participating in those institutions? The book examines various responses to this contradiction within the liberal tradition, and finds none of them satisfactory - there are no consistently liberal justifications for immigration control and this has serious implications both for liberal practice and theory. The first comprehensive overview of various positions within political philosophy on immigration, this original text offers a radical critique of these positions and will be of interest to students of Political Philosophy, International Relations, Social Policy and Law. Key Features: * An original contribution to political philosophy - fills a significant gap in the market * A comprehensive review and critique of theoretical arguments within political philosophy which attempt to justify practices of exclusion * An outline of a radical position on that question * A review of immigration and naturalisation practices of liberal democratic states including the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand * An application of the theoretical perspectives to the practices of immigration and naturalisation Winner of the North American Society for Social Philosophy's major prize - The Most Important Social Philosophy Title to be Published in 2000.
The Future of the Disabled in Liberal Society questions developments in human genetic research from the perspective of persons with mental disabilities and their families. Hans S. Reinders argues that when we use terms such as "disease" and "defect" to describe conditions that genetic engineering might well eliminate, we may also be assuming that disabled lives are deplorable and horrific. Reinders points out that the possibility of preventing disabled lives is at odds with our commitment to the full inclusion of disabled citizens in society. The tension between these different perspectives is of concern to all of us as genetic testing procedures proliferate. Reinders warns that preventative uses of human genetics might even become a threat to the social security and welfare benefits that help support disabled persons and their families. Reinders also argues that this conflict cannot be resolved or controlled on the level of public morality. Because a liberal society makes a commitment to individual freedom and choice, its members can consider the diagnostic and therapeutic uses of human genetics as options available to individual citizens. A liberal society will defend reproductive freedom as a matter of principle. Citizens may select their offspring in accord with their own personal values. Reinders concludes that the future of the mentally disabled in liberal society will depend on the strength of our moral convictions about the value of human life, rather than on the protective force of liberal morality. One of the most important aspects of this book is Reinder's attention to parents who have come to see the task of raising a disabled child as an enriching experience. These are people who change their conceptions of success and control and, therefore, their conceptions of themselves. They come to value their disabled children for what they have to give. Even though disabled children and disabled adults present parents and society with real challenges, the rewards are just as real. This powerful critique of contemporary bioethics is sure to become required reading for those interested in human development, special education, ethics, philosophy, and theology.
Neo-liberalism has fundamentally altered the relationship between the global political forces. In this radical overview of the post-communist world, Boris Kagarlitsky argues that the very success of neo-liberal capitalism has made traditional socialism all the more necessary and feasible. He argues that leftists exaggerate the importance of the "objective" aspects of the "new reality" - globalization - and the weakening of the state, while underestimating the importance of the hegemony of neo-liberalism. As long as neo-liberalism retains its ideological hegemony, despite its economic failure, the consequence is a "new barbarism" - already a reality in eastern Europe, and now also emerging in the West. Kagarlitsky challenges the political neurosis of the left and prevailing assumptions of Marxism to argue that Marx's theories are now more timely than they were in the mid 20th century. Kagarlitsky analyzes theories of the "end of the proletariat" and the "end of work", and assesses the potential of the new technologies - such as the Internet - which create fresh challenges for capitalism and new arenas for struggle.
