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The Problem of Political Obligation (Routledge Library Editions: Political Thought and Political Philosophy #44)
by Noel O'SullivanFirst published in 1987. This study is an attempt to distinguish the problem of political obligation as it was formulated in the ancient world from the problem as it has presented itself in the modern world, and assesses the idealist achievement in the philosophical treatment of the problem of political obligation. This title will be of interest to students of philosophy and politics.
The Problem of Post-Racialism
by Milton VickermanAlthough President Obama's election in 2008 accelerated the debate over whether American society is post-racial, in reality, the idea of a non-racial America has several manifestations, and post-racialism is a variable. Vickerman argues that whilst some manifestations are ideologically-driven, others also coincide with ideas that postulate the non-importance of race in America. Moreover, the ascent of a black president, against the backdrop of a traumatic racial history, has highlighted the black middle class's pivotal role as a symbol of racial progress. But are they post-racial?The Problem of Post-Racialism tackles questions such as these through a combination of theory and empirical analysis.
The Problem of Property: Taking the Freedom of Nonowners Seriously (Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee)
by Karl WiderquistThis book is Karl Widerquist's first statement of the “indepentarian” theory of justice, or what he calls “Justice as the Pursuit of Accord” (JPA). It provides five arguments for UBI, one based on the JPA theory of freedom, another based on the JPA theory of property, and three that reply to common objections to UBI. Each of these three turns the argument around using the central concepts in a justification for UBI. Although the central argument is for one specific policy proposal, this book's perspective is much wider, including very basic criticism of social-contract-based and natural-rights-based theories of justice.
The Problem of Race in the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas C. HoltThis brief book speaks powerfully to the question of how the circumstances of race and racism have changed in our time--and how these changes will affect our future. Foremost among the book's concerns are the contradictions and incoherence of a system that idealizes black celebrities in politics, popular culture, and sports even as it diminishes the average African-American citizen. The world of the assembly line, boxer Jack Johnson's career, and The Birth of a Nation come under Holt's scrutiny as he relates the malign progress of race and racism to the loss of industrial jobs and the rise of our modern consumer society. Understanding race as ideology, he describes the processes of consumerism and commodification that have transformed, but not necessarily improved, the place of black citizens in our society. As disturbing as it is enlightening, this timely work reveals the radical nature of change as it relates to race and its cultural phenomena. It offers conceptual tools and a new way to think and talk about racism as social reality.
The Problem of Solidarity: Theories and Models
by Patrick Doreian Thomas FararoPresently the world is undergoing tremendous social, cultural and economic transformation. For sociologists, the challenge is arriving at a sound mapping of this tumultuous world stage.In this book, the contributing authors consider solidarity as a cognitive problem of basic science. They examine how solidarity is produced and reproduced, how it is related to social processes, and how such processes can be formalized and create conditions for productively studying their properties. Mathematical models and representations are presented by the authors as a coherent set of tools for understanding many social phenomena.
The Problem of the Future World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Race Concept at Midcentury
by Eric PorterThe Problem of the Future World is a compelling reassessment of the later writings of the iconic African American activist and intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois. As Eric Porter points out, despite the outpouring of scholarship devoted to Du Bois, the broad range of writing he produced during the 1940s and early 1950s has not been thoroughly examined in its historical context, nor has sufficient attention been paid to the theoretical interventions he made during those years. Porter locates Du Bois's later work in relation to what he calls "the first postracial moment. " He suggests that Du Bois's midcentury writings are so distinctive and so relevant for contemporary scholarship because they were attuned to the shape-shifting character of modern racism, and in particular to the ways that discredited racial taxonomies remained embedded and in force in existing political-economic arrangements at both the local and global levels. Porter moves the conversation about Du Bois and race forward by building on existing work about the theorist, systematically examining his later writings, and looking at them from new perspectives, partly by drawing on recent scholarship on race, neoliberalism, and empire. The Problem of the Future World shows how Du Bois's later writings help to address race and racism as protean, global phenomena in the present.
