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Political Science and the Problem of Social Order
by Henrik EnrothThe problem of social order is the question of what holds complex and diverse societies together. Today, this question has become increasingly urgent in the world. Yet our ability to ask and answer the question in a helpful way is constrained by the intellectual legacy through which the question has been handed down to us. In this impressive, erudite study, Henrik Enroth describes and analyzes how the problem of social order has shaped concept formation, theory, and normative arguments in political science. The book covers a broad range of influential thinkers and theories throughout the history of political science, from the early twentieth century onwards. Social order has long been a presupposition for inquiry in political science; now we face the challenge of turning it into an object of inquiry.
Political Science of Religion: Theorising the Political Role of Religion
by Maciej PotzThis book introduces political science of religion – a coherent approach to the study of the political role of religion grounded in political science. In this framework, religion is viewed as a political ideology providing legitimation for power and motivating political attitudes and behaviors of the public. Religious organizations are political actors negotiating the political system in the pursuit of their faith-based objectives. Religion is thus interpreted as a power resource and religious groups as political players. The theoretical framework developed in the first part is applied to the study of theocracies and contemporary democracies, based on the case studies of Poland and the USA. The empirical analysis of resources, strategies and opportunities of religious actors demonstrates their ability to influence the politics of democracies and non-democracies alike. Using a multilevel approach, the book seeks to explain this tremendous political potential of religion.
Political Self-Deception
by Anna Elisabetta GaleottiSelf-deception, that is the distortion of reality against the available evidence and according to one's wishes, represents a distinctive component in the wide realm of political deception. It has received relatively little attention but is well worth examining for its explanatory and normative dimensions. In this book Elisabetta Galeotti shows how self-deception can explain political occurrences where public deception intertwines with political failure – from bad decisions based on false beliefs, through the self-serving nature of those beliefs, to the deception of the public as a by-product of a leader's self-deception. Her discussion uses close analysis of three well-known case studies: John F. Kennedy and the Cuba Crisis, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and George W. Bush and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Her book will appeal to a range of readers in political philosophy, political theory, and international relations.
Political Self-Sacrifice
by K. M. FierkeOver the last decade the increasing phenomenon of suicide terrorism has raised questions about how it might be rational for individuals to engage in such acts. This book examines a range of different forms of political self-sacrifice, including hunger strikes, self-burning and non-violent martyrdom, all of which have taken place in resistance to foreign interference. Karin Fierke sets out to study the strategic and emotional dynamics that arise from the image of the suffering body, including political contestation surrounding the identification of the victim as a terrorist or martyr, the meaning of the death as suicide or martyrdom and the extent to which this contributes to the reconstruction of community identity. 'Political Self-Sacrifice' offers a counterpoint to rationalist accounts of international terrorism in terrorist and security studies, and is a novel contribution to the growing literature on the role of emotion and trauma in international politics.
Political Socialization
by Edward S. GreenbergFocusing on the forces underlying headlines, this volume examines the processes and outcomes of political socialization-the ways in which an individual acquires the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the political culture from the surrounding environment, and takes on a role as citizen within that political framework.Political Socialization vividly points out the contradiction currently existing between the optimism found in the traditional literature of this field and the reality of dramatic present-day incidents. This book offers a selection of papers that advance the recognized approach and set forth the new thinking on the subject. It provides a survey of both sides of this thought-provoking debate and, as such, remains as valid today as when it was first published in 1970.An incisive introduction by the editor defines and outlines the issues and problems involved, and places the various contributions in perspective. Greenberg voices the belief that "a significant number of the young and highly educated are beginning to bring into question the legitimacy of political, social, and economic arrangements" and that the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement were socializing events, playing as powerful a role as did the Depression for the parents of the younger generation. The debate format will provide the reader with a variety of commentary and lead them to form their own judgment on these major historical intellectual disputes.
Political Spectacle and the Fate of American Schools (Critical Social Thought)
by Mary Lee Smith Linda Miller-Kahn Walter Heinecke Patricia F. JarvisThe authors argue that the most influential and well-known educational policy programs in the past 30 years are not based on democratic consensus, but are instead formulated by the political community as symbolic efforts meant to generate personal partisan gain.