While antiliberal legal theorist Carl Schmitt has long been considered by Europeans to be one of this century's most significant political philosophers, recent challenges to the fundamental values of liberal democracies have made Schmitt's writings an unavoidable subject of debate in North America as well. In an effort to advance our understanding not only of Schmitt but of current problems of liberal democracy, David Dyzenhaus presents translations of classic German essays on Schmitt alongside more recent writings by distinguished political theorists and jurists. Neither a defense of nor an attack on Schmitt, Law as Politics offers the first balanced response to his powerful critique of liberalism. One of the major players in the 1920s debates, an outspoken critic of the Versailles Treaty and the Weimar Constitution, and a member of the Nazi party who provided juridical respectability to Hitler's policies, Schmitt contended that people are a polity only to the extent that they share common enemies. He saw the liberal notion of a peaceful world of universal citizens as a sheer impossibility and attributed the problems of Weimar to liberalism and its inability to cope with pluralism and political conflict. In the decade since his death, Schmitt's writings have been taken up by both the right and the left and scholars differ greatly in their evaluation of Schmitt's ideas. Law as Politics thematically organizes in one volume the varying engagements and confrontations with Schmitt's work and allows scholars to acknowledge-and therefore be in a better position to negotiate-an important paradox inscribed in the very nature of liberal democracy. Law as Politics will interest political philosophers, legal theorists, historians, and anyone interested in Schmitt's relevance to current discussions of liberalism.Contributors. Heiner Bielefeldt, Ronald Beiner, Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde, Renato Cristi, David Dyzenhaus, Robert Howse, Ellen Kennedy, Dominique Leydet, Ingeborg Maus, John P. McCormick, Reinhard Mehring, Chantal Mouffe, William E. Scheuerman, Jeffrey Seitzer
When feminists argued for political rights in the context of liberal democracy they faced an impossible choice. On the one hand, they insisted that the differences between men and women were irrelevant for citizenship. On the other hand, by the fact that they acted on behalf of women, they introduced the very idea of difference they sought to eliminate. This paradox--the need both to accept and to refuse sexual difference in politics--was the constitutive condition of the long struggle by women to gain the right of citizenship. In this new book, remarkable in both its findings and its methodology, award-winning historian Joan Wallach Scott reads feminist history in terms of this paradox of sexual difference. Focusing on four French feminist activists--Olympe de Gouges, who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen during the French Revolution; Jeanne Deroin, a utopian socialist and candidate for legislative office in 1848; Hubertine Auclert, the suffragist of the Third Republic; and Madeleine Pelletier, a psychiatrist in the early twentieth century who argued that women must "virilize" themselves in order to gain equality--Scott charts the repetitions and variations in feminist history. Again and again, feminists tried to prove they were individuals, according to the standards of individuality of their day. Again and again, they confronted the assumption that individuals were men. But when sexual difference was taken to be a fundamental difference, when only men were regarded as individuals and thus as citizens, how could women also be citizens? The imaginative and courageous answers feminists offered to these questions are the subject of this engaging book.
Thinking Politically brings together a series of remarkable interviews with Raymond Aron that form a political history of our time. Ranging over an entire lifetime, from his youthful experience with the rise of Nazi totalitarianism in Berlin to the denouement of the cold war, Aron meditates on the threats to liberty and reason in the bloody twentieth century. Originally published as The Commuted Observer, this volume provides one of the fullest accounts available of the dramatic events of the "short century," which began with the pistol shot in Sarajevo in 1914 and ended with the collapse of the Ideological monsters whose deadly nature Aron had ruthlessly exposed for a half-century. In addition to the interviews published in the original edition. Thinking Politically incorporates three interviews never before published in book form. This supplemental material clarifies Aron's role as a voice of prudential reason in an unreasonable age and allows unparalleled access to the principal influences on Aron's thought. The volume concludes with "Democratic States and Totalitarian States," an address by Aron to the French Philosophical Society as well as the accompanying debate with Jacques Maritaln, Victor Basch, and other intellectuals. Thinking Politically serves as an ideal gateway into Aron's reflections, and offers a superb single-volume introduction to the major events and conflicts of the twentieth century. It will be a welcome addition to the libraries of political theorists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, and citizens wishing to understand the political and intellectual currents of the age.
Linking historiography and political history, Victor Feske
addresses the changing role of national histories written in early
twentieth-century Britain by amateur scholars Hilaire Belloc,
Sidney and Beatrice Webb, J. L. and Barbara Hammond, G. M.
