'I am passionate about my country and angry at the mendacity that has led to the appalling situation in which the UK and our people are heading for relative poverty and insignificance while our politics is offering bitter, unpalatable extremes. There has to be something better. In the absence of something better, we will have to build it.' Tim Farron Writing with warmth, humour and compelling honesty, Tim Farron charts his rise to the leadership of the Liberal Democrats - from his childhood in Preston to his central role during the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition of 2010-15. Farron speaks openly about his role as Party President and the intense experience of leading his party through the 2016 EU referendum and the snap general election of 2017. He also reflects on the scrutiny he received because of his religious beliefs. So, having reached the top of his career, what made him voluntarily relinquish that honour? What does Tim Farron's experience mean for those who hold to a liberal vision? Are there lessons to be learned about the role of religion in public life? And what are the prospects for true liberalism in the UK today?

Currently, liberal democracy is threatened by authoritarian movements, not just in the United States but also in societies around the world. The liberal arts arrests authoritarian tendencies by advancing what it shares with the citizens of a liberal democracy: autonomy and freedom. Autonomy is the capacity to make reasoned decisions about a host of political, social, and personal matters-independent of external parties who seek to control our lives for the sake of their ends and at the cost of our freedom. But autonomy depends on people being able to enter into discussions-what I call discourses of mutual respect-designed to test ideas in public against facts and good reasons. This discourse is facilitated by an enlarged culture through which individuals identify what they hold in common and by which individuals work to understand their differences. Now, authoritarian regimes reject autonomy because it empowers citizens to designate the boundaries and content of political authority. Liberal democracies, in contrast, embrace autonomy because it is the basis for the political institutions that provide civic equality-and through it-the freedom of citizens to control their destiny. Yet, ironically, an enlarged culture and the discourse of mutual respect that, together, sustain autonomy are not likely to be produced within a highly partisan political atmosphere of a liberal democracy. Still, a liberal democracy is open to the importation of these elements from the liberal arts. Thus, saving liberal democracy from authoritarianism depends on a robust liberal arts presence in society. What reforms of the liberal arts are needed to make this objective possible? Much rides on the answer to this question. For the fact is that if the liberal arts recedes to a whisper, liberal democracy is likely to be defeated by the authoritarian's bluster-filled and always nihilist roar.

Despite the centralizing tendencies of the American national government in the twentieth century, there have been surprisingly few books defending the federal system. Felix Morley's "Freedom and Federalism, " which examines the root causes of the problem, was thus a pioneering achievement when it first appeared in 1959.No less relevant today, the book provides a perceptive diagnosis of the collapse of States' rights in modern America; and it seeks the restoration of a constitutional balance between central and state authorities.Is federalism worth saving? "Its outstanding virtue," which is "the distinctively American contribution to political art," argues Morley, "is its facility in combining two naturally antagonistic conditions--the social condition of order, and the more personal condition of freedom." In the end, he concludes, the American government will fail unless these two conditions are reconciled.Felix Morley (1894-1982), Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, journalist, and educator, was a Rhodes Scholar, editor of the "Washington Post" and "Human Events, " and President of Haverford College.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"If you think liberalism is dead, think again. In this sure-to-be-controversial book, Jeffrey M. Berry argues that modern liberalism is not only still alive, it's actually thriving. Today's new liberalism has evolved from a traditional emphasis on bread-and-butter economic issues to a form he calls ""postmaterialism""--quality-of-life concerns such as enhancing the environment, protecting consumers, or promoting civil rights. Berry credits the new liberalism's success to the rise of liberal citizen lobbying groups. By analyzing the activities of Congress during three sessions (1963, 1979, and 1991), he demonstrates the correlation between the increasing lobbying activities of citizen groups and a dramatic shift in the American political agenda from an early 1960s emphasis on economic equality to today's postmaterialist issues. Although conservative groups also began to emphasize postmaterial concerns--such as abortion and other family value issues--Berry finds that liberal citizen groups have been considerably more effective than conservative ones at getting their goals onto the congressional agenda and enacted into legislation. The book provides many examples of citizen group issues that Congress enacted into law, successes when citizen groups were in direct conflict with business interests and when demands were made on behalf of traditionally marginalized constituencies, such as the women's and civil rights movements. Berry concludes that although liberal citizen groups make up only a small portion of the thousands of lobbying organizations in Washington, they have been, and will continue to be, a major force in shaping the political landscape. "

