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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Liberalism & centre democratic ideologies
This is the first book in international relations theory entirely devoted to the political thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Focusing on the existential theology which lies at the basis of Reinhold Niebuhr's theory of international politics, it highlights the ways in which Niebuhrian realism was not only profoundly theological, but also constituted a powerful existentialist reconfiguration of the Realist tradition going back to Saint Augustine. Guilherme Marques Pedro offers an innovative account of Reinhold Niebuhr's eclectic thought, branching out into politics, ethics, history, society and religion and laying out a conceptual framework through which his work, as much as the realist tradition of international political thought as a whole, can be read. The book calls for the need to revisit classic thinkers within IR theory with an eye to their interdisciplinary background and as a way to remind ourselves of the issues that were at stake within the field as it was growing in autonomy and diversity - issues which remain, regardless of its disciplinary development, at the core of IR's concerns. This book offers an important contribution to IR scholarship, revealing the great historical wealth, intellectual originality but also the limitations and paradoxes of one of the greatest American political thinkers of the twentieth century.
A comprehensive and authoritative collection on Locke's philosophy edited by leading figures in the field Deep and thorough coverage of Locke's major works, essential for any student studying Locke. Illustrates the fundamental importance of Locke's philosophy in both a historical and contemporary context
This book presents the first systematic account of dependency care in a liberal theory of justice. Despite the fact that receiving dependency care is necessary for human survival, the practices with which we meet society's care needs are seldom recognized for their functional role. Instead, norms about gender and race obscure and shape expectations about whose needs for care are legitimate as well as about whose caregiving labor more advantaged members of society will receive. These opaque arrangements must be made visible if we are to remedy skewed intuitions and judgements about care. Freedom to Care develops a modified form of social contract theory with which to evaluate society's caregiving arrangements. Building on work by feminist liberals and care ethicists, it reframes debates about care to move beyond gender with an inequality-tracking framework that can be employed in any culture. Because care provision has been enmeshed in the subordination of women and people of color, eliminating the invisibility of these forms of labor yields a critical liberal theory of justice with feminist and anti-racist aims.
The theory of spontaneous order conceptualises and explains a number of institutional and social phenomena that are not an intended effect of either individual decisions or a collective consensus but an unplanned outcome of interactions between people pursuing their own aims. Drawing on these insights, this book demonstrates the utility of the theory of spontaneous order in explaining many phenomena in political economy and political science. The book opens with a discussion of the history and development of the theory of spontaneous order, particularly in economics and the Austrian School. The epistemological premises of the theory are then explored including the formulation of the central idea of social individualism. Demonstrating the potential applications of the theory of spontaneous order to politics, core ideas are examined including democracy, fragile states and the concept of the veil of ignorance. Finally, the limitations and constraints of the theory of spontaneous order are also reviewed and discussed. This book marks a valuable contribution to the literature on political economy, political science, public choice and political philosophy.
Evaluates the current state of world (dis)order at a time of growing populism, nationalism and pandemic panic. Distils the implications of the 'civilisational state' for world order. Offers a prescriptive agenda for the coming post-pandemic age that recognises new powers of civilisational, state and hybrid non-state actors.
Liberals blame the retreat of the liberal world order on populists at home and authoritarian leaders abroad. Only liberalism, so they claim, can defend the rules-based international system against demagogy, corruption and nationalism. This provocative book contends that the liberal world order is illiberal and undemocratic - intolerant about the cultural values of ordinary people in the West and elsewhere while concentrating power in the hands of unaccountable Western elites and Western-dominated institutions. Under the influence of contemporary liberalism, the international system is fuelling economic injustice, social fragmentation and a worldwide "culture war" between globalists and nativists. Liberals, far from defending rules, have broken international law and imposed their version of market fundamentalism and democracy promotion by military means. Liberal "civilisation" has fuelled resentment across the world by imposing a narrow worldview that pits cultures against one another. To avoid a descent into a violent culture clash, this book proposes radical ideas for international order that take the form of cultural commonwealths - social bonds and crossborder cultural ties on which international trust and cooperation depends. The book's defence of an older order against both liberals and nationalists will speak to all readers trying to understand our age of anger. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and readers of liberalism, political theory and democracy, and more broadly to comparative politics and international relations.
Why were the European middle classes ready to acquiesce in neo-liberalism? This book argues that upward mobility, the growth of individual and family assets, the growing significance of private provision, and processes of individualization contributed to a major transformation of the middle classes, making them more prone to embrace inequality and market principles. It shows how the self-interest of large sections of the middle classes undermined social democracy and paved the way for neo-liberal reforms, making their socio-economic positioning ever more precarious and reducing their political power. Central to the debate is the question of how the middle classes can rebalance the relationship between the Market and state intervention, so as to establish a new social equilibrium.