The Problem of Trust
by Adam B. SeligmanThe problem of trust in social relationships was central to the emergence of the modern form of civil society and much discussed by social and political philosophers of the early modern period. Over the past few years, in response to the profound changes associated with postmodernity, trust has returned to the attention of political scientists, sociologists, economists, and public policy analysts. In this sequel to his widely admired book, The Idea of Civil Society, Adam Seligman analyzes trust as a fundamental issue of our present social relationships. Setting his discussion in historical and intellectual context, Seligman asks whether trust--which many contemporary critics, from Robert Putnam through Francis Fukuyama, identify as essential in creating a cohesive society--can continue to serve this vital role.Seligman traverses a wide range of examples, from the minutiae of everyday manners to central problems of political and economic life, showing throughout how civility and trust are being displaced in contemporary life by new "external' system constraints inimical to the development of trust. Disturbingly, Seligman shows that trust is losing its unifying power precisely because the individual, long assumed to be the ultimate repository of rights and values, is being reduced to a sum of group identities and an abstract matrix of rules. The irony for Seligman is that, in becoming postmodern, we seem to be moving backward to a premodern condition in which group sanctions rather than trust are the basis of group life.
The Problem of Value Pluralism: Isaiah Berlin and Beyond (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)
by George CrowderValue pluralism is the idea, most prominently endorsed by Isaiah Berlin, that fundamental human values are universal, plural, conflicting, and incommensurable with one another. Incommensurability is the key component of pluralism, undermining familiar monist philosophies such as utilitarianism. But if values are incommensurable, how do we decide between them when they conflict? George Crowder assesses a range of responses to this problem proposed by Berlin and developed by his successors. Three broad approaches are especially important: universalism, contextualism, and conceptualism. Crowder argues that the conceptual approach is the most fruitful, yielding norms of value diversity, personal autonomy, and inclusive democracy. Historical context must also be taken into account. Together these approaches indicate a liberal politics of redistribution, multiculturalism, and constitutionalism, and a public policy in which basic values are carefully balanced. The Problem of Value Pluralism: Isaiah Berlin and Beyond is a uniquely comprehensive survey of the political theory of value pluralism and also an original contribution by a leading voice in the pluralist literature. Scholars and researchers interested in the work of Berlin, liberalism, value pluralism, and related ideas will find this a stimulating and valuable source.
Problem-solving and Learning for Public Services and Public Management: Theory and Practice (Springer Texts in Business and Economics)
by Tony Kinder Jari StenvallIn this textbook readers will acquire knowledge of problem-solving and learning to enhance both efficiency and the experience of service users in rapidly changing service environments, that can create new service models. Emphasizing that, above all else, individuals are at the centre of services, the book goes deeply into the nature of public services and their logic-of-practice. By applying learning and problem-solving approaches, the reader gains practical capabilities in addition to an appreciation of the latest research literature. Following a multidisciplinary, international approach, the book suggests a new typology of problem-framing and presents many examples of how new service solutions can be created in any public service context. The book offers a conceptual toolkit to understand and analyse dynamically changing services and the application of new technologies. Topics covered include pressing issues surrounding public services, such as e-technology, digitalisation, e-services, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurialism, sustainability, climate, inequality, developing economies, and smart cities. Chapters follow a similar structure: issue, problems, what we know, learning framework, worked example, theory and practice conclusions, as well as teacher and learner notes. Addressing advanced undergraduate and graduate students of public administration, public management, political science, sociology, computer science, and information systems, the book will also be a valuable resource for practitioners, i.e. experts and managers in public organizations, professionals in organizations working at the business and public sectors, consultants, and IT suppliers.
Problem Solving with the Private Sector: A Public Solutions Handbook (The Public Solutions Handbook Series)
by Daniel E. BrombergProblem Solving with the Private Sector presents advice and solutions for fruitful government–business alliances from the perspective of everyday public management. With a focus on job training, economic development, regulation, and finance and innovation, each chapter discusses a traditional tool of government presented in a practical and applied manner, as well as the implementation of the tool with clear examples. Content-rich case studies on a wide range of policy issues, including regulatory policy, natural resources, manufacturing, financial services, and health care highlight opportunities for government and business to collaborate to pursue the public good. This book offers current and future public managers possible solutions to complex problems for effective government–business alliances in a range of settings. It is essential reading for all those studying public management, public administration, and public policy.