Liberals blame the global retreat of liberal democracy on globalisation and authoritarian leaders. Only liberalism, so they assume, can defend democratic rule against multinationals or populists at home and abroad. In this provocative book, Adrian Pabst contends that liberal democracy is illiberal and undemocratic - intolerant about the values of ordinary people while concentrating power and wealth in the hands of unaccountable elites. Under the influence of contemporary liberalism, democracy is sliding into oligarchy, demagogy and anarchy. Liberals, far from defending open markets and free speech, promote monopolies such as the new tech giants that undermine competition and democratic debate. Liberal individualism has eroded the social bonds and civic duties on which democracy depends for trust and cooperation. To banish liberal democracy's demons, Pabst proposes radical ideas for economic democracy, a politics of persuasion and a better balance of personal freedom with social solidarity. This book's defence of democratic politics against both liberals and populists will speak to all readers trying to understand our age of upheaval.

This book links the questions people ask about why things exist, why the world is the way it is, and whether and how it is possible to change their society or world with the societal myths they develop and teach to answer those questions and organize and bring order to their communal lives. It also is about the need for change in western societies’ current organizing concept, classical (Lockean) liberalism. Despite the attempts of numerous insightful political thinkers, the myth of classical liberalism has developed so many cracks that it cannot be put back together again. If not entirely failed, it is at this point unsalvageable in its present form. Never the thought of just one person, the liberal model of individual religious, political, and economic freedom developed over hundreds of years starting with Martin Luther’s dictum that every man should be his own priest. Although, classical liberalism means different things to different people, at its most basic level, this model sees human beings as individuals who exist prior to government and have rights over government and the social good. That is, the individual right always trumps the moral and social good and individuals have few obligations to one another unless they actively choose to undertake them. Possibility’s Parents argues that Lockean liberalism has reached the end of its logic in ways that make it unable to handle the western world’s most pressing problems and that novelists whose writing includes the form and texture of myth have important insights to offer on the way forward.

An intellectual biography of the renowned and influential observer of the "era of tyrannies" Elie Halevy (1870-1937) was one of the most respected and influential intellectuals of the French Third Republic. In this densely contextualized biography, K. Steven Vincent describes how Halevy, best remembered as the historian of British Utilitarianism and nineteenth-century English history, was also a persistent, acute, and increasingly anxious observer of society in a period defined by industrialization and imperialism and by what Halevy famously called the "era of tyrannies." Vincent distinguishes three broad phases in the development of Halevy's thought. In the first, Halevy brought his version of neo-Kantianism to debates with sociologists and philosophers and to his study of English Utilitarianism. He forged ties with Xavier Leon, Leon Brunschvicg, and Alain (Emile-Auguste Chartier), life-long intellectual interlocutors. Together they founded the Revue de metaphysique et de morale, a continuing venue for Halevy's reflections. The Dreyfus Affair, Vincent argues, caused Halevy to shift his focus from philosophy to history and from metaphysics to politics. He became a philosopher-historian, less interested in abstract neo-Kantianism and more in real-world action, less given to rarified debates over truth and more to investigation of how theories and their applications were situated within broader political, economic, and cultural movements. World War I and its destabilizing effects provoked the third phase, Vincent explains. As he watched reason recede before rabid nationalism and a pox of political enthusiasms, Halevy sounded the alarm about liberal democracy's vulnerabilities. Vincent situates Halevy on the unsteady and narrowing middle ground between state socialism and fascism, showing how he defended liberalism while, at the same time, appreciating socialists' analyses of capitalism's negative impact and their calls for reform and greater economic equality. Through his analysis of Halevy's life and works, Vincent illuminates the complexity of the Third Republic's philosophical, historical, and political thought and concludes with an incisive summary of the distinctive nature of French liberalism.

