"A thoughtful and intelligent assessment of why American liberalism declined in the last third of the twentieth century, and what can be done to resurrect it in the first third of the twenty-first."--Robert B. Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis University

"I took Douglas Massey's "Return of the "L" Word" along with me on a flight to the West Coast, not really thinking I'd get to reading it. Once I started, I couldn't stop. It's terrific. Massey has given us a forceful, passionate reminder of what liberalism has accomplished and why it is worth rebuilding and defending with all the energy we can muster. All those who woke up distraught on November 3, 2004, should read this book, roll up their sleeves, and get to work."--Barry Schwartz, author of "The Paradox of Choice"

"One Douglas Massey is worth ten Michael Moores, if you ask me! Here is the public intellectual at his best, writing with passion and thinking in concrete, practical terms about the future of political debate in this country."--Glenn C. Loury, Boston University, author of "The Anatomy of Racial Inequality" and "One by One from the Inside Out"

"Douglas Massey's new book is a bold attempt to demonstrate that liberalism is still viable politics. Massey argues for a liberalism based on the recognition that markets--domestic and global--are not autonomous mechanisms, but are subject to either democratic control or narrow private manipulation. If that insight can be translated into a popular politics, and a program for equitably and efficiently distributing the fruits of the new global information economy, then liberalism might indeed have something tooffer."--John B. Judis, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment; Senior Editor, "New Republic"

"In this crisp, tightly argued book, Douglas Massey forcefully reminds liberals of the principles they once stood for. He makes a persuasive case that liberalism must return to these principles to be effective in the new century and beat back the challenge of the radical right."--Ruy Teixeira, coauthor of "The Emerging Democratic Majority"

"Douglas Massey boldly reclaims the 'L word' and returns the political conversation to the promise of progressive government. He urges liberals to own up to their failures in connecting to the aspirations of ordinary Americans and lays out a clear and compelling agenda for activist government. We have long needed a clear voice that speaks unambiguously and proudly for the liberal cause. We have found it in Massey. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of American politics."--Katherine Newman, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

"A fine piece of work. I particularly welcome Massey's tracing of liberal history back to the beginnings of America and his criticism of liberals themselves for elitism, which is true and is welcome."--Jeff Madrick, author of "Why Economies Grow" and "The End of Affluence"

"In this persuasive and brilliantly argued book, Douglas Massey outlines with great clarity the issues American liberalism must address in order to emerge from its current malaise with a progressive program that has broad appeal to voters."--Victor Nee, Cornell University, coauthor of "Remaking the American Mainstream"

In this 2002 book, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti examines the most intractable problems which toleration encounters and argues that what is really at stake is not religious or moral disagreement but the unequal status of different social groups. Liberal theories of toleration fail to grasp this and consequently come up with normative solutions that are inadequate when confronted with controversial cases. Galeotti proposes, as an alternative, toleration as recognition, which addresses the problem of according equal respect to groups as well as equal liberty to individuals. She offers an interpretation that is both a revision and an expansion of liberal theory, in which toleration constitutes an important component not only of a theory of justice, but also of the politics of identity. Her study will appeal to a wide range of readers in political philosophy, political theory, and law.

In recent years the concepts of individual autonomy and political liberalism have been the subjects of intense debate, but these discussions have occurred largely within separate academic disciplines. Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism contains for the first time new essays devoted to foundational questions regarding both the notion of the autonomous self and the nature and justification of liberalism. Written by leading figures in moral, legal and political theory, the volume covers inter alia the following topics: the nature of the self and its relation to autonomy, the social dimensions of autonomy and the political dynamics of respect and recognition, and the concept of autonomy underlying the principles of liberalism.

The Practice of Liberal Pluralism defends a theory, liberal pluralism, which is based on three core concepts - value pluralism, political pluralism, and expressive liberty - and explores the implications of this theory for politics. Liberal pluralism helps clarify some of the complexities of real-world political action and points toward a distinctive conception of public philosophy and public policy. It leads to a vision of a good society in which political institutions are active in a delimited sphere and in which, within broad limits, families, civil associations, and faith communities may organize and conduct themselves in ways that are not congruent with principles that govern the public sphere. The final section of the book defends liberal pluralism against attacks that it is internally incoherent or that it denies, without justification, key theological premises. Written in a nontechnical style, this book should appeal to professionals in philosophy, political science, law, and policy making.

