The Necessity of Politics

The Necessity of Politics PDF Author: Christopher Beem
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226041468
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Even in the midst of an economic boom, most Americans would agree that our civic institutions are hard pressed and that we are growing ever more cynical and disconnected from one another. In response to this bleak assessment, advocates of "civil society" argue that rejuvenating our neighborhoods, churches, and community associations will lead to a more moral, civic-minded polity. Christopher Beem argues that while the movement's goals are laudable, simply restoring local institutions will not solve the problem; a civil society also needs politics and government to provide a sense of shared values and ideas. Tracing the concept back to Tocqueville and Hegel, Beem shows that both thinkers faced similar problems and both rejected civil society as the sole solution. He then shows how, in the case of the Civil Rights movement, both political groups and the federal government were necessary to effect a new consensus on race. Taking up the arguments of Robert Putnam, Michael Sandel, and others, this timely book calls for a more developed sense of what the state is for and what our politics ought to be about. "This book is bound to incite controversy and to contribute to our ongoing grappling with where our own democratic political culture is going. . . . Beem helps us to get things right by offering a corrective to any and all visions of civil society sanitized from politics."—Jean Bethke Elshtain, from the Foreword "[Beem] makes an impressive case. At the end of the day, there really is no substitute for governmental authority in fostering the moral identity of the body politic."—Robert P. George, Times Literary Supplement

The Necessity of Politics

The Necessity of Politics PDF Author: Christopher Beem
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226041468
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Get Book Here

Book Description
Even in the midst of an economic boom, most Americans would agree that our civic institutions are hard pressed and that we are growing ever more cynical and disconnected from one another. In response to this bleak assessment, advocates of "civil society" argue that rejuvenating our neighborhoods, churches, and community associations will lead to a more moral, civic-minded polity. Christopher Beem argues that while the movement's goals are laudable, simply restoring local institutions will not solve the problem; a civil society also needs politics and government to provide a sense of shared values and ideas. Tracing the concept back to Tocqueville and Hegel, Beem shows that both thinkers faced similar problems and both rejected civil society as the sole solution. He then shows how, in the case of the Civil Rights movement, both political groups and the federal government were necessary to effect a new consensus on race. Taking up the arguments of Robert Putnam, Michael Sandel, and others, this timely book calls for a more developed sense of what the state is for and what our politics ought to be about. "This book is bound to incite controversy and to contribute to our ongoing grappling with where our own democratic political culture is going. . . . Beem helps us to get things right by offering a corrective to any and all visions of civil society sanitized from politics."—Jean Bethke Elshtain, from the Foreword "[Beem] makes an impressive case. At the end of the day, there really is no substitute for governmental authority in fostering the moral identity of the body politic."—Robert P. George, Times Literary Supplement

The Politics of Necessity

The Politics of Necessity PDF Author: Elke Zuern
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 029925013X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The end of apartheid in South Africa broke down political barriers, extending to all races the formal rights of citizenship, including the right to participate in free elections and parliamentary democracy. But South Africa remains one of the most economically polarized nations in the world. In The Politics of Necessity Elke Zuern forcefully argues that working toward greater socio-economic equality—access to food, housing, land, jobs—is crucial to achieving a successful and sustainable democracy. Drawing on interviews with local residents and activists in South Africa’s impoverished townships during more than a decade of dramatic political change, Zuern tracks the development of community organizing and reveals the shifting challenges faced by poor citizens. Under apartheid, township residents began organizing to press the government to address the basic material necessities of the poor and expanded their demands to include full civil and political rights. While the movement succeeded in gaining formal political rights, democratization led to a new government that instituted neo-liberal economic reforms and sought to minimize protest. In discouraging dissent and failing to reduce economic inequality, South Africa’s new democracy has continued to disempower the poor. By comparing movements in South Africa to those in other African and Latin American states, this book identifies profound challenges to democratization. Zuern asserts the fundamental indivisibility of all human rights, showing how protest movements that call attention to socio-economic demands, though often labeled a threat to democracy, offer significant opportunities for modern democracies to evolve into systems of rule that empower all citizens.

