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Political Identity and the Metaphysics of Polities (Routledge Studies in Metaphysics)
The chapters in this volume clarify the notion of political identity by focusing on the metaphysics of polities. By analysing the notion of political identity, they provide the conceptual resources for a deeper understanding of the theoretical and practical debates on populism, the crisis of sovereignty, the feasibility of a world government, and ethical, religious, and cultural pluralism. What is a political community? Any answer to this question lies at the intersection between three fields: metaphysics, philosophy of action, and political philosophy. The question concerns how and why a plurality of individuals becomes a political unity, what principles or forces keep that unity together, and what threats that unity can encounter. In this volume, the contributors investigate how different metanormative views affect the possible answers to this metaphysical question. They explore the role that the individual identities of agents play in grounding common practices that underpin political life. They investigate the individual identities of agents as the result of the interplay between natural and cultural factors. Finally, they observe the ways in which a political community, as a collection of individuals who hang together in an attempt to reach common purposes, demonstrate a certain metaphysical solidity. Political Identity and the Metaphysics of Polities will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in metaphysics, political philosophy, political theory, and philosophy of action.
The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs: An Oral History of Parliament
Parliament is Britain's most important political institution, yet its workings remain obscure to academics and the wider public alike. MPs are often seen as 'out of touch' or 'all the same' and their individual motivations, achievements and regrets remain in the background of party politics. In this book, Emma Peplow and Priscila Pivatto draw on the History of Parliament Trust's collection of oral history interviews with postwar British MPs to highlight their diverse political experiences in Parliament. Featuring extracts from a collection of interviews with over 160 former MPs who sat from the 1950s until the 2000s, The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs gives a voice to those MPs' stories. It explores why they became interested in politics, how they found their seat and fought election campaigns, what it felt like to speak in the chamber and how their class or gender dictated their experiences at Westminster. In the process, readers will be given rare glimpse into the spaces inhabited by MPs, the political rivalries and friendships and the rising and falling of their careers. With accounts from MPs of all political stripes, from the well-known like David Owen and Ann Taylor to those who sat for just a few years such as Denis Coe; from old political families like Douglas Hurd to those like Maria Fyfe who felt themselves outsiders, this book provides deep insight into the political lives of MPs in our age.
Political Philosophy, Here and Now: Essays in Honour of David Miller
Political Philosophy, Here and Now honours David Miller's remarkable contribution to political philosophy. Over the last fifty years, Miller has published an extraordinary range of work that has shaped the discipline in many different areas, including social justice, democracy, citizenship, nationality, global justice, and the history of political thought. His work is characterised by its commitment to a kind of theorising that makes sense to the people who have to put its principles into practice. This entails paying close attention to empirical evidence from the social sciences, but also results in a willingness to take the everyday beliefs of lay people seriously in its theorising. The aim is the construction of a political philosophy that can be radically reformative, but that nonetheless is justifiable and realisable here and now. This book brings together a range of papers from leading political theorists concerning many different aspects of Miller's work, on topics including national responsibility and global justice, self-determination, collective responsibility, human rights, immigration, market socialism, national identity, citizenship, multiculturalism, public goods, the political thought of David Hume, and the methodology of political philosophy. It includes a chapter by Miller himself, which develops his own distinctive approach to political theorising. The volume concludes with a complete bibliography of David Miller's published work.
Political Philosophy in a Pandemic: Routes to a More Just Future
Government lockdowns, school closures, mass unemployment, health and wealth inequality.Political Philosophy in a Pandemic asks us, where do we go from here? What are the ethics of our response to a radically changed, even more unequal society, and how do we seize the moment for enduring change?Addressing the moral and political implications of pandemic response from states and societies worldwide, the 20 essays collected here cover the most pressing debates relating to the biggest public health crisis in the last century. Discussing the pandemic in five key parts covering social welfare, economic justice, democratic relations, speech and misinformation, and the relationship between justice and crisis, this book reflects the fruitful combination of political theory and philosophy in laying the theoretical and practical foundations for justice in the long-term.
