Download Free Pluralist Democracy In International Relations Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Pluralist Democracy In International Relations and write the review.

This book demonstrates the importance of democracy for understanding modern international relations and recovers the pluralist tradition of L.T. Hobhouse, G.D.H. Cole, and David Mitrany. It shows that pluralism’s typical interest in civil society, trade unionism, and transnationalism evolved as part of a wide-ranging democratic critique that representative democracies are hardly self-sustaining and are ill-equipped to represent all entitled social and political interests in international relations. Pluralist democratic peace theory advocates transnational loyalties to check nationalist sentiments and demands the functional representation of social and economic interests in international organizations. On the basis of the pluralist tradition, the book shows that theories about domestic democracy and international organizations co-evolved before scientific liberal democratic peace theory introduced new inside/outside distinctions.
The political discontent or malaise that typifies most modern democracies is mainly caused by the widely shared feeling that the political freedom of citizens to influence the development of their society and, related to this, their personal life, has become rather limited. We can only address this discontent when we rehabilitate politics, the deliberate, joint effort to give direction to society and to make the best of ourselves. In Pluralism, Democracy and Political Knowledge, Hans Blokland examines this challenge via a critical appraisal of the pluralist conception of politics and democracy. This conception was formulated by, above all, Robert A. Dahl, one of the most important political scholars and democratic theorists of the last half century. Taking his work as the point of reference, this book not only provides an illuminating history of political science, told via Dahl and his critics, it also offers a revealing analysis as to what progress we have made in our thinking on pluralism and democracy, and what progress we could make, given the epistemological constraints of the social sciences. Above and beyond this, the development and the problems of pluralism and democracy are explored in the context of the process of modernization. The author specifically discusses the extent to which individualization, differentiation and rationalization contribute to the current political malaise in those countries which adhere to a pluralist political system.
This book is a collection of contributions by leading scholars on theoretical and contemporary problems of militant democracy. The term 'militant democracy' was first coined in 1937. In a militant democracy preventive measures are aimed, at least in practice, at restricting people who would openly contest and challenge democratic institutions and fundamental preconditions of democracy like secularism - even though such persons act within the existing limits of, and rely on the rights offered by, democracy. In the shadow of the current wars on terrorism, which can also involve rights restrictions, the overlapping though distinct problem of militant democracy seems to be lost, notwithstanding its importance for emerging and established democracies. This volume will be of particular significance outside the German-speaking world, since the bulk of the relevant literature on militant democracy is in the German language. The book is of interest to academics in the field of law, political studies and constitutionalism.
In this interdisciplinary volume, a group of prominent international scholars considers alternative political formations to the nation-state, discussing their ability to preserve and expand the achievements of democratic constitutionalism in the twenty-first century and their capacity to deal with deep societal differences.
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.
This book demonstrates the importance of democracy for understanding modern international relations and recovers the pluralist tradition of L.T. Hobhouse, G.D.H. Cole, and David Mitrany. It shows that pluralism’s typical interest in civil society, trade unionism, and transnationalism evolved as part of a wide-ranging democratic critique that representative democracies are hardly self-sustaining and are ill-equipped to represent all entitled social and political interests in international relations. Pluralist democratic peace theory advocates transnational loyalties to check nationalist sentiments and demands the functional representation of social and economic interests in international organizations. On the basis of the pluralist tradition, the book shows that theories about domestic democracy and international organizations co-evolved before scientific liberal democratic peace theory introduced new inside/outside distinctions.
This edited volume provides a coherent and comprehensive assessment of William E. Connolly’s significant contribution to the field of political theory.
How should liberal democratic governments respond to citizens as religious believers whose values, norms and practices might lie outside the cultural mainstream? Some of the most challenging political questions arising today focus on the adequacy of a policy of ‘live and let live’ liberal toleration in contexts where disputes about the metaphysical truth of conflicting world-views abound. Does liberal toleration fail to give all citizens their due? Do citizens of faith deserve a more robust form of accommodation from the state in the form of ‘recognition’. This issue is far from settled. Controversies over the terms of religious accommodation continue to dominate political agendas around the world. This is the first edited collection to provide a sustained examination of the politics of toleration and recognition in an age of religious pluralism. The aftermath of the events of September 11th have dramatised the urgency of this debate. It has also surfaced, nationally and globally, in disputes about terrorism, security and gender and human rights questions in relation to minority communities. This volume brings together a group of new and established scholars from the fields of law and philosophy, who all present fresh and challenging perspectives on an urgent debate. It will be indispensable reading for advanced researchers in political and legal philosophy, religious and cultural studies and related disciplines.
Shows that current elitist theories are based on an inadequate understanding of the early writings of democratic theory and that much sociological evidence has been ignored.
This book gathers a series of studies by scholars who have dedicated these last few years to research in the field of participatory democracy. Their purpose is precisely to engage in a theoretical discussion about the value of participatory democracy in the 21st century. Part I deals with the challenge of antipolitics. This is one of the greatest challenges faced by contemporary democratic theory: How can it be possible to take into account in political decision-making processes those whose voices issue disagreement with the available alternatives in the exact same political decision-making processes, without simply excluding them provisionally from democratic participation? Part II focuses on challenges to deliberative systems. Deliberative democracy is probably the most important alternative conception of democracy in today’s available literature on the topic, insofar as it responds to a sort of general uneasiness with mere preference aggregation by majoritarian voting, and instead seeks to incorporate the vast spectrum of heterogeneous interests in modern societies in the search for mutually acceptable policies. However, it is also subject to specific theoretical challenges that must be overcome if it is to be taken seriously as a viable alternative for providing better conditions of political participation. Part II deals with some of those challenges, even if in a sympathetic attitude towards deliberative decision-making. Finally, Part III approaches pluralism and cultural diversity in a shared public space. Its main challenge consists in promoting an idea of active citizenship that can meet the demands of a world increasingly defined by the processes of globalization. Ultimately, that is what will end up combining a valid notion of active citizenship with effective decision-making procedures in pluralistic democracies. More than a simple summary of research, Challenges to Democratic Participation is designed to be accessible and useful to a wide variety of audiences, from scholars and practitioners working in numerous disciplines and fields, to activists and average citizens who are interested in seeking a theoretical groundwork for democratic practices; it also intends to enhance current scholarship, serving as a guide to existing research and identifying useful future research.