In common with republicanism or socialism in continental Europe, Liberalism in nineteenth-century Britain was a mass movement. By focussing on the period between the 1860s and the 1880s, this book sets out to explain why and how that happened, and to examine the people who supported it, their beliefs, and the way in which the latter related to one another and to reality. Popular suport for the Liberal party was not irrational in either its objectives or its motivations: on the contrary, its dissemination was due to the fact that the programme of reforms proposed by the party leaders offered convincing solutions to some of the problems perceived as being the most urgent at the time. This is a revealing, innovative synthesis of the history of popular support for the Liberal party, which emphasises the extent to which Liberalism stood in the common heritage of European and American democracy.

"Producing Culture and Capital" is a major theoretical contribution to the anthropological literature on capitalism, as well as a rich case study of kinship and gender relations in northern Italy.

Drawing on ethnographic and archival research on thirty-eight firms in northern Italy's silk industry, Sylvia Yanagisako illuminates the cultural processes through which sentiments, desires, and commitments motivate and shape capitalist family firms. She shows how flexible specialization is produced through the cultural dynamics of capital accumulation, management succession, firm expansion and diversification, and the reproduction and division of firms. In doing so, Yanagisako addresses two gaps in Marx's and Weber's theories of capitalism: the absence of an adequate cultural theory of capitalist motivation and the absence of attention to kinship and gender. By demonstrating that kinship and gender are crucial in structuring capitalist action, this study reveals these two gaps to be different facets of the same omission. A process-oriented approach to class formation and class subjectivity enables the author to incorporate the material and ideological struggles within families into an analysis of class-making and self-making.

Yanagisako concludes that both "provincial" and "global" capitalist orientations and strategies operate in an industry that has always been integrated into regional and international relations of production and distribution. Her approach to culture and capitalism as mutually constituted processes offers an alternative to both universal models of capitalism as a mode of production and essentialist models of distinctive "cultures of capitalism."

Liberal theory seeks agreement on political principles in spite of the moral, religious, and philosophical diversity of contemporary societies. Democratic Procedures and Liberal Consensus breaks new ground in developing principles from research on liberal citizen's attitudes towards rights and liberties, distributive justice, and religious beliefs. Because liberal citizens do not generally accept strong individual rights or strongly egalitarian principles of distributive justice, the principles of liberal consensus must be based on almost universal support for democratic political systems and democracy as a value. The details of central liberal principles, including those bearing on democracy itself, must be worked out by appropriate democratic procedures.

Judith Brett, award-winning author and well-known Australian political scientist, provides the first complete history of the Australian liberal tradition, as well as of the Liberal Party from the second half of the twentieth century. The Liberal Party of Australia was late to form in 1945, but the traditions and ideals upon which it is founded have been central to Australian politics since federation.

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

Postcolonial Liberalism presents a compelling account of the challenges to liberal political theory by claims to cultural and political autonomy and land rights made by indigenous peoples today. It also confronts the sensitive issue of how liberalism has been used to justify and legitimate colonialism. Ivison argues that there is a pressing need to re-shape liberal thought to become more receptive to indigenous aspirations and modes of being. What is distinctive about the book is the middle way it charts between separatism, on the one hand, and assimilation, on the other. These two options present a false dichotomy as to what might constitute a genuinely postcolonial liberal society. In defending this ideal, the book addresses important recent debates over the nature of public reason, justice in multicultural and multinational societies, collective responsibility for the past, and clashes between individual and group rights. Duncan Ivison teaches in the Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney. He is the author of The Self at Liberty (1997) and co-editor of Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2000).

Sylvia Chan examines the claim that liberal democracy on the Western model is the paradigm to which developing countries should aspire to provide good governance and economic success. The success of some countries, notably in Asia, which do not conform to that model has led many to question that link. Chan argues that these successful developing nations have enjoyed the economic and social liberties necessary to encourage economic development, without the need to adopt the formal democratic institutions and cultural values of the West.