Why has the Egyptian state, which is more repressive and authoritarian than its Mexican counterpart, been unable to overcome the opposition of a labor movement that is smaller, less organized, and more repressed than the Mexican labor movement? Through agitation or the threat of agitation, Egyptian workers have been able to hinder the reform process, while the Mexican labor movement, which is larger and better organized, was unable to resist privatization. The Egyptian state's low capacity and isolation is best understood by looking at the founding moment - or incorporation period - of each regime. The critical distinction between Mexican and Egyptian incorporation is that in Egypt, the labor movement was depoliticized and attached to the state bureaucracy, while in Mexico, workers were electorally mobilized into a political party. This difference would prove crucial during the reform process because social control in Mexico, exercised through the PRI, was more effective in coopting opponents and mobilizing urban constituencies for privatization than the control mechanisms of the Egyptian state bureaucracy.

In Our Only Star and Compass: Locke and the Struggle for Political Rationality, Peter C. Myers reexamines the role of Locke in liberal political philosophy. Myers considers Locke's philosophy in relation both to contemporary liberalism and to the great works of classical and modern political philosophy. With an emphasis on the human capacity for rational self-government, Myers clarifies Locke's insights into the status of reason in political life, arguing that Locke presents reason as a way of life that offers humans fulfillment, and moral and political moderation.

This Liberty Fund edition of "An Account of Denmark", with its related texts, is the first modern edition of Molesworth's writings. This volume presents not only "An Account", a text that for most of the eighteenth century was recognized as one of the canonical works of Whiggism, but also his "Francogallia and Some Considerations for the Promoting of Agriculture and Employing the Poor". Taken in their totality, these important texts encompass Molesworth's major political statements on liberty as well as his important and understudied recommendations for the application of liberty to economic improvement.

Amongst intellectuals and activists, neoliberalism has become a potent signifier for the kind of free-market thinking that has dominated politics for the past three decades. Forever associated with the conviction politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the free-market project has since become synonymous with the 'Washington consensus' on international development policy and the phenomenon of corporate globalization, where it has come to mean privatization, deregulation, and the opening up of new markets. But beyond its utility as a protest slogan or buzzword as shorthand for the political-economic Zeitgeist, what do we know about where neoliberalism came from and how it spread? Who are the neoliberals, and why do they studiously avoid the label? Constructions of Neoliberal Reason presents a radical critique of the free-market project, from its origins in the first half of the 20th Century through to the recent global economic crisis, from the utopian dreams of Friedrich von Hayek through the dogmatic theories of the Chicago School to the hope and hubris of Obamanomics. The book traces how neoliberalism went from crank science to common sense in the period between the Great Depression and the age of Obama. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason dramatizes the rise of neoliberalism and its uneven spread as an intellectual, political, and cultural project, combining genealogical analysis with situated case studies of formative moments throughout the world, like New York City's bankruptcy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Wall Street crisis of 2008. The book names and tracks some of neoliberalism's key protagonists, as well as some of the less visible bit-part players. It explores how this adaptive regime of market rule was produced and reproduced, its logics and limits, its faults and its fate.

