Social life is changing very fast. People are trying to find out reasons of living in a safe society and understand their role in it. The ‘wrong’ and ‘right‘ models of the social life, state and law systems are appearing. In the XXth century, one of them – socialism – made suggestion how to solve social problems, determinated of capitalism. This work deals with the situation of Lithuanian social thought in the Republic of Lithuania (1900-1940). (...) In the article, the standpoint of catholics of socialism is reflected. Catholics displayed socialism as a system, which accumulated many distorted images about human nature, motivations of human behavior, society and its functionating. Considering the society being an organic totality of individuals, but not a faceless mass, and an individual being a personality having natural rights to be respected, but not considered as a little screw without any rights in the state machine, with whom any experiments may be performed, they disclosed Utopia of the idea, proposed by socialists, of the possibility of a perfect society creation by the only preliminarily arranged correct plan,. For this purpose to be achieved, they constructed a model of socialist economy and then destroyed it, demonstrating economical unefficiency of this system. In this manner, intellectuals warned Lithuania and its people about the destructiveness of the realization of such an experiment. In spite of criticism of socialism, some intellectuals, such as A. Maceina, S. Šultė and S. Šalkauskis, appeared to be rather respective to the new social ideas and did not distinguish any social economic system as the best and only one. They thought that all the world, including Lithuania, has to create a new social life and take as a base the progressive ideas of socialism and capitalism. According to the opinion of the catholics, the most reliable way to a safe sočiety and economical welfare passes through the cooperation of individuals and state’s duty to create right laws. Ideological spirit was the main obstacle for the intellectuals to recognize trends of socialism by their aims and methods. That is the reason, why socialism was identified as bolsevism. However, the expression of the intellectuals’ opinion about socialism, its ideological herritage and perspectives enriches the research of the Lithuanian legal phylosophical and political thought and allows to understand better the ideological development of socialism and to define its competence and limits of validity in the contemporary world. Valuable ideas may be fruitfully used in creating a democratic society, social state and the rule of law. (shrink)

If we are looking for an Ur-explanation for the persistence of the Ur-myth, or any other myth, in our literature, could we not more directly find it in the structure of a mind which does not have to remember in order to imitate? The occasion of both myth and literature is the social life of the species which, in Starobinski's sense, is a history of continual eviction; but as regards the apparatus of thought by which this social life (...) is reflected in art it is more a history of assimilation and repetition. "The work of the brain," to cite a recent article in Scientific American, "is to create a model of a possible world rather than to record and transmit to the mind a world that is metaphysically true…Different worlds are presumably constructed by similar species."1 And, presumably, similar worlds are constructed by similar species. Weisinger hints briefly at something like this in his essay "The Mythic Origins of the Creative Process," but one has the clear impression, as his title suggests, that he would like to have the [myth/ritual] cart before the creative horse.2 However much this may satisfy our longing to crown our literature, if not creativity itself, with a mythic genealogy, it seems a wistful hypothesis. One might just as well look upon the remains of early man's shelters, marvel that they too had roofs, just like ours, and conclude that therefore our roofs have their origin in theirs.· 1. Harry J. Jerison, "Paleoneurology and the Evolution of Mind," Scientific American, January 1976, p. 99.· 2. Herbert Weisinger, The Agony and the Triumph: Papers on the Use and Abuse of Myth , p. 250.Bert O. States, professor of dramatic arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of Irony and Drama: A Poetics and The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on "Waiting for Godot.". (shrink)

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. (...) This update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

Improving structural theories of international politics -- Socializing states in the international system -- Socializing the United States: emergence to major member -- Socializing the United States: structural imperatives and great power status -- Socializing Israel: emergence to major member.

