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Political Leadership in France: From Charles de Gaulle to Nicolas Sarkozy (French Politics, Society and Culture)
by J. GaffneyGaffney analyzes how de Gaulle came to power in 1958: The drama surrounding the Fourth Republic's collapse, and the focus upon an exceptional individual meant that de Gaulle was able to confer a particular style of leadership on the Fifth Republic. The five Presidents who came after him have each capitalized on their own political 'persona.'
Political Legitimization without Morality?
by Jörg KühneltThe initial idea for this anthology arose during my work at the interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 485 Norm and Symbol at the University of Konstanz. My research project on the potential of Hobbesian contract theory was in?uenced by the focus of the SFB on social phenomena such as pluralism and cultural change. In this context, I realized that the Hobbesian idea to refer only to instrumental rationality and basic egoistic interests to legitimize a state has, on one hand some advantages for pluralistic societies: All individuals are supposed to share these premises independent of the personal values they might hold. On the other hand, a rational legitimization must cope with the fundamental problem of explaining and legitimizing those tasks of legal states that go beyond the idea of a minimal state. Although my research was focused on the idea of solving this problem with a modi?cation of the Hobbesian argument, I became interested in the more general question of which role morality could or should play in legitimizing a state. Within the current discussion, not only rational but also political accounts of legitimacy can be attractive as soon as they try to avoid contentious normative premises. To analyse some of the core ideas within the current discussion, I - ganized an interdisciplinary workshop at the University of Konstanz in December 2004 in which different perspectives from sociology, politics and philosophy were compared and analysed.
Political Liberalism, Confucianism, and the Future of Democracy in East Asia (Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations #12)
by Zhuoyao LiThis book contributes to both the internal debate in liberalism and the application of political liberalism to the process of democratization in East Asia. Beyond John Rawls’ original intention to limit the scope of political liberalism to only existing and well-ordered liberal democracies, political liberalism has the potential to inspire and contribute to democratic establishment and maintenance in East Asia. Specifically, the book has two main objectives. First, it will demonstrate that political liberalism offers the most promising vision for liberal democracy, and it can be defended against contemporary perfectionist objections. Second, it will show that perfectionist approaches to political Confucianism suffer from practical and theoretical difficulties. Instead, an alternative model of democracy inspired by political liberalism will be explored in order to achieve a multivariate structure for citizens to come to terms with democracy in their own ways, to support a neutral state that ensures the establishment and stability of democracy, and to maintain an active public role for Confucianism to prevent it from being banished to the private sphere. This model represents a more promising future for democracy in East Asia.
The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs: An Oral History of Parliament
by Emma Peplow and Priscila PivattoParliament is Britain's most important political institution, yet its workings remain obscure to academics and the wider public alike. MPs are often seen as 'out of touch' or 'all the same' and their individual motivations, achievements and regrets remain in the background of party politics. In this book, Emma Peplow and Priscila Pivatto draw on the History of Parliament Trust's collection of oral history interviews with postwar British MPs to highlight their diverse political experiences in Parliament. Featuring extracts from a collection of interviews with over 160 former MPs who sat from the 1950s until the 2000s, The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs gives a voice to those MPs' stories. It explores why they became interested in politics, how they found their seat and fought election campaigns, what it felt like to speak in the chamber and how their class or gender dictated their experiences at Westminster. In the process, readers will be given rare glimpse into the spaces inhabited by MPs, the political rivalries and friendships and the rising and falling of their careers. With accounts from MPs of all political stripes, from the well-known like David Owen and Ann Taylor to those who sat for just a few years such as Denis Coe; from old political families like Douglas Hurd to those like Maria Fyfe who felt themselves outsiders, this book provides deep insight into the political lives of MPs in our age.
The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs: An Oral History of Parliament
Parliament is Britain's most important political institution, yet its workings remain obscure to academics and the wider public alike. MPs are often seen as 'out of touch' or 'all the same' and their individual motivations, achievements and regrets remain in the background of party politics. In this book, Emma Peplow and Priscila Pivatto draw on the History of Parliament Trust's collection of oral history interviews with postwar British MPs to highlight their diverse political experiences in Parliament. Featuring extracts from a collection of interviews with over 160 former MPs who sat from the 1950s until the 2000s, The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs gives a voice to those MPs' stories. It explores why they became interested in politics, how they found their seat and fought election campaigns, what it felt like to speak in the chamber and how their class or gender dictated their experiences at Westminster. In the process, readers will be given rare glimpse into the spaces inhabited by MPs, the political rivalries and friendships and the rising and falling of their careers. With accounts from MPs of all political stripes, from the well-known like David Owen and Ann Taylor to those who sat for just a few years such as Denis Coe; from old political families like Douglas Hurd to those like Maria Fyfe who felt themselves outsiders, this book provides deep insight into the political lives of MPs in our age.