Trevelyan, and Winston Churchill. These writers recast the
nineteenth-century interpretation of British history at a time when
both the nature of historical writing and the fortunes of
Liberalism had begun to change. Before 1900, amateur historians
writing for a wide public readership portrayed British history as a
grand story of progress achieved through constitutional
development. This 'Whig' interpretation had become the cornerstone
of Liberal party politics. But the decline of Liberalism as a
political force after the turn of the century, coupled with the
rise of professional history written by academics and based on
archival research, inspired change among a new generation of
Liberal historians. The result was a refashioned Whig
historiography, stripped of overt connections to contemporary
political Liberalism, that attempted to preserve the general
outlines of the traditional Whiggist narrative within the context
of a broad history of consensus. This new formulation, says Feske,
was more suited to the intellectual and political climate of the
twentieth century.
In this witty and provocative study of democracy and its critics,
Charles Willard debunks liberalism, arguing that its exaggerated
ideals of authenticity, unity, and community have deflected
attention from the pervasive incompetence of "the rule of experts."
He proposes a ground of communication that emphasizes common
interests rather than narrow disputes.
What are the sources of solidarity? Do universalist motives have an important place among them? And how are they related to arguments about human nature and about truth? In this new book, Norman Geras engages with the work of Richard Rorty to explore the paradoxes of a liberalism which rejects any determinate view of human nature. He begins by examining Rorty's thesis concerning rescuer behavior during the Holocaust. Measuring it against existing research on the subject and the testimony of rescuers themselves, Geras questions Rorty's use of their moral example as a challenge to universalist assumptions. He then considers some of the problems in Rorty's anti-essentialism: his shifting usages of "human nature"; the paradoxical plea for extensive forms of solidarity on the basis of parochial communitarian premises; the relationship of pragmatist notions of truth to issues of justice; and the project of a democratic, would-be "humanist" utopia grounded only on contingencies. Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind is an imagined dialogue with Rorty-influential, eloquent and unorthodox champion of a human radical liberalism.
"A lively and illuminating examination and texturing of current ideologies on the American political landscape. Its gracfully written presentation will bring students to an understanding of the ideological impulses that shape our politics and help determine the country's current direction. I look forward to using it in my classes for its intelligence, its content, and its clarity." -Joel H. Silbey Cornell University
In "The Liberal Tradition in America" (1955), Louis Hartz first put
forth his thesis that the American political tradition derives
essentially from consensual liberal principles. The many detractors
to this theory include Bernard Bailyn, who argued that preliberal,
republican values initially held sway in eighteenth-century
American politics. In "The Shaping of American Liberalism," David
Ericson offers an innovative reinterpretation of both positions by
redefining the "terms" of the argument.
This volume offers a comprehensive overview of current debates about democracy across the globe. Since the political turmoil in Eastern Europe began in the 1980's, the debate about the meaning and future of democracy has intensified. "Prospects for Democracy" assesses this debate through wide-ranging theoretical considerations and a diverse set of case studies. The volume begins with a major overview of the concept of democracy, from ancient city states to contemporary discussion about the possibility of international democracy. In the next section a series of contemporary models of democracy are examined and their strengths and limits explored. The third section confronts a wide variety of questions about the proper form and scope of democratic politics. In the final part, the context and prospects of democracy are investigated across many of the worlds major regions including Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This volume will be widely welcomes by all those, academics and non-academics alike, who have an interest in the meaning and future of democracy as we approach the 21st Century.
Among the voices that speak to us from Poland today, the most important may be that of Adam Michnik. Michnik now sits in a jail belonging to the totalitarian regime, yet his first concern--and herein lies one of the keys to his thinking, and one should add, to his character--is with the quality of his own conduct, which, together with teh conduct of other victims of the present situation, will, he is sure, one day set the tone for whatever political system follows the totalitarian debacle. His essays are the most valuable guide we have to the origins of the revolution, and, more particularly, to its innovative practices.
Hartz's influential interpretation of american political thought
since the Revolution. He contends that americanca gave rise to a
new concept of a liberal society, a "liberal tradition" that has
been central to our experience of events both at home and abroad.
