Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> History & Theory - General

When Adam Smith published his celebrated writings on economics and moral philosophy he famously referred to the operation of an 'invisible hand'. Adam Smith s Political Philosophy makes visible this hand by examining its significance in Smith s political philosophy and relating it to similar concepts used by other philosophers, thus revealing a distinctive approach to social theory that stresses the importance of the unintended consequences of human action.

The first book to examine the history of Smith s political philosophy from this perspective, this work introduces greater...

John Gray is one of today's most brilliant, bestselling and controversial political thinkers. This new collection examines him from a variety of stimulating angles.

This new volume, comprising original contributions from a number of distinguished political theorists, in addition to a reply by Gray himself, is the first book to systematically review the general significance of his work. He is much cited and discussed within political and social theory, but he also has a much wider audience, being one of those quite rare creatures in British academic life, a public...

A new examination of the actual place of discourse in democratic policymaking.

It tackles key questions, such as when and how does discourse matter during major political institutional change? and what is the power of Europeanization in domestic and international policy changes?

This new study delivers enlightening answers to these key questions by examining policy discourse, Europeanization, and the classic variables of politics in their institutional context. It presents sophisticated theoretical analysis grounded in empirically-rich comparative case studies on security...

This new study powerfully asserts the pivotal importance of the interplay between language and ethnicity, which is often underestimated as a component for political stability.

These leading scholars present five key case studies of South Africa, Algeria, Canada, Latvia and Senegal. All five countries are multilingual nations where language has been a central political issue that has challenged their unity and stability.

These studies are underpinned by two general, comparative and theoretical discussions, which analyse how scholars consider social class and economic factors to be the...

This new study revisits the work of the late Ernst Haas, assessing his relevance for contemporary European integration and its disparities.

With his seminal book, The Uniting of Europe Haas laid the foundations for one of the most prominent paradigms of European integration - neofunctionalism. He engaged in inductive reasoning to theorize the dynamics of the European integration process that led from the Treaty of Paris in 1951 to the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The Treaty of Rome set the constitutional framework for a Common Market.

Today, a second Treaty of Rome may...

A fresh analysis of policy convergences across nations, which identifies their key driving forces.

To what extent and in which direction can we empirically observe a convergence of national policies? In which areas and for which patterns of policy is convergence more or less pronounced? This text addresses these central questions with clarity and rigour.

With growing economic and institutional interlinkages between nation states, it is often assumed that there is an overall trend towards increasingly similar policies across countries. Comparative research on the domestic...

9/11 and its aftermath demonstrate the urgent need for political scientists and historians to unravel the tangled relationship of secular ideologies and organized religions to political fanaticism.

This major new volume uses a series of case studies by world experts to further our understanding of these complex issues. They examine the connections between fascism, political religion and totalitarianism by exploring two inter-war fascist regimes, two abortive European movements, and two post-war American extreme right-wing movements with contrasting religious components.

British society changed radically in the 21st century. Any political party dedicated to preserving the Britain of 1900 would have faced, over time, either major problems of adjustment or the possibility of its own destruction. The British Conservative party was just such a party, its character defined by its commitment to the defence of the British status quo. Yet it has also been one of the most successful political parties in the twentieth century. Not only was it able to adjust itself to the transformation of British society including two world wars and the most catastrophic slump...

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...

This new collection from the leading journal, Environmental Politics, presents an excellent overview of the key themes found in contemporary green political thought since the early 1990s.

Bringing together the journal's major work, this new book charts a fascinating period in which environmental politics developed from a marginal position in society and the academy, to its current place in the intellectual mainstream.

Subdivided into clear sections on political theory, social movements, political economy and policy questions, and assisted by a...

Ever since the terrorist incident of September 11th a general understanding seems to have arisen among people that the challenges posed by Islam have now acquired human and global dimensions.

Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World contains case studies of people's movements in diverse areas and periods, and it seeks to develop a comparative view of Islam and democracy that goes beyond the usual stereotype of Islam being incompatible with democracy. Unravelling the complexities that have arisen between Islam and democracy is the principal task of Islamic...

Fifty Major Political Thinkers introduces the lives and ideas of some of the most influential figures in Western political thought, from ancient Greece to the present day. The entries provide a fascinating introduction to the major figures and schools of thought that have shaped contemporary politics, including:

• Aristotle


• Simone de Beauvoir


• Michel Foucault


• Mohandas Gandhi


• Jurgen Habermas


• Machiavelli


• Karl Marx


• Thomas Paine


• Jean-Jacques Rousseau


• Mary...

The work combines detailed institutional analysis with normative political theory, bringing theoretical analysis to bear on the pressing issues of institutional design answered - or bypassed - by the draft Constitution. It addresses several themes that play out differently in federal arrangements than in unitary political orders:

*...

This edited volume focuses on the use of 'necessary condition counterfactuals' in explaining two key events in twentieth century history, the origins of the First World War and the end of the Cold War.

Containing essays by leading figures in the field, this book analyzes the causal logics of necessary and sufficient conditions, demonstrates the variety of different ways in which necessary condition counterfactuals are used to explain the causes of individual events, and identifies errors commonly made in applying this form of causal logic to individual events. It includes...

This edited volume focuses on the use of necessary condition counterfactuals in explaining two key events in twentieth century history, the origins of the First World War and the end of the Cold War.

Containing essays by leading figures in the field, this book analyzes the causal logics of necessary and sufficient conditions, demonstrates the variety of different ways in which necessary condition counterfactuals are used to explain the causes of individual events, and identifies errors commonly made in applying this form of causal logic to individual events. It includes discussions of...