The Political Machine: Assembling Sovereignty in the Bronze Age Caucasus
by Adam T. SmithThe Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. Smith looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and he considers how these developments continue to shape politics today.Smith shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or "machines" sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortify political power even in the contemporary world. Smith provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule.From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, The Political Machine sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.
The Political Machine: Assembling Sovereignty in the Bronze Age Caucasus
by Adam T. SmithThe Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. Smith looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and he considers how these developments continue to shape politics today.Smith shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or "machines" sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortify political power even in the contemporary world. Smith provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule.From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, The Political Machine sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.
Political Meanings of Solidarity: Parties, Manifestos, and Cleavages (Contributions to Political Science)
by Marta KozłowskaThis monograph discusses the concept of solidarity. Using Germany as a case study, the book investigates how political actors – political parties in specific – use the term solidarity in their programmatic documents. It maps out the attitudes, features, and behaviors that the parties continuously denote as expressions of solidarity and reconstructs the generalized concept of solidarity held by each party. It categorizes earlier ideas of solidarity into micro and macro perspectives and uses both theoretical and empirical considerations to build a model of solidarity and identify the elements that make solidarity what it is.Departing from the typical procedure in intellectual history research, this volume takes inspiration from Wittgenstein, starting with the language and tracing it back to its historical setting. Thus, it avoids the trap of speaking of only one meaning of solidarity and allows for more attuned analysis of the differences in understanding the concept. Furthermore, it links the scientific study of the concept of solidarity with research on political competition, and – in broader sense – political theory and party politics research. Closing the gap in scientific coverage of the concept of solidarity, this book will be of interest to students and researchers studying political theory, political sociology, political philosophy, political history, and political parties.
Political Memories and Migration: Belonging, Society, and Australia Day (Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies)
by J. Olaf KleistThis book explores the relationship between political memories of migration and the politics of migration, following over two hundred years of commemorating Australia Day. References to Europeans’ original migration to the continent have been engaged in social and political conflicts to define who should belong to Australian society, who should gain access, and based on what criteria. These political memories were instrumental in negotiating inherent conflicts in the formation of the Australian Commonwealth from settler colonies to an immigrant society. By the second half of the twentieth century, the Commonwealth employed Australia Day commemorations specifically to incorporate new arrivals, promoting at first citizenship and, later on, multiculturalism. The commemoration has been contested throughout its history based on two distinct forms of political memories providing conflicting modes of civic and communal belonging to Australian politics and policies of migration. Introducing the concept of Political Memories, this book offers a novel understanding of the social and political role of memories, not only in regard to migration.
Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care: The Art of Complicity and Resistance (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Mihaela MihaiWith this nuanced and interdisciplinary work, political theorist Mihaela Mihai tackles several interrelated questions: How do societies remember histories of systemic violence? Who is excluded from such histories' cast of characters? And what are the political costs of selective remembering in the present? Building on insights from political theory, social epistemology, and feminist and critical race theory, Mihai argues that a double erasure often structures hegemonic narratives of complex violence: of widespread, heterogeneous complicity and of "impure" resistances, not easily subsumed to exceptionalist heroic models. In dialogue with care ethicists and philosophers of art, she then suggests that such narrative reductionism can be disrupted aesthetically through practices of "mnemonic care," that is, through the hermeneutical labor that critical artists deliver—thematically and formally—within communities' space of meaning. Empirically, the book examines both consecrated and marginalized artists who tackled the memory of Vichy France, communist Romania, and apartheid South Africa. Despite their specificities, these contexts present us with an opportunity to analyze similar mnemonic dynamics and to recognize the political impact of dissenting artistic production. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, the book intervenes in debates over collective responsibility, historical injustice, and the aesthetics of violence within political theory, memory studies, social epistemology, and transitional justice.
Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena
by James HankinsThe first full-length study of Francesco Patrizi—the most important political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance before Machiavelli—who sought to reconcile conflicting claims of liberty and equality in the service of good governance.At the heart of the Italian Renaissance was a longing to recapture the wisdom and virtue of Greece and Rome. But how could this be done? A new school of social reformers concluded that the best way to revitalize corrupt institutions was to promote an ambitious new form of political meritocracy aimed at nurturing virtuous citizens and political leaders.The greatest thinker in this tradition of virtue politics was Francesco Patrizi of Siena, a humanist philosopher whose writings were once as famous as Machiavelli’s. Patrizi wrote two major works: On Founding Republics, addressing the enduring question of how to reconcile republican liberty with the principle of merit; and On Kingship and the Education of Kings, which lays out a detailed program of education designed to instill the qualities necessary for political leadership—above all, practical wisdom and sound character.The first full-length study of Patrizi’s life and thought in any language, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy argues that Patrizi is a thinker with profound lessons for our time. A pioneering advocate of universal literacy who believed urban planning could help shape civic values, he concluded that limiting the political power of the wealthy, protecting the poor from debt slavery, and reducing the political independence of the clergy were essential to a functioning society. These ideas were radical in his day. Far more than an exemplar of his time, Patrizi deserves to rank alongside the great political thinkers of the Renaissance: Machiavelli, Thomas More, and Jean Bodin.
Political Modernity and Social Theory: Origins, Development and Alternatives
by Jose Maur¡cio DominguesModern liberal democracy and authoritarian collectivism have known diverse political regimes; autocratic, oligarchic or democratic, they each consist of a mixed, partly oligarchic regime in which plebeian politics are subordinated. With authoritarian collectivism’s defeat, a return to modernity has produced one more hybrid configuration.An in-depth investigation of political modernity and how it is differentiated from other forms of society, this book researches its origins and trajectory as a specific dimension of modern civilisation – articulating a renewed critical theory through an analysis of rights and law, politics, state and autonomy, social reproduction, crisis and political change.Examining these diverse aspects, Political Modernity and Social Theory proposes an encompassing and far-reaching approach spanning past and present – stressing radical plebeian democracy and maintaining a strong opening to the future and to possible alternatives to modernity.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
Political Modernity and Social Theory: Origins, Development and Alternatives
by Jose Maur¡cio DominguesModern liberal democracy and authoritarian collectivism have known diverse political regimes; autocratic, oligarchic or democratic, they each consist of a mixed, partly oligarchic regime in which plebeian politics are subordinated. With authoritarian collectivism’s defeat, a return to modernity has produced one more hybrid configuration.An in-depth investigation of political modernity and how it is differentiated from other forms of society, this book researches its origins and trajectory as a specific dimension of modern civilisation – articulating a renewed critical theory through an analysis of rights and law, politics, state and autonomy, social reproduction, crisis and political change.Examining these diverse aspects, Political Modernity and Social Theory proposes an encompassing and far-reaching approach spanning past and present – stressing radical plebeian democracy and maintaining a strong opening to the future and to possible alternatives to modernity.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
Political Monsters and Democratic Imagination: Spinoza, Blake, Hugo, Joyce
by Patrick McGeePolitical Monsters and Democratic Imagination explores the democratic thought of Spinoza and its relation to the thought of William Blake, Victor Hugo, and James Joyce. As a group, these visionaries articulate: a concept of power founded not on strength or might but on social cooperation; a principle of equality based not on the identity of individuals with one another but on the difference between any individual and the intellectual power of society as a whole; an understanding of thought as a process that operates between rather than within individuals; and a theory of infinite truth, something individuals only partially glimpse from their particular cultural situations. For Blake, God is the constellation of individual human beings, whose collective imagination produces revolutionary change. In Hugo's novel, Jean Valjean learns that the greatest truth about humanity lies in the sewer or among the lowest forms of social existence. For Joyce, Leopold and Molly Bloom are everybody and nobody, singular beings whose creative power and truth is beyond categories and social hierarchies.
Political Monsters and Democratic Imagination: Spinoza, Blake, Hugo, Joyce
by Patrick McGeePolitical Monsters and Democratic Imagination explores the democratic thought of Spinoza and its relation to the thought of William Blake, Victor Hugo, and James Joyce. As a group, these visionaries articulate: a concept of power founded not on strength or might but on social cooperation; a principle of equality based not on the identity of individuals with one another but on the difference between any individual and the intellectual power of society as a whole; an understanding of thought as a process that operates between rather than within individuals; and a theory of infinite truth, something individuals only partially glimpse from their particular cultural situations. For Blake, God is the constellation of individual human beings, whose collective imagination produces revolutionary change. In Hugo's novel, Jean Valjean learns that the greatest truth about humanity lies in the sewer or among the lowest forms of social existence. For Joyce, Leopold and Molly Bloom are everybody and nobody, singular beings whose creative power and truth is beyond categories and social hierarchies.
