Presents John Locke's seventeenth-century classic work on political and social theory; and includes a history of the text, as well as notes and a bibliography.

Democracy and justice are often mutually antagonistic ideas, but in this innovative book Ian Shapiro shows how and why they should be pursued together. Justice must be sought democratically if it is to garner legitimacy in the modern world, he claims, and democracy must be justice-promoting if it is to sustain allegiance over time. _Democratic Justice_ meets these criteria, offering an attractive vision of a practical path to a better future. Wherever power is exercised in human affairs, Shapiro argues, the (...) lack of democracy will be experienced as injustice. The challenge is to democratize social relations so as to diminish injustice, but to do this in ways that are compatible with people’s values and goals. Shapiro shows how this can be done in different phases of the human life cycle, from childhood through the adult worlds of work and domestic life, retirement, old age, and approaching death. He spells out the implications for pressing debates about authority over children, the law of marriage and divorce, population control, governing the firm, basic income guarantees, health insurance, retirement policies, and decisions made by and for the infirm elderly. This refreshing encounter between political philosophy and practical politics will interest all those who aspire to bequeath a more just world to our children than the one we have inherited. (shrink)

He concludes with an assessment of democracy's strengths and limitations as the font of political legitimacy. The book offers a lucid and accessible introduction to urgent ongoing conversations about the sources of political allegiance.

Since the 1960s a resurgence of interest in the moral foundations of politics has fueled debates about the appropriate sources of our political judgments. Ian Shapiro analyzes and advances these debates, discussing them in an accessibly style. He defends a view of politics called _critical naturalism_ as a third way between the neo-Kantian theory of John Rawl's and the contextual arguments of Richard Rorty, Michael Walzer, Alasdair MacIntyre and others. He formulates a new justification for democratic politics and an innovative (...) account of the nature of political argument. (shrink)

I respond to Fishkin?s critique of my book The State of Democratic Theory. I reiterate my defense of a competitive model of democracy geared to reducing domination, rather than Fishkin?s deliberative model that deploys structured discussion to enlighten mass preferences. In light of the literatures on framing effects and the value of mutually independent judgments, I question whether the procedures Fishkin recommends would produce outcomes that are better informed rather than differently informed. Recognizing that deliberation might sometimes be helpful in (...) reducing domination, I note that sometimes it will not, and I fault Fishkin for his indiscriminate embrace of exceedingly costly deliberative mechanisms that promise dubious benefits? notably his and Bruce Ackerman?s?Deliberation Day? (shrink)

Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned it to something that is his own, and thereby (...) makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by his labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, section 27. (shrink)

More than three decades after its advent in political science, rational choice theory has yet to add appreciably to the stock of knowledge about politics. In Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory we traced this failure to methodological defects rooted in the aspiration to come up with universal theories of politics. After responding to criticisms of our argument, we elaborate on our earlier recommendations about how to improve the quality of rational choice applications. Building on suggestions of contributors to this volume, (...) we lay out an empirically based research program designed to delineate the conditions under which rational choice explanations are likely to be useful. (shrink)

Within Western political philosophy, the rights of groups has often been neglected or addressed in only the narrowest fashion. Focusing solely on whether rights are exercised by individuals or groups misses what lies at the heart of ethnocultural conflict, leaving the crucial question unanswered: can the familiar system of common citizenship rights within liberal democracies sufficiently accommodate the legitimate interests of ethnic citizens? Specifically, how does membership in an ethnic group differ from other groups, such as professional, lifestyle, or advocacy (...) groups? How important is ethnicity to personal identity and self-respect, and does accommodating these interests require more than standard citizenship rights? Crucially, what forms of ethnocultural accommodations are consistent with democratic equality, individual freedom, and political stability? Invoking numerous cases studies and addressing the issue of ethnicity from a range of perspectives, Ethnicity and Group Rights seeks to answer these questions. (shrink)

Written by Thomas Hobbes and first published in 1651, _Leviathan_ is widely considered the greatest work of political philosophy ever composed in the English language. Hobbes's central argument—that human beings are first and foremost concerned with their own fears and desires, and that they must relinquish basic freedoms in order to maintain a peaceful society—has found new adherents and critics in every generation. This new edition, which uses modern text and relies on large-sheet copies from the 1651 Head version, includes (...) interpretive essays by four leading Hobbes scholars: John Dunn, David Dyzenhaus, Elisabeth Ellis, and Bryan Garsten. Taken together with Ian Shapiro’s wide-ranging introduction, they provide fresh and varied interpretations of _Leviathan_ for our time. (shrink)

This paper will argue for the need to attend to the impact of cognitive and other psychological limitations on the ways in which we theorize about fairness and unfairness. In particular it will consider the implications of the fact that people seem better able to describe situations as unfair than to articulate coherent conceptions of fairness, and that theories that make demands on people that they perceive as inordinate will be ignored regardless of the strength of the arguments in their (...) favor. (shrink)

Political representation lies at the core of modern politics. Democracies, with their vast numbers of citizens, could not operate without representative institutions. Yet relations between the democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political representation have never been well defined and remain the subject of vigorous debate among historians, political theorists, lawyers, and citizens. In this volume, an eminent group of scholars move forward the debates about political representation on a number of fronts. Drawing on insights from political science, history, (...) political theory, economics, and anthropology, the authors provide much-needed clarity to some of the most vexing questions about political representation. They also reveal new and enlightening perspectives on this fundamental political practice. Topics discussed include representation before democracy, political parties, minorities, electoral competition, and ideology. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideal and the reality of political representation. (shrink)

