Coercion, Authority and Democracy
Coercion, Authority and Democracy

Author: Grahame Booker

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-10-31

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 3031168836

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Classical liberalism has typically sought to maintain as much room as possible for the exercise of personal initiative in the face of the encroachment of states. This book explores these questions of coercion and authority in the context of the size and scope of the state and argues that the state and its agents should be held to the same moral rules as are the individuals it rules over. The book considers how a distinct feature of the state is its police or coercive power, about which one may ask how the state acquires it and what if anything would justify its use. It considers the implication that there is nothing inherent about state agents that entitles one to behave in ways that we would not accept from a private actor, and how once that argument is made, the state’s claim to authority is weakened. The author also discusses the extent to which democracy has been thought to provide any sort of justification for coercion or authority. This book will be of interest to academics and students of political philosophy, especially classical liberalism, and legal philosophy.

The Problem of Political Authority
The Problem of Political Authority

Author: Michael Huemer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-10-29

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1137281669

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The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.

Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy
Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy

Author: Kenneth A. Schultz

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-07-26

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780521796699

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Kenneth Schultz explores the effects of democratic politics on the use and success of coercive diplomacy. He argues that open political competition between the government and opposition parties influences the decision to use threats in international crises, how rival states interpret those threats, and whether or not crises can be settled short of war. The relative transparency of their political processes means that, while democratic governments cannot easily conceal domestic constraints against using force, they can also credibly demonstrate resolve when their threats enjoy strong domestic support. As a result, compared to their non-democratic counterparts, democracies are more selective about making threats, but those they do make are more likely to be successful - that is, to gain a favorable outcome without resort to war. Schultz develops his argument through a series of game-theoretic models and tests the resulting hypothesis using both statistical analyses and historical case studies.

Authoritarian Police in Democracy
Authoritarian Police in Democracy

Author: Yanilda María González

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-11-12

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1108900380

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In countries around the world, from the United States to the Philippines to Chile, police forces are at the center of social unrest and debates about democracy and rule of law. This book examines the persistence of authoritarian policing in Latin America to explain why police violence and malfeasance remain pervasive decades after democratization. It also examines the conditions under which reform can occur. Drawing on rich comparative analysis and evidence from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, the book opens up the 'black box' of police bureaucracies to show how police forces exert power and cultivate relationships with politicians, as well as how social inequality impedes change. González shows that authoritarian policing persists not in spite of democracy but in part because of democratic processes and public demand. When societal preferences over the distribution of security and coercion are fragmented along existing social cleavages, politicians possess few incentives to enact reform.

Power in Deliberative Democracy
Power in Deliberative Democracy

Author: Nicole Curato

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-10

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 3319955349

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Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism.

Jane Mansbridge
Jane Mansbridge

Author: Melissa S. Williams

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 1351682458

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Jane Mansbridge’s intellectual career is marked by field-shifting contributions to democratic theory, feminist scholarship, political science methodology, and the empirical study of social movements and direct democracy. Her work has fundamentally challenged existing paradigms in both normative political theory and empirical political science and launched new lines of scholarly inquiry on the most basic questions of the discipline: the sort of equality democracy needs, the goods of political participation, the nature of power, the purposes of deliberation, the forms of political representation, the obstacles to collective action, and the inescapable need for coercion. The editor has focused on work in three key areas: Participation and power Mansbridge’s early work on participatory democracy generated a key insight that has informed all of her subsequent work: the kind of equality we need to legitimate decisions under circumstances of common interests (equal respect) differs from the kind of equality we need when interests conflict (equal power). Deliberation and representation In the chapters in this section, Mansbridge adds nuance to democratic theory by disaggregating different modes of political representation and explicating the ways in which each can contribute to the deliberative, aggregative and expressive functions of democratic institutions. Legitimate coercion Mansbridge exemplifies a collaborative spirit through the practice of deliberative co-authorship, through which she and colleagues construct a taxonomy of procedures that can legitimize enforceable collective decisions. Essential reading for anyone interested in liberal conceptions of equality, participation, representation, deliberation, power and coercion.

Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State
Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State

Author: Robert Audi

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0199796149

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Democratic states must protect the liberty of citizens and must accommodate both religious liberty and cultural diversity. This democratic imperative is one reason for the increasing secularity of most modern democracies. Religious citizens, however, commonly see a secular state as unfriendly toward religion. This book articulates principles that enable secular governments to protect liberty in a way that judiciously separates church and state and fully respects religious citizens. After presenting a brief account of the relation between religion and ethics, the book shows how ethics can be independent of religion-evidentially autonomous in a way that makes moral knowledge possible for secular citizens--without denying religious sources a moral authority of their own. With this account in view, it portrays a church-state separation that requires governments not only to avoid religious establishment but also to maintain religious neutrality. The book shows how religious neutrality is related to such issues as teaching evolutionary biology in public schools, the legitimacy of vouchers to fund private schooling, and governmental support of "faith-based initiatives." The final chapter shows how the proposed theory of religion and politics incorporates toleration and forgiveness as elements in flourishing democracies. Tolerance and forgiveness are described; their role in democratic citizenship is clarified; and in this light a conception of civic virtue is proposed. Overall, the book advances the theory of liberal democracy, clarifies the relation between religion and ethics, provides distinctive principles governing religion in politics, and provides a theory of toleration for pluralistic societies. It frames institutional principles to guide governmental policy toward religion; it articulates citizenship standards for political conduct by individuals; it examines the case for affirming these two kinds of standards on the basis of what, historically, has been called natural reason; and it defends an account of toleration that enhances the practical application of the ethical framework both in individual nations and in the international realm.

Legitimacy
Legitimacy

Author: Arthur Isak Applbaum

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0674983467

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At an unsettled time for liberal democracy, with global eruptions of authoritarian and arbitrary rule, here is one of the first full-fledged philosophical accounts of what makes governments legitimate. What makes a government legitimate? The dominant view is that public officials have the right to rule us, even if they are unfair or unfit, as long as they gain power through procedures traceable to the consent of the governed. In this rigorous and timely study, Arthur Isak Applbaum argues that adherence to procedure is not enough: even a properly chosen government does not rule legitimately if it fails to protect basic rights, to treat its citizens as political equals, or to act coherently. How are we to reconcile every person’s entitlement to freedom with the necessity of coercive law? Applbaum’s answer is that a government legitimately governs its citizens only if the government is a free group agent constituted by free citizens. To be a such a group agent, a government must uphold three principles. The liberty principle, requiring that the basic rights of citizens be secured, is necessary to protect against inhumanity, a tyranny in practice. The equality principle, requiring that citizens have equal say in selecting who governs, is necessary to protect against despotism, a tyranny in title. The agency principle, requiring that a government’s actions reflect its decisions and its decisions reflect its reasons, is necessary to protect against wantonism, a tyranny of unreason. Today, Applbaum writes, the greatest threat to the established democracies is neither inhumanity nor despotism but wantonism, the domination of citizens by incoherent, inconstant, and incontinent rulers. A government that cannot govern itself cannot legitimately govern others.

Liberty and Coercion
Liberty and Coercion

Author: Gary Gerstle

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-10-24

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 0691178216

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How the conflict between federal and state power has shaped American history American governance is burdened by a paradox. On the one hand, Americans don't want "big government" meddling in their lives; on the other hand, they have repeatedly enlisted governmental help to impose their views regarding marriage, abortion, religion, and schooling on their neighbors. These contradictory stances on the role of public power have paralyzed policymaking and generated rancorous disputes about government’s legitimate scope. How did we reach this political impasse? Historian Gary Gerstle, looking at two hundred years of U.S. history, argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in two contrasting theories of power that the Framers inscribed in the Constitution. One theory shaped the federal government, setting limits on its power in order to protect personal liberty. Another theory molded the states, authorizing them to go to extraordinary lengths, even to the point of violating individual rights, to advance the "good and welfare of the commonwealth." The Framers believed these theories could coexist comfortably, but conflict between the two has largely defined American history. Gerstle shows how national political leaders improvised brilliantly to stretch the power of the federal government beyond where it was meant to go—but at the cost of giving private interests and state governments too much sway over public policy. The states could be innovative, too. More impressive was their staying power. Only in the 1960s did the federal government, impelled by the Cold War and civil rights movement, definitively assert its primacy. But as the power of the central state expanded, its constitutional authority did not keep pace. Conservatives rebelled, making the battle over government’s proper dominion the defining issue of our time. From the Revolution to the Tea Party, and the Bill of Rights to the national security state, Liberty and Coercion is a revelatory account of the making and unmaking of government in America.

Coercion and Governance
Coercion and Governance

Author: Muthiah Alagappa

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 9780804742276

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This far-ranging volume offers both a broad overview of the role of the military in contemporary Asia and a close look at the state of civil-military relations in sixteen Asian countries. It discusses these relations in countries where the military continues to dominate the political realm as well as others where it is disengaging from politics.