Political Theology Today: 100 Years after Carl Schmitt
Almost 100 years have passed since Carl Schmitt gave his controversial definition of the sovereign as the one who decides on the exception in his by now classic Political Theology (1922). Written at a time of crisis, the book sought to establish the institution of sovereignty, not from within a well-functioning governing machine of the state in a situation of normality, but rather as the minimal condition of state order in the moment of governmental breakdown. The book appeared anachronistic already at its publication. Schmitt went against Max Weber's popular thesis defining secularization as a disenchantment of the world characterizing modern societies, and instead suggested that the concepts of modern politics mirrored a metaphysics originating in Christianity and the church. Nevertheless, the concept of political theology has in recent years seen a revival as a field of research in philosophy as well as political theory, as studies in the theological sub-currents of politics, economics and sociality proliferate.
Political Theory and Architecture
What can political theory teach us about architecture, and what can it learn from paying closer attention to architecture? The essays assembled in this volume begin from a common postulate: that architecture is not merely a backdrop to political life but a political force in its own right. Each in their own way, they aim to give countenance to that claim, and to show how our thinking about politics can be enriched by reflecting on the built environment.The collection advances four lines of inquiry, probing the connection between architecture and political regimes; examining how architecture can be constitutive of the ethical and political realm; uncovering how architecture is enmeshed in logics of governmentality and in the political economy of the city; and asking to what extent we can think of architecture-tributary as it is to the flows of capital-as a partially autonomous social force.Taken together, the essays demonstrate the salience of a range of political theoretical approaches for the analysis of architecture, and show that architecture deserves a place as an object of study in political theory, alongside institutions, laws, norms, practices, imaginaries, and discourses.
Political Thought (Oxford Readers)
Human beings live together in societies which, by their very nature, give rise to institutions governing the behaviour and freedom of individuals. This raises important questions about how these institutions ought to function, and the extent to which actual systems of government succeed or fail in meeting these ideals. This Oxford Reader contains 140 key writings on political thought, covering issues about human nature and its relation to society, the extent to which the powers of the State are justified, the tension between liberty and rights, and the way resources should be distributed. Topics such as international relations, minority rights, democracy, socialism, and conservatism are also discussed, by contributors ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Foucault, Isaiah Berlin, and Martin Luther King.
Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates
Political theory, from antiquity to the present, has been divided over the relationship between the requirements of justice and the limitations of persons and institutions to meet those requirements. Some theorists hold that a theory of justice should be utopian or idealistic--that the derivation of the correct principles of justice should not take into account human and institutional limitations. Others insist on a realist or non-utopian view, according to which feasibility--facts about what is possible given human and institutional limitations--is a constraint on principles of justice. In recent years, the relationship between the ideal and the real has become the subject of renewed scholarly interest. This anthology aims to represent the contemporary state of this classic debate. By and large, contributors to the volume deny that the choice between realism and idealism is binary. Rather, there is a continuum between realism and idealism that locates these extremes of each view at opposite poles. The contributors, therefore, tend to occupy middle positions, only leaning in the ideal or non-ideal direction. Together, their contributions not only represent a wide array of attractive positions in the new literature on the topic, but also collectively advance how we understand the difference between idealism and realism itself.