New Introduction by Tom Wicker; Index.
A celebrated theorist examines the conditions of work, employment, and unemployment in neoliberalism's flexible and precarious labor market. In Experimental Politics, Maurizio Lazzarato examines the conditions of work, employment, and unemployment in neoliberalism's flexible and precarious labor market. This is the first book of Lazzarato's in English that fully exemplifies the unique synthesis of sociology, activist research, and theoretical innovation that has generated his best-known concepts, such as "immaterial labor." The book (published in France in 2009) is also groundbreaking in the way it brings Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari to bear on the analysis of concrete political situations and real social struggles, while making a significant theoretical contribution in its own right. Lazzarato draws on the experiences of casual workers in the French entertainment industry during a dispute over the reorganization ("reform") of their unemployment insurance in 2004 and 2005. He sees this conflict as the first testing ground of a political program of social reconstruction. The payment of unemployment insurance would become the principal instrument for control over the mobility and behavior of the workers. The flexible and precarious workforce of the entertainment industry prefigured what the entire workforce in contemporary societies is in the process of becoming: in Foucault's words, a "floating population" in "security societies." Lazzarato argues further that parallel to economic impoverishment, neoliberalism has produced an impoverishment of subjectivity-a reduction in existential intensity. A substantial introduction by Jeremy Gilbert situates Lazzarato's analysis in a broader context.
Liberal thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were alert to the political costs and human cruelties involved in European colonialism, but they also thought that European expansion held out progressive possibilities. In Progress, Pluralism, and Politics David Williams examines the colonial and anti-colonial arguments of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and L.T. Hobhouse. Williams locates their ambivalent attitude towards European conquest and colonial rule in a set of tensions between the impact of colonialism on European states, the possibilities of progress in distant and diverse places, and the relationship between universalism and cultural pluralism. In so doing he reveals some of the central ambiguities that characterize the ways that liberal thought has dealt with the reality of an illiberal world. Of particular importance are appeals to various forms of universal history, attempts to mediate between the claims of identity and the reality of difference, and the different ways of thinking about the achievement of liberal goods in other places. Pointing to key elements in still ongoing debates within liberal states about how they should relate to illiberal places, Progress, Pluralism, and Politics enriches the discussion on political thought and the relationship between liberalism and colonialism.
The Democrats' decision to nominate Joe Biden for 2020 was hardly a fluke but rather a strategic choice by a party that had elevated electability above all other concerns. In Learning from Loss, one of the nation's leading political analysts offers unique insight into the Democratic Party at a moment of uncertainty. Between 2017 and 2020, Seth Masket spoke with Democratic Party activists and followed the behavior of party leaders and donors to learn how the party was interpreting the 2016 election and thinking about a nominee for 2020. Masket traces the persistence of party factions and shows how interpretations of 2016 shaped strategic choices for 2020. Although diverse narratives emerged to explain defeat in 2016 - ranging from a focus on 'identity politics' to concerns about Clinton as a flawed candidate - these narratives collectively cleared the path for Biden.
The postcommunist countries were amongst the most fervent and committed adopters of neoliberal economic reforms. Not only did they manage to overcome the anticipated domestic opposition to 'shock therapy' and Washington Consensus reforms, but many fulfilled the membership requirements of the European Union and even adopted avant-garde neoliberal reforms like the flat tax and pension privatization. Neoliberalism in the postcommunist countries went farther and lasted longer than expected, but why? Unlike pre-existing theories based on domestic political-economic struggles, this book focuses on the imperatives of re-insertion into the international economy. Appel and Orenstein show how countries engaged in 'competitive signaling', enacting reforms in order to attract foreign investment. This signaling process explains the endurance and intensification of neoliberal reform in these countries for almost two decades, from 1989-2008, and its decline thereafter, when inflows of capital into the region suddenly dried up. This book will interest students of political economy and Eastern European and Eurasian politics.