The article analyzes the new conditions and institutions of socio-economic dynamics developing under the influence of COVID-19 and overcoming its consequences. New directions of the macro-management system are actualized by the economic recession that arose under the influence of COVID-19 and the previous depressive rates of economic growth. Social conditions and tensions have predetermined the growth of the state's participation in socio-economic development, the formation of new institutional trends. Transformation of public administration institutions is due to the long-term (...) influence of the characteristics of the information society and the conceptualization of modern sustainable growth in the areas of welfare, poverty reduction, and ecology. In the Russian Federation, a transition is underway to a new form of institutional regulation of socio-economic dynamics based on a system of medium-term strategic planning in the range from the development of key long-term development strategies to the operational management of specific projects. The modern national development goals and their indicators are presented, the existing risks of strategic planning are structured, which require consideration when developing subsequent system solutions. The current principles of the welfare state have been clarified, institutional innovations in the organization of social protection of the population are shown in the context of strategic planning, the interaction of federal and regional authorities in the problem field of social assistance and social insurance of the population. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce a Cartesian product structure into the social choice theoretical framework and to examine if new possibility results to Gibbard’s and Sen’s paradoxes can be developed thanks to it. We believe that a Cartesian product structure is a pertinent way to describe individual rights in the social choice theory since it discriminates the personal features comprised in each social state. First we define some conceptual and formal tools related to (...) the Cartesian product structure. We then apply these notions to Gibbard’s paradox and to Sen’s impossibility of a Paretian liberal. Finally we compare the advantages of our approach to other solutions proposed in the literature for both impossibility theorems. (shrink)

Since coming to power in 2010, the UK Coalition government has enacted a series of cuts to public spending, under the auspices of austerity. Underpinning these cuts is a neo-liberal model of citizenship, in which citizens are expected to be autonomous, independent and economically productive, and in which the responsibilities of citizenship outweigh the rights. This model of citizenship is characterised by a paradoxical approach to social reproduction. The Coalition government has taken a significant interest in social reproduction (...) as a means of creating the next generation of ‘good’ neo-liberal citizens; yet, the current austerity measures involve the withdrawal of state support for social reproduction activities. Drawing on participant observation carried out with migrant women's groups in Sheffield and Manchester, as well as interviews with group members, this article demonstrates how the government's paradoxical approach to social reproduction, combined with gendered and racialised discourses of citizenship and ‘Britishness’, have led to policies that place ethnic minority migrant women in an untenable situation. The social reproduction activities of ethnic minority migrant women are the subject of intense government interest, because of the concern that they will be unable to produce ‘good’ neo-liberal citizens. In some cases, this has led to government policies clearly intended to dissuade ‘undesirable’ migrants from having children. In other cases, migrant women are expected to show their commitment to integration, both for themselves and their children, specifically by learning English, even as the government has drastically cut funding for English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL) classes. While seemingly paradoxical, this is in keeping with a racialised neo-liberal model of citizenship under which the ‘responsible’ migrant mother should be able to parent and learn English without government assistance. Nonetheless, these policies are actually self-defeating, as they prevent migrant women from exhibiting the very characteristics of neo-liberal citizenship that they are ostensibly trying to encourage. (shrink)

After the three families divided up the state of Jin and the Tian family took over Qi, the political situation in the fourth century B.C.E. appeared even more chaotic. Wei conquered Chu's Luyang and Qin's Xihe, Qin defeated Wei at Shimen , and again at Shaoliang , and Wei moved its capital to Daliang. During the mid-Warring States period, Qin became dominant in the west, Qi in the east, Chu in the south, and Wei in the center. Rapid changes (...) occurred one after another; trickery and conflict were rampant. However, the shi , the intelligentsia, actually managed to expand their spheres of existence and activity accordingly in this state of tension between countries, states, and men. A few major states assembled quite a number of literati; and those men of the villages, who had in earlier times merely waited passively for opportunities to fall into their laps, crisscrossed the various feudal states; literati who previously had no cause to use military force became, one by one, the honored guests of the feudal lords. With the breakdown of the previously simple and obvious order, the gradually dismantling of the common body of the ancestral clan of the past, and the increasing complexities of social relationships after the dissolution of blood ties, social order became a matter of concern. Or, to reword this most practical issue: How could this universally chaotic society go from disorder to order? (shrink)

This study in English of Hegel's political philosophy presents an overall view of the development of Hegel's political thinking. The author has drawn on Hegel's philosophical works, his political tracts and his personal correspondence. Professor Avineri shows that although Hegel is primarily thought of as a philosopher of the state, he was much concerned with social problems and his concept of the state must be understood in this context.

In the past twenty years, the field of science and technology studies (S&TS) has made considerable progress toward illuminating the relationship between scientific knowledge and political power. These insights have not yet been synthesized or presented in a form that systematically highlights the connections between S&TS and other social sciences. This timely collection of essays by some of the leading scholars in the field attempts to fill that gap. The book develops the theme of "co-production", showing how scientific knowledge (...) both embeds and is embedded in social identities, institutions, representations and discourses. Accordingly, the authors argue, ways of knowing the world are inseparably linked to the ways in which people seek to organize and control it. Through studies of emerging knowledges, research practices and political institutions, the authors demonstrate that the idiom of co-production importantly extends the vocabulary of the traditional social sciences, offering fresh analytic perspectiveson the nexus of science, power and culture. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the selection of an appropriate model of choice to underlie Rawls' two principles of justice. Rawls' first principle of justice states that basic liberty is not to be sacrificed for other objectives, including wealth. His second principle of justice suggests that even a minute decrease in the well-being of the least prosperous classes should not be accepted in exchange for an increase, no matter how large, in the well-being of more well-to-do citizens.