Political Spirituality for a Century of Water Wars: The Angel of the Jordan Meets the Trickster of Detroit
by James W. PerkinsonThis book offers resources for re-imagining the biblical vision of water for a time quickly emerging as “the century of water wars.” It takes its urgency from the author’s 5-year activist engagement with a grass-roots-led social movement, pushing back on Detroit water shutoffs as global climate crises intensify. Concerned with both white supremacist “biopolitics” and continuing settler colonial reliance on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and beholden to an interreligious methodology of “crossing over and coming back,” the text creatively re-reads the biblical tradition under tutelage to the mythologies and practices of various indigenous cultures (Algonquian/Huron, Haitian/Vodouisant, and Celtic/Norman) whose embrace of water is animate and spiritual as well as political and communal. Not enough, today, merely to engage the political battle over water rights, however; indigenous wisdom and biblical prophecy alike insist that recovery of water spirituality is central to a sustainable future.
Political Spirituality for a Century of Water Wars: The Angel of the Jordan Meets the Trickster of Detroit
by James W. PerkinsonThis book offers resources for re-imagining the biblical vision of water for a time quickly emerging as “the century of water wars.” It takes its urgency from the author’s 5-year activist engagement with a grass-roots-led social movement, pushing back on Detroit water shutoffs as global climate crises intensify. Concerned with both white supremacist “biopolitics” and continuing settler colonial reliance on the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and beholden to an interreligious methodology of “crossing over and coming back,” the text creatively re-reads the biblical tradition under tutelage to the mythologies and practices of various indigenous cultures (Algonquian/Huron, Haitian/Vodouisant, and Celtic/Norman) whose embrace of water is animate and spiritual as well as political and communal. Not enough, today, merely to engage the political battle over water rights, however; indigenous wisdom and biblical prophecy alike insist that recovery of water spirituality is central to a sustainable future.
Political Spirituality in the Face of Climate Collapse: Of Monsters, Megaliths, Mules, and Muck
by James W. PerkinsonThis book takes its motive force from our contemporary climate crisis. It seeks to reorient human (and especially Christian) understanding, towards a more ecologically-focused, indigenously-informed way-of-living. James W. Perkinson argues that our current eco-climatic and socio-political emergency is the culmination of a 5,000-year history of supremacist “settlement,” in which city-states first emergent in Mesopotamia and Egypt not only begin coercively organizing labor into surplus production and ecosystems into inordinate and destructive yields of “goods,” but in the process, also simultaneously “deform” the Spirit-World “haloing” of natural phenomenon into outsized service of imperial reach. Perkinson recognizes globalized humanity as an emerging monstrosity destroying both human culture and the world. How we re-envision and revalue, at our critical juncture, our inescapable interdependence with the more-than-human world as peer and teacher and even “elder,” is the central theme that throbs below the surface of the very disparate topics commanding attention in each chapter.
Political Suicide: Missteps, Peccadilloes, Bad Calls, Backroom Hijinx, Sordid Pasts, Rotten Breaks, and Just Plain Dumb Mistakes in the Annals of American Politics
by Erin MchughA collection of entertaining and cautionary tales of political missteps in American history, from the birth of the nation through the present day. Just in time for the presidential election of 2016 comes Political Suicide, a history of the best and most interesting missteps, peccadilloes, bad calls, back room hijinks, sordid pasts, rotten breaks, and just plain dumb mistakes in the annals of American politics. They have tweeted their private parts to women they're trying to impress. They have gotten caught on tape doing and saying things they really shouldn't have. They have denied knowing about the underhanded doings of underlings -- only to have a paper trail lead straight back to them. Nowadays, it seems like half of what we hear about politicians isn't about laws or governing, but is instead coverage focused on shenanigans, questionable morals, and scandals too numerous to count. And while we shake our heads in disbelief, we still can't resist poring over the details of these notorious incidents. In Political Suicide, the foibles of our politicians are brought from the tabloid pages to this entertaining -- and cautionary -- tale of American history.
