This review essay surveys the contributions of the new edited volume African American Political Thought: A Collected History. The thinker-based approach to the study of African American political thought advanced in the volume highlights the ways in which thinkers reformulate the central political questions of the intellectual tradition and constitute the canon through the citation and invocation of earlier figures. It also draws attention to the rhetorical, strategic, and tactical dimensions of their political (...) thought. The volume sets a new standard for study of African American political thought and makes a persuasive case for the tradition’s important contributions to political theory broadly. However, by tying its significance too closely to its interventions within American political thought, the volume inadvertently minimizes the global resonances of African American political thought. (shrink)

This review essay surveys the contributions of the new edited volume African American Political Thought: A Collected History. The thinker-based approach to the study of African American political thought advanced in the volume highlights the ways in which thinkers reformulate the central political questions of the intellectual tradition and constitute the canon through the citation and invocation of earlier figures. It also draws attention to the rhetorical, strategic, and tactical dimensions of their political (...) thought. The volume sets a new standard for study of African American political thought and makes a persuasive case for the tradition’s important contributions to political theory broadly. However, by tying its significance too closely to its interventions within American political thought, the volume inadvertently minimizes the global resonances of African American political thought. (shrink)

This book focuses on the political thought of American statesmen. These statesmen have had consistent and comprehensive views of the good of the country and their actions have been informed by those views. The editors argue that political life in America has been punctuated by three great crises in its history-the crisis of the Founding, the crisis of the House Divided, and the crisis of the Great Depression. The Second World War was a crisis not just (...) for America but for the whole of Western Civiliation and, in the wake of that war, a new crisis arose which came to be called the "Cold War." Just when that gave the appearance of being resolved, the world reached a new juncture, a new crisis, which Samuel P. Huntington dubbed the "clash of civiliations." The statesmen having political responsibility in confronting the first three crises in America's history came as close to philosophic grasp of the problems of liberal democracy as one could demand from those embroiled in the active resolution of events. Their reflection of political philosophy in the full sense informed their actions. Since we cannot confidently explain the future, Aristotle warned us to call no man happy while he still lives. Thus the book, in its third edition, keeps to its settled pattern of dealing with settled matters. The preface to the third edition confronts the three later crises and, to the extent consistent with truth, attempts to relate them to the first three. Morton J. Frisch was professor emeritus of political science at Northern Illinois University. He was the author or editor of several books, including Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton; Alexander Hamilton and the Political Order; and Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Contribution of the New Deal to American Political Thought and Practice. Richard G. Stevens retired from National Defense University as professor of political science in 1994. Since then he has taught as an adjunct professor of government at American University. He is co-editor with Matthew J. Franck of Sober as a Judge: The Supreme Court and Republican Liberty, and the author of The American Constitution and Its Provenance; Reason and History in Judicial Judgment: Felix Frankfurter and Due Process; and Political Philosophy: An Introduction. (shrink)

Five concepts are presented which together form elements of a theoretical framework for American history: 1) persistent inequality from one stage of history to another under the impact of massive transforming social and political influences; 2) systematization, referring to the way in which people sought to organize institutions in both private and public affairs so as to integrate people and resources into ever larger systems of human action; 3) differentiation, which is the realm of human identity (...) and meaning, of understanding personal possibilities and limitations, and of choosing whether one seeks to be similar to or different from others; 4) interactions among levels of scale, of which the aspects of perception, personal networks, and institutions are especially important; and 5) innovation and response, or change and response to change. Each concept is well rooted in recently accumulated evidence. Together they constitute useful building blocks of theory which enable one to integrate the vast and often diffuse outpouring of literature in both social and political history. (shrink)

Social sciences in Latin America experienced, during the 1960s, a great number of debates concerning the very foundations of different academic fields. In the case of Argentina, research programs such as Proyecto Marginalidad constituted fundamental elements of those controversies, which were characteristic of disciplinary developments within the social sciences, particularly sociology. Mainly influenced by the critical context that had been deepened by Project Camelot, Argentinian social scientists engaged in debates about the theories that should be chosen in order to account (...) for ‘national reality’, the origins of funding for scientific research, or the applied dimension of science. In this sense, the practices of philanthropic organizations like the Ford Foundation stimulated considerably the ideological passions of that period; those practices also contributed to fragmentation in various academic groups. In this way, the problem of American imperialism, and its consequent economic and cultural dependencies, were present in the controversies of academic fields whose historic evolutions cannot be fully understood without considering their strong links with national and international politics. (shrink)