Crises of forced migration are, unfortunately, nothing new. At the time of the writing of this paper, at least two such crises were in full swing – mass movements from the Middle East and parts of Africa to the E.U., and major movements from Central America to the Southern U.S. border, including movements by large numbers of families and unaccompanied minors. These movements are complex, with multiple causes, and it is always risky to attempt to craft either general policy or (...) philosophical positions in response to salient crises. However, both of these instances do bring to the foreground important questions about the proper purpose and extent of refugee protection as a means of dealing with crises of forced migration. In particular, both of these instances force us to consider what role persecution on the basis of a protected ground – race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion – ought to play in granting refugee protection, and whether our response to those in danger should change if the agents of persecution are non-state actors. This paper is not primarily about the problems arising from Syria or Central America. In a way similar to how hard cases make bad law, I contend that a too central focus on salient crises tends to lead to bad theory and often to bad general policy. However, if I am successful in my goal of clarifying the place of persecution and non-state action in refugee protection, then we may in turn be better able to think clearly about our current crisis situations. -/- In this paper I will first draw on my previous work on the normative logic of the refugee convention to argue that, while persecution should play an important, and even central, role in our thinking about refugees, this importance is shallow and pragmatic rather than deep and fundamental. Next, I will show how this conclusion supports the claim that harms amounting to persecution by non-state actors may ground an asylum claim, at least in some cases, both when the state is unwilling and when it is unable to protect its members. I consider two cases: first, instances where the authority and power of the state has been usurped by another power, and second, when the state has (implicitly or explicitly) delegated its power or authority to non-state actors. I will show how this leads to extending asylum to a broader range of people than traditional accounts would. -/- (To download this paper, please use the link from SSRN below.). (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many scholars and managers endorse the idea that the primary purpose of the firm is to make money for its owners. This shareholder wealth maximization objective is justified on the grounds that it maximizes social welfare. In this article, the first of a two-part set, we argue that, although this shareholder primacy model may have been appropriate in an earlier era, it no longer is, given our current state of economic and social affairs. To make our case, (...) we employ a utilitarian moral standard and examine the apparent logical sequence behind the link between shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare. Upon close empirical and conceptual scrutiny, we find that utilitarian criteria do not support the shareholder model; that is, shareholder wealth maximization is only weakly linked to social welfare maximization. In view of the dubious validity of this sequential argument, we outline some of the features of a superior corporate objective—a variant of normative stakeholder theory. In the second article, we will advance and defend our preferred alternative and then discuss some institutional arrangements under which it could be implemented. (shrink)

Socially responsible investing (SRI) has emerged in recent years as a dynamic and quickly growing segment of the U.S. financial services industry involving over $2 trillion in professionally managed assets. Its conceptual origins can be found in the early history of civilization, with it's modern roots in the 1960s. This paper provides an overview of the breadth and depth of the concept and practice of socially and environmentally responsible investing, describes the investment strategies that together define SRI as currently practiced (...) in the U.S., offers several observations about some of the factors fueling its dramatic growth, and presents data showing that investors who choose to invest in a socially and environmentally responsible manner can do so without giving up investment returns. SRI has matured to a point where virtually any investment need can be met through portfolio design that integrates an investor's personal values, institutional mission, and/or social priorities. The socially responsible investment industry in the United States is a young phenomenon. Even referring to it as an "industry" ten years ago may have been a bit of a stretch. While it has grown dramatically in recent years, it is an area of work, of study and of practical application that continues to evolve in many significant ways. One intriguing example of the ongoing development of the field can be found in the analysis of the language used to describe it. The terms social investing, socially responsible investing, ethical investing, socially aware investing, socially conscious investing, green investing, values-based investing, and mission-based or mission-related investing all refer to the same general process and are often used interchangeably. (shrink)

