Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society

Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society

Author: Steven M. DeLue

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 489

ISBN-13: 1317243668

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This comprehensive overview of the Western tradition of political thought approaches concepts with the aim of helping readers develop their own political thinking and critical thinking skills. This text is uniquely organized around the theme of civil society — what is the nature of a civil society? why is it important? — that will engage students and help make the material relevant. Major thinkers discussed in the text are explored not only with the goal of understanding their views, but also with an interest in understanding the relationship of their ideas to the notion of a civil society. DeLue and Dale contend that a civil society is important for securing the way of life that most of us value and want to preserve, a way of life that allows people to live freely and place significance on their own lives. New to the Fourth Edition Connects traditional political theory to contemporary challenges to civil society including new coverage of US electoral politics, the Black Lives Matter movement, Citizens United, and Robert Putnam’s view of the decline of social support systems. Updates the coverage of feminism and feminist thinkers, including coverage of gay marriage, in the context of civil society. Expands coverage of global civil society, especially in terms of contemporary challenges posed by ISIS, the failure of the Arab Spring, and ongoing humanitarian crises in Syria, Iran, and beyond.


On the Political

On the Political

Author: Chantal Mouffe

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2011-02-25

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1134406045

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Chantal Mouffe presents a timely and stimulating account of the current state of democracy, exploring contemporary examples such as the Iraq war, racism and the rise of the far right.


African American Political Thought

African American Political Thought

Author: Melvin L. Rogers

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-05-07

Total Pages: 771

ISBN-13: 022672607X

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African American Political Thought offers an unprecedented philosophical history of thinkers from the African American community and African diaspora who have addressed the central issues of political life: democracy, race, violence, liberation, solidarity, and mass political action. Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner have brought together leading scholars to reflect on individual intellectuals from the past four centuries, developing their list with an expansive approach to political expression. The collected essays consider such figures as Martin Delany, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde, whose works are addressed by scholars such as Farah Jasmin Griffin, Robert Gooding-Williams, Michael Dawson, Nick Bromell, Neil Roberts, and Lawrie Balfour. While African American political thought is inextricable from the historical movement of American political thought, this volume stresses the individuality of Black thinkers, the transnational and diasporic consciousness, and how individual speakers and writers draw on various traditions simultaneously to broaden our conception of African American political ideas. This landmark volume gives us the opportunity to tap into the myriad and nuanced political theories central to Black life. In doing so, African American Political Thought: A Collected History transforms how we understand the past and future of political thinking in the West.


The Poetics of Political Thinking

The Poetics of Political Thinking

Author: Davide Panagia

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2006-02-15

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 0822387905

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In The Poetics of Political Thinking Davide Panagia focuses on the role that aesthetic sensibilities play in theorists’ evaluations of political arguments. Examining works by thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Jacques Rancière, Panagia shows how each one invokes aesthetic concepts and devices, such as metaphor, mimesis, imagination, beauty, and the sublime. He argues that it is important to recognize and acknowledge these poetic forms of representation because they provide evaluative standards that theorists use in appraising the value of ideas—ideas about justice, politics, and democratic life. An investigation into the intertwined histories of aesthetic and political accounts of representation—such as Panagia presents here—sheds light on how modes of poetic thinking delimit the questions of unity and diversity that continue to animate contemporary political theory. Panagia not only illuminates the structure of much contemporary political theory but also shows why understanding the poetics of political thinking is vital to contemporary society. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s critique of negation and his privileging of paradox as the source of political thought, Panagia suggests that a non-teleological concept of difference might generate insight into pressing questions about foreignness and citizenship. Turning to the liberal/poststructural debate that dominates contemporary political theory, he compares John Rawls’s concept of justice to Rancière’s ideas about political disagreement in order to demonstrate how, despite their differences, both thinkers comprehend aesthetic and moral reasoning as part and parcel of political writing. Considering the writings of William Hazlitt and Jürgen Habermas, he describes how the essay has become the exemplary genre of what is considered rational political argument. The Poetics of Political Thinking is a compelling reappraisal of the role of representation within political thought.


Thinking Like a Political Scientist

Thinking Like a Political Scientist

Author: Christopher Howard

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-03-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 022632768X

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“A compelling case for transforming how research methods are taught to undergraduate students of political science.” —London School of Economics Review of Books Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Most of the standard books on research methods fail to highlight the most important concepts and questions. Instead, they brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis, slighting other valuable methods. This approach prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and meaningfully with a wide variety of research. With wit and practical wisdom, Christopher Howard draws on more than a decade of experience teaching research methods to transform a typically dreary subject and teach budding political scientists the critical skills they need to read published research more effectively and produce better research of their own. The first part of the book is devoted to asking three fundamental questions in political science: What happened? Why? Who cares? In the second section, Howard demonstrates how to answer these questions by choosing an appropriate research design, selecting cases, and working with numbers and written documents as evidence. Drawing on examples from American and comparative politics, international relations, and public policy, Thinking Like a Political Scientist highlights the most common challenges that political scientists routinely face, and each chapter concludes with exercises so that students can practice dealing with those challenges.


The Political Consequences of Thinking

The Political Consequences of Thinking

Author: Jennifer Ring

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9780791434840

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Applies the perspectives of gender and ethnicity in a feminist analysis of the Eichmann controversy and offers a wholly new interpretation of Arendt's work, from Eichmann in Jerusalem to The Life of the Mind.


The Political Theory of Political Thinking

The Political Theory of Political Thinking

Author: Michael Freeden

Publisher:

Published: 2013-08-08

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 0199568030

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This book is the first to explore systematically what it means to think 'politically'. Using detailed contemporary and historical material, and investigating both professional and 'amateur' forms of political thinking, this study challenges much accepted wisdom on the topic, arguing that it is to be approached as a cluster of interacting features.


Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman

Author: Kathy E. Ferguson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2011-04-16

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1442210486

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Emma Goldman has often been read for her colorful life story, her lively if troubled sex life, and her wide-ranging political activism. Few have taken her seriously as a political thinker, even though in her lifetime she was a vigorous public intellectual within a global network of progressive politics. Engaging Goldman as a political thinker allows us to rethink the common dualism between theory and practice, scrutinize stereotypes of anarchism by placing Goldman within a fuller historical context, recognize the remarkable contributions of anarchism in creating public life, and open up contemporary politics to the possibilities of transformative feminism.