Political Theology and Law (Law and Politics)
by Geminello PreterossiThis book addresses two main questions. Can political theology be overcome? And, is what today – in referring to neoliberalism and its genealogy – many define as "economic theology" truly an alternative to political theology, as Foucault has claimed and as Agamben does today? As a first step, the book addresses and clarifies various misunderstandings about the notion of political theology, in its multiple and even opposite meanings. It then focuses on a conceptualisation inaugurated by Carl Schmitt, which sees political theology as the eloquent matrix of modern politics: insofar as the latter produces and continuously re-elaborates an "excess" that does not belong to it, its core remains theological-political, although secularised. The bulk of the book then pursues a reading of the analogic connection between juridico-political concepts and theological-metaphysical concepts; arguing that, although the ‘turn’ to economic theology is indeed another form of political theology, it is a deeply anti-political one, which forecloses modes of resistance. The book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and advanced students in the fields of modern political and legal philosophy and those researching the crisis of its legacy. In particular, it is addressed to those who study the relationship between theology (and its substitutes, such as hegemony and political myth) and politics, power and law, legitimacy and legality, in the perspective of secularization. In addition, the book offers a contribution to contemporary critical studies on the neoliberal state and the return of the "state of exception" in democracies, as well as a questioning of the moralization of law, which is an effect of globalist ideology and the "humanitarian turn" after 1989.
Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Catherine KellerAmid melting glaciers, rising waters, and spreading droughts, Earth has ceased to tolerate our pretense of mastery over it. But how can we confront climate change when political crises keep exploding in the present? Noted ecotheologian and feminist philosopher of religion Catherine Keller reads the feedback loop of political and ecological depredation as secularized apocalypse. Carl Schmitt’s political theology of the sovereign exception sheds light on present ideological warfare; racial, ethnic, economic, and sexual conflict; and hubristic anthropocentrism. If the politics of exceptionalism are theological in origin, she asks, should we not enlist the world’s religious communities as part of the resistance?Keller calls for dissolving the opposition between the religious and the secular in favor of a broad planetary movement for social and ecological justice. When we are confronted by populist, authoritarian right wings founded on white male Christian supremacism, we can counter with a messianically charged, often unspoken theology of the now-moment, calling for a complex new public. Such a political theology of the earth activates the world’s entangled populations, joined in solidarity and committed to revolutionary solutions to the entwined crises of the Anthropocene.
Political Theology on Edge: Ruptures of Justice and Belief in the Anthropocene (Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquia)
by Clayton Crockett and Catherine KellerIn Political Theology on Edge, the discourse of political theology is seen as situated on an edge—that is, on the edge of a world that is grappling with global warming, a brutal form of neoliberal capitalism, protests against racism and police brutality, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This edge is also a form of eschatology that forces us to imagine new ways of being religious and political in our cohabitation of a fragile and shared planet. Each of the essays in this volume attends to how climate change and our ecological crises intersect and interact with more traditional themes of political theology.While the tradition of political theology is often associated with philosophical responses to the work of Carl Schmitt—and the critical attempts to disengage religion from his rightwing politics—the contributors to this volume are informed by Schmitt but not limited to his perspectives. They engage and transform political theology from the standpoint of climate change, the politics of race, and non-Christian political theologies including Islam and Sikhism. Important themes include the Anthropocene, ecology, capitalism, sovereignty, Black Lives Matter, affect theory, continental philosophy, destruction, and suicide. This book features world renowned scholars and emerging voices that together open up the tradition of political theology to new ideas and new ways of thinking.Contributors: Gil Anidjar, Balbinder Singh Bhogal, J. Kameron Carter, William E. Connolly, Kelly Brown Douglas, Seth Gaiters, Lisa Gasson-Gardner, Winfred Goodwin, Lawrence Hillis, Mehmet Karabela, Michael Northcott, Austin Roberts, Noëlle Vahanian, Larry L. Welborn
Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty
by Carl SchmittWritten in the intense political and intellectual tumult of the early years of the Weimar Republic, Political Theology develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that made Carl Schmitt one of the most significant and controversial political theorists of the twentieth century. Focusing on the relationships among political leadership, the norms of the legal order, and the state of political emergency, Schmitt argues in Political Theology that legal order ultimately rests upon the decisions of the sovereign. According to Schmitt, only the sovereign can meet the needs of an "exceptional" time and transcend legal order so that order can then be reestablished. Convinced that the state is governed by the ever-present possibility of conflict, Schmitt theorizes that the state exists only to maintain its integrity in order to ensure order and stability. Suggesting that all concepts of modern political thought are secularized theological concepts, Schmitt concludes Political Theology with a critique of liberalism and its attempt to depoliticize political thought by avoiding fundamental political decisions.
Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History)
by Paul KahnIn this strikingly original work, Paul W. Kahn rethinks the meaning of political theology. In a text innovative in both form and substance, he describes an American political theology as a secular inquiry into ultimate meanings sustaining our faith in the popular sovereign. Kahn works out his view through an engagement with Carl Schmitt's 1922 classic, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. He forces an engagement with Schmitt's four chapters, offering a new version of each that is responsive to the American political imaginary. The result is a contemporary political theology. As in Schmitt's work, sovereignty remains central, yet Kahn shows how popular sovereignty creates an ethos of sacrifice in the modern state. Turning to law, Kahn demonstrates how the line between exception and judicial decision is not as sharp as Schmitt led us to believe. He reminds readers that American political life begins with the revolutionary willingness to sacrifice and that both sacrifice and law continue to ground the American political imagination. Kahn offers a political theology that has at its center the practice of freedom realized in political decisions, legal judgments, and finally in philosophical inquiry itself.
Political Theories of Modern Government: Its Role and Reform (Routledge Revivals)
by Peter SelfThis reissued work, originally published in 1985, is a uniquely broad and original survey of theories and beliefs about the growth, behaviour, performance and reform of the governments of modern Western democracies. After analysing the external pressures which have shaped modern governments, the author examines four different schools of political thought which seek to explain the behaviour and performance of governments, and which offer different remedies for the pluralism, corporatism and bureaucracy. To examine and test these general theories, the author looks closely at how governments actually work. The book is illustrated with examples drawn from various Western societies. The final chapters present the author’s own conclusion about the future role of government, the limits of market philosophy, the future of politics, and the principles and problems of institutional reform.
Political Theorists in Context
by Stuart Isaacs Chris SparksFocusing on the historical context in which political theorists have developed their thinking, this textbook provides an invaluable introduction to students of political thought. The authors address a series of canonical major thinkers in the context of three world-changing epochs: the English, French and Industrial revolutions. The theorists' ideas are assessed with reference to the politics of their time and show how they responded to, or interacted with, the political events and issues of their day.
Political Theory (Routledge Revivals)
by G. C. FieldFirst published in 1956, Political Theory explores the historical development of political ideas and analyses some basic concepts of contemporary political theory, including the notions of the State, of Sovereignty and the Law. The book is based on lectures in Political Theory given by the author, G. C. Field, in the universities at which he taught. It opens by considering the development of political ideas by providing an overview of the ideas current at the time of original publication in comparison to the ideas of earlier ages. It then progresses into a more detailed discussion of specific political theories. It will appeal to those with an interest in the history of political thought and developments in political theory.
Political Theory An Introduction: An Introduction
by Andrew HeywoodThis is fully revised and updated fourth edition of a highly successful text in its field examines the key traditions in political thought whilst relating them to the contemporary world.Each chapter disscusses a cluster of interrelated terms and concepts.
