In this sequel to his prize-winning book, The Eyes of the People, Jeffrey Edward Green draws on philosophy, history, social science, and literature to ask what democracy can mean in a world where it is understood that socioeconomic status to some degree will always determine opportunities for civic engagement and career advancement. Under this shadow of unfairness, Green argues that the most advantaged class are rightly subjected to compulsory public burdens. And just as provocatively, he urges ordinary citizens living in polities permanently darkened by plutocracy to acknowledge their second-class status and the uncomfortable civic ethics that come with it - specifically an ethics whereby the pursuit of egalitarianism is informed, at least in part, by indignation, envy, uncivil modes of discourse, and even the occasional suspension of political care. Deeply engaged in the history of political thought, The Shadow of Unfairness is still first and foremost an effort to illuminate present-day politics. With the plebeians of ancient Rome as his muse, Green develops a plebeian conception of contemporary liberal democracy, at once disenchanted yet idealistic in its insistence that the Few-Many distinction might be enlisted for progressive purpose. Green's analysis is likely to unsettle all sides of the political spectrum, but its focus looks beyond narrow partisan concerns and aims instead to understand what the ongoing quest for free and equal citizenship might require once it is accepted that our political and educational systems will always be tainted by socioeconomic inequality.

This book investigates the relationship between liberal democracies and ontology, that is, philosophical claims about the constitution of agents and the social world. Many philosophers argue that ontology needs to be avoided in political and legal philosophy. In fact, political liberalism, a highly influential paradigm founded by the philosopher John Rawls, makes the avoidance of ontology a core ambition of its 'political, non-metaphysical' programme. In contrast to political liberalism, this book argues that attending to ontological disputes is essential to political and legal philosophy. Illuminating, criticising and developing ontological arguments does not only enhance our understanding of justice, but also highlights key features of democratic citizenship. The argument is built up by bringing together three traditions of thought that have so far not been confronted with one another: political liberalism, the work of Michel Foucault, and the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Donald Winnicott. The book also investigates more concrete implications of ontological disputes by drawing on several case studies: a Dutch political-legal debate about greeting rituals; an American conflict about the legalisation of religious freedom; and the struggles for resilience of two American social movement groups.

In Civic Liberalism: Reflections on Our Democratic Ideals, prominent political theorist Thomas A. Spragens, Jr. asserts that most versions of democratic ideals libertarianism, liberal egalitarianism, difference liberalism, and the liberalism of fear lead our polity significantly astray. Spragens offers another alternative. He argues that we should recover the multiple and complex aspirations found within the tradition of democratic liberalism and integrate them into a more compelling public philosophy for our time or what he calls civic liberalism. Civic liberalism, Spragens contends, endorses both liberty and equality although neither can properly be understood as a maximizing principle. Instead, liberty should be seen as the constitutive threshold good of autonomy; and equality should be seen as a moral postulate and instrumental good. Moreover, civic liberalism explicitly embraces forms of 'fraternity, ' civic friendship, and civic virtue consistent with respect for social pluralism. Therefore, a better understanding of our democratic ideals will free us from the constrictive orthodoxies of the left and right, lead us toward better public policy, and help us become a well ordered society of flourishing, self-governing civic equals."

An explosive expose of the man who devoted his career to shackling democracy - and succeeded. Libertarian billionaires are using their wealth and power to drastically curtail the US democratic process, disempowering ordinary citizens whilst entrenching the influence of corporations as never before. In Democracy in Chains, award-winning historian Nancy MacLean reveals how the ideas of Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan have been used to undermine the power of voters in a country whose Constitution is founded on the principle 'We the people'. Now, with Mike Pence as Vice President, this chilling movement has a loyalist in the White House, as well as supporters in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts. Democracy in Chains is a timely, important book, which should be read by anybody interested in the future of democracy.

What kind of thing is 'neoliberalism'? This collection of essays explores a range of possible answers to this question, arguing that neoliberalism is a complex, but specifiable and analysable phenomenon: a discursive formation, an ideology, a governmental programme, a hegemonic project, an assemblage of ideas, techniques and technologies, and what Deleuze and Guattari call an 'abstract machine'.Following an introductory essay by Jeremy Gilbert which contextualises the meaning and significance of neoliberalism, the collection considers the genesis, persistence and polyvalency of the concept across a range of cultural sites and discursive genres from political philosophy to pornography, from economics to photographic technology. Chapters examine the intersection of neoliberal ideology and political practice with experiences of race, gender, sexuality and class; with grand politics, technical innovation and hard economics.This book is essential reading for anyone interesting in the contemporary cultural climate, and the impact of the pervasive concept of neoliberalism on society in the present.