This article shows how attention to a third political discourse -- mercantilist thought -- provides a direct understanding of the issues of commerce and market relations in the framing and ratification of the constitution drafted at the Philadelphia convention in 1787. Mercantilist political discourse was readily employable alongside the republican, liberal and other political languages already studied at greater length. In contrast to the vagueness of classical republican references to �commerce�, which made it a metaphor for entire (...) social and political orders, mercantilist thought enabled Anglo-Americans to be precise and elaborate in discussing economic relations in political contexts. Mercantilist thought provided a positive analysis of market activities, but it simultaneously forestalled a complete identification of liberty with economic self-interest. By assuming that economic regulation might serve a public interest, mercantilist thought allowed the hypothetical possibility that regulation of the market need not be a compromise of freedom in a republic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 175. Price not given.The Art of the Han Essay: Wang Fu's Ch'ien-Fu Lun. By Anne Behnke Kinney. Tempe: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1990. Pp. xi + 154. Paper $10.00.The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. By Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrön (...) Thayé and translated by Richard Barron (Chökyi Nyima). Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2003. Pp. xxii + 549. Price not given.Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō. By William R. LaFleur. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xiii + 173. Paper $14.95.Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric Mahamudra for Everyday Life. By Lama Thubten Yeshe, edited by Robina Courtin, and foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopa. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. xi + 194. Paper $14.95.Between Two Worlds East and West: An Autobiography. By J. N. Mohanty. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 134. Hardcover RS 525.00.The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ. Edited by Roman Malek, S.V.D. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum; and Nettetal, Germany: Steyler Verlag, 2002. Pp. 391. EUR 40.00.Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis. By Volker Scheid. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 407. Hardcover $69.95. Paper $23.95.Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978). Translated and adapted by Thomas L. Kennedy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xxi + 170. Price not given.Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. By K. Ramakrishna Rao. Jefferson (North Carolina) and London: McFarland and Company, 2002. Pp. 367. Hardcover $65.00.Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S. Walters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 224. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.Developments in Indian Philosophy from Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and Western. By Daya Krishna. Volume X Part 1 of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, edited by D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New [End Page 110] Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2001. Pp. xxiii + 417. Hardcover RS 1200.East and West: Identità e dialogo interculturale. By Giangiorgio Pasqualotto. Venezia: Marsilo Editori, 2003. Pp. 210. EUR 16.00.Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 352. Price not given.Encountering Kā lī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xviii + 321. Hardcover $55.00, £37.95. Paper $21.95, £15.95.Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Antonio S. Cua. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pp. xx + 1020. Hardcover $150.00.Essays on Indian Philosophy. By J. N. Mohanty and edited by Purushottama Bilimoria. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvii + 347. Paper RS 525.00.Faith, Humor, and Paradox. By Ignacio L. Götz. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Pp. 136. Hardcover $61.95.Four Illusions: Candrakīrti's Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path. Translated by Karen C. Lang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 240. Price not given.The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. Pp. 223. Paper $16.95.The Hidden History of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. By Bryan J. Cuevas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 328. Price not given.Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. By Paul U. Unschuld. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 520. Hardcover $75.00, £52.00.In Dewey's Wake: Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction. Edited by William J. Gavin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. vi + 249. Hardcover $71.50. Paper $23.95.Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy. By Tara Chatterjea. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. Pp. xvi + 159. Hardcover... (shrink)

Compiled by the foremost scholar of the holocaust in Hungary, this volume contains close to 1500 fully annotated bibliographical entries relating to the history of Hungarian Jewry in general and the Holocaust period in particular. Grouped under 42 main subject headings, the entries are arranged alphabetically and provide author, name, and geographic indexes.

In the United States, people are deeply divided along lines of race, class, political party, gender, sexuality, and religion. Many believe that historical grievances must eventually be left behind in the interest of progress toward a more just and unified society. But too much in American history is unforgivable and cannot be forgotten. How then can we imagine a way to live together that does not expect people to let go of their entrenched resentments? Living with Hate (...) in American Politics and Religion offers an innovative argument for the power of playfulness in popular culture to make our capacity for coexistence imaginable. Jeffrey Israel explores how people from different backgrounds can pursue justice together, even as they play with their divisive grudges, prejudices, and desires in their cultural lives. Israel calls on us to distinguish between what belongs in a raucous “domain of play” and what belongs in the domain of the political. He builds on the thought of John Rawls and Martha Nussbaum to defend the liberal tradition against challenges posed by Frantz Fanon from the left and Leo Strauss from the right. In provocative readings of Lenny Bruce’s stand-up comedy, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, and Norman Lear’s All in the Family, Israel argues that postwar Jewish American popular culture offers potent and fruitful examples of playing with fraught emotions. Living with Hate in American Politics and Religion is a powerful vision of what it means to live with others without forgiving or forgetting. (shrink)

In Culture, Genre, and Literary Vocation, Michael Davitt Bell charts the important and often overlooked connection between literary culture and authors' careers. Bell's influential essays on nineteenth-century American writers—originally written for such landmark projects as The Columbia Literary History of the United States and The Cambridge History of American Literature—are gathered here with a major new essay on Richard Wright. Throughout, Bell revisits issues of genre with an eye toward the unexpected details of authors' lives, and (...) invites us to reconsider the hidden functions that terms such as "romanticism" and "realism" served for authors and their critics. Whether tracing the demands of the market or the expectations of readers, Bell examines the intimate relationship between literary production and culture; each essay closely links the milieu in which American writers worked with the trajectory of their storied careers. (shrink)

This article explores the emergence of the American 'political scientist' around the turn of the twentieth century. It first recovers the network of beliefs that ordered the tradition of historico-politics -- an intellectual tradition that in the 1880s constituted a dominant field within newly professionalized American social inquiry. The article then charts the divergent responses of turn-of-the-century scholars to the declining persuasiveness of core organizing beliefs of this tradition, responses through which the earlier field split along now-familiar (...) disciplinary divides, as 'political scientists' emerged with a disciplinary identity distinct from that of 'historians'. (shrink)

Notions of democracy and nationhood constitute the pivotal legacy of the American Revolution, but to understand their development one must move beyond a purely American context. Citizens of a Common Intellectual Homeland explores the simultaneous emergence of modern concepts of democracy and the nation on both sides of the Atlantic during the age of revolutions. Armin Mattes argues that in their origin the two concepts were indistinguishable because they arose from a common revolutionary impulse directed against the prevailing (...) hierarchical political and social order. The author shows how the reconceptualization of democracy and the nation, which resulted from this revolutionary impulse, received its decisive form from the French Revolution. Although the French Revolution was instrumental in redefining the two terms, however, neither were these changes confined to France, nor did the new meanings merely radiate from France to other countries. To illustrate the transatlantic emergence of these ideas, Mattes considers the works of pairs of prominent intellectual contemporaries--one in America and the other in Europe--each writing on a common topic. The thinkers and topics include Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke on the transatlantic revolutions, John Adams and Friedrich von Gentz on the mixed constitution, James Madison and Immanuel Kant on perpetual peace, and Thomas Jefferson and Destutt de Tracy on the nation. Mattes's approach highlights the significant impact that the French Revolution had on the evolution of thought in the period, demonstrating that the emergence and early development of modern concepts of democracy and the nation in America were intimately tied to revolutionary events and processes in the larger Atlantic world. Preparation of this volume has been supported by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Jeffersonian America. (shrink)