This study examines 14,900 disciplinary actions by the professional licensing boards for attorneys, CPAs, and physicians in four states from 2008 through 2014. It was found that both attorneys and physicians are disciplined at a rate at least seven times that of CPAs. While the majority of disciplinary actions are for misconduct directly related to the professional practice, nearly 14% of sanctions were the result of “social crimes” such as failure to pay child support or student loans, driving under (...) the influence, and general unprofessional conduct. The severity of licensure sanctions varied with the cause for discipline, but was inconsistent both within and between jurisdictions. These results raise important questions about the purpose and performance of state licensing boards and possible reasons for inequitable treatment. Additionally, the widespread and severe sanctions for conduct not related to the professional practice suggest that moral turpitude clauses may violate both equal protection and prohibitions on excessive fines. (shrink)

According to public reason liberalism, the state must abide by a principle of public justification. This principle holds that the laws and institutions of society must be in some sense justifiable to, or acceptable to, all reasonable citizens. But why accept the public justification principle? Recently, Kevin Vallier has developed an interesting and empirically informed argument from social trust to public justification. Sustaining a system of social trust within diverse and large‐scale societies, argues Vallier, requires adherence to (...) the public justification principle. After summarizing Vallier’s argument (Section 1), I argue that Vallier’s defence of public justification does not succeed because there are alternative conceptions of democratic discourse and decision‐making that lack a public justification principle yet that could still sustain social trust (Section 2). I then defend this argument against two objections: that alternatives to public justification would produce less social trust (Section 3) and that such alternatives would not produce social trust in the right way (Section 4). (shrink)

In this paper, I critically examine an important premise in theories of global distributive justice that, despite its widespread influence, has remained largely unexamined. This is the claim that state borders are morally arbitrary with respect to a just distribution of goods. I examine two common arguments for this claim, the argument that state borders are historically unjust and therefore morally arbitrary; and the argument first made by Charles Beitz that the conditions of a fair, hypothetical social (...) contract would not include knowledge of one's location with respect to the distribution of natural resources between state borders. I argue that there are good reasons to reject both arguments. Beitz's immense contribution to international justice can be gauged by the fact that it is difficult to find a contemporary work on global justice that does not reference his arguments in Political Theory and International Relations . Although some authors find Beitz's cosmopolitan theory objectionable, no author has, to my knowledge, criticized Beitz's pivotal arguments that our placement in the distribution of natural resources is morally arbitrary. The aim of this paper is to do just that. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has become a focal point for research aimed at extending business ethics to extra-corporate issues; and as a result many companies now seek to at least appear dedicated to one or another version of CSR. This has not affected the arms industry, however. For, this industry has not been discussed in CSR literature, perhaps because few CSR scholars have questioned this industry's privileged status as an instrument of national sovereignty. But major changes in the organization of (...) political communities call traditional views of sovereignty into question. With these considerations in mind I assess the U.S. arms industry on the basis of CSR requirements regarding the environment, social equity, profitability, and use of political power. I find that this industry fails to meet any of these four CSR requirements. Countering a claim that these failings should not be held against arms manufacturers because their products are crucial to national defense, I contend that many of these companies function not as dutiful agents of a nation-state but as politically powerful entities in their own right. So, I conclude, they should be held responsible for the foreseeable consequences that flow from use of their products. This responsibility should include civil liability and, in cases involving war crimes and violations of human rights, responsibility under international human rights standards. (shrink)

'An urgent and extraordinary book. Weaving a philosophical analysis of Heidegger, Agamben and Foucault, Jan draws out the implications of their thought for a radical analysis of the ontological politics of Islam and Pakistan. Whether writing about the 'Ulama and Deoband schools, blasphemy laws, the military, beards, or the Bamiyan Buddhas, Jan provokes and challenges our thinking while unearthing the ground on which Pakistan—and our world—are built.' —Joel Wainwright, Department of Geography, Ohio State University, USA 'In this exceptionally inventive (...) and important book, Jan shows us that the problems besetting political life in Pakistan are part of a more troubling crisis in modern forms of power. Challenging accounts that cordon off "political Islam" from "the West," Jan discloses their fundamental indistinction and thus, through his practice of critical ontology, reorients our understanding of how power and violence are at work in the world.' —Joshua Barkan, Department of Geography, University of Georgia, USA The Metacolonial State presents a novel rethinking of the relationship between Islam and the Political. Key to the text is an original argument regarding the "biopoliticization of Islam" and the imperative need for understanding sovereign power and the state of exception in resolutely ontological terms. Through the formulation of a critical ontology of political violence, The Metacolonial State endeavors to shed new light on the signatures of power undergirding postcolonial life, while situating Pakistan as a paradigmatic site for reflection on the nature of modernity's precarious present. The cross-disciplinary approach of Dr. Jan's work is certain to have broad appeal among geographers, historians, anthropologists, postcolonial theorists, and political scientists, among others. At the same time, his explication of critical ontology – with its radical reading of the interlacement of history, power and the event – promises to add a bold new dimension to social science research on Islamism and biopolitics. (shrink)

