John Rawls (1921-2002) is, arguably, the most important political philosopher of our time. It is commonly observed that the publication in 1971 of his treatise A Theory of Justice initiated a return to political questions among Anglo-American philosophers and is largely responsible for the vigorous health of contemporary political philosophy. Rawls' ideas and approach have transformed philosophical inquiry in this area, and political theorists nowadays are obliged to make clear where they stand in relation to Rawls if they wish to be involved in mainstream discussions.
Yet Rawls' influence has also extended beyond philosophy and has had a substantial impact on work in law, economics, and political science. Since the publication of A Theory of Justice, Rawls has written two other major works: Political Liberalism (1993) and The Law of Peoples (1999) and also issued a collection of his essays: Collected Papers (1999).
This collection provides a thorough analysis of Rawls' work. In addition to a general introduction, the set includes introductions to each volume which help guide the reader through the material.

In his major new work Chandran Kukathas offers, for the first time, a book-length treatment of this controversial and influential theory of minority rights. The author argues that the free society should not be seen as a hierarchy of superior and subordinate authorities but an archipelago of competing and overlapping jurisdictions.The idea of a liberal archipelago is defended as one which supplies us with a better metaphor of the free society than do older notions such as the body politic, or the ship of state. In challenging most of the existing theories of the multicultural society and answering his past critics, Kukathas has produced the book that no one with an interest in multiculturalism can afford to ignore.

A compelling account of the threat immigration control poses to the citizens of free societies Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self-determination. In this book, however, Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control. Kukathas shows that immigration control is not merely about preventing outsiders from moving across borders. It is about controlling what outsiders do once in a society: whether they work, reside, study, set up businesses, or share their lives with others. But controlling outsiders-immigrants or would-be immigrants-requires regulating, monitoring, and sanctioning insiders, those citizens and residents who might otherwise hire, trade with, house, teach, or generally associate with outsiders. The more vigorously immigration control is pursued, the more seriously freedom is diminished. The search for control threatens freedom directly and weakens the values upon which it relies, notably equality and the rule of law. Kukathas demonstrates that the imagined gains from efforts to control immigration are illusory, for they do not promote economic prosperity or social solidarity. Nor does immigration control bring self-determination, since the apparatus of control is an international institutional regime that increases the power of states and their agencies at the expense of citizens. That power includes the authority to determine who is and is not an insider: to define identity itself. Looking at past and current practices across the world, Immigration and Freedom presents a critique of immigration control as an institutional reality, as well as an account of what freedom means-and why it matters.

Migration is in the news every day. Whether it be the plight of refugees fleeing Syria, or the outbreak of the Zika virus across Latin America, the modern world is fundamentally shaped by movement across borders. Migration, arising from the 2018 Darwin College Lectures, brings together eight leading scholars across the arts, humanities, and sciences to help tackle one of the most important topics of our time. What is migration? How has it changed the world? And how will it shape the future? The authors approach these questions from a variety of perspectives, including history, politics, epidemiology, and art. Chapters related to policy, as well as those written by leading journalists and broadcasters, give perspective on how migration is understood in the media, and engage the public more widely. This interdisciplinary approach provides an original take on migration, providing new insights into the making of the modern world.

In the history of modern liberal political thought the work of F. A. Hayek stands out as one of the most significant contributions to liberal theory since J. S. Mill. This book critically examines the nature and coherence of Hayek's defence of liberal principles, and tries both to identify its weaknesses and to show why it makes such an important contribution to contemporary political theory. Chandran Kukathas argues that Hayek's defence of liberalism is unsuccessful because it rests on presuppositions which are philosophically incompatible. The unresolved dilemma of Hayek's political philosophy is how to mount a systematic defence of liberalism if one emphasizes the limited capacity of reason. However, he believes that Hayek's social philosophy offers us a significant theory of the nature of social processes, and is therefore an important account of how this must constrain our choice of political principles. For this reason, Hayek's work is worthy of attention both by supporters and critics of liberalism.

In his major new work Chandran Kukathas offers, for the first time, a book-length treatment of this controversial and influential theory of minority rights. The work is a defence of a form of liberalism and multiculturalism. The general question it tries to answer is: what is the principled basis of a free society marked by cultural diversity and group loyalties? More particularly, it explains whether such a society requires political institutions which recognize minorities; how far it should tolerate such minorities when their ways differ from those of the mainstream community; to what extent political institutions should address injustices suffered by minorities at the hands of the wider society, and also at the hands of the powerful within their own communities; what role, if any, the state should play in the shaping of a society's (national) identity; and what fundamental values should guide our reflections on these matters. Its main contention is that a free society is an open society whose fundamental principle is the principle of freedom of association. A society is free to the extent that it is prepared to tolerate in its midst associations which differ or dissent from its standards or practices. An implication of these principles is that political society is also no more than one among other associations; its basis is the willingness of its members to continue to associate under the terms which define it. While it is an 'association of associations', it is not the only such association; it does not subsume all other associations. The principles of a free society describe not a hierarchy of superior and subordinate authorities but an archipelago of competing and overlapping jurisdictions. The idea of a liberal archipelago is defended as one which supplies us with a better metaphor of the free society than do older notions such as the body politic, or the ship of state. This work presents a challenge, and an alternative, to other contemporary liberal theories of multiculturalism.