The rise of authoritarian, nationalist forms of populism and the implications for rural actors and settings is one of the most crucial foci for critical agrarian studies today, with many consequences for political action. Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World reflects on the rural origins and consequences of the emergence of authoritarian and populist leaders across the world, as well as on the rise of multi-class mobilisation and resistance, alongside wider counter-movements and alternative practices, which together confront authoritarianism and nationalist populism. The book includes 20 chapters written by contributors to the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), a global network of academics and activists committed to both reflective analysis and political engagement. Debates about 'populism', 'nationalism', 'authoritarianism' and more have exploded recently, but relatively little of this has focused on the rural dimensions. Yet, wherever one looks, the rural aspects are key - not just in electoral calculus, but in understanding underlying drivers of authoritarianism and populism, and potential counter-movements to these. Whether because of land grabs, voracious extractivism, infrastructural neglect or lack of services, rural peoples' disillusionment with the status quo has had deeply troubling consequences and occasionally hopeful ones, as the chapters in this book show. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Peasant Studies.
Value pluralism is the idea, most prominently endorsed by Isaiah Berlin, that fundamental human values are universal, plural, conflicting, and incommensurable with one another. Incommensurability is the key component of pluralism, undermining familiar monist philosophies such as utilitarianism. But if values are incommensurable, how do we decide between them when they conflict? George Crowder assesses a range of responses to this problem proposed by Berlin and developed by his successors. Three broad approaches are especially important: universalism, contextualism, and conceptualism. Crowder argues that the conceptual approach is the most fruitful, yielding norms of value diversity, personal autonomy, and inclusive democracy. Historical context must also be taken into account. Together these approaches indicate a liberal politics of redistribution, multiculturalism, and constitutionalism, and a public policy in which basic values are carefully balanced. The Problem of Value Pluralism: Isaiah Berlin and Beyond is a uniquely comprehensive survey of the political theory of value pluralism and also an original contribution by a leading voice in the pluralist literature. Scholars and researchers interested in the work of Berlin, liberalism, value pluralism, and related ideas will find this a stimulating and valuable source.
'A lively and well-researched history and critique' - Jonathan Steele, former Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Guardian Since its inception in Manchester in 1821 as a response to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the Guardian has been a key institution in the definition and development of liberalism. The stereotype of the 'Guardianista', an environmentally-conscious, Labour-voting, progressively-minded public sector worker endures in the popular mythology of British press history. Yet the title has a complex lineage and occupies an equivocal position between capital and its opponents. It has both fiercely defended the need for fearless, independent journalism and handed over documents to the authorities; it has carved out a niche for itself in the UK media as a progressive voice but has also consistently diminished more radical projects on the left. Published to coincide with its 200th anniversary, Capitalism's Conscience brings together historians, journalists and activists in an appraisal of the Guardian's contribution to British politics, society and culture - and its distinctive brand of centrism. Contextualising some of the main controversies in which the title has been implicated, the book offers timely insights into the publication's history, loyalties and political values.
This book is a collection of writings by Thomas Paine previously unseen since their first appearance, including political pieces, private letters and verse. It covers his "Common Sense" years in the revolutionary American colonies; his time in Europe, when he published "Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason"; and his last years in the firmly united states of America.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) is widely regarded as one of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment period. Best-known for his founding work of economics, The Wealth of Nations, Smith engaged equally with the nature of morality in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. He also gave lectures on literature and jurisprudence, and wrote papers on art and science. In this outstanding philosophical introduction Samuel Fleischacker argues that Smith is a superb example of the broadly curious thinkers who flourished in the Enlightenment-for whom morality, politics, law, and economics were just a few of the many fascinating subjects that could be illuminated by naturalistic modes of investigation. After a helpful overview of his life and work, Fleischacker examines the full range of Smith's thought, on such subjects as: epistemology, philosophy of science, and aesthetics the nature of sympathy moral approval and moral judgement virtue religion justice and jurisprudence governmental policy economic principles liberalism. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary, Adam Smith is essential reading for those studying ethics, political philosophy, the history of philosophy, and the Enlightenment, as well as those reading Smith in related disciplines such as economics, law, and religion.
Written by one of Italy's leading historians, this book analyses the context and legacy of Gaetano Filangieri's seven-volume 'Science of Legislation'. This study engages with the unique history of Enlightenment Naples, the intellectual traditions upon which Filangieri drew, and the powerful repercussions of the American Revolution in eighteenth-century Italy to re-draw the map of Enlightenment republicanism and the early history of human rights and their political economy.