Political Theory In Transition
by Noel O'SullivanDuring the past two decades there has been increasing dissatisfaction with established political categories, on the grounds that they no longer fit many of the facts of contemporary life, or adequately express many contemporary political ideals. Political Theory in Transition explores the principal reasons for this dissatisfaction and outlines some of the most influential responses to it.Key features of this textbook:* covers many of the important areas in political theory including: Communitarianism; Identity; Feminism; Liberalism; Citizenship; Democracy; Power; Authority; Legitimacy; Nationalism; Globalization; and the Environment* includes chapters written by some of the foremost authorities in the field of political theory* divided into four useful sections, beginning with the concept of the individual, and progressing to beyond the nation-state.
Political Theory Without Borders (Philosophy, Politics and Society)
by Robert E. Goodin James S. FishkinPolitical Theory Without Borders offers a comprehensive survey of the issues that have shaped political theory in the wake of social and environmental globalization. Focuses on specific questions that arise from issues of global spillovers like climate change and pollution, international immigration, and political intervention abroad Includes chapters written by some of the best new scholars working in the field today, along with key texts from some of the most well-known scholars of previous generations Illustrates how the classics concerns of political theory – justice and equality, liberty and oppression – have re-emerged with renewed significance at the global level The newest volume in the distinguished philosophy, politics & society series, initiated by Peter Laslett in 1956
Political Theory and Global Climate Action: Recasting the Public Sphere (Routledge Focus on Philosophy)
by Idil BoranFrom around the world, cities and regions, civil society networks and businesses, nongovernmental organizations and institutions for research and learning, and many others, are taking action on climate change. The role of these nonstate and substate actors is increasingly being recognized in the new facilitative climate regime. Political theory to date has been surprisingly silent about the scale and prospects of these actions for low-carbon, climate-resilient, and sustainable transformations. Idil Boran argues provocatively for the need for a widened scope of vision, one that has a broader public life of climate action at its centre. While acknowledging the role of the state and the multilateral process, Boran maintains that social transformation is as deeply and more continuously influenced by the engagement of a wide range of actors below and above the state, whose actions are often locally anchored and inescapably interwoven across borders. Bringing concepts of the public sphere from political theory into contact with leading scholarship on transnational climate governance, Political Theory and Global Climate Action launches an exploration sensitive to changing patterns of practice, focused on diversity of actors, driven to explore historically contingent conditions of possibility, and responsive to questions of equity and justice in the context of transformations. The result is a repositioning of political thought on climate change, engaging political philosophers, scholars of politics and governance, and drivers of climate action worldwide at nonstate and substate levels interested in the social and political meaning of their engagement.
Political Theory and Social Science: Cutting Against the Grain
by John G. GunnellThis work is devoted to a critical analytical examination of the history, character, and conduct of contemporary academic political theory and to a reconsideration of significant elements of this field of inquiry from the perspective of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Political Theory and the Animal/Human Relationship (SUNY series in New Political Science)
by Judith Grant; Vincent G. JungkunzThe division of life into animal and human is one of the fundamental schisms found within political societies. Ironically, given the immense influence of the animal/human divide, especially upon power dynamics, the discipline in charge of theorizing and studying power—political science and theory—has had little to say about the animal/human. This book seeks to amend this vast oversight. Acknowledging the complexity of the changing differences between animals and humans, the contributors explore such topics as Marx, Freud, the animal, and civilization; dog breeding, racism, and democracy; the meaningful silences of animals; how sovereignty reconfigures the animal/human; and the paradoxical struggles against being dehumanized among immigrant workers in a slaughterhouse. Political Theory and the Animal/Human Relationship is necessary reading for anyone who wants to understand how power has been influenced by the animal/human divide, and what we can do about it.
Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics
by Bonnie Honig03 In this book, Bonnie Honig rethinks that established relation between politics and political theory. From liberal to communitarian to republican, political theorists of opposing positions often treat political theory less as an exploration of politics than as a series of devices of its displacement. Honig characterizes Kant, Rawls, and Sandel as virtue theorists of politics, arguing that they rely on principles of right, rationality, community, and law to protect their political theories from the conflict and uncertainty of political reality. Drawing on Nietzsche and Arendt, as well as Machiavelli and Derrida, Honig explores an alternative politics of virtù, which treats the disruptions of political order as valued sites of democratic freedom and individuality.