Equality and Legitimacy

Equality and Legitimacy PDF Author: Wojciech Sadurski
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0199545170
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This text examines the relationship between the idea of legitimacy of law in a democratic system and equality. It seeks to demonstrate how a conception of democratic legitimacy is necessary for understanding and reconciling equality and political legitimacy.

Equality and Legitimacy

Equality and Legitimacy PDF Author: Wojciech Sadurski
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0199545170
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This text examines the relationship between the idea of legitimacy of law in a democratic system and equality. It seeks to demonstrate how a conception of democratic legitimacy is necessary for understanding and reconciling equality and political legitimacy.

The Clash of Rights

The Clash of Rights PDF Author: Paul M. Sniderman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300069815
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Why do citizens in pluralist democracies disagree collectively about the very values they agree on individually? This provocative book highlights the inescapable conflicts of rights and values at the heart of democratic politics. Based on interviews with thousands of citizens and political decision makers, the book focuses on modern Canadian politics, investigating why a country so fortunate in its history and circumstances is on the brink of dissolution. Taking advantage of new techniques of computer-assisted interviewing, the authors explore the politics of a wide array of issues, from freedom of expression to public funding of religious schools to government wiretapping to antihate legislation, analyzing not only why citizens take the positions they do but also how easily they can be talked out of them. In the process, the authors challenge a number of commonly held assumptions about democratic politics. They show, for example, that political elites do not constitute a special bulwark protecting civil liberties; that arguments over political rights are as deeply driven by commitment to the master values of democratic politics as by failure to understand them; and that consensus on the rights of groups is inherently more fragile than on the rights of individuals.

The Constitution of Equality

The Constitution of Equality PDF Author: Thomas Christiano
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191613916
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description
What is the ethical basis of democracy? And what reasons do we have to go along with democratic decisions even when we disagree with them? And when do we have reason to say that we may justly ignore democratic decisions? These questions must be answered if we are to have answers to some of the most important questions facing our global community, which include whether there is a human right to democracy and whether we must attempt to spread democracy throughout the globe. This book provides a philosophical account of the moral foundations of democracy and of liberalism. It shows how democracy and basic liberal rights are grounded in the principle of public equality, which tells us that in the establishment of law and policy we must treat persons as equals in ways they can see are treating them as equals. The principle of public equality is shown to be the fundamental principle of social justice. This account enables us to understand the nature and roles of adversarial politics and public deliberation in political life. It gives an account of the grounds of the authority of democracy. It also shows when the authority of democracy runs out. The author shows how the violations of democratic and liberal rights are beyond the legitimate authority of democracy, how the creation of persistent minorities in a democratic society, and the failure to ensure a basic minimum for all persons weaken the legitimate authority of democracy.

Legitimacy

Legitimacy PDF Author: Arthur Isak Applbaum
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674983467
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
At an unsettled time for liberal democracy, with global eruptions of authoritarian and arbitrary rule, here is one of the first full-fledged philosophical accounts of what makes governments legitimate. What makes a government legitimate? The dominant view is that public officials have the right to rule us, even if they are unfair or unfit, as long as they gain power through procedures traceable to the consent of the governed. In this rigorous and timely study, Arthur Isak Applbaum argues that adherence to procedure is not enough: even a properly chosen government does not rule legitimately if it fails to protect basic rights, to treat its citizens as political equals, or to act coherently. How are we to reconcile every person’s entitlement to freedom with the necessity of coercive law? Applbaum’s answer is that a government legitimately governs its citizens only if the government is a free group agent constituted by free citizens. To be a such a group agent, a government must uphold three principles. The liberty principle, requiring that the basic rights of citizens be secured, is necessary to protect against inhumanity, a tyranny in practice. The equality principle, requiring that citizens have equal say in selecting who governs, is necessary to protect against despotism, a tyranny in title. The agency principle, requiring that a government’s actions reflect its decisions and its decisions reflect its reasons, is necessary to protect against wantonism, a tyranny of unreason. Today, Applbaum writes, the greatest threat to the established democracies is neither inhumanity nor despotism but wantonism, the domination of citizens by incoherent, inconstant, and incontinent rulers. A government that cannot govern itself cannot legitimately govern others.