Originally published in 1989 Social Philosophy and Ecological Scarcity presents a systematic study of the implications of ecological scarcity for social philosophy. The book argues for a new social philosophy based on a conception of the 'good society' and the 'good life' which makes fewer, rather than more demands on scarce ecological resources. The book shows that the two major competing social philosophies in modern philosophical thought - the bourgeois liberal and the state socialist - are both forms of capitalism. Despite their obvious differences, they both pursue the logic of capitalism, of ever-increasing accumulation, growth and consumption. This pursuit is carried out by means of modern science and its technology, which assume that Nature's resources are inexhaustible and can be exploited to meet infinite human wants or needs, ignoring ecological scarcity. The recognition of ecological scarcity would lead to a social philosophy, based on a frugal mode of socialism which has more affinities with the social visions of Fourier and Morris than with that of Marx. Their theories, far from being too 'utopian', are shown as more 'realistic' and less 'fantastic' than either bourgeois capitalism or state capitalism based on the Marxist model.
This impressive book brings together four essays, which along with an insightful introduction from Charles Rowley, provide a robust defence of the concept of classical liberalism in modern 'civil' society. In the first essay, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Uyl discuss the basic approaches and principles of liberalism in the post-modern age and show how a moral philosophy can serve to support a political philosophy. They supply a clear, fundamental defence of liberalism in an era which has become sceptical of its doctrines. This is followed by Peter Ordeshook's authoritative analysis of the foundations of democracy, in relation to the demise of communist ideology, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Paul Rubin then examines, from a libertarian perspective, the differing methods and degrees of success of adapting contract law in Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in the wake of political change. Finally, Mwangi S. Kimenyi provides an original study of highly centralized, unitary systems of government and the breakdown of civil society in Sub-Saharan Africa. He argues persuasively that institutional reform involving decentralization and federalism can better accommodate ethnic diversity in the area. With contributions from some of the most eminent scholars in the field, Classical Liberalism and Civil Society provides a rigorous justification of classical liberal polity.
Caring for Liberalism brings together chapters that explore how liberal political theory, in its many guises, might be modified or transformed to take the fact of dependency on board. In addressing the place of care in liberalism, this collection advances the idea that care ethics can help respond to legitimate criticisms from feminists who argue that liberalism ignores issues of race, class, and ethnicity. The chapters do not simply add care to existing liberal political frameworks; rather, they explore how integrating dependency might leave core components of the traditional liberal philosophical apparatus intact, while transforming other aspects of it. Additionally, the contributors address the design of social and political institutions through which care is given and received, with special attention paid to non-Western care practices. This book will appeal to scholars working on liberalism in philosophy, political science, law, and public policy, and it is a must-read for feminist political philosophers.
"Reframing Rhetoric "argues that liberalism is a politics of both rational and civic virtue. In its highest form, it is about cooperating, compromising, and making commitments with others in the making of laws that allow all of us to prosper and have security. In the end in politics it is not the lack of knowledge that corrupts political argument but faulty presumptions; specifically presumptions about what we think we know and don't know.
This book examines the phenomenon of work suicides in France and asks why, at the present historical juncture, conditions of work can push individuals to take their own lives. During the 2000s, France experienced what commentators have described as a 'suicide epidemic', whereby increasing numbers of workers in the face of extreme pressures of work, chose to kill themselves. The book analyses a corpus of testimonial material linked to 66 suicide cases across three large French companies during the period from 2005 to 2015. It aims to consider what the extreme and subjective act of self-killing, narrated in suicide letters, can tell us about the contemporary economic order and its impact on flesh and blood bodies. What do rising work-related suicides reveal about conditions of human labour in the twenty-first century? Does neoliberal economics condition a desire for suicide? How do suicidal individuals describe the causes and motivations of their act? Combining critical perspectives from sociology, history, testimony studies, economics, cultural studies and public health, the book raises critical questions about the human costs of the shift to a finance-driven neoliberal order and its everyday effects within the French workplace.
Germany is a central case for research on comparative political economy, which has inspired theorizing on national differences and historical trajectories. This book assesses Germany's political economy after the end of the "social democratic" 20th century to rethink its dominant properties and create new opportunities for using the country as a powerful lens into the evolution of democratic capitalism. Documenting large-scale changes and new tensions in the welfare state, company strategies, interest intermediation, and macroeconomic governance, the volume makes the case for analysing contemporary Germany through the politics of imbalance rather than the long-standing paradigm of institutional stability. This conceptual reorientation around inequalities and disparities provides much-needed traction for clarifying the causal dynamics that govern ongoing processes of institutional recomposition. Delving into the politics of imbalance, the volume explicates the systemic properties of capitalism, multivalent policy feedback, and the organizational foundations of creative adjustment as key vantage points for understanding new forms of distributional conflict within and beyond Germany. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of German Politics.