Citizenship and Community explores the links among liberalism, social democracy and nationalism within the framework of traditional republican ideals of "civic virtue" and active citizenship. It examines various "currents of radicalism" in Britain and Ireland, from Victorian advanced liberals to Irish and Welsh socialists in the 1920s. The book's strong comparative emphasis focuses attention on the regions of Britain, revealing how different forms of collective identity interacted in popular attitudes to political and social debates.

William Galston is a distinguished political philosopher whose work is informed by the experience of having served from 1993-1995 as President Clinton's Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy. Isaiah Berlin first advanced the moral theory of value pluralism in the 1950s and it subsequently was developed by a number of distinguisthed scholars, including Galston. In Liberal Pluralism, Galston defends a version of value pluralism for political theory and practice. Against the contentions of John Gray and others, Galston argues that value pluralism undergirds a kind of liberal politics that gives great weight to the ability of individuals and groups to live their lives in accordance with their deepest beliefs about what gives meaning and purpose to life. This account of liberal pluralism is shown to have important implications for political deliberation and decision-making, for the design of public institutions, and for the division of legitimate authority among government, religious institutions, civil society, parents and families, and individuals. Liberal pluralism leads to a vision of a good society in which political institutions are active in a limited sphere and in which, within broad limits, families and civil associations may organize and conduct themselves in ways that are not congruent with the principles that govern the public sphere. William Galston is Professor, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland and Director at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. He is the author of Liberal Purposes (Cambridge, 1991), which won the Spitz Prize. Galston's other books include Justice and the Human Good (Chicago, 1980) and IKant and the Problem of History (Chicago, 1975). He is also a Senior Advisor to the Democratic Leadership Council and the Progressive Policy Institute.

What role should a citizen's religious convictions play in political activities? Christopher Eberle is deeply at odds with the dominant orthodoxy among political theorists about the relationship of religion to politics. His argument is that a citizen may responsibly base political commitments on religious beliefs, even if the only reasons for those political commitments are religious in nature. An inherently controversial book that offers a substantial challenge to political liberalism, it will be read by students of philosophy, political science, law and religious studies.

Republicanism and Liberalism in America and the German States represents the cooperative effort of a group of American and German scholars to move the historical debate on republicanism and liberalism to a new stage. By systematically studying the similarities and differences in the understanding of republicanism and liberalism in the United States and German states, the collection stimulates new efforts toward a comprehensive interpretation of political, intellectual, and social developments in the "modernizing" Atlantic world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The "New Liberalism" of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is explored in this original collection of essays by leading scholars. This neglected strand of the liberal tradition demonstrates that rather than being irreparably individualist, liberalism can accommodate community as well as rights and liberty. These essays provide exciting insights into current debates in the liberal tradition and will be of great interest to students and scholars of political theory and the history of political thought.

The "New Liberalism" of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century is explored in this original collection of essays by leading scholars. This neglected strand of the liberal tradition demonstrates that rather than being irreparably individualist, liberalism can accommodate community as well as rights and liberty. These essays provide exciting insights into current debates in the liberal tradition and will be of great interest to students and scholars of political theory and the history of political thought.

In this new edited volume by Will Kymlicka, leading scholars of multicultural issues examine questions related to multiculturalism and citizenship. Most modern democracies contain significant minority groups whose language, religion, or ethnicity differs from those of the majority. Is it possible in such societies to accommodate these forms of diversity without weakening the bonds of common citizenship? In this volume, distinguished scholars explore this question by looking at concrete issues where the demands of citizenship and diversity often clash.

An insightful and passionately written book explaining why a return to Enlightenment ideals is good for the world "Beginning with the simple but fertile idea that people should not push other people around, Deirdre McCloskey presents an elegant defense of 'true liberalism' as opposed to its well-meaning rivals on the left and the right. Erudite, but marvelously accessible and written in a style that is at once colloquial and astringent."-Stanley Fish The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by eighteenth-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone. With her trademark wit and deep understanding, McCloskey shows how the adoption of Enlightenment ideals of liberalism has propelled the freedom and prosperity that define the quality of a full life. In her view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy that depends on the power of rhetoric rather than coercion, and on ethics, free speech, and facts in order to thrive.