Ian Shapiro makes a compelling case that the overriding purpose of politics should be to combat domination. Moreover, he shows how to put resistance to domination into practice at home and abroad. This is a major work of applied political theory, a profound challenge to utopian visions, and a guide to fundamental problems of justice and distribution. “Shapiro’s insights are trenchant, especially with regards to the Citizens United decision, and his counsel on how the ‘status-quo bias’ in national political institutions (...) favors the privileged. After more than a decade of imperial overreach, his restrained account of foreign policy should likewise find support.” —Scott A. Lucas, Los Angeles Review of Books “Shapiro has a brief and compelling section on the importance of hope in his first chapter. This book enacts and encourages hope, with its analytical clarity, deep engagement of complicated political issues that resist easy theorizing, and emphasis on the politically possible.” —Kathleen Tipler, Political Science Quarterly “Offers important insights for thinking about democracy’s prospects.” —Christopher Hobson, Perspectives on Politics. (shrink)

The study of politics seems endlessly beset by debates about method. At the core of these debates is a single unifying concern: should political scientists view themselves primarily as scientists, developing ever more sophisticated tools and studying only those phenomena to which such tools may fruitfully be applied? Or should they instead try to illuminate the large, complicated, untidy problems thrown up in the world, even if the chance to offer definitive explanations is low? Is there necessarily a tension between (...) these two endeavours? Are some domains of political inquiry more amenable to the building up of reliable, scientific knowledge than others, and if so, how should we deploy our efforts? In this book, some of the world's most prominent students of politics offer original discussions of these pressing questions, eschewing narrow methodological diatribes to explore what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work. (shrink)

POLITICAL THEORISTS OFTEN fail to appreciate that any claim about how politics is to be organized must be a relational claim involving agents, actions, legitimacy, and ends. If they did, they would see that to defend the standard contending views in many of the controversies that occupy them is silly. In what follows I work through a number of debates about the nature of right, law, autonomy, utility, freedom, virtue, and justice, showing this to be true. I argue, further, that (...) political theorists frequently think in terms of gross concepts: They reduce what are actually relational claims to claims about one or another of the components of the relation. This not only obscures the phenomena they wish to analyze, it also generates debates that can never be resolved because the alternatives that are opposed to one another are vulnerable within their own terms. Finally I offer a pair of explanations for why gross concepts persist in political theory, and suggest a way for avoiding their trap. (shrink)

A growing sense of the exhaustion of both liberalism and Marxism has fueled a revival of interest in civic republicanism among historians, political theorists, and social commentators. This turn is evaluated via an examination of the normative implications off. G. A. Pocock's account of civic republicanism. Arguing that what is at issue between liberals and republicans has been misunderstood by both sides in the debate, the author shows that the turn to republicanism fails to address the most vexing problems liberalism (...) confronts in the modern world, and that it is and has been compatible with much of what critics of liberalism dislike. He argues, further, that the civic republican view involves an instrumental attitude to outsiders that cannot be justified in today's world and has other unattractive dimensions of which too little account has been taken by defenders and detractors alike. (shrink)

Where do political identities come from, how do they change over time, and what is their impact on political life? This book explores these and related questions in a globalizing world where the nation state is being transformed, definitions of citizenship are evolving in unprecedented ways, and people's interests and identities are taking on new local, regional, transnational, cosmopolitan, and even imperial configurations. Pre-eminent scholars examine the changing character of identities, affiliations, and allegiances in a variety of contexts: the evolving (...) character of the European Union and its member countries, the Balkans and other new democracies of the post-1989 world, and debates about citizenship and cultural identity in the modern West. These essays are essential reading for anyone interested in the political and intellectual ferment that surrounds debates about political membership and attachment, and will be of interest to students and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and law. (shrink)

Scientia nova veröffentlicht Originalarbeiten bahnbrechender Forscher oder allgemeinverständliche Einführungen in schwierige Spezialgebiete, die für die Philosophie, Logik und Mathematik von ebenso großer Bedeutung sind, wie für die Natur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Scientia nova ist eine Bibliothek des modernen wissenschaftlichen Denkens, die dazu beiträgt, die Zersplitterung der Forschung in Spezialgebiete zu überwinden und einem neuen Denkstil zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen.

Political scientists and economists, most American, met in San Francisco in January 1998 for the annual meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. They pondered how, in light of new democracies throughout the world over the previous decade, democratic institutions can be better crafted to avoid some of the disillusionment that invariably follows the initial flush of enthusiasm. The 12 papers that emerged cover deliberation, decision, and enforcement; democracy beyond the nation state; and whether there are limits (...) to institutional design. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fails to advance social justice; and it does not cope well with a number of features of the political landscape, such as political identities, boundary disputes, and environmental crises. (...) Although democracy is valuable it fits uneasily with other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In this volume prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of such central issues. Democracy's Values deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice, equality, efficiency, and freedom. (shrink)

Intense ethnic, racial, and religious violence led many to classify South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/palestine as intractable conflicts. Yet they diverged, with only South Africa achieving a lasting settlement. The authors explain why. The authors analyze them as a distinctive type of negotiated transition. The ancién regime is an imperfect democracy, subject to electoral constraints and legitimated by democratic principles that it violates. This constrains negotiations but helps manage difficult commitment problems. The authors show how the principals navigated constraints (...) and took advantage of opportunities in South Africa but have failed—so far—to do so in the other two conflicts. (shrink)

This article discusses the concepts of freedom and liberty that Skinner and Pettit identify in Hobbes, and takes issue with them.