The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars
by Meghan Daum&“[A]ffectingly personal, achingly earnest, and something close to necessary.&” —Vogue &“Personal, convincing, unflinching.&” —Tablet From an author who&’s been called &“one of the most emotionally exacting, mercilessly candid, deeply funny, and intellectually rigorous writers of our time&” (Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author) comes a seminal book that reaches surprising truths about feminism, the Trump era, and the Resistance movement. You won&’t be able to stop thinking and talking about it.In this gripping work, Meghan Daum examines our country&’s most intractable problems with clear-eyed honesty instead of exaggerated outrage. With passion, humor, and personal reflection, she tries to make sense of the current landscape—from Donald Trump&’s presidency to the #MeToo movement and beyond. In the process, she wades into the waters of identity politics and intersectionality, thinks deeply about campus politics and notions of personal resilience, and tests a theory about the divide between Gen Xers and millennials. This signature work may well be the first book to capture the essence of this era in all its nuances and contradictions. No matter where you stand on its issues, this book will strike a chord.
The Problem with Lincoln
by Thomas J. DiLorenzoThe Problem with Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was widely and deeply unpopular during his presidency. And for good reason. He overturned our original constitutional order, violated the rights of Americans both North and South, massively inflated the federal government, and plunged the nation into a wholly unnecessary war. Why? Not to free the slaves, as his hagiographers would have you believe, but out of personal ambition, greed for power, and, incidentally, to enrich the railroad interests that supported his political career. Court historians have turned King Lincoln into a secular saint, but what did Abraham Lincoln&’s contemporaries know that has been forgotten or covered up? Bestselling author Thomas J. DiLorenzo debunks the pious myths to reveal the real Lincoln. In The Problem with Lincoln, you&’ll learn: Why Lincoln was willing to accept a constitutional amendment guaranteeing slavery forever Why no American in 1861, Northerner or Southerner, believed that Lincoln had invaded the South to emancipate the slaves Why secession doesn&’t fit the Constitution&’s definition of treason—but Lincoln&’s war on the South does Lincoln&’s greatest failure: not ending slavery peacefully, as the rest of the world managed to do If you want the unvarnished truth about our sixteenth president, read The Problem with Lincoln.
The Problem with Me: And Other Essays About Making Trouble in China Today
by Han Han“Funny and shrewd” (The New York Times Book Review) essays from China’s most popular young troublemaker about growing up millennial and causing social and political scandal today.Han Han “owes equal debt to Jack Kerouac and Justin Timberlake” (The New Yorker). He’s the most influential (and provocative) young person in China, equally beloved and reviled for the satirical wit with which he takes on everyone from corrupt politicians to ludicrous protesters and everything from Internet culture in a country that censors the Internet to the question of whether China is ready for democracy. “Evocative and funny” and “occasionally electrifying” (The Wall Street Journal), The Problem with Me provides “an insider’s look into Chinese culture and politics” (Publishers Weekly).
The Problem with Socialism
by Thomas DilorenzoRemember when "socialism" was a dirty word? Now students at America's elite universities are parroting socialist talking points and "sure-thing" Hillary Clinton is struggling to win the Democratic nomination against a 74-year-old avowed socialist who promises to make the nation more like Europe. What's happened? Do Americans need a reminder about the dangers of socialist ideology and practices?Thomas DiLorenzo, economics professor and senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, deconstructs the retrograde ideology that has suddenly become disturbingly hip in The Problem with Socialism.
The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food
by Julie GuthmanA concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises. Why has Silicon Valley become the model for addressing today's myriad social and ecological crises? With this book, Julie Guthman digs into the impoverished solutions for food and agriculture currently emerging from Silicon Valley, urging us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system.The Problem with Solutions combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector's ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it.
