Polycentric Governance and the Good Society: A Normative and Philosophical Investigation offers an examination of the idea of polycentric governance as one of the pillars of a flourishing human society. Rather than following the conventional path of suppressing complexity and diversity for the sake of reaching agreement on justice and political stability, David Thunder and Pablo Paniagua see complexity and diversity as assets that should be leveraged to make the "Open Society" a m...

Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology turns to complex systems thinking in search of a suitable framework to explore social complexity in Archaeology.Social complexity in archaeology is commonly related to properties of complex societies such as states, as opposed to so-called simple societies such as tribes or chiefdoms. These conceptualisations of complexity are ultimately rooted in Eurocentric perspectives with problematic implications for the field of ar...

Politicians invoke grand ideas: social justice, democracy, liberty, equality, community. But what do these ideas really mean? How can politicians across the political spectrum appeal to the same values?This new edition of Adam Swift's highly readable introduction to political philosophy answers these important questions, and includes new material on global justice, feminism, and method in political theory, as well as updated guides to further reading. This lively and accessible boo...

The first two editions of Models of Democracy have proven immensely popular among students and specialists worldwide. In a succinct and far-reaching analysis, David Held provides an introduction to central accounts of democracy from classical Greece to the present and a critical discussion of what democracy should mean today.This new edition has been extensively revised and updated to take account of significant transformations in world politics, and a new chapter has been...

When do governments merit our allegiance, and when should they be denied it? Ian Shapiro explores this most enduring of political dilemmas in this innovative and engaging book. Building on his highly popular Yale courses, Professor Shapiro evaluates the main contending accounts of the sources of political legitimacy. Starting with theorists of the Enlightenment, he examines the arguments put forward by utilitarians, Marxists, and theorists of the social contract. Next he turns to the anti-...

Can libertarians care about social justice? In Free Market Fairness, John Tomasi argues that they can and should. Drawing simultaneously on moral insights from defenders of economic liberty such as F. A. Hayek and advocates of social justice such as John Rawls, Tomasi presents a new theory of liberal justice. This theory, free market fairness, is committed to both limited government and the material betterment of the poor. Unlike traditional libertarians, Tomasi argues that proper...

Today the language of human rights, if not human rights themselves, is nearly universal. Human Rights brings together essays that attend to both the allure and criticism of human rights. They examine contestation and contingency in today's human rights politics and help us rethink some of the basic concepts of human rights. Questions addressed in Human Rights include: Can national self-determination be reconciled with human rights? Can human rights be advanced without thw...

When do governments merit our allegiance, and when should they be denied it? Ian Shapiro investigates this most enduring of political dilemmas in this innovative and engaging book.Shapiro discusses the different answers that have been proposed by the major political theorists in the utilitarian, Marxist, and social contract traditions over the past four centuries. Showing how these political philosophies have all been decisively shaped by the core values of the Enlightenment, he de...

This book provides a highly original account of the changing meaning of democracy in the contemporary world, offering both an historical and philosophical analysis of the nature and prospects of democracy today.

A thought-provoking challenge to our ideas about philanthropy, marking it as a deeply political activity that allows the wealthy to dictate more than we think.Philanthropy plays a huge role in supporting the provision of many public goods in contemporary societies. As a result, decisions that affect public outcomes and people's diverse interests are often dependent on the preferences and judgments of the rich. Political theorist Emma Saunders-Hastings argues that p...

Contrary to predictions that it would become increasingly redundant in a globalizing world, citizenship is back with a vengeance. The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship brings together leading experts in law, philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, and geography to provide a multidisciplinary, comparative discussion of different dimensions of citizenship: as legal status and political membership; as rights and obligations; as identity and belonging; as civic virtues and p...

Is democracy worth saving? Responding to the erosion of democracy, philosophical debates have pivoted from analyzing the best forms of democracy to questioning what is so valuable about democracy to begin with, how we can save it, and whether it is indeed worth saving.Contemporary Democratic Theory charts this pivot and surveys the most important new developments in the philosophical, theoretical, and normative examination of the concept of democracy. Comparisons that domi...