The side-effect effect, in which an agent who does not speci␣cally intend an outcome is seen as having brought it about intentionally, is thought to show that moral factors inappropriately bias judgments of intentionality, and to challenge standard mental state models of intentionality judgments. This study used matched vignettes to dissociate a number of moral factors and mental states. Results support the view that mental states, and not moral factors, explain the side-effect effect. However, the critical mental states appear (...) not to be desires as proposed in standard models, but rather ‘deeper’ evaluative states including values and core evaluative attitudes. (shrink)

Contemporary social theory and natural law : Jurgen Habermas -- A natural-law critique of modern social theory : Karl Lowith, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin -- Natural law and the question of universalism -- Modern natural law I : Hobbes and Rousseau on the state of nature and social life -- Modern natural law II : Kant and Hegel on proceduralism and ethical life -- Classical social theory I : Marx, Tonnies and Durkheim on alienation, (...) community and society -- Classical social theory II : Simmel and Weber on the universality of sociability and reasonableness -- Social theory as the natural law of 'artificial' social relations. (shrink)

What kind of political order would there be in the absence of the state? Jens Bartelson argues that we are currently unable to imagine what might lurk 'beyond', because our basic concepts of political order are conditioned by our experience of statehood. In this study, he investigates the concept of the state historically as well as philosophically, considering a range of thinkers and theories. He also considers the vexed issue of authority: modern political discourse questions the form and (...) content of authority, but makes it all but impossible to talk about the foundations of authority. Largely due to the existing practices of political and scientific criticism, authority appears to be unquestionable. Bartelson's wide-ranging and readable discussion of the suppositions and presuppositions of statehood will be of interest to scholars and upper-level students of political theory and social theory, and philosophy of social science. (shrink)

Habermas proposes a new solution to the problematic relation between republican values and democracy. He asserts that a new model of social cohesion is needed and he suggests that the sense of community in a democratic society should be founded exclusively on the acceptance and support of a system of constitutionally established rules which are the logical result of the historical evolution of constitution-making. He argues that an account of the constitutional process which led to the formation of the (...) modern republican state should provide the criteria for a rational set of norms which will exclude nationalism from the political arena. In this article, I point out the democratic hazards and the internal incoherence of Habermass alternative to the national state and I argue that a theoretical substitute should consider the existence of national identities as one of the aspects of modern pluralistic society. (shrink)

The standard philosophical project of analysing the concept of knowledge has radical defects in its arbitrary restriction of the subject matter, and its risky theoretical presuppositions. Edward Craig suggests a more illuminating approach, akin to the `state of nature' method found in political theory, which builds up the concept from a hypothesis about the social function of knowledge and the needs it fulfils. Light is thrown on much that philosophers have written about knowledge, about its analysis and the (...) obstacles to its analysis, and on the debate over scepticism. It becomes apparent why many languages not only have such constructions as `knows whether' and `knows that', but also have equivalents of `knows how to' and `know' followed by a direct object. Thus the inquiry is both broadened in scope and made theoretically less fragile. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article argues that there is an elemental confluence between the moral ideal of cosmopolitanism and the economic and commercial practices of globalization. By looking at Foucault's and Arendt's readings of Kant, I show that the cosmopolitan premise of humanity is bound to an eschatological vision of the end of politics. In aligning Foucault's discussion of state-phobia with Arendt's discussion of world alienation, I argue that the eclipse of the public realm is intrinsic to the liberal conception of (...) progress. While critics have viewed Arendt's social/political distinction with suspicion, less attention has been paid to the parallel contrast between intimacy and privacy in her work and to the ways in which her critique of intimacy's worldlessness converges with her depiction of the crisis of modernity. In Arendt's account, the social swallows up and depoliticizes the public realm and spits out intimacy as the consolation for this loss. (shrink)