Police Brutality, Racial Profiling, and Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System

Police Brutality, Racial Profiling, and Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System PDF Author: Egharevba, Stephen
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1522510893
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
In order to protect and defend citizens, the foundational concepts of fairness and equality must be adhered to within any criminal justice system. When this is not the case, accountability of authorities should be pursued to maintain the integrity and pursuit of justice. Police Brutality, Racial Profiling, and Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly material on social problems involving victimization of minorities and police accountability. Presenting relevant perspectives on a global and cross-cultural scale, this book is ideally designed for researchers, professionals, upper-level students, and practitioners involved in the fields of criminal justice and corrections.

Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law

Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law PDF Author: Lukas H. Meyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521199492
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
"Most chapters in this volume were first presented at a symposium held at the University of Bern in December 2006"--Page ix.

The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière

The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière PDF Author: Todd May
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271034492
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This book examines the political perspective of French thinker and historian Jacques Ranci&ère. Ranci&ère argues that a democratic politics emerges out of people&’s acting under the presupposition of their own equality with those better situated in the social hierarchy. Todd May examines and extends this presupposition, offering a normative framework for understanding it, placing it in the current political context, and showing how it challenges traditional political philosophy and opens up neglected political paths. He demonstrates that the presupposition of equality orients political action around those who act on their own behalf&—and those who act in solidarity with them&—rather than, as with the political theories of John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Amartya Sen, those who distribute the social goods. As May argues, Ranci&ère&’s view offers both hope and perspective for those who seek to think about and engage in progressive political action.

The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Regimes

The Legitimacy of International Human Rights Regimes PDF Author: Andreas Føllesdal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107034604
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This book traverses the disciplines of law, political philosophy and international relations in assessing the normative legitimacy of international human rights regimes.

Against Political Equality

Against Political Equality PDF Author: Tongdong Bai
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069123020X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
How a hybrid Confucian-engendered form of governance might solve today’s political problems What might a viable political alternative to liberal democracy look like? In Against Political Equality, Tongdong Bai offers a possibility inspired by Confucian ideas. Bai argues that domestic governance influenced by Confucianism can embrace the liberal aspects of democracy along with the democratic ideas of equal opportunities and governmental accountability to the people. But Confucianism would give more political decision-making power to those with the moral, practical, and intellectual capabilities of caring for the people. While most democratic thinkers still focus on strengthening equality to cure the ills of democracy, the proposed hybrid regime—made up of Confucian-inspired meritocratic characteristics combined with democratic elements and a quasi-liberal system of laws and rights—recognizes that egalitarian qualities sometimes conflict with good governance and the protection of liberties, and defends liberal aspects by restricting democratic ones. Bai applies his views to the international realm by supporting a hierarchical order based on how humane each state is toward its own and other peoples, and on the principle of international interventions whereby humane responsibilities override sovereignty. Exploring the deficiencies posed by many liberal democracies, Against Political Equality presents a novel Confucian-engendered alternative for solving today’s political problems.

Legitimacy and Power Politics

Legitimacy and Power Politics PDF Author: Mlada Bukovansky
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691146705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This book examines the causes and consequences of a major transformation in both domestic and international politics: the shift from dynastically legitimated monarchical sovereignty to popularly legitimated national sovereignty. It analyzes the impact of Enlightenment discourse on politics in eighteenth-century Europe and the United States, showing how that discourse facilitated new authority struggles in Old Regime Europe, shaped the American and French Revolutions, and influenced the relationships between the revolutionary regimes and the international system. The interaction between traditional and democratic ideas of legitimacy transformed the international system by the early nineteenth century, when people began to take for granted the desirability of equality, individual rights, and restraint of power. Using an interpretive, historically sensitive approach to international relations, the author considers the complex interplay between elite discourses about political legitimacy and strategic power struggles within and among states. She shows how culture, power, and interests interacted to produce a crucial yet poorly understood case of international change. The book not only shows the limits of liberal and realist theories of international relations, but also demonstrates how aspects of these theories can be integrated with insights derived from a constructivist perspective that takes culture and legitimacy seriously. The author finds that cultural contests over the terms of political legitimacy constitute one of the central mechanisms by which the character of sovereignty is transformed in the international system--a conclusion as true today as it was in the eighteenth century.