The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries
by Kathi WeeksIn The Problem with Work, Kathi Weeks boldly challenges the presupposition that work, or waged labor, is inherently a social and political good. While progressive political movements, including the Marxist and feminist movements, have fought for equal pay, better work conditions, and the recognition of unpaid work as a valued form of labor, even they have tended to accept work as a naturalized or inevitable activity. Weeks argues that in taking work as a given, we have "depoliticized" it, or removed it from the realm of political critique. Employment is now largely privatized, and work-based activism in the United States has atrophied. We have accepted waged work as the primary mechanism for income distribution, as an ethical obligation, and as a means of defining ourselves and others as social and political subjects. Taking up Marxist and feminist critiques, Weeks proposes a postwork society that would allow people to be productive and creative rather than relentlessly bound to the employment relation. Work, she contends, is a legitimate, even crucial, subject for political theory.
El problema de la tierra: Conflicto y desarrollo en Colombia
by Absalón MachadoReflexión sobre una política integral de tierras más allá de la restitución a los desplazados y el acceso a ella a través del mercado. Por más de 25 años el problema de la tierra en Colombia estuvo archivado en bibliotecas o en los círculos de especialistas, pero en el marco de los acuerdos de paz alcanzados en La Habana y el advenimiento del posconflicto, el desarrollo rural colombiano está de vuelta en la agenda pública. Este libro examina las políticas que han orientado el desarrollo de la estructura agraria colombiana desde el siglo xix y la asignación de baldíos de la Nación. Muestra de qué manera esta estructura agraria, formada en dos siglos de historia republicana, ha sido un obstáculo para el desarrollo económico, social y político, por sus vínculos con el poder y la violencia. En su análisis, Machado revisa las reformas impulsadas durante el gobierno de Juan Manuel Santos y se pregunta por las posibilidades de la institucionalidad
The Problematic Public: Lippmann, Dewey, and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century (Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation)
by Kristian BjørkdahlAlmost one hundred years have passed since Walter Lippmann and John Dewey published their famous reflections on the “problems of the public,” but their thoughts remain surprisingly relevant as resources for thinking through our current crisis-plagued predicament. This book takes stock of the reception history of Lippmann’s and Dewey’s ideas about publics, communication, and political decision-making and shows how their ideas can inspire a way forward.Lippmann and Dewey were only two of many twentieth-century thinkers trying to imagine how a modern industrial democracy might (or might not) come to pass, but despite that, the “Lippmann/Dewey debate” became a symbol of the two alleged options: an epistocracy, on the one hand, and grassroots participation, on the other. In this book, distinguished scholars from rhetoric, communication, sociology, and media and journalism studies reconsider this debate in order to assess its contemporary relevance for our time, which, in some respects, bears a striking resemblance to the 1920s. In this way, the book explains how and why Lippmann and Dewey are indispensable resources for anyone concerned with the future of democratic deliberation and decision-making.In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Nathan Crick, Robert Danisch, Steve Fuller, William Keith, Bruno Latour, John Durham Peters, Patricia Roberts-Miller, Michael Schudson, Anna Shechtman, Slavko Splichal, Lisa S. Villadsen, and Scott Welsh.
Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities
by Stephen KrasnerSome of the most pressing issues in the contemporary international order revolve around a frequently invoked but highly contested concept: sovereignty. To what extent does the concept of sovereignty—as it plays out in institutional arrangements, rules, and principles—inhibit the solution of these issues? Can the rules of sovereignty be bent? Can they be ignored? Do they represent an insurmountable barrier to stable solutions or can alternative arrangements be created? Problematic Sovereignty attempts to answer these and other fundamental questions by taking account of the multiple, sometimes contradictory, components of the concept of sovereignty in cases ranging from the struggle for sovereignty between China and Taiwan to the compromised sovereignty of Bosnia under the Dayton Accord. Countering the common view of sovereignty that treats it as one coherent set of principles, the chapters of Problematic Sovereignty illustrate cases where the disaggregation of sovereignty has enabled political actors to create entities that are semiautonomous, semi-independent, and/or semilegal in order to solve specific problems stemming from competing claims to authority.