The overall aim of this article is to explore the analytical potential and normative value of Helga M. Hernes' concept about woman-friendly welfare states in analysis of Scandinavian countries. The first part discusses the underlying theoretical, political and normative assumptions about gender equality and social justice related to dimensions such as redistribution, recognition and representation. The second part addresses the analytical potential of the concepts for understanding gender equality developments in Scandinavia. The focus is on three themes related to (...) the desirability, feasibility, and theoretical strength of the Scandinavian welfare and gender equality model and the underlying normative, empirical and theoretical premises. The analysis deals with debates about the public—private split in relation to woman-friendly policies, focusing on parental leave, childcare, and age restrictions in marriages involving foreigners. State feminism is explored in relation to women's political participation and representation and women's ability to influence gender equality policies. Furthermore, national variations in views about state feminism are identified. Finally, the article addresses the role of woman-friendly policies in debates about responses of Western welfare states to globalization, ageing and multiculturalism. (shrink)

After more than a decade teaching ancient Greek history and philosophy at University College, Oxford, British philosopher and political theorist Bernard Bosanquet resigned from his post to spend more time writing. He was particularly interested in contemporary social theory, and was involved with the Charity Organisation Society and the London Ethical Society. He saw himself as a radical in the Liberal Party, and at a theoretical level he was a 'collectivist', considering the individual to be a part of a (...) larger social organism. He thought the state should be in harmony with the general will, and that going beyond it would lead to repression. Bosanquet's political ideas are explained in this influential work, which was published in 1899 and ran to four editions by 1923. Bosanquet begins with the theory of state, and then addresses sociological and philosophical ideas about politics before examining the idea of 'will'. (shrink)

Claus Offe is one of the leading social scientists working in Germany today, and his work, particularly on the welfare state, has been enormously influential both in Europe and the United States. Contradictions of the Welfare State is the first collection of Offe's essays to appear in a single volume in English, and it contains a selection of his most important recent work on the breakdown of the post-war settlement.The political writings in this book are primarily concerned (...) with the origins of the present difficulties - what Offe calls the 'crises of crisis management' - of welfare capitalist states. He indicates why in the present period, these states are no longer capable of fully managing the socio-political problems and conflicts generated by late capitalist societies and discusses the viability of New Right, corporatist, and democratic socialist proposals for restructuring the welfare state.The book also offers fresh and penetrating insights into a range of other subjects, including social movements, political parties, law, social policy, and labor markets. There is an interview with Claus Offe, prepared especially for this volume, and a substantial introductory chapter by John Keane which links the essays and explores Offe's central themes.Claus Offe has researched and lectured widely throughout Europe and North America and is Professor in the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld. John Keane is an editor of Telos and Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Sociology at the Polytechnic of Central London. This book is included in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between the security state and the dominant economic interests, pointing to the ever-increasing reliance on a quantitative understanding of the natural and social worlds, which has vitiated the traditional values that constrained the exercise of power by both the market and the intrusive apparatus of the state.

This collection seeks to excavate the tradition of radical liberal class analysis, which predated and inspired Marx's reflections on class. Liberal class theory is distinctive because it regards relationship with the state as constitutive rather than just indicative of social class membership. Along with an introduction that frames the discussion historically and conceptually, Social Class and State Power provides readers with easy access to provocative texts from the early modern period to the present.

Like American politics, the academic debate over justice is polarized, with almost all theories of justice falling within one of two traditions: egalitarianism and libertarianism. This book provides an alternative to the partisan standoff by focusing not on equality or liberty, but on the idea that we should give people the things that they deserve. Mulligan argues that a just society is a meritocracy, in which equal opportunity prevails and social goods are distributed strictly on the basis of merit. (...) That gives citizens their just deserts. In addition to its novel conceptual approach, meritocracy is distinctive from existing work in two ways. First, it is grounded in research on how people actually think about justice. Empirical research reveals that people don't think that social goods should be distributed equally. Nor do they dismiss the idea of social justice. Across ideological and cultural lines, people want rewards to reflect merit. Second, the book discusses hot-button political issues and makes concrete policy recommendations. These issues include anti-meritocratic bias against women and racial minorities and the United States’ widening economic inequality. Justice and the Meritocratic State offers a new theory of justice and provides solutions to our most vexing social and economic problems. It will be of keen interest to philosophers, economists, and political theorists. (shrink)