Politics and Trade in Britain, 1776-1914: Volume II: 1841-1879
This volume takes up the story of exacerbated political divisions from 1841 onwards, with a clearer demarcation in political life caused at least partly by commercial policy considerations. Ultimately, the success of free trade policies, implemented by Sir Robert Peel after 1841, saw the reconfiguration of political parties and had lasting effects and impact on party politics. Yet in the period up to 1879, there was a broad consensus on maintaining the free trade settlement of 1846. This period, often seen as a ‘free trade interlude’ book-ended by a far more complex range of opinions, policies, and strategies surrounding commercial policy, was characterised by British manufacturing expansion, deeper penetration of foreign and colonial markets, and the adoption of freer trade policies by foreign nations. Ultimately, none of these developments lasted in the long term. By the end of 1879, commercial policy was again controversial. The type of sources in this volume include correspondence from The Panmure Papers, the Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, and diary material from Lord Ashley and John Bright. There is also a considerable body of material from newspapers, including the Morning Chronicle, Northern Star, Manchester Guardian, and Liverpool Mercury. Manuscript materials from Richard Cobden, John Benjamin Smith, and Lord John Russell among others are also present.
Politics and Trade in Britain, 1776-1914: Volume III: 1880-1914
The period between 1880 and 1914, the subject of this volume, sees increasing questioning of free trade, especially in those sectors impacted adversely by foreign competition, and within political circles, where the notion of protecting native industries shifted from an agricultural to an industrial base. There was a greater willingness, especially in the Conservative party, to consider it as a viable policy. The ‘constituencies’ or interest groups created by free trade however defended it fiercely among the Liberal party and in manufacturing industries, primarily those highly dependent on export markets. Debates on commercial policy in this period had another dimension which had been subsidiary in earlier periods—the colonial empire and the economic, political, and cultural ties with it promoted. The period between 1880 and 1914 was one where the language of empire was at its height and the economic relationship between the Mother Country and the colonies entered political debate in a forceful way. The sources include several petitions from parliamentary papers attacking the system of commercial treaties pursued by the British government. Towards this end, extracts from the journal Fair Trade, and a body of newspaper material detailing extra-parliamentary movements against free trade, from the Leeds Mercury, Glasgow Herald, Pall Mall Gazette, and Daily Mail, are also included. Making the transition to the early twentieth century and the rise of the labour movement, printed sources such as Fabian tracts on tariff reform, as well as material from the International Free Trade Congress, are incorporated.
Politics and Trade in Britain, 1776-1914: Volume I: 1776-1840
This volume explores the period between Smith’s 1776 The Wealth of Nations and ends in the early days of the Anti-Corn Law League campaign on the eve of the 1841 General Election, which prominently featured contrasting commercial policy options between Conservative and Liberal parties. During this period, we witness the growth of free trade sentiment, with opposition to monopolies like the old Chartered Companies, and attempts to create more liberal bilateral commercial treaties. Most importantly, we see the imposition of the protectionist Corn Laws in 1815 at the behest of a Parliament largely based on the landed interest. Between 1815 and 1846, the Corn Laws become the fulcrum of the entire debate on commercial policy, the ‘keystone in the arch’ of the protective system, and slowly, divisions begin to emerge throughout society and between the political parties, culminating in the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League and their attempt to influence politics via ‘pressure from without’. The sources include printed matter such as the diaries of Lord Colchester; various parliamentary papers on commercial policy; printed correspondence of William Pitt, Lord Melbourne, Joseph Sturge; periodical literature from numerous sources such as the Eclectic Review, and The Oriental Herald. Also included is a considerable body of newspaper material from the Manchester Times, Dundee Advertiser, and The Chartist, reflective of the growing importance of the provinces and manufacturing interests in commercial, and local and national politics.