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.

Like American politics, the academic debate over justice is polarized, with almost all theories of justice falling within one of two traditions: egalitarianism and libertarianism. This book provides an alternative to the partisan standoff by focusing not on equality or liberty, but on the idea that we should give people the things that they deserve. Mulligan sets forth a theory of economic justice-meritocracy-which rests upon a desert principle and is distinctive from existing work in two ways. First, meritocracy is grounded in empirical research on how human beings think, intuitively, about justice. Research in social psychology and experimental economics reveals that people simply don't think that social goods should be distributed equally, nor do they dismiss the idea of social justice. Across ideological and cultural lines, people believe that rewards should reflect merit. Second, the book discusses hot-button political issues and makes concrete policy recommendations. These issues include anti-meritocratic bias against women and racial minorities and the United States' widening economic inequality. Justice and the Meritocratic State offers a new theory of justice and provides solutions to our most vexing social and economic problems. It will be of keen interest to philosophers, economists, and political theorists.

Mario Cuomo is in many respects one of the most significant liberal politicians in the postwar era: a three-term governor of one the nation's largest states and an eloquent defender of the Democratic Party's progressive legacy during a period of conservative ascendancy. Yet in other respects he never lived up to his supporters' hopes. His gubernatorial record was spotty, and when he had the chance to seek the presidency, he equivocated, Hamlet-like, before deciding against it and crushing the hopes of the party's progressive wing. His mixed record has made it very difficult for scholars and biographers to clarify his legacy. Was he a symbol of liberalism's long decline in twentieth-century American politics, or was he a prophet in the wilderness, heralding the rise of a new progressivism? Saladin Ambar's American Cicero weaves elements of biography, political history, and political theory into a novel interpretation of Cuomo's life and legacy. Tracing his life from the streets of an immigrant neighborhood in Queens to his final years in Albany, Ambar argues that Cuomo kept the spent embers of liberalism alive in an era when it seemed that conservatism was approaching full-spectrum dominance-even within the Democratic Party itself. In a series of important speeches over the course of the 1980s, Cuomo drew upon his singular oratorical powers to offer a progressive vision that revived and expanded upon the policymaking legacy of the New Deal and Great Society. At a time when pessimism about presidential electoral prospects reigned in the Democratic Party, his voice-buttressed by a string of electoral victories in New York-provided succor to the liberal faithful. Unsurprisingly, party professionals saw him as the next great Democratic presidential candidate. Yet when he had the chance to run-in 1988 and 1992-he decided not to. His political career ended in 1994, when he was voted out of office in New York in a nationwide Republican wave. To explain puzzling Cuomo's career trajectory, American Cicero begins with his background in New York City politics before shifting to his record as governor and his forays into presidential politics. Ambar traveled to Italy in search of answers to lingering questions about Cuomo, chiefly why he never ran for president. Conversations in Cuomo's ancestral land revealed concerns about an assassination attempt-his mother admonished him, "remember what happened to the last Catholic president"-and even proto-"birther" rumors that Cuomo had been born in Italy. Whatever clenched his decision not to run, Cuomo was nevertheless the nation's most articulate advocate for a progressive agenda at liberalism's ebb tide. His vision has had a measurable impact on twenty-first century Democratic progressives, most notably Barack Obama. American Cicero promises to not only re-establish Cuomo's central place in modern American liberalism, but also force readers to reassess liberalism's fortunes following the close of the New Deal era.

Since 1974 there has been an unprecedented wave of democratization in the world. This trend has been particularly extensive in South America. But the problems confronting these new democracies are staggering, and the prospects for building consolidated democratic regimes are far from uniformly good. Focusing primarily on recent South American cases, Issues in Democratic Consolidation examines some of the difficulties of constructing consolidated democracies and provides a critical examination of the major issues involved. A prominent theme running through this collection is that the transitions from authoritative rule to civilian government may be arrested by political, economic, and social constraints. The articles contain analyses of the varied modalities and complex processes related to the transitions. The first transition begins with the initial stirrings of crisis under authoritarian rule that generate some form of political opening and greater respect for basic civil rights, and ends with the establishment of a government elected in an open, competitive contest. The volumes primary focus, however, is on the second transition, which begins with the inauguration of a democratic government and ends - if all goes well - with the establishment of a consolidated democratic regime.