Political Narrations: Antigone, the Melian Dialogue, Michael Kohlhaas, the Grand Inquisitor and Ragtime
by Ingo JuchlerThis book analyzes narrations embedded in political disputes, allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of modern political reality. The author explores this theme in readings of the Sophocles tragedy Antigone, the Melian Dialogue of Thucydides, Heinrich von Kleist’s novella Michael Kohlhaas, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor and E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime novel, taking into account the relevant interdisciplinary aspects of the narratives. His study of these four narrations focuses on key political concepts, such as might and right, self-interest, legality and justice, the nation-state and democracy, and relates them compellingly to current actuality. Since narrations can exert comprehensive and lasting influence on individuals’ political discernment, this systematic analysis allows for a better comprehension of politics in education and civics.
Political Narratosophy: From Theory of Narration to Politics of Imagination (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)
by Senka AnastasovaPolitical Narratosophy offers a critically subversive rethinking of the political and philosophical significance of narrative, and why feminist epistemology and feminist social theory matters for the meaning of the ‘self’ and narrativity. Through a re-examination of the notions of democracy and emancipation, Senka Anastasova coins the term ‘political narratosophy’, a unique interpretation of the philosophy of narrative, identification, and disidentification, developed in conversation with philosophers Jacques Rancière, Nancy Fraser, and Paul Ricoeur. Utilizing the author’s own identity as a feminist philosopher has lived in socialist Yugoslavia, post-Yugoslavia, and Macedonia (now North Macedonia), Anastasova explores the fluctuating and disappearing borders around which identity is situated in a country that no longer exists. She expertly reveals how the subject finds, makes and unmakes itself through narrativity, politics, and imagination. Political Narratosophy is an important intervention in political philosophy and a welcome contribution to the historiography on female authors who lived through twentieth century communism and its aftermath. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of political theory, philosophy, women’s studies, international relations, identity studies, (comparative) literary studies, and aesthetics studies.
Political Narratosophy: From Theory of Narration to Politics of Imagination (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)
by Senka AnastasovaPolitical Narratosophy offers a critically subversive rethinking of the political and philosophical significance of narrative, and why feminist epistemology and feminist social theory matters for the meaning of the ‘self’ and narrativity. Through a re-examination of the notions of democracy and emancipation, Senka Anastasova coins the term ‘political narratosophy’, a unique interpretation of the philosophy of narrative, identification, and disidentification, developed in conversation with philosophers Jacques Rancière, Nancy Fraser, and Paul Ricoeur. Utilizing the author’s own identity as a feminist philosopher has lived in socialist Yugoslavia, post-Yugoslavia, and Macedonia (now North Macedonia), Anastasova explores the fluctuating and disappearing borders around which identity is situated in a country that no longer exists. She expertly reveals how the subject finds, makes and unmakes itself through narrativity, politics, and imagination. Political Narratosophy is an important intervention in political philosophy and a welcome contribution to the historiography on female authors who lived through twentieth century communism and its aftermath. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of political theory, philosophy, women’s studies, international relations, identity studies, (comparative) literary studies, and aesthetics studies.
Political Neutrality: A Re-evaluation
by Roberto Merrill Daniel WeinstockThe topic of neutrality on the good is linked rather closely to the ideal of political liberalism as formulated by John Rawls. Here internationally renowned authors, in several cases among the most prominent names to be found in contemporary political theory, present a collection of ten essays on the idea of liberal neutrality.
Political Obligation (Issues in Political Theory)
by John HortonHow should we understand the relationship between citizens and governments, and what are the obligations of citizens? In this substantially revised new edition of an influential text, John Horton challenges dominant theories by offering an 'associative' account focusing particularly on what it is to be a member of a political community.
