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Intermediate groups— voluntary associations, churches, ethnocultural groups, universities, and more-can both protect threaten individual liberty. The same is true for centralized state action against such groups. This wide-ranging book argues that, both normatively and historically, liberal political thought rests on a deep tension between a rationalist suspicion of intermediate and local group power, and a pluralism favorable toward intermediate group life, and preserving the bulk of its suspicion for the centralizing state. The book studies this tension using tools from the history of political thought, normative political philosophy, law, and social theory. In the process, it retells th...
“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University
Colonialism and Its Legacy brings together essays by leading scholars in both the fields of political theory and the history of political thought about European colonialism and its legacies, and postcolonial social and political theory. The essays explore the ways in which European colonial projects structured and shaped much of modern political theory, how concepts from political philosophy affected and were realized in colonial and imperial practice, and how we can understand the intellectual and social world left behind by a half-millennium of European empires. The volume ranges from the beginning of modernity to the present day, examining colonialism and colonial legacies in India, Africa, Latin America, and North America.
In Federalism and Subsidiarity, a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars in political science, law, and philosophy address the application and interaction of the concept of federalism within law and government. What are the best justifications for and conceptions of federalism? What are the most useful criteria for deciding what powers should be allocated to national governments and what powers reserved to state or provincial governments? What are the implications of the principle of subsidiarity for such questions? What should be the constitutional standing of cities in federations? Do we need to “remap” federalism to reckon with the emergence of translocal and transnational organizations with porous boundaries that are not reflected in traditional jurisdictional conceptions? Examining these questions and more, this latest installation in the NOMOS series sheds new light on the allocation of power within federations.
The Multiculturalism of Fear argues for a liberal account of multiculturalism which draws on a liberalism of fear like that articulated by Judith Shklar and inspired by Montesquieu. Liberalism should not be centrally concerned either with preserving or with transcending cultural communities, practices, and identities. Rather, it should focus on mitigating evils such as inter-ethnic civil wars, cruel practices internal to cultural communities, and state violence against ethnic minorities. This 'multiculturalism of fear' must be grounded in the realities of ethnic politics and ethnic conflict. It must therefore take seriously the importance which persons feel their ethnic identities and cultur...
There are few philosophical questions to which Charles Taylor has not devoted his attention. His work has made powerful contributions to our understanding of action, language, and mind. He has had a lasting impact on our understanding of the way in which the social sciences should be practised, taking an interpretive stance in opposition to dominant positivist methodologies. Taylor's powerful critiques of atomistic versions of liberalism have redefined the agenda of political philosophers. He has produced prodigious intellectual histories aiming to excavate the origins of the way in which we have construed the modern self, and of the complex intellectual and spiritual trajectories that have ...
Political theorists focus on the nature of justice, liberty, and equality while ignoring the institutions through which these ideals are achieved. Political scientists keep institutions in view but deploy a meager set of value-conceptions in analyzing them. A more political political theory is needed to address this gap, Jeremy Waldron argues.
When playing the game of Name the Ripper, many authors start with a suspect and attempt to make them fit the facts; some can't even be proved to be in London at the time of the murders. What is required is an ordinary man local to the East End; a man who suffered mental illness, and was known to prowl the streets at night. A man with vast experience of wielding a knife in his place of work, and who had family ties to Wentworth Model Dwellings, where the only clue ever left by the killer - a bloodied portion of apron - was discovered. A man whose admission to a lunatic asylum coincided with the cessaton of the Whitechapel murders. A man like Jacob Levy. Jacob Levy came to the attention of res...
This comprehensive volume contains much of the important work in political and social philosophy from ancient times until the end of the nineteenth century. The anthology offers both depth and breadth in its selection of material by central figures, while also representing other currents of political thought. Thucydides, Seneca, and Cicero are included along with Plato and Aristotle; Al-Farabi, Marsilius of Padua, and de Pizan take their place alongside Augustine and Aquinas; Astell and Constant are presented in the company of Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft. The editors have made every effort to include translations that are both readable and reliable. Every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contribution within the tradition. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the anthology’s development (a number of whom have contributed introductory material as well as advice). The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits, and one that truly breaks new ground.