Problematising Intelligence Studies: Towards A New Research Agenda (Routledge New Intelligence Studies)
by Hager Ben JaffelThis book offers a new research agenda for intelligence studies in contemporary times. In contrast to Intelligence Studies (IS), whose aim has largely been to improve the performance of national security services and assist in policy making, this book takes the investigation of the new professionals and everyday practices of intelligence as the immediate point of departure. Starting from the observation that intelligence today is increasingly about counter-terrorism, crime control, surveillance, and other security-related issues, this book adopts a transdisciplinary approach for studying the shifting logics of intelligence, how it has come to involve an expanding number of empirical sites, such as the police, local community, prison and the Internet, as well as a corresponding multiplicity of new actors in these domains. Shifting the focus away from traditional spies and Anglo-American intelligence services, this book addresses the transformations of contemporary intelligence through empirically detailed and theoretically innovative analyses, making a key contribution to existing scholarship. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, critical security studies, foreign policy, and International Relations.
Problematizing Religious Freedom
by Arvind SharmaThe concept of religious freedom is the favoured modern human rights concept, with which the modern world hopes to tackle the phenomenon of religious pluralism, as our modern existence in an electronically shrinking globe comes to be increasingly characterised by this phenomenon. To begin with, the concept of religious freedom, as embodied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems self-evident in nature. It is the claim of this book, however, that although emblematic on the one hand, the concept is also problematic on the other, and the implications of the concept of religious freedom are far from self-evident, despite the ready acceptance the term receives as embodying a worthwhile goal. This book therefore problematizes the concept along legal, constitutional, ethical and theological lines, and especially from the perspective of religious studies, so that religious freedom in the world could be enlarged in a way which promotes human flourishing.
Problems And Opportunities In U.S. – Quebec Relations
by Marcel DaneauThe failure of the May 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty and the ratification in 1982 of a Canadian constitution, over Quebec's vehement objection but with the acquiescence of all other provinces, would appear to indicate that the likelihood of Quebec's independence has been sharply reduced, if not eliminated. Not so, is the considered judgment
The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith's Response to Rousseau (G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects)
by Dennis C. RasmussenAdam Smith is popularly regarded as the ideological forefather of laissez-faire capitalism, while Rousseau is seen as the passionate advocate of the life of virtue in small, harmonious communities and as a sharp critic of the ills of commercial society. But, in fact, Smith had many of the same worries about commercial society that Rousseau did and was strongly influenced by his critique.In this first book-length comparative study of these leading eighteenth-century thinkers, Dennis Rasmussen highlights Smith’s sympathy with Rousseau’s concerns and analyzes in depth the ways in which Smith crafted his arguments to defend commercial society against these charges. These arguments, Rasmussen emphasizes, were pragmatic in nature, not ideological: it was Smith’s view that, all things considered, commercial society offered more benefits than the alternatives.Just because of this pragmatic orientation, Smith’s approach can be useful to us in assessing the pros and cons of commercial society today and thus contributes to a debate that is too much dominated by both dogmatic critics and doctrinaire champions of our modern commercial society.
The Problems and Prospects of American-East Asian Relations
by John ChayThis issue-oriented, multidisciplinary approach to American-East Asian relations asks provocative questions and presents a thoughtful appraisal of the situation today. Using a wide range of sources-among them, recently declassified government documents-the authors examine U.S. relations with China, Japan, and Korea. Issues discussed include the"new policy" toward the People's Republic of China (Was there, in fact, a sudden shift in U.S. policy?); the attitudes of the American people and Congress toward the Republic ofChina; the friction between the United States and Japan and the implications of the existing imbalance in trade between the two countries; and the potential for continuing and increasing problems in U.S.-Korean relations. Throughout, the authors present an analysis of past and current conditions as a tool for use in formulating sound, effective policy for the future.
The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought
by Bernard YackA bold new interpretation of Aristotelian thought is central to Bernard Yack's provocative new book. He shows that for Aristotle, community is a conflict-ridden fact of everyday life, as well as an ideal of social harmony and integration. From political justice and the rule of law to class struggle and moral conflict, Yack maintains that Aristotle intended to explain the conditions of everyday political life, not just, as most commentators assume, to represent the hypothetical achievements of an idealistic "best regime."By showing how Aristotelian ideas can provide new insight into our own political life, Yack makes a valuable contribution to contemporary discourse and debate. His work will excite interest among a wide range of social, moral, and political theorists.