Illustrated most dramatically by the events of 9/11 and the subsequent 'war on terror', violence represents a challenge to democratic politics and to the establishment of liberal-democratic regimes. Liberal-democracies have themselves not hesitated to use violence and restrict civil liberties as a response to such challenges. These issues are at the centre of global politics and figure prominently in political debates today concerning multiculturalism, political exclusion and the politics of gender. This book takes up these topics with reference to a wide range of case-studies, covering Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. It provides a theoretical framework clarifying the relationship between democracy and violence and presents original research surveying current hot-spots of violent conflict and the ways in which violence affects the prospects for democratic politics and for gender equality. Based on field-work carried out by specialists in the areas covered, this volume will be of high interest to students of democratic politics and to all those concerned with ways in which the recourse to violence could be reduced in a global context. This book has significant implications for policy-makers involved in attempts to develop safer and more peaceful ways of handling political and social conflict. This book was published as a special issue of Democratizations.

The Letters of Richard Cobden (1804-1865) provides, in four printed volumes, the first critical edition of Cobden's letters, publishing the complete text in as near the original form as possible. The letters are accompanied by full scholarly apparatus, together with an introduction to each volume which re-assesses Cobden's importance in their light. Together, these volumes make available a unique source of the understanding of British liberalism in its European and international contexts, throwing new light on issues such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, British radical movements, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Anglo-French relations, and the American Civil War.
The third volume, drawing on some forty-seven archives worldwide, reveals the tension between public and private life experienced by Cobden from 1854 until 1859. As prospects for reform at home diminished, he became the prototype for the group A. J. P. Taylor famously called the 'Trouble Makers', articulating a wide-ranging critique of British foreign policy with regard to the Crimean War, Anglo-American relations, the Indian 'Mutiny', and British expansion in Asia. An arch antagonist of the Prime Minister Palmerston, in early 1857 he dramatically defeated the government in the House of Commons over British naval intervention in China (the Arrow incident), and in 1858 played a major part in resisting Britain's annexation of Sarawak. Privately, Cobden experienced anguish at the death of his fifteen-year-old son at school in Germany in 1856, heightened by the inconsolability of his wife Catherine. He was also beset by financial worries, prompting a second visit to the United States in 1859 where he was welcomed as a celebrity, though his primary purpose was to investigate the prospects of the Illinois Central Railroad following the 1857 global financial crisis. On return to Britain, he found himself once more at the forefront of British politics, rejecting an unexpected offer of office in Palmerston's new Cabinet: the first 'modern' Liberal government.
The volume concludes with Cobden's lengthy stay in Paris. There, with the support of his friend the French economist Michel Chevalier, and against the background of recent war in Italy and growing Anglo-French antagonism, he was on the brink of completing the negotiation of the path-breaking Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1860: his most important achievement since the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and a vital step towards free trade and peace in Europe.

The political trajectory of Latin America in the last decade has been remarkable. The left, which had been given up for dead across the region, swept into power in numerous countries: Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and even Chile. Moreover, the Mexican left, which lost an extremely close (and disputed) election a couple of years ago, may yet come to power in 2012. Once these left governments took the reins of power, though, they acted very differently. Some have been truly radical, while others have been moderate. Gusatvo Flores-Macias' After Neoliberalism? offers the first systemic explanation of why left-wing governments across the region have acted in the way that they have. His theory hinges on party systems. Deeply institutionalized, stable party systems have forestalled radical change regardless of the governing party's philosophy, but states with weakly institutionalized party systems have opened the door for more radical reform. Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez, then, are not simply more radical than Lula and Chile's Michele Bachelet (who left office in March 2010). Rather, weak party systems allowed them to adopt more radical policies. Flores-Macias is careful to add that weak party systems also allow for rightwing radicals to enact policies more easily, but at this historical conjuncture, the left has the upper hand. Utilizing a rich base of empirical evidence drawn from eleven countries, After Neoliberalism? will reshape our understanding of not simply why the left has had such a far-reaching triumph, but how it actually governs.

