The capabilities approach to equality, developed by Amartyr Sen and Martha Nussbaum, seeks to answer the question: what is a proper measure of a person's condition for the purposes of determining what we owe each other, as a matter of justice?

While the capabilities theory has avoided many of the conceptual difficulties that have undermined competing accounts of egalitarian justice, recent criticisms have raised questions regarding the focus, structure and justification of the theory. In this volume, leading scholars present new and original essays that address these controversies....

This book takes a unique approach to explore the moral foundations of nationalism.

Drawing on nationalist writings and examining almost 200 years of nationalism in Ireland and Quebec, the author develops a theory of nationalism based on its role in representation.

The study of nationalism has tended towards the construction of dichotomies - arguing, for example, that there are political and cultural, or civic and ethnic, versions of the phenomenon. However, as an object of moral scrutiny this bifurcation makes nationalism difficult to work with.

The author...

An ideal new multi-disciplinary volume for students and scholars of philosophy, contemporary political theory, and international relations.

This volume offers key insights into the work of the chief figures in the contemporary debate surrounding thin universalism and presents a usefully themed contribution to the secondary literature on the work of Onora O'Neill, John Rawls, Michael Walzer, Martha Nussbaum, Stuart Hampshire and others as well as a commentary on contemporary debates surrounding human rights and distributive justice. This new book enables the reader to strongly grasp...

Social choice theory and theories of deliberative discourse have deeply impacted on the way political scientists understand the dynamics of democratic politics and decision-making. Deliberation, Social Choice and Absolutist Democracy addresses the dispute between these competing schools of thought.

Deliberative democracy and social choice theorists offer the two dominant and competing conceptions of participation in contemporary democratic theory. With the former holding that theories of discourse tell us that through the democratic process we can arrive at...

Could global government be the answer to global poverty and starvation?

Cosmopolitan thinkers challenge the widely held belief that we owe more to our co-citizens than to those in other countries. This book offers a moral argument for world government, claiming that not only do we have strong obligations to people elsewhere, but that accountable integration among nation-states will help ensure that all persons can lead a decent life.

Cabrera considers both the views of those political philosophers who say we have much stronger obligations to help our co-citizens than foreigners and...

This key volume explores the relationship between cultural justice and sexual justice in multicultural societies in a new light. The authors challenge the framing of 'feminism and multiculturalism' as one of inevitable conflict, as well as the portrayal of liberal sexual equality and cultural rights as irreconcilable, moving the debate beyond the culture/gender impasse.

Focusing on three theoretical themes from a feminist perspective:

• the meaning and role of culture and identity in politics
• the problem of autonomy in relation to culture and identity
...

Develops methodological approaches to understand and analyse the use of metaphor in political science and international relations.

This book is about the relationship between citizens and the state. Their relationship has tended to be argued from a top down perspective without systematically examining empirical data about their association. In contrast, Citizens and the State, analyses the relationship from a primarily bottom up standpoint. Using the 18 country cross-national survey (the Asia-Europe Survey) data it examines how citizens relate themselves to the state.

Featuring case studies on France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Britain, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Greece, Italy, Korea, the...

Hannah Arendt is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most powerful political theorists. The purpose of this book is to make an innovative contribution to the newly emerging literature connecting Arendt to international political theory and debates surrounding globalization.

In recent years the work of Arendt has gathered increasing interest from scholars in the field of international political theory because of its potential relevance for understanding international affairs. Focusing on the central theme of evil in Arendt's work, this book weaves together...

Bringing together leading scholars on multiculturalism, this text confronts the reality of moral conflict in the debate on multiculturalism while resisting the simplification which frequently accompanies commentary on both sides of a polarised debate.