The Politics of Replacement: Demographic Fears, Conspiracy Theories, and Race Wars (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)
The Politics of Replacement explores current demographic conspiracy theories and their entanglement with different forms of racism and exclusionary politics such as sexism. The book focuses on population replacement conspiracy theories, i.e. those imaginaries and discourses centered on the idea that the national population is under threat of being overtaken or even wiped out by those considered as “alien” to the nation, and that this is the result of concerted efforts by “elites”. Replacement conspiracy theories are on the rise again: from Eurabia fantasies to Renaud Camus’ The Great Replacement, white supremacist discourses are thriving and increasingly broadcasting in mainstream venues. To account for their rise and spread, this edited volume brings together research on various dimensions of population replacement conspiracy theories: different theoretical and methodological approaches, different social scientific and humanities (inter)disciplinary backgrounds, different geographical case-studies (across Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania), different time-periods (medieval archives, colonial archives, Nazi archives, post-colonial migrations, post-9/11), and different forms of racialization and racisms (Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism against migrants and refugees), as well as with the entanglement of population replacement discourse with gendered violence. The book is organized into four sections: (1) exploring the historical background of the current rise of demographic conspiracy theories; (2) tracing the (neoliberal) governmentalities in and through which replacement discourse operates; (3) analysing the particularly intense focus on the threat of Muslims in contemporary replacement conspiracy theories, and (4) investigating the connection between replacement conspiracies, gender, and violence. This title is essential reading for scholars, journalists, and activists interested in the contemporary far right, conspiracy theories, and racisms.
The Politics of Smallness in Modern Europe: Size, Identity and International Relations since 1800
Rather than simply assuming that some states are small and others are big, The Politics of Smallness in Modern Europe delves deep into the construction of different size-based hierarchies in Europe and explores the way Europeans have thought about their own state's size and that of their continental neighbours since the early 19th century. By positing that ideas about size are intimately connected with both basic discourses about a state's identity and policy discourses about the range of options most appropriate to that state, this multi-contributor volume presents a novel way of thinking about what makes one state, in the eyes of both its own inhabitants and those of others, different from others, and what effects these perceived differences have had, and continue to have, on domestic, European, and global politics.Bringing together an international team of historians and political scientists, this nuanced and sophisticated study examines the connections between shifting ideas about a state's (relative) size, competing notions of national interest and mission, and international policy in modern Europe and beyond.
The Politics of Truth in Polarized America
In American politics, the truth is rapidly losing relevance. The public square is teeming with misinformation, conspiracy theories, cynicism, and hubris. Why has this happened? What does it mean? What can we do about it? In this volume, leading scholars offer multiple perspectives on these questions, and many more, to provide the first comprehensive empirical examination of the "politics of truth" -- its context, causes, and potential correctives. With experts in social science weighing in, this volume examines different drivers such as the dynamics of politically motivated fact perceptions. Combining insights from the fields of political science, political theory, communication, and psychology and offering substantial new arguments and evidence, these chapters draw compelling -- if sometimes competing -- conclusions regarding this rising democratic threat.
Politics, Theory, and Film: Critical Encounters with Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier's intense, disturbing, and sometimes funny films have led many to condemn him as misogynist or misanthropic. The same films inspire this collection's reflections on how our fears and desires regarding gender, power, race, finitude, family, and fate often thwart -- and sometimes feed -- our best democratic aspirations. The essays in this volume attend to von Trier's role as provocateur, as well as to his films' techniques, topics, and storytelling. Where others accuse von Trier of being clichéd, the editors argue that he intensifies the "clichés of our times" in ways that direct our political energies towards apprehending and repairing a shattered world. The book is certainly for von Trier lovers and haters but, at the same time, political, critical, and feminist theorists entirely unfamiliar with von Trier's films will find this volume's essays of interest. Most of the contributors tarry with von Trier to develop new readings of major thinkers and writers, including Agamben, Bataille, Beauvoir, Benjamin, Deleuze, Euripides, Freud, Kierkegaard, Ranciére, Nietzsche, Winnicott, and many more. Von Trier is both central and irrelevant to much of this work. Writing from the fields of classics, literature, gender studies, philosophy, film and political theory, the authors stage an interdisciplinary intervention in film studies.