The growth of neo-liberalism has been the dominant political force in the past two decades. This volume concentrates on understanding the political economy of neo-liberalism. It focuses on a number of the most critical issues and examines the essence of neo-liberalism, namely, the dominance of the market. In particular, the authors consider: * the political economy of market expansion * the rise of neo-liberalism in advanced capitalist economies * the notion of social capital * the nature of economic imperialism * the political economy of central bank independence * the relationship between Keynes and Marx. With contributions by some of the leading scholars in the field, this vital new book on the political economy of neo-liberalism and the dominance of the market will become essential reading for all those with an interest in post Keynesian economics, political economy and international economic policy.

"An extraordinary work of political historical analysis that methodically and convincingly argues for the superiority of a Marxist approach for pursuing democracy. Rich in historical detail and thoroughly engrossing in portraying the real-time analyses of and intervention in crucial events by prominent Marxist and liberal theorists and political actors, Marxism versus Liberalism is a truly impressive achievement that will have an enduring appeal." -John F. Sitton, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Performing a comparative real-time political analysis, Marxism versus Liberalism presents convincing evidence to sustain two similarly audacious claims: firstly, that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels collectively had better democratic credentials than Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill; and secondly, that Vladimir Lenin had better democratic credentials than Max Weber and Woodrow Wilson. When the two sets of protagonists are compared and contrasted in how they read and responded to big political events in motion, this book contends that these Marxists proved to be better democrats than the history's most prominent Liberals. Exploring the historical scenarios of The European Spring of 1848, the United States Civil War, the 1905 Russian Revolution, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the end of World War I, Marxism versus Liberalism carefully tests each claim in order to challenge assumed political wisdom.

A provocative counterargument to the blue/red divide that illuminates our country's multidimensional political spectrum.

In a climate of culture wars and economic uncertainty, the media have often reduced America to a simplistic schism between red and blue states. In response to that oversimplification, journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in depth.

Looking at the data, they recognized that the country breaks into twelve distinct types of communities, whose differences and specific concerns shed light on the subtle distinctions in how Americans vote, shop, and otherwise behave. Showcasing personal interviews, combined with facts and statistics, "Our Patchwork Nation" offers a brilliant new way to examine the issues that matter most to our communities, and to our nation.

The majority of citizens in the world today do not trust their political representatives, the mainstream political parties, the established political institutions or their governments. This widespread crisis of legitimacy underlies a series of dramatic changes that have taken place in recent times in the global political landscape, such as the unexpected election of Donald Trump, Brexit, the demise of traditional political parties and the election of a political outsider in France, the transformation of the political system in Spain (including the secessionist movement in Catalonia), the rise of the extreme right in Europe and the nationalist challenges that threaten the European Union. In this short but wide-ranging book Manuel Castells analyses each of these processes and examines some of the potential causes of people's disaffection towards the institutions of liberal democracy, including the effects of globalization, the impact of media politics and the internet, the increasing corruption of politicians, the insulation of a professional political class from civil society and the critique of the existing order by new social movements. He also examines the impact of global terrorism and war on the xenophobia and racism that are fuelling the surge of extremism among a growing proportion of the population. The fact that many of these trends are present in very different contexts suggests that we are witnessing a deep-seated crisis of the model of democracy that has been the cornerstone of stability and civility in the last half century.

Liberals blame the global retreat of liberal democracy on globalisation and authoritarian leaders. Only liberalism, so they assume, can defend democratic rule against multinationals or populists at home and abroad. In this provocative book, Adrian Pabst contends that liberal democracy is illiberal and undemocratic - intolerant about the values of ordinary people while concentrating power and wealth in the hands of unaccountable elites. Under the influence of contemporary liberalism, democracy is sliding into oligarchy, demagogy and anarchy. Liberals, far from defending open markets and free speech, promote monopolies such as the new tech giants that undermine competition and democratic debate. Liberal individualism has eroded the social bonds and civic duties on which democracy depends for trust and cooperation. To banish liberal democracy's demons, Pabst proposes radical ideas for economic democracy, a politics of persuasion and a better balance of personal freedom with social solidarity. This book's defence of democratic politics against both liberals and populists will speak to all readers trying to understand our age of upheaval.