This essay on law and religion appears in the second edition of the Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, edited by Dennis Patterson. It is a revision of a similar entry in the book’s first edition. The essay opens by broadly discussing the complex relationships between law and religion writ large as movements in human history – social, cultural, intellectual, and institutional phenomena with distinct but often overlapping logics and concerns. It then hones in on the (...) efforts of secular law to make sense of religion and determine its place in the civil state. The essay argues that, while the questions raised by the American Bill of Rights’ religion clauses connect in some important respects to broader constitutional principles such as free expression and equality, the most interesting and theoretically excruciating conundrums involving religion need to be approached on their own unique terms. Two useful rubrics for such understanding are “separation” and “deference.” Any honest account must also admit, however, that there is an “intractable residue,” questions in the relation of religion and law to which there simply is no determinate or completely satisfactory answer. Finally, the essay emphasizes that the full texture of the legal imagination’s effort to grapple with religion only becomes apparent in the wider range of subconstitutional and nonconstitutional contexts beyond the standard litany of constitutional discourse. (shrink)

Contemporary political discourse is marked with the language of democracy, and Western countries in particular seek to promote democracy at home and abroad. However, there is a sublimated conflict in general political discourse between a desire to rely on alleged political experts and a desire to assert the supposed common sense of all men. Can the struggle between the democratic and aristocratic values embodied in this conflict be reconciled? The question is perennial, and raises issues that are (...) central to constitutional design. Aristotle, developing in significant ways insights made by his teacher Plato, grapples with it in his Politics. Aristotle's views on these matters are relevant—by way of the American Founders'—to contemporary American politics and modern democracies generally. During the eighteenth century, the Founders, some of whom explicitly reached back to Aristotle's work, also struggled—especially in The Federalist Papers—with these thorny issues of constitutional design. They created the U.S. Constitution in part to address these very same problems and issues. We are living in some ways, then, in the shadow of Aristotle's political theorizing, albeit as transposed by the American Founders. Both Aristotle and some of the American Founders theoretically favor aristocracy over democracy, but concede that in practice a blend of the two has to be integrated into the fundamental structure of political society. We need to reconnect with these important political discussions in order to come to terms with aristocratic and democratic values in our current circumstances. Footnotesa I am grateful to Fred Miller and David Keyt for many helpful suggestions and thoughtful questions throughout the editing process. I would also like to thank Irfan Khawaja for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this essay. (shrink)

Despite its origins in explorations of the political and institutional history that had become unfashionable in History departments, the Political Science subfield of American Political Development has drifted toward the “history‐from‐below” view against which it was originally a reaction. Perhaps this is a normal tendency in democratic cultures that ground their legitimacy on the will of the people. But it may also be due to a failure of APD scholars to appreciate that even (...) in a democratic country such as the United States, the state may acquire autonomy from the public will because of the vast scope of state activity, and the restricted ability of the people to monitor, understand, and control that activity. Philip E. Converse's signal contribution to the public‐opinion literature can thus be the starting point for a revision of American political history with an eye to the autonomy that political elites may gain from public ignorance of their actions. (shrink)

Although cities were given no role in the constitutional order of the United States, the new nation posed the same potential threats to the accumulation of capital and wealth as European monarchs posed to long-powerful urban centers. In mobilizing for self-protection and advancement, American business developed new practices and discourses of citizenship that sustained a central role for the community as the locus of social provision. The strategy combined opportunity-hoarding through restricted membership in civic groups and obligation-hoarding through (...) the alignment of diverse networks of voluntarism with this civic core. The linkage of business interests to this hybrid charitable-civic configuration constituted a source of resistance to nationalizing tendencies driven by demands for social protection. This alternative model of social provision and civic organization sustained a distinctive pattern of political membership and state development. By fiercely defending the capacity of privately governed civic networks to provide substantial social support, this history of business influence through community organizations lives on in the partial and fragmented character of the American welfare state. (shrink)

The Supreme Court’s reversal of the right to abortion has significantly changed reproductive rights in the United States, and adversely affected the lives of potentially pregnant persons. The political fragility of the privacy right to abortion also raises questions about the practice and epistemic rules of American constitutionalism itself. In this essay, I situate the history of privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause in the tradition of legal reasoning. With Ludwig Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, I argue (...) that the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) departs from this tradition. The upshot of this departure is that we now have a new interpretive language game battling a long established language game of interpretation–battling, that is, a constitutional tradition–in a contest to redefine how disagreement is transacted among justices and between the people and their government. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs conceptually and situates historically contemporary French philosopher Marcel Gauchet's theory of the origins and development of modern selfhood. It argues that his history of the self as the interiorization of constitutive alienation, and of the history of self-consciousness as the progressive recognition of this alienation, originated out of a unique combination of historical factors—the radical politics of May 1968, the rise of the antipsychiatry movement, and the new psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. The essay considers Gauchet's (...) study, together with his partner Gladys Swain, of the foundations of psychiatry, and investigates the connections of their narrative of origins to Michel Foucault's work. The essay concludes by turning to Gauchet's more recent contributions and considering the implications of his history of the self for Anglo-American scholarship. (shrink)

Politics and Modernity provides a critical review of the key interface of contemporary political theory and social theory about the questions of modernity and postmodernity. Review essays offer a broad-ranging assessment of the issues at stake in current debates. Among the works reviewed are those of William Connolly, Anthony Giddens, J[um]urgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor and Roy Bhaskar. As well as reviewing the contemporary literature, the contributors assess the historical roots of current problems in the works (...) of Nietzsche and Max Weber. (shrink)

It is widely believed that there is more freedom of speech in America today than there was at the time of the founding. Indeed, this view is shared by liberal commentators, as one would expect, as well as by leading conservatives, which is more surprising. “The body of law presently defining First Amendment liberties,” writes liberal law professor Archibald Cox, grew out of a “continual expansion of individual freedom of expression.” Conservative constitutional scholar Walter Berns agrees: “Legally we enjoy (...) a greater liberty [of speech] than ever before in our history.” This shared assessment is correct—from the point of view of the political theory of today's liberalism—but it is incorrect from the point of view of the political theory of the American founding. (shrink)