Men make for themselves pictures of ideal forms of life. Such pictures are various and may be in sharp opposition to each other; and one and the same individual may be captivated by different and sharply conflicting pictures at different times. At one time it may seem to him that he should live—even that a man should live —in such-and-such a way; at another that the only truly satisfactory form of life is something totally different, incompatible with the first. In (...) this way, his outlook may vary radically, not only at different periods of his life, but from day to day, even from one hour to the next. It is a function of so many variables: age, experiences, present environment, current reading, current physical state are some of them. As for the ways of life that may thus present themselves at different times as each uniquely satisfactory, there can be no doubt about their variety and opposition. The ideas of self-obliterating devotion to duty or to the service of others; of personal honour and magnanimity; of asceticism, contemplation, retreat; of action, dominance and power; of the cultivation of “an exquisite sense of the luxurious”; of simple human solidarity and co-operative endeavour; of a refined complexity of social existence; of a constantly maintained and renewed affinity with natural things—any of these ideas, and a great many others too, may form the core and substance of a personal ideal. (shrink)

The contemporary state is not only the main force behind environmental change, but the reactions to environmental problems have played a crucial role in the modernisation of the state apparatus, especially because of its mediatory role. The Political Ecology of the State is the first book to critically assess the philosophical basis of environmental statehood and regulation, addressing the emergence and evolution of environmental regulation from the early 20th Century to the more recent phase of ecological modernisation (...) and the neoliberalisation of nature. The state is understood as the result of permanent socionatural interactions and multiple forms of contestation, from a critical politico-ecological approach. This book examines the tension between pro- and anti-commons tendencies that have permeated the organisation and failures of the environmental responses put forward by the state. It provides a reinterpretation of the achievements and failures of mainstream environmental policies and regulation and offers a review of the mains philosophical influences behind different periods of environmental statehood and regulation. It sets out an agenda for going beyond conventional state regulation and grassroots dealings with the state, and as such redefines the environmental apparatus of the state. (shrink)

Large companies must increasingly satisfy not only the conditions of their formal licences, but also the concerns and expectations of host communities and broader society. This has led to the emergence, particularly in the minerals industry, of the notion of “social licence”, an interdiscursive term whose meaning is rarely interrogated. We use textual analysis to critically investigate the construction of social licence discourse in minerals companies’ sustainable development reports and at a recent industry conference. We find that the (...) texts mystify the nature of agency, and privilege processes that maintain existing power relations. Through their partial accommodation of heterogeneous discourses, the texts downplay tensions and conflicts. We conclude that there is a need to reconceptualise the nature of company–stakeholder relationships through a more collaborative, dialogic and reflexive process, avoiding the binary state implied by the term licence. (shrink)

This article adapts the economic and social rights fulfillment index (SERF Index) developed by Fukuda-Parr, Lawson-Remer, and Randolph to assess the extent to which each of the 50 US states fulfills the economic and social rights obligations set forth in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It then extends the index to incorporate discrimination and examines differences in economic and social rights fulfillment by race and sex within each of the states. The overall (...) SERF Index score varies between states from below 70% to almost 85%, with wider variation on some of the six substantive rights that comprise the overall SERF Index score. The findings reveal limited sex discrimination but pronounced race discrimination. (shrink)

Theory of mind, the capacity to understand and ascribe mental states, has traditionally been conceptualized as analogous to a scientific theory. However, recent work in philosophy and psychology has documented a "side-effect effect" suggesting that moral evaluations influence mental state ascriptions, and in particular whether a behavior is described as having been performed 'intentionally.' This evidence challenges the idea that theory of mind is analogous to scientific psychology in serving the function of predicting and explaining, rather than evaluating, behavior. (...) In three experiments, we demonstrate that moral evaluations do inform ascriptions of intentional action, but that this relationship arises because behavior that conforms to norms (moral or otherwise) is less informative about underlying mental states than is behavior that violates norms. This analysis preserves the traditional understanding of theory of mind as a tool for predicting and explaining behavior, but also suggests the importance of normative considerations in social cognition. (shrink)

According to Avia Pasternak, citizens can be held responsible for their state’s wrongdoing if and only if they contribute to maintaining it by acting as intentional participants in its activities. I examine two specific aspects of this general claim. First, I ask whether intentional participation requires that the citizen should accept the state, in the sense of not viewing her membership as unwillingly forced upon her, and conclude that it does not. Second I explore how the claim applies (...) in the case where there has been a discontinuity in the form of the state. I argue that it is not a condition of collective liability today that the predecessor state’s subjects should have been intentional participants at the time at which the wrongdoing occurred. (shrink)

This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. (...) The contributors to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today's political challenges in the region. (shrink)