Politik und Kontingenz
Kontingenz als der Bereich des Unbestimmten, Ambivalenten und Möglichen wirft Fragen auf, die für Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften gleichermaßen relevant sind. Dennoch besteht ein gewisses Ungleichgewicht zwischen den Disziplinen. Kontingenz wird in der Politikwissenschaft weitaus weniger berücksichtigt als in Soziologie und Geschichtswissenschaft. Die interdisziplinär angelegte Aufsatzsammlung führt daher soziologische und geschichtswissenschaftliche mit dezidiert politikwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven zusammen. Ausgewiesene Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen befassen sich mit den Herausforderungen der kontingenzsensiblen Forschung für die Politikwissenschaft. Sie beziehen sich dabei auf ausgewählte empirische Beispiele, wie die normativen Grundlagen politischen Handelns, die Probleme moderner Demokratie, und die politische Dynamik der europäischen Integration.
Politischer Aristotelismus: Die Rezeption der aristotelischen Politik von der Antike bis zum 19. Jahrhundert
Werk und Wirkung. Die "Politik" ist die bedeutendste staatsphilosophische Schrift des Aristoteles; aus ihr bildete sich schon früh die abendländische Tradition politischen Denkens. Vom Hellenismus über Spätantike und Mittelalter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert die verschlungene Geschichte des politischen Aristotelismus ist bislang nur lückenhaft aufgearbeitet. Die in diesem Band versammelten Kapitel werfen ein neues Licht auf die komplexen Nachwirkungen der aristotelischen "Politik".
Popular Music and Automobiles
Particularly since the 1950s, cars and popular music have been constantly associated. As complementary goods and intertwined technologies, their relationship has become part of a widely shared experience-one that connects individuals and society, private worlds and public spheres. Popular Music and Automobiles aims to unpack that relationship in more detail. It explores the ways in which cars and car journeys have shaped society, as well as how we have shaped them. Including both broad synergies and specific case studies, Popular Music and Automobiles explores how attention to an ongoing relationship can reveal insights about the assertion and negotiation of identity. Using methods of enquiry that are as diverse as the topics they tackle, its contributors closely consider specific genders, genres, places and texts.
Popular Music in Spanish Cinema (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)
Popular Music in Spanish Cinema analyses the aesthetics and stylistic development of soundtracks from national productions, considering how political instability and cultural diversity in Spain determined the ways of making art and managing culture. As a pioneering study in this field, the chronologically structured approach of this book provides readers with a complete overview of Spanish music and connects it to the complex historical events that conditioned Spanish culture throughout the 20th century to the present day, from the Second Republic, the Spanish Civil war, and the dictatorship through to democracy. The book enables an understanding of the relationships between the recording and film production industries, the construction of collective imagination, the formulation of new stereotypes, semiotic meanings within film music and the musical exchanges between national and international cinema. This volume is an essential read for students and academics in the field of musicology, ethnomusicology and history as well as those interested in the study of diverse musical styles such as copla, zarzuela, flamenco, jazz, foxtrot, pop and rock and how they have been used in Spanish films throughout history.
Popular Punishment: On the Normative Significance of Public Opinion (Studies in Penal Theory and Philosophy)
Should public opinion determine--or even influence--sentencing policy and practice? Should the punishment of criminal offenders reflect what the public regards as appropriate? These deceptively simple questions conceal complex theoretical and methodological challenges to the administration of punishment. In the West, politicians have often answered these questions in the affirmative; penal reforms have been justified with direct reference to the attitudes of the public. This is why the contention that politicians should bridge the gap between the public and criminal justice practice has widespread resonance. Criminal law scholars, for their part, have often been more reluctant to accept public input in penal practice, and some have even held that the idea of consulting public opinion constitutes a populist approach to punishment. The purpose of this book is to examine the moral significance of public opinion for penal theory and practice. For the first time in a single volume the editors, Jesper Ryberg and Julian V. Roberts, have assembled a number of respected criminologists, philosophers, and legal theorists to address the various aspects of why and how public opinion should be reflected in the way the criminal justice system deals with criminals. The chapters address the myriad complexities surrounding this issue by first weighing the justifications for incorporating public views into punishment practices and then considering the various ways this might be achieved through juries, prosecutors, restorative justice programs, and other means.