En el marco del debate humanista del siglo XX, el pensamiento político de Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) se constituye como una de las voces críticas y testimoniales que buscaron reflexionar sobre lo acontecido en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. A partir de su propia experiencia como judía en la Alemania de las primeras décadas de su siglo y como intelectual exiliada, concentró sus esfuerzos en comprender el significado filosófico y político de lo ocurrido. Sin pretender afirmar o definir la naturaleza humana sin (...) más, de forma deshistorizada y significada desde una filosofía omnisciente de la historia, orientó su responsabilidad a soportar la carga del siglo, enfrentar los hechos y habilitar otros vínculos con el pasado, con la herencia, con las tradiciones, con lo aún no del futuro y los múltiples modos de proyectarlo en espacios políticos (nacionales e internacionales) cruzados por conflictos y contradicciones. En la lucha entre la omnipotencia y la impotencia humanas como experiencias vitales, la acción aparece como constitutiva de la condición humana y se inscribe en el tiempo como iniciativa, como posibilidad de un futuro diferente. El trabajo explora dimensiones éticas, políticas e históricas de un humanismo que pretende dialogar con su presente. In the debate of the twentieth century humanist, the political thought of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was established as one of the critics and testimony that sought to reflect on what happened in the Second World War. From his own experience as a Jew in Germany in the early decades of the century and as an intellectual in exile, she concentrated his efforts on understanding the philosophical and political significance of what happened. Without attempting to confirm and to define the human nature without so dehistoricized and meaning from an omniscient philosophy of history, turned her responsibility to bear the burden of the century, face the facts and enable other links with the past, the inheritance, traditions, yet with the future and project it into multiple modes of political space (national and international) crossed by conflicts and contradictions. In the struggle between the omnipotence and the human powerlessness and life experiences, the action appears to constitute the human condition and fits the time and initiative, as the possibility of a different future. The paper explores ethical, political and historical humanism that seeks dialogue with its present. (shrink)

Jeffry H. Morrison offers readers the first comprehensive look at the political thought and career of John Witherspoon—a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of America’s most influential and overlooked founding fathers. Witherspoon was an active member of the Continental Congress and was the only clergyman both to sign the Declaration of Independence and to ratify the federal Constitution. During his tenure as president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, Witherspoon became a mentor to James Madison and influenced (...) many leaders and thinkers of the founding period. He was uniquely positioned at the crossroads of politics, religion, and education during the crucial first decades of the new republic. Morrison locates Witherspoon in the context of early American political thought and charts the various influences on his thinking. This impressive work of scholarship offers a broad treatment of Witherspoon’s constitutionalism, including his contributions to the mediating institutions of religion and education, and to political institutions from the colonial through the early federal periods. This book will be appreciated by anyone with an interest in American political history and thought and in the relation of religion to American politics. “I have been waiting a long time for such a book on John Witherspoon. This book is not only well-researched, but well-written. The story Morrison tells is quite wonderful.” —_Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research_ _ _ "Dr. John Witherspoon is at once an exceptionally influential figure in Early American history, and a sadly neglected one. Professor Morrison's book fills this gap in American political history brilliantly. It is especially revealing of 18th century views on the interrationships between education, religion, and society. Morrison presents new insights into the Early American understanding of balancing faith, government, and society. It will change our conceptions of this period and provide fresh perspectives on contemporary problems. Everyone interested in the American Founding era is indebted to Morrison for this illuminating book." —_Garrett Ward Sheldon, University of Virginia's College at Wise_ "At last we have a full and learned account, as the title states, of _JOHN WITHERSPOON aND THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC_. Including discussion of Witherspoon's direct role in the crucial events of 1775-1790 as an advocate of Independence and friend of the Constitution, as a contributor to early American religious and political thought, and most important, as a mentor to James Madison and other Princeton revolutionairies and nation-builders, Morrison reveals Witherspoon's high standing in American religious, educational, and political history. Madison remembered Witherspoon's injunction to his students to 'Lead useful Lives;' he provided an excellent role model." —_Ralph Ketcham, Syracuse University_. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The American Politics of French Theory: Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault in Translation by Jason DemersKenneth SurinDemers, Jason. The American Politics of French Theory: Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault in Translation. University of Toronto Press, 2019. 218pp.This most welcome book gets off on the right foot by eschewing such problematic terms as “post-structuralism” or “French theory” in studying the work of French thinkers Gilles Deleuze and (...) Félix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault. These terms are of a strictly Anglo-Atlantic provenance, a convenient but misleading encapsulation that facilitated their journey or translation into the Anglo-Atlantic world. Instead, Demers prefers to view this transmission as an ensemble of relays between “people, groups, places, ideas, and moments in time” (3), as well as codes; metalanguages; markets for symbolic capital, a notion derived from Pierre Bourdieu; and “networks of feeling” (5n), a term the author borrowed from Raymond Williams. Demers observes, for example, that there was a relay or “mutual implication” (5) between Paris and Columbia University, which occurred in the aftermath of the events of May ’68, that recalled a somewhat earlier circuit, also leading to Paris, which involved the mid-1960s Berkeley free speech movement. To approach the work of Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, and Foucault by resorting to terms such as “post-structuralism” or “French theory” severs them from the crucial relays and circuits constituting the complex and highly mobile transpositions of their work to an American intellectual and political milieu, and vice versa, and it is clear that Demers views, quite rightly, that the political and the intellectual are inextricably bound up with each other.Demers acknowledges his debt here to the versions of assemblage theory formulated in Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter, Manuel DeLanda’s Assemblage Theory and A New Philosophy of Society, and Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Buttressing these texts for Demers is the work of catalytic significance undertaken by Deleuze and Guattari on assemblages/ensembles. The supervening context for these processes of transmission between France and the Anglo-American world is the global May ’68.Demers’s first chapter deals with Derrida and the notions of translation and margins in order to delineate and analyze the “contiguous [End Page 127] relationship between campus and community” (12). The difficulty Demers grasps here is that Derrida’s work on the place of philosophy, already premised on the defining notion that there is no “we” in the philosophical domain, is rooted in the French educational system, and so is deracinated, inevitably, by its movement out of France into the Anglo-Atlantic world. After seeking to account for the implications of this uprooting, Demers shows convincingly how the later Derrida moved (somewhat) away from the political evasiveness of his earlier writings. Taking Derrida’s “The Ends of Man” as his focus, Demers understands the essay as an attempt to translate the intellectual and practical work being done on the academic and political margins of the university into a properly philosophical position (“deconstruction”) with regard to the logic of margins and centers extending beyond the university. At this point Demers makes two criticisms of Derrida. First, while Derrida’s philosophy pivots on an ever-expanding democracy-to-come, the richness and intricacies of the margins – the very resources created there to disrupt the established centers – have little place in his reflections. Derrida caters to iconic figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela, who serve as powerful cryptograms for his thinking, but hardly more than that. This stems from a second problem associated with Derrida’s deconstructive positions, namely, that apart from making theoretical moves acclamatory of those positioned on the margins, albeit in relation to a deconstructed and displaced center held in an endless abeyance, it also leaves the Derridean Other in a situation of debilitating indeterminacy – the infinite deferral of Derrida’s différance and the à venir purports to be redemptive, but is ultimately incapacitating. Derrida’s eschatology always trumps his politics. In fact, in his theoretical and practical “spaces,” Derrida’s cat seems to have the same discursive status as Mandela. Demers, and I suspect he may agree with... (shrink)

