The Democracy Sourcebook offers a collection of classic writings and contemporary scholarship on democracy, creating a book that can be used by undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of courses, including American politics, international relations, comparative politics, and political philosophy. The editors have chosen substantial excerpts from the essential theorists of the past, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the authors of The Federalist Papers; they place them side by side with the work of such influential...
The Democracy Sourcebook offers a collection of classic writings and contemporary scholarship on democracy, creating a book that can be use...
This is the first comprehensive critical evaluation of the use of rational choice theory in political science. Writing in an accessible and nontechnical style, Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro assess rational choice theory where it is reputed to be most successful: the study of collective action, the behavior of political parties and politicians, and such phenomena as voting cycles and Prisoner's Dilemmas. In their hard-hitting critique, Green and Shapiro demonstrate that the much heralded achievements of rational choice theory are in fact deeply suspect and that fundamental rethinking is...
This is the first comprehensive critical evaluation of the use of rational choice theory in political science. Writing in an accessible and nontechnic...
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...
Democracy and justice are often mutually antagonistic ideas, but in this innovative book Ian Shapiro shows how and why they should be pursued together...
Among the most influential writings in the history of Western political thought, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration remainvital to political debates today, more than three centuries after they were written. The complete texts appear in this volume, accompanied by interpretive essays by three prominent Locke scholars. Ian Shapiro's introduction places Locke's political writings in historical and biographical context. John Dunn explores both the intellectual context in which Locke wrote the Two Treatises of Government...
Among the most influential writings in the history of Western political thought, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Conce...
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.
Since the 1960s a resurgence of interest in the moral foundations of politics has fueled debates about the appropriate sources of our political judgme...
How is a sense of belonging to a political community created? Rogers Smith suggests that Stories of Peoplehood, narratives which include racial, religious, ethnic and cultural elements, serve to make membership of a political group part of an individual's identity. He argues that competition over accounts of a nation's history and culture is thus an important part of political life. Examples from around the world since the 18th century are included. In particular, Smith traces the history of competing conceptions of national identity and citizenship in the United States from the revolution to...
How is a sense of belonging to a political community created? Rogers Smith suggests that Stories of Peoplehood, narratives which include racial, relig...
Is there a public good? A prevalent view in political science is that democracy is unavoidably chaotic, arbitrary, meaningless, and impossible. Such scepticism began with Condorcet in the eighteenth century, and continued most notably with Arrow and Riker in the twentieth century. In this powerful book, Gerry Mackie confronts and subdues these long-standing doubts about democratic governance. Problems of cycling, agenda control, strategic voting, and dimensional manipulation are not sufficiently harmful, frequent, or irremediable, he argues, to be of normative concern. Mackie also examines...
Is there a public good? A prevalent view in political science is that democracy is unavoidably chaotic, arbitrary, meaningless, and impossible. Such s...
In this volume some of the world's most prominent scholars of politics offer original discussions exploring what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work. Although beset by constant debate about method, at the core of the study of politics is the unifying concern as to whether political scientists should view themselves primarily as scientists, or, instead, try to focus their knowledge on resolving the many complex world crises currently happening.
In this volume some of the world's most prominent scholars of politics offer original discussions exploring what political science is and how politica...
Kok-Chor Tan argues that the cosmopolitan idea of global justice may be understood in such a way that it can accept nationalist and patriotic commitments. Tan believes that cosmopolitan justice need not deny the worth of the ordinary non-impartial values even as it defends a vision of global egalitarianism. Properly understood, it can set the limits for nationalist and patriotic efforts without denying the moral independence of these partial pursuits.
Kok-Chor Tan argues that the cosmopolitan idea of global justice may be understood in such a way that it can accept nationalist and patriotic commitme...
Democracy's flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition are all positive features of political institutions. But democracy fits uneasily with many other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In these two free-standing volumes some of the world's most prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of these urgent issues. Democracy's Value deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice,...
Democracy's flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition are all positive features o...