Like American politics, the academic debate over justice is polarized, with almost all theories of justice falling within one of two traditions: egalitarianism and libertarianism. This book provides an alternative to the partisan standoff by focusing not on equality or liberty, but on the idea that we should give people the things that they deserve. Mulligan sets forth a theory of economic justice-meritocracy-which rests upon a desert principle and is distinctive from existing work in two ways. First, meritocracy is grounded in empirical research on how human beings think, intuitively, about justice. Research in social psychology and experimental economics reveals that people simply don't think that social goods should be distributed equally, nor do they dismiss the idea of social justice. Across ideological and cultural lines, people believe that rewards should reflect merit. Second, the book discusses hot-button political issues and makes concrete policy recommendations. These issues include anti-meritocratic bias against women and racial minorities and the United States' widening economic inequality. Justice and the Meritocratic State offers a new theory of justice and provides solutions to our most vexing social and economic problems. It will be of keen interest to philosophers, economists, and political theorists.

Liberal Democracy and its Critics examines the contribution of eleven contemporary political social theorists to understanding democracy today. The theorists are prominent in political and philosophical debates in the 1990s, for example between neo--liberalism (Hayek) and social liberalism (Rawls), and between liberalism and republicanism (Arendt), communitarianism (Taylor and Walzer), a anti--political politicsa (Havel) and feminism (Pateman and Young). The book also explores how the philosophical defence of universalism (Habermas) or critiques of it (Foucault and Rorty) impinge on assessments of liberal democracy. The eleven theorists reflect varying approaches to key issues in democratic thought since 1945: liberal constitutionalism or popular sovereignty, elitism or participation and parliamentary or council democracy. Many also engage with more recent themes such as civil society, the politics of difference, deliberative democracy, and the nature of cosmopolitan democracy. Some focus on the justification of democracy, others make specific institutional proposals. The chapters set the thinkers within their intellectual and political contexts and explore the relationship between their philosophical positions and explicit or implicit views on democracy. They will be of interest both to students of contemporary social thought and of democracy. Contributors to the book include Margaret Canovan, April Carter, Don Fletcher, John Horton, Mark Kingwell, Chandran Kukathas, Martin Leet, Lois McNay, Barbara Sullivan, Katherine Welton and Jonathan Wolff.

20th century European Fascism is conventionally described as a fierce assault on liberal politics, culture and economics. Departing from this analysis, The Appentice's Sorcerer highlights the long overlooked critical affinities between the liberal tradition and fascism. Far from being the antithesis of liberalism, fascism both in ideology and practice, was substantially, if dialectically, indebted to liberalism; particularly its economic variant.

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.

Liberal candidates, scholars, and activists mainly promote pragmatism rather than large and powerful narratives - which may be called 'alpha stories' for their commanding presence over time. Alternatively, conservative counterparts to such liberals tend to promote their policy preferences in alpha stories praising effective markets, excellent traditions, and limited government. In this face-off, liberals represent a post-Enlightenment world where many modern people, following Max Weber, are 'disenchanted', while many conservatives, echoing Edmund Burke, cherish stories borrowed from the past. Politics without Stories describes this storytelling gap as an electoral disadvantage for liberals because their campaigning lacks, and will continue to lack, the inspiration and shared commitments that great, long-term stories can provide. Therefore, Ricci argues that, for tactical purposes, liberals should concede their post-Enlightenment skepticism and rally around short-term stories designed to frame, in political campaigns, immediate situations which they regard as intolerable. These may help liberals win elections and influence the course of modern life.

While there had been much radical thought before John Stuart Mill, Joseph Persky argues it was Mill, as he moved to the left, who provided the radical wing of liberalism with its first serious analytical foundation, a political economy of progress that still echoes today. A rereading of Mill's mature work suggests his theoretical understanding of accumulation led him to see laissez-faire capitalism as a transitional system. Deeply committed to the egalitarian precepts of the Enlightenment, Mill advocated gradualism and rejected revolutionary expropriation on utilitarian grounds: gradualism, not expropriation, promised meaningful long-term gains for the working classes. He endorsed laissez-faire capitalism because his theory of accumulation saw that system approaching a stationary state characterized by a great reduction in inequality and an expansion of cooperative production. These tendencies, in combination with an aggressive reform agenda made possible by the extension of the franchise, promised to provide a material base for social progress and individual development. The Political Economy of Progress goes on to claim that Mill's radical political economy anticipated more than a little of Marx's analysis of capitalism and laid a foundation for the work of Fabians and other gradualist radicals in the 20th century. More recently, modern philosophic radicals, such as Rawls, have deep links to this Millean political economy. These links are still worthy of development. In particular, a politically meaningful acceptance of Rawls's radical liberalism waits on a movement capable of re-engineering the workplace in a manner consistent with Mill's endorsement of worker management.