In this remarkable study, David A. J. Richards combines an interpretive history of culture and law, political philosophy, and constitutional analysis to explain the background, development, and growing impact of two of the most important and challenging human rights movements of our time, feminism and gay rights. Richards argues that both movements are extensions of rights-based dissent, rooted in antebellum abolitionist feminism that condemned both American racism and sexism. He sees the progressive role of such radical (...) dissent as an emancipated moral voice in the American constitutional tradition. He examines the role of dissident African Americans, Jews, women, and homosexuals in forging alternative visions of rights-based democracy. He also draws special attention to Walt Whitman's visionary poetry, showing how it made space for the silenced and subjugated voices of homosexuals in public and private culture. According to Richards, contemporary feminism rediscovers and elaborates this earlier tradition. And, similarly, the movement for gay rights builds upon an interpretation of abolitionist feminism developed by Whitman in his defense, both in poetry and prose, of love between men. Richards explores Whitman's impact on pro-gay advocates, including John Addington Symonds, Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, and André Gide. He also discusses other diverse writers and reformers such as Margaret Sanger, Franz Boas, Elizabeth Stanton, W. E. B. DuBois, and Adrienne Rich. Richards addresses current controversies such as the exclusion of homosexuals from the military and from the right to marriage and concludes with a powerful defense of the struggle for such constitutional rights in terms of the principles of rights-based feminism. (shrink)

In this original new study, Grant Havers critically interprets Leo Strauss’s political philosophy from a conservative perspective. Most mainstream readers of Strauss have either condemned him from the Left as an extreme right-wing opponent of liberal democracy or celebrated him from the Right as a traditional defender of Western civilization. Rejecting both of these portrayals, Havers shifts the debate beyond the conventional parameters of our age. He persuasively shows that Strauss was neither a man of the Far Right nor (...) a conservative. He was in fact a secular Cold War liberal who taught his followers to uphold Anglo-American democracy as the one true universal regime that does not need a specifically Christian foundation. Strauss firmly rejects the traditional conservative view held by Edmund Burke that Anglo-American democracy needs the leavening influence of Christian morality. Havers maintains that Strauss’s refusal to recognize the role of Christianity in shaping Western civilization, though historically unjustified, is crucial to Strauss and the Straussian portrayal of Anglo-American democracy. In the Straussian view, the Anglo-American ideals of liberty, equality, and constitutional government owe more to the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle than to the Christian tradition. In the process, Havers argues, Straussians end up rewriting history by falsely idealizing the ancient Greeks as the forerunners of modern liberal democracy, despite the Greek toleration of practices such as slavery and infanticide. Straussians also misrepresent statesmen of the Anglo-American political tradition such as Abraham Lincoln and Sir Winston Churchill as heirs to the ancient Greek tradition of statecraft, despite their indebtedness to Christianity. Havers contends that the most troubling implication of Straussianism is that it provides an ideological rationale for the aggressive spread of democratic values on a global basis while ignoring the preconditions that make these values possible. Concepts such as the rule of law, constitutional government, Christian morality, and the separation of church and state are not easily transplanted beyond the historic confines of Anglo-American civilization, as recent wars to spread democracy in the Middle East and Central Asia have demonstrated. This excellent study will be of interest not only to longtime readers of Strauss but also philosophers, political scientists, historians, religious studies scholars, and theologians. (shrink)

A philosophical yet detailed history of the American party battle explaining why partisan debate is so perverse and how it could be made less so. Building upon the heritage of American pragmatism, from Peirce to Rorty and the new pragmatists, as well as the work of historian Charles Beard, the book identifies that battle as a struggle between nation state and market state, with special emphasis on the perversity of Civil War politics.

