You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Examines the democratic legitimacy of international organisations from a republican perspective, diagnoses the EU as suffering from a democratic disconnect and offers 'demoicracy' as the cure.
This book offers a sophisticated analysis of central political concepts in the light of recent debates in political theory. It introduces readers to some of the main interpretations, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses, including a broad range of the main concepts used in contemporary debates on political theory. It tackles the principle concepts employed to justify any policy or institution and examines the main domestic purposes and functions of the state. It goes on to study the relationship between state and civil society and finally looks beyond the state to issues of global concern and inter-state relations.
In 1959, Richard Bellamy was a witty, poetry-loving beatnik on the fringe of the New York art world who was drawn to artists impatient for change. By 1965, he was representing Mark di Suvero, was the first to show Andy Warhol’s pop art, and pioneered the practice of “off-site” exhibitions and introduced the new genre of installation art. As a dealer, he helped discover and champion many of the innovative successors to the abstract expressionists, including Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Walter De Maria, and many others. The founder and director of the fabled Green Gallery on Fifty-Seventh Street, Bellamy thrived on the energy of the sixties. With the covert...
In Liberalism and Pluralism the author explores the challenges conflicting values, interests and identities pose to liberal democracy. Richard Bellamy illustrates his criticism and proposals by reference to such topical issues as the citizens charter, constitutional reform, the Rushdie affair and the development of the European Union.
The European Union (EU) is often portrayed as sacrificing national diversity for European unity. This book explores the alternative of a flexible EU based on differentiated rather than uniform integration. The authors combine normative theory with empirical research on political party actors to assess the desirability and political acceptability of differentiated integration as a means of accommodating heterogeneity in the EU. They examine the circumstances and institutional design needed for flexibility to promote rather than undermine fairness and democracy within and between member states. Clear, balanced, and accessible, the book provides fresh thinking on the future of the EU.
Judicial review by constitutional courts is often presented as a necessary supplement to democracy. This book questions its effectiveness and legitimacy. Drawing on the republican tradition, Richard Bellamy argues that the democratic mechanisms of open elections between competing parties and decision-making by majority rule offer superior and sufficient methods for upholding rights and the rule of law. The absence of popular accountability renders judicial review a form of arbitrary rule which lacks the incentive structure democracy provides to ensure rulers treat the ruled with equal concern and respect. Rights based judicial review undermines the constitutionality of democracy. Its counter-majoritarian bias promotes privileged against unprivileged minorities, while its legalism and focus on individual cases distort public debate. Rather than constraining democracy with written constitutions and greater judicial oversight, attention should be paid to improving democratic processes through such measures as reformed electoral systems and enhanced parliamentary scrutiny.
This major new book is a wide-ranging analysis of the emergence and development of liberalism, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Bellamy examines the evolution of liberal ideas in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, discussing the work of Mill, Green, Durkeim, Weber, and Pareto, among others. He situates their theories firmly within their respective historical contexts, illustrating in this way the contingency of many of the social and moral assumptions underlying liberal thought. For modern societies have undergone profound changes in the course of the last century, and Bellamy argues that these changes have severely undermined many of the key tenets of liberalism. The final part of the book examines critically the elaboration of liberal ideas in the work of contemporary political philosophers such as Hayek, Nozick, and Rawls. Bellamy shows how the liberalisms of these writers rest on social views and moral intuitions that are now anachronistic and untenable. He maintains that only a democratic liberalism built on realistic foundations can provide a plausible political theory in the complex and pluralist societies of the modern world.
Constitutionalism and democracy have been interpreted as both intimately related and intrinsically opposed. On the one hand constitutions are said to set out the rules of the democratic game, on the other as constraining the power of the demos and their representatives to rule themselves - including by reforming the very processes of democracy itself. Meanwhile, constitutionalists themselves differ on how far any constitution derives its authority from, and should itself be subject to democratic endorsement and interpretation. They also dispute whether constitutions should refer solely to democratic processes, or also define and limit democratic goals. Each of these positions produces a diff...
An insider's account and analysis of the largest concentration of constitutional reform since the end of the cold war.
Table of contents