Neoliberalism remains a flashpoint for political contestation around the world. For decades now, neoliberalism has been in the process of becoming a globally ascendant default logic that prioritizes using economic rationality for all major decisions, in all sectors of society, at the collective level of state policymaking as well as the personal level of individual choice-making. Donald Trump's recent presidential victory has been interpreted both as a repudiation and as a validation of neoliberalism's hegemony. Rethinking Neoliberalism brings together theorists, social scientists, and public policy scholars to address neoliberalism as a governing ethic for our times. The chapters interrogate various dimensions of debates about neoliberalism while offering engaging empirical examples of neoliberalism's effects on social and urban policy in the USA, Europe, Russia, and elsewhere. Themes discussed include: Relationship between neoliberalism, the state, and civil society Neoliberalism and social policy to discipline citizens Urban policy and how neoliberalism reshapes urban governance What it will take politically to get beyond neoliberalism. Written in a clear and accessible style, Rethinking Neoliberalism is a sophisticated synthesis of theory and practice, making it a compelling read for students of Political Science, Public Policy, Sociology, Geography, Urban Planning, Social Work and related fields, at both the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

This volume brings together a range of scholars dissatisfied with the mainstream of the populism debate. It intends to bring forward a perspective which envisions populism not simply as a negative aspect of politics, but as a way of doing politics. Contemporary politics has been characterised by the overarching presence of populism, while simultaneously engendering a sense of fear and extremism around the results of populist movements. This collection intends to unpack the true potential for movements from and by the people, linking these historically and offering a new lens for thinking about contemporary populism. What can we learn from recent events? How can these lessons inform how we think about politics for the future? Offering this approach, from the perspective of populist potential, will help us answer these questions and open the debate with contributors from countries or regions that have a tradition of populism, privileging them with a deeper understanding.

Everything we think we know about populism is wrong. Donald Trump. Brexit. European right-wing extremists. All have been accused of populism. But what does this often thrown about, yet generally misunderstood, term actually mean? The real story of populism is an account of enlightenment and liberation; the story of democracy itself, of its promise of a decent life for us all. Here, acclaimed political commentator Thomas Frank takes us from the emergence of the radical left-wing US Populist Party in the 1890s, through the triumphs of reformers under Roosevelt and Truman, to the present day, reminding us how much we owe to the populist ethos. He pummels the elites, revisits the movement's provocative politics, and declares true populism to be the language of promise and optimism. People Without Power is a ringing affirmation of a movement that, Frank shows us, is not the problem of our times, but the solution.

Today neoliberals argue that we should let ourselves be guided by market forces and that there is little we can do to stem the flow of economic globalization. On the other hand, thinkers on the left continue to denounce domination and claim to speak in the name of victims who are powerless to change the circumstances of their lives. Despite the differences between these two political positions, they suffer from a common weakness: they underestimate the role of autonomous social actors who are capable of influencing political decision-making.

In this important new book Alain Touraine - the leading sociologist and social theorist - attacks the positions of the neoliberals and certain thinkers on the left and develops an alternative view of the tasks for political thought and action today. He argues that the globalization of the economy has not dissolved our capacity for political action, and that the actions of the most underprivileged sections of society are not restricted to rebellion against domination: they can also demand rights (in particular, cultural rights), and can therefore put forward an innovative and not merely critical conception of society and its future.

"Beyond Neoliberalism" is an original and timely contribution to current debates about the changing nature and goals of politics in our contemporary, globalized age. It will be of great interest to students of politics and sociology and will also appeal to a broader readership interested in contemporary politics and current affairs.