America frequently talks about impeaching a president, but the impeachment provisions of the American constitution are widely misunderstood. In High Crimes and Misdemeanors, constitutional scholar Frank O. Bowman, III offers unprecedented clarity to the question of impeachment, tracing its roots to medieval England through its adoption in the Constitution and 250 years of American experience. By examining the human and political history of those who have faced impeachment, Bowman demonstrates that the Framers intended impeachment to (...) be a flexible tool, adaptable to the needs of any age. Written in a lively, engaging style, the book combines a deep historical and constitutional analysis of the impeachment clauses, a coherent theory of when impeachment should be used to protect constitutional order against presidential misconduct, and a comprehensive presentation of the case for and against impeachment of President Trump. It is an indispensable work for the present moment. (shrink)

"The Constitution is America's moral sail, and we must hold to the courage of the conviction that fills it, a conviction that we can all be equal citizens of a moral republic. That is a noble faith, and only optimism can redeem it." So writes Ronald Dworkin in the introduction to this characteristically robust and provocative new book in which Dworkin argues the fidelity to the constitution and to law demands that judges make contemporary judgements backed on political morality, (...) and why it encourages, or ought to encourage, an open display of the true grounds of judgement. The book discusses almost all of the great constitutional issues of the last two decades including abortion, affirmative action, pornography, race, homosexuality, euthanasia and free-speech and in doing so consistently offers a liberal view of the American Constitution. Dworkin's "moral reading" proposes that we all, judges, lawyers, citizens - interpret and apply the abstract language of the Constitution on the understanding that they invoke moral principles about political decency and justice. The "moral reading" therefore brings political morality into the heart of constitutional law. The various chapters of this book were first published seperately; now drawn together they bear all the hallmarks of Dworkin's legal and philosophical sophistication, his acute understanding of political process and his understanding of history. principles. (shrink)

A fascinating collection of studies, _The Politics of Truth and Other Untimely Essays_ explores the historical and theoretical underpinnings of personal liberty and free government and provides a trenchant analysis of the crisis of civic consciousness endangering both of them today. The book addresses a range of issues in contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. These are seen to be all the more urgent in importance because of the surging aspirations for liberty in the wake of the collapse (...) of the Soviet empire and the post-Cold War anomaly of crisis, malaise, and disarray in free government itself in America and in other bastions of modern democracy. While each essay can stand alone, there is an underlying thematic unity to the collection. The fundamental problem considered throughout is whether and to what extent the fall of communism may mark an epoch in world history. These questions are applied to the East Central European nations struggling to achieve free government and personal liberty. The elements required to identify the preconditions of liberty are addressed and specific attention is given to the terms of institutionalization in the American founding. Several essays focus on American political thought, with emphasis on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Two elements, in particular, are treated: the jurisprudential and common law background to the American political tradition and the centrality of religion within the unfolding of the American political experiment. Sandoz explores the uncommon alliance of philosophers, statesmen, and evangelists during the nation's founding. This alliance, nurturing communities of persons bound together by their faith and a mutual regard for one another, played a vital role in the establishment of the system of freedom under law. Sandoz sees the tension between religion and natural law as a constant in the human struggle for freedom. That the preservation of liberty under law is no easy task is acknowledged and addressed as it can be seen in the American founding, in the post-communist struggle of East Central Europe, and in the deepening contemporary crisis of American society. Anyone interested in the "politics" of "truth" will appreciate this volume. (shrink)

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

Historically, American political science has rarely engaged popular culture as a central topic of study, despite the domain’s outsized influence in American community life. This article argues that this marginalization is, in part, the by-product of long-standing disciplinary debates over the inadequate political development of the American public. To develop this argument, the article first surveys the work of early political scientists, such as John Burgess and Woodrow Wilson, to show that their reformist ambitions (...) largely precluded discussion of mundane activities of social life such as popular culture. It then turns to Harold Lasswell, who produced some of the first investigations of popular culture in American political science. Ironically, however, his work – and the work of those who adapted similar ways of speaking about popular culture after him – only reinforced skepticisms concerning the American public. It has thus helped keep the topic on the margins of disciplinary discourse. (shrink)

The history of British political thought has been one of the most fertile fields of Anglo-American historical writing in the last half-century. David Armitage brings together an interdisciplinary and international team of authors to consider the impact of this scholarship on the study of early modern British history, English literature, and political theory. Leading historians survey the impact of the history of political thought on the 'new' histories of Britain and Ireland; eminent literary (...) scholars offer novel critical methods attentive to literary form, genre, and language; and distinguished political theorists treat the relationship of history and theory in studies of rights and privacy. The outstanding examples of critical practice collected here will encourage the emergence of fresh research on the historical, critical, and theoretical study of the English-speaking world in the period around 1500-1800. This volume celebrates the contribution of the Folger Institute to British studies over many years. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The essays in this collection investigate two political traditions and their critical interactions. The first series of essays deals with the development of natural rights individualism, some examining its origins in the thought of the seminal political theorist, John Locke, and the influential constitutional theorist, Montesquieu, others the impact of their theories on intellectual leaders during the American Revolution and the Founding era, and still others the culmination of this tradition in the writings of nineteenth-century individualists (...) such as Lysander Spooner. The second series of essays focuses on the Progressive repudiation of natural rights individualism and its far-reaching effect on American politics and public policy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extraordinary Rendition:On Politics, Music, and Circular MeaningsRandall Everett AllsupThe purpose of this symposium is to look at music, education, and politics. I will begin with an examination of how musical meanings are politically rendered, and how these understandings are attached to moral consequences. Highly resistant to classification, musical meanings are those things we come to understand about ourselves through music, as opposed to musical knowledge which is demonstrable know-how. (...) While marching bands and flute sonatas can be judged with scores estimated to the 100th decimal point, the meanings that are created between the standards of practice of a given genre and the worldview of the listener or performer are provisional at best. Seen in this light, even seemingly secure or knowable realms like Christian heavy metal or anti-war movies are in fact highly un-objective and unpredictable. (More on Christian rock and movies in a moment). The challenge this paper seeks to uncover is participation on the hither side of fact, where understandings are rendered in a world that is contingent, political, and always in motion. What better example of the unclassifiable than the moving axes of politics and art?So what occurs between art and human or so-called "world" experience? [End Page 144] Let's agree that there is always motion, non-neutral, political movement in this interaction. We need not be students of French post-structuralism to recognize that we are part of many ever-evolving human-made systems, some of control, regulation, reward, punishment, and pleasure, but each with their own gravitation pull.1 I like Susan Sontag's take the best when she wrote that every place, every history has its own "sensibility," its own ineffable way of being in the world.2 Sensibilities—perhaps a clearer way of referring to politics in the context of art and experience—do not exist apart from their environment, yet they are more elusive than an idea or recognizable behavior.3 The sensibility of a time and place makes possible multiple discourses through which we make meaning.4 Some discourses, Foucault would remind us, are intensified by a history's particular sensibility and so appear louder than others. Such a discourse might speak so loudly that it shapes the meanings we make, drowning out options, and thus appearing obvious or commonsensical. The logic of musical assessment and evaluation—scoring marching bands and flute sonatas to the 100th decimal—is one such example.In spite of authoritative voices and reasonable discourses, each history's sensibility has its own escape routes, its own distortions and contradictions. I am fascinated by how we comply with or resist these pulls, as they are matters of agency and identity, matters of equity and social justice. In the present-day context of neo-liberalism and conservative values, especially 21st Century American fundamentalism, we would do well to ask how—not whether—such a fundamentalist sensibility shapes our ways of doing and knowing.5 My attempt is to locate music education in such a project.Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I wrote a short piece on the fundamentalist imagination and its pull on the arts and education.6 This research took place at the 2003 MENC biennial where Bennett Reimer asks philosophy SRIG participants to consider (among other things) the role of metaphor in music education.7 I viewed the fundamentalist imagination as antithetical to metaphor: to paraphrase, the fundamentalist philosophy of education was "a philosophy for, not with, its initiates. Judgments are passed, not reached; answers are given, not argued... [Most importantly,] it is an educational method that emphasizes and then measures what is literal."8Since then, the voices of American literalism have appeared in increasingly loud volume seeking to discourage interpretation and argument in favor of handed-down teachings and binary logic. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia decries the folly of a "living" constitution, in favor of a strict or literal reading. Retired Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, in response to a common ground initiative by the late Joseph Bernadin, labels an appeal to "dialogue" a "fundamental flaw."9 Law sniffed, "Dissent from revealed truth or the authoritative [End Page 145] teaching of the church cannot... (shrink)