Does a more generous welfare state make people happier and increase their life satisfaction? Available empirical research gives a clear and positive answer to this question. This goes counter to many arguments that the welfare state creates a culture of dependency, leads to heavy-handed bureaucratic intrusions into private life, creates problems concerning personal integrity, is bad for economic growth, implies stigmatization of the poor, and crowds out civil society and voluntarism. This counterintuitive result is explained by to which (...) degree social programs are universal in the coverage and structure. Four common misunderstandings of universal welfare states are discussed and refuted: This it is too costly for the economy, that it cannot be combined with individual choice, that it does not redistribute in favour of the poor and that it should be detrimental to economic growth. Using a "social mechanism" approach, it is argued that the relation between subjective well-being and universal welfare states operates in a complicated causal pattern with two other variables, the degree of corruption and the level of social trust in society. This approach is used to explain why empirically, countries tend to cluster so that countries with large and mostly universal welfare state programs also have low levels of corruption, a high degree of social trust, and high levels of happiness and social well-being. And vice versa, why countries with smaller welfare systems tend to be higher on corruption, have lower levels of social trust, and lower levels of social well-being. (shrink)

This article takes issue with the common view that cosmopolitan normative commitments are incompatible with recognition of state sovereignty as a basic principle of international law. Against influential cosmopolitans, who at best ascribe a derivative significance to the sovereignty of states, the article argues that state sovereignty is not only compatible with, but also essential to the recognition of individuals as units of ultimate concern. The argument challenges a problematic distributive conception of justice underlying many cosmopolitans’ support for (...) reforms of the international legal order towards a system where respect for basic human rights is the only criterion for political legitimacy. An alternative relational conception of justice makes it possible to see why there is an internal connection between the rights of individuals and the rights of states. The argument adds up to a novel defence of the so-called domestic analogy, which regards the territorial integrity of states as an internationa... (shrink)

Introduction. The inadequacy of the support measures provided to children with orphan diseases is exacerbated by the trend towards an increase in the number of children with such a diagnosis. Orphan diseases also include diseases caused by primary immunodeficiency or congenital errors of immunity, which are life-threatening. However, these people are part of society and require attention from it, and social and economic measures from the state. Most of them, with proper treatment, socialization and appropriate government support, can (...) lead a normal life and live a full life. Scientific novelty of the research. On the basis of the study results, the authors contribute to clarifying the principles used in the implementation of the security function of the social state. The targeting of social support measures must be supplemented with the principles of social justice and freedom to choose ways to meet the needs of specific categories of citizens, understood as follows. The welfare state supports those citizens who need it most of all, namely, the poor. Specific categories of citizens can satisfy their needs, while having the opportunity to choose. This opportunity arises thanks to the receipt of targeted assistance in the form of monthly or annual subsidies. Families with children with orphan diseases should also be included in these categories. If they have the right to receive annual government subsidies, they will be able to spend these funds depending on the current needs due to the state of health of their children with orphan diseases (for the purchase of socially important food products; medicines, medical nutrition, and various services). The aim of the work is to study the problems of providing support measures to children with orphan diseases in the context of the current model of the welfare state. The article analyzes the satisfaction of patients with congenital immunity errors with various types of state support, identifies problems that reduce their satisfaction. Methods. The authors use methods such as comparative analysis, study of regulatory legal acts, sociological analysis. Results. On the basis of the study results the effectiveness of measures of state support for children with orphan diseases, studying the best experience of foreign countries, proposals were made to clarify the principles used to implement the security function by the social state, to expand the composition of the subjects involved in providing support measures analyzed in the article. Conclusions. The results obtained make it possible to assert that the targeted approach, which is basic in the model of the welfare state, does not cover most of the problems of children with innate immunity errors and, accordingly, the families that represent their interests. (shrink)

How individuals tend to evaluate the combination of their own and other’s payoffs—social value orientations—is likely to be a potential target of future moral enhancers. However, the stability of cooperation in human societies has been buttressed by evolved mildly prosocial orientations. If they could be changed, would this destabilize the cooperative structure of society? We simulate a model of moral enhancement in which agents play games with each other and can enhance their orientations based on maximizing personal satisfaction. We (...) find that given the assumption that very low payoffs lead agents to be removed from the population, there is a broadly stable prosocial attractor state. However, the balance between prosociality and individual payoff-maximization is affected by different factors. Agents maximizing their own satisfaction can produce emergent shifts in society that reduce everybody’s satisfaction. Moral enhancement considerations should take the issues of social emergence into account. (shrink)