The twentieth semi-annual Munk Debate pits Niall Ferguson against Fareed Zakaria to debate the end of the liberal international order. Since the end of World War II, global affairs have been shaped by the increasing free movement of people and goods, international rules setting, and a broad appreciation of the mutual benefits of a more interdependent world. Together these factors defined the liberal international order and sustained an era of rising global prosperity and declining international conflict. But now, for the first time in a generation, the pillars of liberal internationalism are being shaken to their core by the reassertion of national borders, national interests, and nationalist politics across the globe. Can liberal internationalism survive these challenges and remain the defining rules-based system of the future? Or, are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the liberal international order? The twentieth semi-annual Munk Debate, held on April 28th, 2017, pits prominent historian Niall Ferguson against CNN's Fareed Zakaria to debate the future of liberal internationalism.
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.
In "Portraits and Miniatures," Roy Jenkins brings his penetrating intelligence and elegant prose to subjects ranging from literature and political history to wine and croquet. Long experience in both Houses of Parliament and as President of the European Commission has given him unparalleled insight into political figures such as R. A. Butler, Aneurin Bevan, Konrad Adenauer, and de Gaulle. A varied selection of essays, "Portraits and Miniatures" is fascinating, witty, and endlessly entertaining.
The recent, devastating and ongoing economic crisis has exposed the faultlines in the dominant neoliberal economic order, opening debate for the first time in years on alternative visions that do not subscribe to a 'free' market ethic. In particular, the core contradiction at the heart of neoliberalism -- that states are necessary for the functioning of free markets -- provides us with the opportunity to think again about how we want to organise our economies and societies. "The Rise and Fall of Neloberalism" presents critical perspectives of neoliberal policies, questions the ideas underpinning neoliberalism, and explores diverse response to it from around the world. In bringing together the work of distinguished scholars and dedicated activists to question neoliberal hegemony, the book exposes the often fractured and multifarious manifestations of neoliberalism which will have to be challenged to bring about meaningful social change.
From THE ENEMY AT HOME:
This book argues that, more than any other factor, it was the encounter with totalitarianism that dissolved the ideals of American progressivism and crystallized the ideals of postwar liberalism. The New Deal began as a revolution in favor of progressive governance--executive-centered and expert-guided. But as David Ciepley shows, by the late 1930s, intellectuals and elites, reacting against the menace of totalitarianism, began to shrink from using state power to guide the economy or foster citizen virtues. All of the more statist governance projects of the New Deal were curtailed or abandoned, regardless of success, and the country placed on a more libertarian-corporatist trajectory, both economically and culturally. In economics, attempts to reorient industry from private profit to public use were halted, and free enterprise was reaffirmed. In politics, the ideal of governance by a strong, independent executive was rejected--along with notions of "central planning," "social control," and state imposition of "values"--and a politics of contending interest groups was embraced. In law, the encounter with totalitarianism brought an end to judicial deference, the embrace of civil rights and civil liberties, and the neutralist reinterpretation, and radicalization, of both. Finally, in culture, the encounter sowed the seeds of our own era--the era of the culture wars--in which traditional America has been mobilized against these liberal legal advances, and against the entire neutralist, "relativist," "secular humanist" reinterpretation of America that accompanies them. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Microeconomics using Excel - Integrating…
Gerald Schwarz, Kurt Jechlitschka, …
Hardcover
R5,834
Discovery Miles 58 340
Green Chemistry - Advances in…
Mark Anthony Benvenuto, Heinz Plaumann
Hardcover
R4,588
Discovery Miles 45 880
Proceedings of the 4th International…
Yong Qin, Limin Jia, …
Hardcover
R5,748
Discovery Miles 57 480
Innovations in Electrical and Electronic…
Saad Mekhilef, Margarita Favorskaya, …
Hardcover
R5,821
Discovery Miles 58 210
Recent Advances in Technology Acceptance…
Mostafa Al-Emran, Khaled Shaalan
Hardcover
R5,645
Discovery Miles 56 450
|