American political thought was shaped by a unique combination of theoretical influences: republicanism, liberalism, and covenant theology. This reader shows how these influences came together. Organized chronologically from the Puritans' arrival in the New World to the Civil War, each chapter includes carefully selected primary sources and substantial commentary to explain the historical context and significance of the excerpts. A coherent interpretative framework is offered by focusing the analysis on the different assumptions of the people - the republican (...) understanding as a corporate whole and the liberal understanding as a multitude of individuals - that were intertwined during the founding. The book features, for the first time, two chapters on non-American authors, who capture the main tenets of republicanism and liberalism and were widely quoted in the era, as well as excerpts from lesser-known sources, including Puritan covenants, the first state constitutions, and Native American speeches. (shrink)

Trump’s election renewed discussion about the Electoral College, mostly centered on its disparity with the popular vote. Yet much commentary about the Electoral College neglects its original purpose grounded in the Founders’ concern to provide for indirect election to many important offices. The Founders’ project entailed determining the people’s aptitude to elect the types of individuals desirable for high office, in an attempt to harmonize their dual commitments to political right and political legitimacy. The Electoral College’s function was (...) soon frustrated by the rise of political parties, yet parties came to serve at least part of that function, with party leaders standing as a moderating force between the people and the presidency. However, the 2016 elections suggest that parties no longer play this intermediary role effectively. Examining the steps that led to this result, we seek to provide a reminder of the enduring thesis that the dangers inherent in republicanism require creative republican remedies. (shrink)

This volume reaches beyond the controversy surrounding the teaching and learning of evolution in the United States, specifically in regard to the culture, politics, and beliefs found in the Southeast. The editors argue that despite a deep history of conflict in the region surrounding evolution, there is a wealth of evolution research taking place—from biodiversity in species to cultural evolution and human development. In fact, scientists, educators, and researchers from around the United States have found their niche in the (...) South, where biodiversity is high, culture runs deep, and the pace is just a little bit slower. (shrink)

