This book considers the context of the colonial policies of Britain, Locke's contribution to them, and the importance of these ideas in his theory of property. It also reconsiders the debate about John Locke's influence in America. The book argues that Locke's theory of property must be understood in connection with the philosopher's political concerns, as part of his endeavour to justify the colonialist policies of Lord Shaftesbury's cabinet, with which he was personally associated. The author maintains that traditional scholarship (...) has failed to do justice to Locke by ignoring the implications of contemporary British imperial policy for the interpretation of his political thought. (shrink)

Charles Taylor argues that recognition begins with the politics of "self-image," as groups represented in the past by others in ways harmful to their own identity replace negative historical self-images with positive ones of their own making. Given the centrality of "self image" to his politics of recognition, it is striking that Taylor, himself, represents disabled people in language that is both limiting and depreciating. The author argues such negative self-images are not unique to Taylor but endemic to modern political (...) thought from John Locke to John Rawls, as the disabled are constituted in direct opposition to the rational person and/or citizen. Using contemporary social theories of disability, as articulated by disabled scholars and advocates, the author concludes that such negative self-images must be purged from political theory and replaced with an alternative theory of personhood/citizenship rooted in the image of interdependency. (shrink)

The excessive faith liberal theorists have had in the power of rights and rights discourse can have deleterious consequences for children. As vulnerable and dependent beings, children need to be nurtured with love and affection in a setting in which intimate relationships between parents and children can flourish. A rights‐based discourse is conceptually ill‐equipped to accommodate the importance of establishing and supporting caring relationships. An ethic of care, emphasizing responsibilities over rights, provides a better way of conceptualizing and responding to (...) the interests of children than thinking of children as proto‐adults with rights especially that to autonomy. (shrink)

In John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, the state of nature, and more particularly natural man, are created within the tradition of natural law. Several commentators, such as James Tully and Karl Olivecrona, have recognized this legacy in Locke's political thought.1 While providing an analysis of Locke's thought in relation to natural law, such studies, however, have not fully examined the global context within which both the Two Treatises and seventeenth-century natural law developed. Consequently the extent to which natural law (...) theorists, such as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, were influenced by the colonial interests of their particular countries of origin has been largely overlooked. The development of natural law theory, which can be traced back to the time of Cicero and beyond, is transformed during the sixteen hundreds by the need to answer new questions posed, both on sea and land, by the expanding colonial empires of Europe. Thus, in considering the natural law theorists who influenced Locke, it will be necessary to examine how colonialism influenced both the questions which were posed and the answers that were given. (shrink)

Contemporary scholars routinely argue colonialism and imperialism are indistinguishable. In this essay, I challenge this argument. While it is true the “colonial” and “imperial” overlap and intersect historically, I argue there is a central thread of modern colonialism as an ideology that can be traced from the seventeenth century to mid-twentieth century that was not only distinct from—but often championed in explicit opposition to—imperialism. I advance my argument in four parts. First, I identify key ways in which the colonial can (...) be distinguished from the imperial, including most importantly the specific kind of productive power inherent in colonialism. Second, I examine how colonialism and imperialism evolve in meaning and are redefined by both champions and critics, in relation to each other in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Third, I examine the historical moment when colonialism and imperialism fully conflate after WWII through the UN process of decolonization as the “salt water thesis” delimits colonialism to mean foreign racialized domination, and it thus becomes synonymous with imperialism. I conclude with an analysis of why the distinction still matters in both theory and practice. (shrink)

There is a growing body of literature which argues that the two major theories of liberal citizenship (those of John Locke and J.S. Mill) were deeply enmeshed with both colonization (the processes by which the imperial state takes over the land and/or sovereignty of another country) and colonialism (the theoretical framework by which colonization is justified). This article, builds upon this literature but asks whether the existence of hundreds of domestic colonies within (as opposed to outside) the borders of Britain (...) and British settler states for citizens (as opposed to foreigners) at the turn of the twentieth century challenges the scope and definition of 'colonialism' in previous literature. Liberal colonialism, it is argued, seeks to transform those deemed to be 'idle', 'irrational' and/or custom bound, both at home and abroad, into 'industrious and rational' citizens. Domestically this meant housing the idle poor and mentally ill/disabled in labour and farm colonies, respectively in order to break them free through segregation from their bad customs/habits and teaching them, through education and agrarian labour, to become proper citizens. Ultimately, it is hoped that this analysis will help to explain how liberal states could come to embrace rather than reject within their own borders such deeply illiberal practises as segregation and assimilation against 'internal' others well into the twentieth century. (shrink)

This volume examines 'domestic colonialism' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and analyzes domestic colonies empirically - across several countries using primary, archival, and secondary sources - and theoretically, through the writings of leading thinkers of the period.

This book addresses the question of gender and feminism in western political theory and practise. It provides students with both the theoretical and historical underpinnings of women's exclusion from politics, and the feminist response to this exclusion.