John Skorupski develops in these essays a distinctive and systematic moral philosophy: he examines the central ethical concepts of reasons, the good, and morality, and applies the results to issues of culture and politics. He makes firm the connection between liberal politics and its ethical ideal, and links that ideal to modern morality and modern ideas of the good.

In the 1960s a left-wing movement emerged in the United States that not only crusaded against social and economic exploitation, but also confronted the problem of personal alienation in everyday life. These new radicals - young, white, raised in relative affluence - struggled for peace, equality and social justice. Their struggle was cultural as well as political, a search for meaning and authenticity that marked a new phase in the long history of American radicalism. This text tells the story of the new left, illustrating the spiritual dimension of student activism. The author provides an account of how this radical movement developed in a campus environment - the University of Texas at Austin, one of the most important new left centres in the United States - while linking local developments to the national scene. Rossinow argues that the movement was deeply entwined with a personal quest for authenticity. This search reached a fever pitch during the decades of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s as a moral imperative that intersected with the struggle for social justice. He shows the continuity between the religious search for meaning in the 1950s and the secular search for wholeness and realness in the new left and the counterculture. Rossinow also demonstrates the pivotal role played by the civil rights movement in forging these connections in the minds of white American youth and explains the new left's role as a force acting on its own to foment rebellion in white America. This study links the diverse strands of radical movements, from women's liberation to civil rights. Rossinow revises traditional images of radicalism and offers fresh insights on the gendered nature of the search for authenticity, and the reaction of feminists to issues of masculinity among radical men.

The scope of affirmative obligation is a point of contention among liberals. Some see affirmative obligations required by social justice as incompatible with a strong commitment to individual freedom. The task before the moderate liberal is then to consider what a consistently liberal view of affirmative obligation would have to be in order to accommodate liberal commitments to freedom and justice and also account for long-standing institutions that are central to liberal democratic society.
In this book, Patricia Smith argues that this can be achieved by reconstructing the liberal doctrine of positive and negative duty. She offers a careful consideration of these elements of liberal principles as they relate to affirmative obligation. Through an innovative analysis of the institutions of family and contract, Smith develops the idea of duties of membership as preferable to natural duties (to explain family obligation) and as needed to supplement contractual duties (to explain professional obligation). This idea is then applied to the problem of justifying political obligation. She argues that membership obligations, implied in cooperative endeavor, must supplement obligations of consent that are central to liberal theory. This is deftly illustrated through a state of nature theory that includes community membership, eliminating atomistic individualism while maintaining consonance with what Smith calls cooperative individualism. The resulting view of liberal individualism is consistent, complete, and capable of handling long-standing liberal institutions, while taking seriously the demands of affirmative obligations.
Smiths clear articulation of a liberal view of affirmativeobligation finds a middle ground on this polarized topic, with compelling and reasoned implications for liberal political philosophy. Her discussion will interest students and scholars of legal and political philosophy and political science.

Demonstrating that "liberal Islam" is not a contradiction in terms, this anthology presents the translated work of 33 Muslims concerned with the separation of church and state, democracy, the condition of women, the rights of minorities, freedom of thought, and the future of human progress.

The essays in this volume assess the strength and impact of market liberal or libertarian political theory, which, broadly conceived, advocates a more carefully circumscribed role for the state and a greater reliance on the ability of individuals and voluntary, private-sector institutions to confront social problems. They offer insights into the limits of government, develop market-oriented solutions to pressing social problems, and explore some defects in traditional libertarian theory and practice.

The Levellers were a crucial component of a radically democratic movement during the civil wars in seventeenth-century England. This was to be democratic at a time when the very idea of democracy conjured up nothing good; with its suggestion of anarchy and the 'levelling' of distinctions in rank and of property, even the holding of women in common. This collection of thirteen fully annotated Leveller writings, including their famous Agreements of the People, is important as a contribution not only to the understanding of the English civil wars, but also of democratic theory. The editor's introduction sets the Leveller ideas in their context and, together with a chronology, short biographies of the leading figures and a guide to further reading, will be of interest to students of the English civil wars, the history of political thought and the history of democratic ideas.