Political Theory
Big ideas matter in politics, and they spark fierce debates about the future of our society. This pathbreaking new textbook examines the key political ideas that shape our lives today. Political Theory: Why Big Ideas Matter takes a unique disruptive approach by creating conversations between two or three important thinkers, within multiple cultural contexts and perspectives to show innovative connections between thinkers across time and space. Rather than drawing solely from the established 'canon' of traditional political thought, which has been criticised for being too white, too male, and too Western, this book is part of a worldwide effort to contest and diversify. Have big ideas on sovereignty been fundamental to establishing political order, or a tool to justify colonisation? Is John Locke's theory of property fit to answer questions about who owns our data or the matter of reparations? Can the tradition of human rights incorporate non-human species? Is gender performative, and how does this represent the struggles of LGBTQ+ communities? Political theory can get us thinking more deeply about empirical events, but empirical events can also get us critiquing theories for falling short. This textbook is essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students of political theory and shows how we can be better political theorists. Simon Stevens is Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy at De Montfort University Leicester, UK and is a winner of the Political Studies Association Bernard Crick Prize for Outstanding Teaching.
The Morality of Politics
This book deals with the morality, identity, self-conception and prestige of states, all of which goes well beyond the narrow, rationalist defence of national interests, which dominates most IR studies. The honour of states - which is most clearly seen in situations of war - rests on the ideal conception of 'all of us', which includes all citizens, all classes and all generations, set against their opposite numbers outside of 'our' immediate sphere of domination. This state-based image of itself and its existential teleology constitutes its very essence, notwithstanding that it is often seen as a deviation ('exception') from the normal state of affairs, where the state is 'just' there to serve and support the economy and its principal actors. The volume, which is particularly topical given the current belligerent state of Europe and the global struggle for hegemony, pursues this line of thinking along three different but interconnected routes. The first chapter delves into the morality question itself, tackling the complex relationship between politics, law and morals, and between states and citizens. The universe of moral judgements feeds off rigid distinctions between good and bad, I/we and the Other, restraint and self-restraint, liberty and puritanism. Political actors support it, law legitimates it, and citizens enact it. The second chapter deals with the question of the honour and prestige of states, historically and conceptually; this is a question that has been either ignored or misconceived by recent international relations theories, but which has now shown its renewed relevance and cries out for an explanation. Finally, the third article tackles the question of war and peace head-on. Its basic theorem is that the two are not contradictory but complementary: reasons for war are produced in times of peace. Both Kant's thesis on 'perpetual peace' and its modern corollary, that is, that democracies do not go to war against each other, are seen as fallacious. The chapter ends by addressing the question of the background and rationale of the war in Ukraine, in the process critiquing the moral stance characterising the Western understanding of the situation. Thus, all three chapters revolve around issues that relate to the interaction of war and democracy and the underlying morality that both legitimates and underpins the actions of politicians as well as citizens.
The Battle for Bodies, Hearts and Minds in Postwar Greece
One Man’s Dynamic Role in California Politics and Water Development, and World Affairs
Post-Popular Cultures and Digital Capitalism in Latin America
One Man’s Dynamic Role in California Politics and Water Development, and World Affairs
