Liberalism is egalitarian in principle, but why doesn’t it do more to promote equality in practice? In this book, the distinguished political philosopher Michael Walzer offers a critique of liberal theory and demonstrates that crucial realities have been submerged in the evolution of contemporary liberal thought. In the standard versions of liberal theory, autonomous individuals deliberate about what ought to be done—but in the real world, citizens also organize, mobilize, bargain, and lobby. The real world is more contentious than deliberative. Ranging over hotly contested issues including multiculturalism, pluralism, difference, civil society, and racial and gender justice, Walzer suggests ways in which liberal theory might be revised to make it more hospitable to the claims of equality. Combining profound learning with practical wisdom, Michael Walzer offers a provocative reappraisal of the core tenets of liberal thought. Politics and Passion will be required reading for anyone interested in social justice—and the means by which we seek to achieve it.
Once at the corner of the study of politics, emotions have receded into the shadows, with no place in the rationalistic, structural and organisational models that dominate academic political analysis. These essays reverse the trend.
The Politics of Passion centers on an old institution among the Afro-Surinamese working class in which women have multiple sexual relationships with both men and women. These women reject marriage because of the bonds of dependency it fosters, preferring to create their own families of kin, lovers, and children. Gloria Wekker analyzes this phenomenon, known as mati work, as she vividly describes the lives of Afro-Surinamese women. She gives an account of women's sexuality that is not limited to either heterosexuality or same-sex sexuality. Her work offers new perspectives on black women's sexuality, the lives of Caribbean women, transnational gay and lesbian movements, and an Afro-Surinamese tradition that challenges conventional Western notions of marriage, gender, and sexuality. By foregrounding the voices of Afro-Surinamese women, Wekker illuminates these women's daily lives in light of the changes occurring in Surinamese society. She also considers the historical, religious, psychological, economic, linguistic, cultural, and political elements that have shaped their lives. The book concludes with stories of women who have migrated to the Netherlands, where they have created new, vibrant mati communities.
Passions matter to politics. Yet, much of the work on passions in politics focuses on such spectacular events as social movements, civil wars and revolutionary upheavals, but ignores electoral politics as banal. The contributors to this book trace the importance of passions to electoral politics with a focus on India’s landmark 2019 General Elections which saw the decisive re-election of Narendra Modi as the country’s Prime Minister. This book illustrates the economic, social and cultural processes that shaped political passions in India during the summer of 2019. The contributors compel us to take seriously the ‘structures of feeling’ in politics. Such an approach requires interdisciplinarity. Which is why the book brings together a stellar team of economists, political scientists, sociologists, historians and geographers to explain Modi’s resounding win.
In the first collection of interviews with the most prominent scholars in comparative politics since World War II, Gerardo L. Munck and Richard Snyder trace key developments in the field during the twentieth century. Organized around a broad set of themes—intellectual formation and training; major works and ideas; the craft and tools of research; colleagues, collaborators, and students; and the past and future of comparative politics—these in-depth interviews offer unique and candid reflections that bring the research process to life and shed light on the human dimension of scholarship. Giving voice to scholars who practice their craft in different ways yet share a passion for knowledge about global politics, Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics offers a wealth of insights into contemporary debates about the state of knowledge in comparative politics and the future of the field.
Political theorists have long argued that passion has no place in the political realm where reason reigns supreme. But, is this dichotomy between reason and passion sustainable? Does it underestimate the indispensable role of passion in a fully democratic society? Drawing upon Plato, Rousseau, and contemporary feminist theorists, Cheryl Hall argues that passion is an essential component of a just political community and that the need to educate passion together with reason is paramount. Trouble with Passion provides a compelling defense of the crucial place of passion in politics.
Cuban politics has long been remarkable for its passionate intensity, and yet few scholars have explored the effect of emotions on political attitudes and action in Cuba or elsewhere. This book thus offers an important new approach by bringing feelings back into the study of politics and showing how the politics of passion and affection have interacted to shape Cuban history throughout the twentieth century. Damián Fernández characterizes the politics of passion as the pursuit of a moral absolute for the nation as a whole. While such a pursuit rallied the Cuban people around charismatic leaders such as Fidel Castro, Fernández finds that it also set the stage for disaffection and disconnection when the grand goal never fully materialized. At the same time, he reveals how the politics of affection-taking care of family and friends outside the formal structures of government-has paradoxically both undermined state regimes and helped them remain in power by creating an informal survival network that provides what the state cannot or will not.
From America’s preeminent columnist, named by the Financial Times the most influential commentator in the nation, a must-have collection of Charles Krauthammer’s essential, timeless writings. A brilliant stylist known for an uncompromising honesty that challenged conventional wisdom at every turn, Krauthammer dazzled readers for decades with his keen insight into politics and government. His weekly column was a must-read in Washington and across the country. Don’t miss the best of Krauthammer’s intelligence, erudition and wit collected in one volume. Readers will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a passionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views—on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example—defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krauthammer’s major path-breaking essays—on bioethics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower—that have profoundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused reflections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Winston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist. With a special, highly autobiographical introduction in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensible chronicle takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.
A collection of Jane Fonda's most stirring public statements from 1970 through to 2005, including speeches, interviews and articles. For over 30 years Fonda has adamantly campaigned against war and militarism and on behalf of women's rights, women's health, feminism and the environment. Here Hershberger has culled Fonda's words from a range of little-known and previously inaccessible sources, including the declassified FBI files obtained by Fonda in a federal lawsuit as well as anti-war movement archives that have previously been unavailable to the public.
When Bethine Church moved to Washington, D.C., in 1957 with her son and her husband, Frank -- Idaho's newly elected Democratic senator and, at 32, the youngest member of the senate -- she was warned by the wife of a veteran politician that she would end up hating the capital. All the light will shine on her husband, and she will wither away in his shadow. But Bethine had been Frank's political partner since their earliest days together and she saw no reason why that would change. And in fact it didn't. In her own winsome words, A Lifelong Affair is the fascinating story of the woman people called "The Third Senator from Idaho." Critical chapters of our history, from civil rights battles and the Vietnam War to Senator Church's chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee, come vividly to life here, as does the idealism and love of people that animate Bethine Church's entire career in politics. Bethine grew up in an Idaho family steeped in politics. Her father and an uncle both served as governor of Idaho; her cousin was a U.S. senator. Bethine's first active role in politics was in a campaign in the early 1930s, when she asked a shoe clerk to "boat for my daddy." In high school she was the one girl in a gang of students who gathered every week at Bethine's house to sit around and talk politics with her father. Those were the days of innocence in the West, when politics was seen as a civic duty, when winning an election depended on which candidate worked the hardest, shook the most hands, and could energize a crowd at a county fair or a church bazaar. Politics had not yet been distorted by huge advertizing budgets, corporate donations, media blitzes, and public cynicism. Besides being a tale of a political woman, A Lifelong Affair is a poignant love story. Close friends in high school, Bethine and Frank married after he returned from World War II service in China. Together they battled Frank's first encounter with cancer when he was a 24-year-old Stanford law student. That searing experience set the tone for their life together fighting as a team for causes they believed in strongly. When cancer reappeared in a more virulent form in the early 1980s, they couldn't beat it, and Frank died at the still young age of 59. Bethine, now in her eightieth year, remains active in Democratic politics at all levels and in Idaho wilderness preservation. Book jacket.