Politics for Everybody

Politics for Everybody PDF Author: Ned O'Gorman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022668315X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
In this age of nearly unprecedented partisan rancor, you’d be forgiven for thinking we could all do with a smaller daily dose of politics. In his provocative and sharp book, however, Ned O’Gorman argues just the opposite: Politics for Everybody contends that what we really need to do is engage more deeply with politics, rather than chuck the whole thing out the window. In calling for a purer, more humanistic relationship with politics—one that does justice to the virtues of open, honest exchange—O’Gorman draws on the work of Hannah Arendt (1906–75). As a German-born Jewish thinker who fled the Nazis for the United States, Arendt set out to defend politics from its many detractors along several key lines: the challenge of separating genuine politics from distorted forms; the difficulty of appreciating politics for what it is; the problems of truth and judgment in politics; and the role of persuasion in politics. O’Gorman’s book offers an insightful introduction to Arendt’s ideas for anyone who wants to think more carefully

Overcoming Necessity

Overcoming Necessity PDF Author: Thomas P. Crocker
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300181612
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
An argument for why emergencies are no excuse for extralegal action by presidents Using emergency as a cause for action ultimately leads to an almost unnoticed evolution in the political understanding of presidential powers. The Constitution, however, was designed to function under "states of exception," most notably through the separation of powers, and provides ample internal checks on emergency actions taken under claims of necessity. Thomas Crocker urges Congress, the courts, and other bodies to put those checks into practice.

Machiavelli and the Modern State

Machiavelli and the Modern State PDF Author: Alissa M. Ardito
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107693705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
This book offers a significant reinterpretation of the history of republican political thought and of Niccol- Machiavelli's place within it. It locates Machiavelli's political thought within enduring debates about the proper size of republics. From the sixteenth century onward, as states grew larger, it was believed only monarchies could govern large territories effectively. Republicanism was a form of government relegated to urban city-states, anachronisms in the new age of the territorial state. For centuries, history and theory were in agreement: constructing an extended republic was as futile as trying to square the circle; but then James Madison devised a compound representative republic that enabled popular government to take on renewed life in the modern era. This work argues that Machiavelli had his own Madisonian impulse and deserves to be recognized as the first modern political theorist to envision the possibility of a republic with a large population extending over a broad territory.

The Work of Politics

The Work of Politics PDF Author: Steven Klein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847862X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This theoretically innovative book shows how democratic social movements can use the welfare state to challenge domination in society.

False Necessity--anti-necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy

False Necessity--anti-necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy PDF Author: Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description


Reckoning

Reckoning PDF Author: Deva R. Woodly
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197603955
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
"Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements is an analysis of the emergence of the Movement for Black Lives, its organizational structure and culture, and its strategies and tactics, while also laying out and contextualizing the social movement's unique political philosophy, Radical Black Feminist Pragmatism, along with documenting measurable political effects in terms of changing public meanings, public opinion, and policy. Throughout the text, the author interweaves theoretical and empirical observations, rendering both an illustration of this movement and an analysis of the work social movements do in democracy"--

States of Exception in American History

States of Exception in American History PDF Author: Gary Gerstle
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022671232X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
States of Exception in American History brings to light the remarkable number of instances since the Founding in which the protections of the Constitution have been overridden, held in abeyance, or deliberately weakened for certain members of the polity. In the United States, derogations from the rule of law seem to have been a feature of—not a bug in—the constitutional system. The first comprehensive account of the politics of exceptions and emergencies in the history of the United States, this book weaves together historical studies of moments and spaces of exception with conceptual analyses of emergency, the state of exception, sovereignty, and dictatorship. The Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Cold War figure prominently in the essays; so do Francis Lieber, Frederick Douglass, John Dewey, Clinton Rossiter, and others who explored whether it was possible for the United States to survive states of emergency without losing its democratic way. States of Exception combines political theory and the history of political thought with histories of race and political institutions. It is both inspired by and illuminating of the American experience with constitutional rule in the age of terror and Trump.

Politics of Last Resort

Politics of Last Resort PDF Author: Jonathan White
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198791720
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The book examines how a certain way of governing, invoking exceptional measures for exceptional times, has become central to the workings of the European Union.