States Without Nations

States Without Nations PDF Author: Jacqueline Stevens
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231148771
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
As citizens, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: that the rights to own land, marry, inherit property, and especially to assume birthright citizenship should be guaranteed by the state. The laws promoting these rights appear not only to preserve our liberty but to guarantee society remains just. Yet considering how much violence and inequality results from these legal mandates, Jacqueline Stevens asks whether we might be making the wrong assumptions. Would a world without such laws be more just? Arguing that the core laws of the nation-state are more about a fear of death than a desire for freedom, Jacqueline Stevens imagines a world in which birthright citizenship, family inheritance, state-sanctioned marriage, and private land ownership are eliminated. Would chaos be the result? Drawing on political theory and history and incorporating contemporary social and economic data, she brilliantly critiques our sentimental attachments to birthright citizenship, inheritance, and marriage and highlights their harmful outcomes, including war, global apartheid, destitution, family misery, and environmental damage. It might be hard to imagine countries without the rules of membership and ownership that have come to define them, but as Stevens shows, conjuring new ways of reconciling our laws with the condition of mortality reveals the flaws of our present institutions and inspires hope for moving beyond them.

States Without Nations

States Without Nations PDF Author: Jacqueline Stevens
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231148771
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
As citizens, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: that the rights to own land, marry, inherit property, and especially to assume birthright citizenship should be guaranteed by the state. The laws promoting these rights appear not only to preserve our liberty but to guarantee society remains just. Yet considering how much violence and inequality results from these legal mandates, Jacqueline Stevens asks whether we might be making the wrong assumptions. Would a world without such laws be more just? Arguing that the core laws of the nation-state are more about a fear of death than a desire for freedom, Jacqueline Stevens imagines a world in which birthright citizenship, family inheritance, state-sanctioned marriage, and private land ownership are eliminated. Would chaos be the result? Drawing on political theory and history and incorporating contemporary social and economic data, she brilliantly critiques our sentimental attachments to birthright citizenship, inheritance, and marriage and highlights their harmful outcomes, including war, global apartheid, destitution, family misery, and environmental damage. It might be hard to imagine countries without the rules of membership and ownership that have come to define them, but as Stevens shows, conjuring new ways of reconciling our laws with the condition of mortality reveals the flaws of our present institutions and inspires hope for moving beyond them.

Law Without Nations?

Law Without Nations? PDF Author: Jeremy A. Rabkin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691095301
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
What authority does international law really have for the United States? When and to what extent should the United States participate in the international legal system? This forcefully argued book by legal scholar Jeremy Rabkin provides an insightful new look at this important and much-debated question. Americans have long asked whether the United States should join forces with institutions such as the International Criminal Court and sign on to agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. Rabkin argues that the value of international agreements in such circumstances must be weighed against the threat they pose to liberties protected by strong national authority and institutions. He maintains that the protection of these liberties could be fatally weakened if we go too far in ceding authority to international institutions that might not be zealous in protecting the rights Americans deem important. Similarly, any cessation of authority might leave Americans far less attached to the resulting hybrid legal system than they now are to laws they can regard as their own. Law without Nations? traces the traditional American wariness of international law to the basic principles of American thought and the broader traditions of liberal political thought on which the American Founders drew: only a sovereign state can make and enforce law in a reliable way, so only a sovereign state can reliably protect the rights of its citizens. It then contrasts the American experience with that of the European Union, showing the difficulties that can arise from efforts to merge national legal systems with supranational schemes. In practice, international human rights law generates a cloud of rhetoric that does little to secure human rights, and in fact, is at odds with American principles, Rabkin concludes. A challenging and important contribution to the current debates about the meaning of multilateralism and international law, Law without Nations? will appeal to a broad cross-section of scholars in both the legal and political science arenas.

Democracy Without Nations?

Democracy Without Nations? PDF Author: Pierre Manent
Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
ISBN: 9781610170840
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Can Europe survive after abandoning the national loyalties--and religious traditions--that provided meaning? And what will happen to the United States as it goes down a similar path? The eminent French political philosopher Pierre Manent addresses these questions in his brilliant meditation on Europe's experiment in maximizing individual and social rights. By seeking to escape from the "national form," he shows, the European Union has weakened the very institutions that made possible liberty and self-government in the first place. Worse still, the "spiritual vacuity" that characterizes today's secular Europe--and, increasingly, the United States--is ultimately untenable.

Why Nations Fail

Why Nations Fail PDF Author: Daron Acemoglu
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 0307719227
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • From two winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, “who have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity” “A wildly ambitious work that hopscotches through history and around the world to answer the very big question of why some countries get rich and others don’t.”—The New York Times FINALIST: Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Economist, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, The Plain Dealer Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, or geography that determines prosperity or poverty? As Why Nations Fail shows, none of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is our man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or the lack of it). Korea, to take just one example, is a remarkably homogenous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created those two different institutional trajectories. Acemoglu and Robinson marshal extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, among them: • Will China’s economy continue to grow at such a high speed and ultimately overwhelm the West? • Are America’s best days behind it? Are we creating a vicious cycle that enriches and empowers a small minority? “This book will change the way people think about the wealth and poverty of nations . . . as ambitious as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.”—BusinessWeek