This article maintains that it is the constitutional responsibility of the courts, here the courts of the State of Michigan, to engage in judicial policymaking in the process of formulating common law rules. The article is written in response to the views expressed by some Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court that separation of powers concerns should impose significant limits on the power of the courts to establish and develop the common law of Michigan. Specifically, the contention is that (...) policymaking is exclusively the province of the legislature, so that the courts cannot properly formulate common law rules that may have significant social and economic effects. The article strongly disagrees with the proposition that there is any kind of constitutional constraint, either prudential or structural, on the power, and indeed, the constitutional responsibility of the Michigan courts (or the courts of any state) to engage in judicial policymaking in the process of formulating common law rules.The judicial power given to the Michigan courts by the Michigan Constitution includes the power to do what courts have always done in the Anglo-American legal system. The judicial power gives the courts the responsibility to adjudicate controversies between private persons and in the process to develop a common law through the workings of binding precedent and stare decisis. In so doing, the courts may properly take into account considerations of social and economic policy just as the legislature does when it engages in the process of enacting legislation. The difference between what the courts do and what the legislature does is a difference in process, not a difference in substance. Judicial policymaking takes place within the judicial process, that is, in the adjudication of controversies between persons in which the courts promulgate common law rules. The common law develops in a line of growth through the workings of binding precedent and stare decisis, and to the extent that there are limitations on the development of the common law, these are limitations that inhere in the judicial process itself. When the courts, for example, consider whether a new claim or a new defense should be recognized by the common law, they must consider whether that new claim or defense properly follows in the line of growth from existing doctrine and precedent. But if the courts conclude that it does, that is, if the claim or defense is consistent with the line of growth of existing doctrine and precedent, the courts are not constrained from recognizing the claim or defense on the ground that the substance of the claim or defense is a matter for the legislature rather than for the courts or that the resulting common law rule may have significant social and economic effects. The legislature, in contrast, enacts legislation through the legislative process. That process is a freewheeling one, often dependent on political compromise and completely unrestrained by the kind of limitations that inhere the judicial process. There is no legislative concept of line of growth, and the legislature can and often does enact legislation that brings about fundamental societal change or reverses the course of public policy. In our constitutional system, the most important questions of public policy are, of course, determined by the Legislature. Where the legislature disagrees with the policy choices reflected in a common law rule, the legislature has the power to enact legislation changing the common law rule. But there are many areas of private law where the legislature has not acted. In our constitutional system, where the matter in issue is not covered or preempted by legislation, the courts may formulate a common law rule to cover that matter, and in so doing may engage in judicial policymaking. Judicial policymaking is a part of the development of the common law, and the courts cannot avoid their responsibility to engage in judicial policymaking to the extent that it is necessary in the process of formulating the common law. As a constitutional matter, there are no separation of powers considerations that prohibit the courts from engaging in judicial policymaking. This part of the article traces judicial policymaking and the common law back to the seminal writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Roscoe Pound and Benjamin Cardozo.The article then discusses at length judicial policymaking and the development of the common law in Michigan. It shows that the clearest history of judicial policymaking in development of the common law is the liability-limiting rules of the late nineteenth century that were promulgated in the wake of the Industrial Revolution to protect the newly-emerging industries. During that time the courts in Michigan and elsewhere grafted on to the general principles of negligence law liability rules such as assumption of risk, contributory negligence, and the fellow servant doctrine, all of which had the effect of denying recovery to workers and other victims of industrial accidents. Beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, however, the Michigan Supreme Court began excising its constitutional power to make changes in the common law, expanding significantly the scope of tort liability in Michigan. Emphasizing that "rules created by the court could be altered by the court," and that the court had a "corrective responsibility when dealing with judge-made law," the Court, in approximately a 30 year period: eliminated the imputed negligence doctrine, under which the driver's negligence was imputed to the passenger in the passenger's suit against a third party; eliminated charitable immunity as a defense to a tort action; held that a wife could maintain at tort action for loss of her husband's consortium; abrogated the defense of assumption of risk, which had been applied outside of the employment area, held that there could be recovery for pre-natal injuries and finally abolished contributory negligence as a complete bar to recovery in favor of a comparative negligence approach. In these cases the Court discussed the relevant policy considerations influencing their decisions with respect to the common law rule at issue. In the last quarter century, the Court continued to take into account policy considerations in developing the common law, but not infrequently there was disagreement on the Court as to where policy considerations should lead, with some Justices arguing that policy considerations supported the imposition of tort liability, while other Justices argued that they did not.The article concludes that it has been demonstrated that in the development of the common law of Michigan, the Michigan Supreme Court has at all times engaged in judicial policymaking. From the liability-limiting rules of the late nineteenth century designed to protect the newly-emerging industries in this state, to the Court's exercise of its power to change the common law in Michigan over a 30 year period by expanding significantly the scope of tort liability in Michigan, to its recognition of new claims, such as a child's right to recover for loss of a parent's consortium caused by a negligent injury, to its imposition of limits on tort recovery, such as the open and obvious doctrine, the Court has invoked considerations of policy in support of its decisions. In these cases, the Court's invocation of policy considerations was sometimes accompanied by substantial disagreement among members of the Court over where policy should lead, but at no time did the Court ever suggest that separation of powers considerations should somehow operate as a kind of restraint on the Court's use of policy in the development of the common law. It is the power and responsibility of the Michigan Courts under the Michigan Constitution to make policy choices in formulating the common law. (shrink)

The English translation of Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere converges with the revival of the "political culture concept" in the social sciences. Surprisingly, Habermas's account of the Western bourgeois public sphere has much in common with the original political culture concept associated with Parsonian modernization theory in the 1950s and 1960s. In both cases, the concept of political culture is used in a way that is neither political nor cultural. Explaining this peculiarity is (...) the central problem addressed in this article and its companion piece, which appeared in Sociological Theory, volume 3, number 2 (1995). I hypothesize that this is the case because the concept itself is embedded in an historically constituted political culture (here called a conceptual network)-a structured web of conceptual relationships that combine into Anglo-American citizenship theory. The method of an historical sociology of concept formation is used to analyze historically and empirically the internal constraints and dynamics of this conceptual network. The method draws from new work in cultural history and sociology, social studies, and network, narrative, and institutional analysis. This research yields three empirical findings: this conceptual network has a narrative structure, here called the Anglo-American citizenship story; this narrative is grafted onto an epistemology of social naturalism; and these elements combine in a metanarrative that continues to constrain empirical research in political sociology. (shrink)

This book examines the conceptual contributions of constituent representatives in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Spanish Parliament has been the stage for the political modernisation of the country. Constitutional debates have historically led to the gradual acknowledgement and broadening – usually unevenly – of citizens’ rights. At the same time, constitutional debates have created opportunities to design institutions and settle legal mechanisms to enforce rights and distribute state resources. The book identifies and analyses rhetorical (...) and conceptual innovations produced in such debates from a historical perspective. (shrink)

Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers regardless of the historical era or political persuasion.

It is a common conviction that Ricoeur’s main contribution to Anglo-American political philosophy is to be found in the dialogue he tried to establish between liberalism and communitarianism. I argue that the depth of Ricoeur’s political philosophy is better served by situating it not only with regard to liberalism and communitarianism, but especially with regard to republicanism. This article shows how Ricoeur’s political philosophy—with its focus on the so-called “political paradox”—contains the main components of contemporary (...) republicanism, with its stress on active citizenship and mixed constitution as necessary prerequisites for freedom, interpreted as the absence of illegitimate domination. I also argue that there are, however, significant differences between Ricoeur’s theory and the main currents in contemporary republicanism, civic republicanism, and civic humanism, because of his reliance on a positive conception of freedom on the one hand and his emphasis on the fragility of politics on the other hand. (shrink)