This book offers comparative ontologies of both Islam and liberalism as discourses more broadly construed. The author argues that, despite recent efforts to speak of overlapping consensuses and discursive congruence, the fundamental categories that constitute "Islam" and "Liberalism" remain very different, and that these differences should be taken seriously. Thus far, no recent scholarly works have explicitly or meticulously broken down where these differences lie. The author rigorously explores questions related to rights, moral epistemologies, the role of religion in the public sphere, and more general approaches to legal discourse, via primary and canonical sources constitutive of both Islam and liberalism. He then goes on to articulate why communitarian modes of thought are better suited for engaging with Islam and contemporary socio-political modes of organization than liberalism is. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations, Islam, liberalism, and communitarianism.
This book provides a unified account of the connection between justice and the good life. It argues that the virtues of character require institutions, while good institutions enable persons to live together virtuously. Although virtue ethics and political philosophy are rich and sophisticated philosophical traditions, there has been an unfortunate divergence, in theory and practice, between the virtues of character and the virtues of institutions. This book has two primary purposes. First, it reorients political philosophy around the concept of the good life. To do so, the author addresses the problem of political authority from a virtue ethics perspective. He also considers whether a political theory oriented around the good life is compatible with Rawls's notion of reasonable pluralism. Second, the book explains the relationship between the virtues of institutions and the virtues of character. The author shows how institutions support the development and exercise of the virtues of character, while examining specific other-regarding virtues such as justice and friendship. The Authority of Virtue will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in virtue ethics, social and political philosophy, ancient philosophy, and political theory.
Obligations: New Trajectories in Law provides a critical analysis of the role of obligations in contemporary legal and social practices. As rights have become the preeminent feature of modern political and legal discourse, the work of obligations has been overshadowed. Questioning and correcting this dominant image of our time, this book brings obligations back into view in a way that fits better with the realities of contemporary social life. Following a historical account of the changing place and priorities of obligations in modernity, the book analyses how obligations and practices of obedience are core to understanding how law sustains conditions of inequality. But it also explores the enduring role obligations play in furthering individual and collective well-being, highlighting their significance in practices that prioritize human and environmental needs, common goods, and solidarity. In doing so, it also offers an alternative and cogent assessment of the force, and the potential, of obligations in contemporary societies. This original jurisprudential contribution will appeal to an academic and student readership in law, politics, and the social sciences.
The Roman Catholic Church's critical stance towards liberalism and democracy following the French Revolution and through the 19th century was often entrenched, but the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s saw a shift in the Church's attitude towards democracy. In recent years, a conflict has emerged between Church doctrine and modern liberalism under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. This book is a comprehensive overview of the Catholic Church's relationship to modern liberal democracy, from the end of the 18th century until today. It is a connection that is situated within the context of the history of ideas itself.
This book argues that the distinction between positive and negative freedom remains highly pertinent today, despite having fallen out of fashion in the late twentieth century. It proposes a new reading of this distinction for the twenty-first century, building on the work of Constant, Green and Berlin who led the historical development of these ideas. The author defends the idea that freedom is a dynamic interaction between two inseparable, yet sometimes fundamentally, opposed positive and negative concepts - the yin and yang of freedom. Positive freedom is achieved when one succeeds in doing what is right, while negative freedom is achieved when one is able to advance one's wellbeing. In an environment of culture wars, resurging populism and challenge to progressive liberal values, recognising the duality of freedom can help us better understand the political dilemmas we face and point the way forward. The book analyses the duality of freedom in more philosophical depth than previous studies and places it within the context of both historical and contemporary political thinking. It will be of interest to students and scholars of liberalism and political theory.
This book explores the relationship between different versions of liberalism and toleration by focusing on their shared theoretical and political challenges. Toleration is among the most pivotal and the most contested liberal values and virtues. Debates about the conceptual scope, justification, and political role of toleration are closely aligned with historical and contemporary philosophical controversies on the foundations of liberalism. The essays in this volume focus on the specific connection between toleration and liberalism. The essays in Part I reconstruct some of the major historical controversies surrounding toleration and liberalism. Part II centers on general conceptual and justificatory questions concerning toleration as a central category for the definition of liberal political theory. Part III is devoted to the theoretical analysis of applied issues and cases of conflicts of toleration in liberal states and societies. Toleration and the Challenges to Liberalism will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in social and political philosophy, ethics, and political theory. |
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