The Size of Nations

The Size of Nations PDF Author: Alberto Alesina
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262261401
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The authors of this timely and provocative book use the tools of economic analysis to examine the formation and change of political borders. They argue that while these issues have always been at the core of historical analysis, international economists have tended to regard the size of a country as "exogenous," or no more subject to explanation than the location of a mountain range or the course of a river. Alesina and Spolaore consider a country's borders to be subject to the same analysis as any other man-made institution. In The Size of Nations, they argue that the optimal size of a country is determined by a cost-benefit trade-off between the benefits of size and the costs of heterogeneity. In a large country, per capita costs may be low, but the heterogeneous preferences of a large population make it hard to deliver services and formulate policy. Smaller countries may find it easier to respond to citizen preferences in a democratic way. Alesina and Spolaore substantiate their analysis with simple analytical models that show how the patterns of globalization, international conflict, and democratization of the last two hundred years can explain patterns of state formation. Their aim is not only "normative" but also "positive"—that is, not only to compute the optimal size of a state in theory but also to explain the phenomenon of country size in reality. They argue that the complexity of real world conditions does not preclude a systematic analysis, and that such an analysis, synthesizing economics, political science, and history, can help us understand real world events.

Nations without States

Nations without States PDF Author: James B. Minahan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313034788
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
Russians are suppressing the Chechen; Ibo nationalism may yet tear Nigeria apart. With the end of the Cold War, any of the world's stateless peoples could be in tomorrow's headlines. This book provides an essential guide to the stateless nations suppressed or ignored during the Cold War. In more than 200 national surveys, the volume highlights the historical, political, social, economic, and diplomatic evolution of many of the currently emerging nations without states. Including nations from all continents—from the Chechen in Eastern Europe, to the Ibo in Africa, and the Quebeckers in North America—the book addresses the current nationalist resurgence by focusing on the most basic element of any nationalism, the nation itself. The book provides the only source of concise information on stateless nations. Each entry includes the nation's name and alternative names, population statistics, information on major languages and religions, geographical information, independence declarations, information on the national flag, a brief sketch of the primary national group or groups, and a profile of the nation's history and national development to the present. A chronological appendix of declarations of independence helps to set the waves of nationalism in an historical context. A second appendix provides a geographic listing, by region and nation, of national organizations.

The Hidden Wealth of Nations

The Hidden Wealth of Nations PDF Author: David Halpern
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745656277
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Richer nations are happier, yet economic growth doesn't increase happiness. This paradox is explained by the Hidden Wealth of Nations - the extent to which citizens get along with other independently drives both economic growth and well-being. Much of this hidden wealth is expressed in everyday ways, such as our common values, the way we look after our children and elderly, or whether we trust and help strangers. It is a hidden dimension of inequality, and helps to explain why governments have found it so hard to reduce gaps in society. There are also deep cracks in this hidden wealth, in the form of our rising fears of crime, immigration and terror. Using a rich variety of international comparisons and new analysis, the book explores what is happening in contemporary societies from value change to the changing role of governments, and offers suggestions about what policymakers and citizens can do about it.

The Law of Nations

The Law of Nations PDF Author: Emer de Vattel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : International law
Languages : en
Pages : 668

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Book Description


For the People

For the People PDF Author: Simon Chadwick
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1632992701
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
How the Constitution Can Guide America Back to True Greatness ​America has become a country lacking in both physical and psychological security—and this insecurity is a clear and present danger to world peace and stability. This must-read, political call to action is for anyone dissatisfied with our dysfunctional government and seeking real change. Simon Chadwick argues that the true American dream is realizing self-actualization (The Pursuit of Happiness), the pinnacle of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs. Chadwick sets out in simple and straightforward terms how we can save US democracy by fulfilling every citizen’s innate needs, including the top echelon of achieving his or her creative potential. In order to generate greater overall contentment for its citizens, Chadwick proposes that a country must establish a democratic libertarian government, a form that is much closer to the general intent of the Constitution, which gives every person the right to live in peace, without fear, under its protection. By dissecting current events and framing them in Maslow’s hierarchy, Chadwick offers fascinating historical and cultural context, and clear, positive advice for how our country, culture, and government can move toward democratic libertarianism, self-actualization, and ultimate satisfaction.

Citizens of the Empire

Citizens of the Empire PDF Author: Robert Jensen
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 9780872864320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
As we approach the elections of 2004, U.S. progressives are faced with the challenge of how to confront our unresponsive and apparently untouchable power structures. With millions of antiwar demonstrators glibly dismissed as a "focus group," and with the collapse of political and intellectual dialogue into slogans and soundbites used to stifle protest-"Support the Troops," "We Are the Greatest Nation on Earth," etc.-many people feel cynical and hopeless. Citizens of the Empire probes into the sense of disempowerment that has resulted from the Left's inability to halt the violent and repressive course of post-9/11 U.S. policy. In this passionate and personal exploration of what it means to be a citizen of the world's most powerful, affluent and militarized nation in an era of imperial expansion, Jensen offers a potent antidote to despair over the future of democracy. In a plainspoken analysis of the dominant political rhetoric-which is intentionally crafted to depress political discourse and activism-Jensen reveals the contradictions and falsehoods of prevailing myths, using common-sense analogies that provide the reader with a clear-thinking rebuttal and a way to move forward with progressive political work and discussions. With an ethical framework that integrates political, intellectual and emotional responses to the disheartening events of the past two years, Jensen examines the ways in which society has been led to this point and offers renewed hope for constructive engagement. Robert Jensen is a professor of media law, ethics and politics at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream, among other books. He also writes for popular media, and his opinion and analytical pieces on foreign policy, politics and race have appeared in papers and magazines throughout the United States.