At the start of the twenty-first century, 1 percent of the U.S. population is behind bars. An additional 3 percent is on parole or probation. In all but two states, incarcerated felons cannot vote, and in three states felon disenfranchisement is for life. More than 5 million adult Americans cannot vote because of a felony-class criminal conviction, meaning that more than 2 percent of otherwise eligible voters are stripped of their political rights. Nationally, fully a third of the disenfranchised are African American, effectively disenfranchising 8 percent of all African Americans in the United States. In Alabama, Kentucky, and Florida, one in every five adult African Americans cannot vote.
Punishment and Inclusion gives a theoretical and historical account of this pernicious practice of felon disenfranchisement, drawing widely on early modern political philosophy, continental and postcolonial political thought, critical race theory, feminist philosophy, disability theory, critical legal studies, and archival research into state constitutional conventions. It demonstrates that the history of felon disenfranchisement, rooted in postslavery restrictions on suffrage and the contemporaneous emergence of the modern "American" penal system, reveals the deep connections between two political institutions often thought to be separate, showing the work of membership done by the criminal punishment system and the work of punishment done by the electoral franchise.
Felon disenfranchisement is a symptom of the resolved tension that persists in democratic politics between membership and punishment. This book shows how this tension is managed via the persistence of white supremacy in contemporary regimes of punishment and governance.

Historians generally portray the 1950s as a conservative era when anticommunism and the Cold War subverted domestic reform, crushed political dissent, and ended liberal dreams of social democracy. These years, historians tell us, represented a turn to the right, a negation of New Deal liberalism, an end to reform. Jennifer A. Delton argues that, far from subverting the New Deal state, anticommunism and the Cold War enabled, fulfilled, and even surpassed the New Deal's reform agenda. Anticommunism solidified liberal political power and the Cold War justified liberal goals such as jobs creation, corporate regulation, economic redevelopment, and civil rights. She shows how despite President Eisenhower's professed conservativism, he maintained the highest tax rates in US history, expanded New Deal programs, and supported major civil rights reforms.

Does the concept of nationality apply to the economic elite, or have they shed national identities to form a global capitalist class? In Rooted Globalism, Kevin Funk unpacks dozens of ethnographic interviews he conducted with Latin America's urban-based, Arab-descendant elite class, some of whom also occupy positions of political power in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Based on extensive fieldwork, Funk illuminates how these elites navigate their Arab ancestry, Latin American host cultures, and roles as protagonists of globalization. With the term "rooted globalism," Funk captures the emergence of classed intersectional identities that are simultaneously local, national, transnational, and global. Focusing on an oft-ignored axis of South-South relations (between Latin America and the Arab world), Rooted Globalism provides detailed analysis of the identities, worldviews, and motivations of this group and ultimately reveals that rather than obliterating national identities, global capitalism relies on them.

Liberal peacebuilding too often builds neither peace nor Liberalism. In a growing number of cases, people aren't rejecting and relegating democracy because it's bad; they're challenging it because it isn't relevant to their priorities and needs. The peacebuilding 'moment' - when consent for intervention is present and the opportunity to build a sustainable social contract between peacebuilders and people is most fruitful - is being squandered. This relationship, between governed and governance, relies on mutual needs realization, but there is no formal or informal requirement and mechanism for ascertaining what the 'subjects' of peacebuilding might prioritize. Instead, peacebuilders give the 'subjects' of peacebuilding what they think they should have. This legitimacy gap - between what peacebuilders give and what subjects want - is the subject of this book. Through a range of empirical case studies conducted by country specialists, the book reveals that, when asked, people often prioritize roads, electricity, jobs, housing, schooling and pertinent justice (amongst other things) in the immediate aftermath of war. We find that mapping this locus of legitimacy may help develop the kind of relationship upon which the sustainability of any social contract between governed and governance rests. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

This volume is dedicated to theoretical contributions and systematic empirical studies of political, economic, and cultural formations which cross the borders and boundaries of states. The focus is on the main areas of public policy: security, human rights, legitimacy of political systems, welfare, and developments in the Global South. This volume looks at the role of neoliberalism in the institutionalization of differential rules for capital and migration flows in the global economy.

"Sabine Dreher" is affiliated with the Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development (COMCAD) at the University of Bielefeld (Germany).

Locating Neoliberalism in East Asia: Neoliberalizing Spaces in Developmental States examines the influence of neo-liberal ideologies on urban and regional policies and practices in several Asian Pacific nations. * Represents one of the few studies of neoliberal changes in East Asia, one of the most important topics in social science research over the past two decades * Considers the Asian perspective by focusing on readings from Asian experts * Pays special attention to the spatial' dimension of the East Asian neoliberalization * Examines the influence of neo-liberal ideologies on urban and regional policies and practices in several Asian Pacific nations * Explores the evolving relationship between the two political economies