Political Obligation
by John HortonThe proper relationship between the individual and the wider political community is an issue which is both practically important and philosophically perplexing. Do we have an obligation to obey our government? If so, what is the basis of this obligation and what are its limits? These are questions which lie at the heart of the problem of political obligation.Historically, political philosophers have offered many and various answers to these questions. Some have thought that political obligation must be based on a voluntary undertaking to obey; others have argued that it derives from a general requirement to promote the common good or maximise well-being; and still others that it follows from a duty of fairness or justice. By contrast, anarchists have mostly denied that we have any such obligations to the polity at all.This book assesses the validity of these claims and the arguments for them. It seeks to show that all the traditional accounts of political obligation, including the anarchist denial of it, are in various ways unsatisfactory. Instead, it defends an account of political obligation which gives particular prominence to what it involved in being a member of a political community and challenges the reader to think through what it is to have a political identity as a member of a particular society, and the implications of this for how one should act.
Political Obligation: A Critical Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Political Philosophy)
by Dudley KnowlesPolitical obligation is concerned with the clash between the individual’s claim to self-governance and the right of the state to claim obedience. It is a central and ancient problem in political philosophy. In this authoritative introduction, Dudley Knowles frames the problem of obligation in terms of the duties citizens have to the state and each other. Drawing on a wide range of key works in political philosophy, from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume and G. W. F. Hegel to John Rawls, A. John Simmons, Joseph Raz and Ronald Dworkin, Political Obligation: A Critical Introduction is an ideal starting point for those coming to the topic for the first time, as well as being an original and distinctive contribution to the literature. Knowles distinguishes the philosophical problem of obligation - which types of argument may successfully ground the legitimacy of the state and the duties of citizens - from the political problem of obligation - whether successful arguments apply to the actual citizens of particular states. Against the anarchist and modern skeptics, Knowles claims that a plurality of arguments promise success when carefully formulated and defended, and discusses in turn ancient and modern theories of social contract and consent, fairness and gratitude, utilitarianism, justice and a Samaritan duty of care for others. Against modern communitarians, he defends a distinctive liberalism: ‘the state proposes, the citizen disposes’.
Political Obligation: A Critical Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Political Philosophy)
by Dudley KnowlesPolitical obligation is concerned with the clash between the individual’s claim to self-governance and the right of the state to claim obedience. It is a central and ancient problem in political philosophy. In this authoritative introduction, Dudley Knowles frames the problem of obligation in terms of the duties citizens have to the state and each other. Drawing on a wide range of key works in political philosophy, from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume and G. W. F. Hegel to John Rawls, A. John Simmons, Joseph Raz and Ronald Dworkin, Political Obligation: A Critical Introduction is an ideal starting point for those coming to the topic for the first time, as well as being an original and distinctive contribution to the literature. Knowles distinguishes the philosophical problem of obligation - which types of argument may successfully ground the legitimacy of the state and the duties of citizens - from the political problem of obligation - whether successful arguments apply to the actual citizens of particular states. Against the anarchist and modern skeptics, Knowles claims that a plurality of arguments promise success when carefully formulated and defended, and discusses in turn ancient and modern theories of social contract and consent, fairness and gratitude, utilitarianism, justice and a Samaritan duty of care for others. Against modern communitarians, he defends a distinctive liberalism: ‘the state proposes, the citizen disposes’.
Political Obligation (Issues In Political Theory Ser.)
by John HortonHow should we understand the relationship between citizens and governments, and what are the obligations of citizens? In this substantially revised new edition of an influential text, John Horton challenges dominant theories by offering an 'associative' account focusing particularly on what it is to be a member of a political community.
Political Ontology and International Political Thought: Voiding a Pluralist World (International Political Theory)
by Vassilios PaipaisThis book challenges received notions of ontology in political theory and international relations by offering a psychoanalytically informed critique of depoliticisation in prominent liberal, post-liberal, dialogic and agonistic approaches to pluralism in world politics. Paipais locates the temptation of depoliticisation in their labouring under the fundamental fantasy of various guises of foundationalism (in the form of either political anthropology or ontology as ‘in the last instance’ ground) or, conversely, anti-foundationalism (the denial of all grounds, yet still operating within a foundationalist imaginary). He argues, instead, for a formal political ontology of the void (against historicism) shot through an ‘incarnate’ messianic nihilism (against ethicism and teleological forms of politics). In so doing, the author offers critical readings of the messianic nihilism of Benjamin, Agamben, Taubes and Žižek by problematising the antinomian tendencies in their respective political theologies. The book argues for a version of Žižek’s Badiouian politics of militancy supplemented by a proper participatory understanding of St Paul’s messianic meontology and incarnational Christology as a means to reconceptualise the nexus between subjectivity, universality and political action in world politics. It will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations theory, political theory, critical social theory and political theology.