DOCSLIB.ORG

Political Theory

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Political Theory POLITICAL THEORY An International Journal of Political Philosophy Editor STEPHEN K. WHITE University of Virginia Consulting Editor J. DONALD MOON Wesleyan University Review Editor BONNIE HONIG Northwestern University and American Bar Foundation Assistant Editor and Political Theory Fellow PATRICIA NORDEEN University of Virginia and Yale University Editorial Assistant MICHAEL KLEIN Executive Editorial Committee MARY DIETZ University of Minnesota MICHAEL ROGIN University of California, Berkeley STEPHEN MACEDO Princeton University IRIS MARION YOUNG University of Chicago ANTHONY PAGDEN Johns Hopkins University LINDA ZERILLI Northwestern University Editorial Board SHLOMO AVINERI Hebrew University of Jerusalem BENJAMIN BARBER Rutgers University BRIAN BARRY Columbia University WILLIAM E. CONNOLLY The Johns Hopkins University ROBERT CUMMING Columbia University JOHN DUNN Cambridge University JEAN ELSHTAIN University of Chicago RICHARD FLATHMAN The Johns Hopkins University JULIAN FRANKLIN Columbia University VICTOR GOUREVITCH Wesleyan University JÜRGEN HABERMAS University of Frankfurt VIRGINIA HELD City University of New York GEORGE KATEB Princeton University STEVEN LUKES University of Siena HARVEY MANSFIELD Harvard University HANNA PITKIN University of California, Berkeley J.G.A. POCOCK The Johns Hopkins University JOHN RAWLS Harvard University MELVIN RICHTER City University of New York ALAN RYAN Oxford University GIOVANNI SARTORI Columbia University QUENTIN SKINNER Cambridge University TRACY STRONG University of California, San Diego CHARLES TAYLOR McGill University DENNIS THOMPSON Harvard University MICHAEL WALZER The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton ROBERT PAUL WOLFF University of Massachusetts SHELDON S. WOLIN Princeton University For Sage Publications: Yvette Pollastrini, Matthew H. Adams, Katinka Baltazar, Stephanie Allen, and Tina Paptsos POLITICAL THEORY founded by ROBERT LAMB and WALTER ODAJNYK POLITICAL THEORY Volume 29, Number 6 / December 2001 POLITICAL THEORY Volume 29, Number 6 / December 2001 From the Editor Stephen K. White 765 ARTICLES Special Section: Democracy, Law, Founding Constitutional Democracy: A Paradoxical Union of Contradictory Principles? Jürgen Habermas 766 Of Boats and Principles: Reflections on Habermas’s “Constitutional Democracy” Alessandro Ferrara 782 Dead Rights, Live Futures: A Reply to Habermas’s “Constitutional Democracy” Bonnie Honig 792 Special Section: Oakeshott Centenary Oakeshott’s Hobbes and the Fear of Political Rationalism Ted H. Miller 806 A Preface to an Unpublished MS by Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes’s Leviathan Patrick Riley 833 Letter on Hobbes Michael Oakeshott 834 Bad Civil Society Simone Chambers and Jeffrey Kopstein 837 CRITICAL EXCHANGE Transcending Violence in Derrida: A Reply to John McCormick Ben Corson 866 Justice, Interpretation, and Violence: A Rejoinder to Corson John P. McCormick 876 REVIEW ESSAYS Decapitation, Ghosts, and the Holy Spirit Connolly, Why I’m Not a Secularist Z‹iz#ek, The Fragile Absolute Jodi Dean 882 Review Essay on Mamdani and Ackerly Mamdani, Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative Essays on the Politics of Rights and Culture Ackerly, Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism Roxanne L. Euben 888 BOOKS IN REVIEW Gerencser, The Skeptic’s Oakeshott Peter Digeser 896 Dumm, A Politics of the Ordinary Jacqueline Stevens 898 Index 902 Sage Publications Thousand Oaks • London • New Delhi POLITICAL THEORY is an international journal of political philosophy open to contributions from every methodological, philosophical, and ideological perspective. Essays in historical political thought and modern political theory, normative and analytic philosophy, history of ideas, and assessment of current work are equally welcome. The journal has no particularistic affiliation or orientation and is meant to serve the entire political theory community. MANUSCRIPTS should be sent in triplicate to Professor Stephen K. White, Editor, POLITICAL THEORY, Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400787, Charlottesville, VA 22904. Articles should be 30 single-sided, double-spaced pages or less. Notes should be placed at the end of the article, also double-spaced, and in the form used in The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition. A brief biographical paragraph describing each author’s current affilia- tion, research interests, and recent publications should accompany the manuscript. Manuscripts can be returned only if a self-addressed stamped envelope is enclosed. Unfortunately, the volume of submissions makes it impossible for us to comment on all manuscripts. Our review period is normally three months, except for June through August submissions, when our offices are closed for the sum- mer. If possible, the final draft of accepted manuscripts should be accompanied by an IBM-compatible computer disk version.Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal.Authors submittingmanuscripts to the journal should not simultaneously submit them to another journal, nor should manuscripts have been published elsewhere in substantially similar form or with substantially similar content. Authors in doubt about what constitutes prior publication should consult the editor. The POLITICAL THEORY Web site is at http://faculty.virginia.edu/pol-theoryprogram/journal/, e-mail: ptheory@ virginia.edu. CRITICAL RESPONSES to essays published in POLITICAL THEORY are welcome. They should be no longer than eight pages in length, including notes and references. BOOK REVIEWS: Books for review should be sent to Bonnie Honig, Review Editor, POLITICAL THEORY, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-1006. We re- gret we cannot accept unsolicited reviews or review essays. ANNOUNCEMENTS AND CORRESPONDENCE regarding papers, panels, conferences, and other news of interest to readers should be sent to the Editor, POLITICAL THEORY, at the address given above. POLITICAL THEORY (ISSN 0090-5917) is published six times annually—in February, April, June, August, October, and December—by Sage Publications, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320; telephone (800) 818-SAGE (7243) and (805) 499-9774; fax/ order line (805) 375-1700; http://www.sagepub.com; e-mail: [email protected]. Copyright © 2001 by Sage Publications. All rights reserved. No portion of the contents may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Subscriptions: Annual subscription rates for institutions and individuals are based on the current frequency.Prices quoted are in U.S. dollars and are subject to change without notice. Canadian subscribers add 7% GST (and HST as appropriate). Outside U.S. subscription rates include shippingvia air-speeded delivery. Institutions: $495 (within the U.S.) / $519 (outside the U.S.) / single issue: $95 (worldwide). Individuals: $88 (within the U.S.) / $112 (outside the U.S.) / single issue: $24 (worldwide). Orders from the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, and Africa should be sent to the London address (below). Orders from India and South Asia should be sent to the New Delhi address (below). Noninstitutional orders must be paid by personal check, VISA, or MasterCard. Periodicals postage paid at Thousand Oaks, California and at additional mailing offices. This journal is abstracted or indexed in Academic Abstracts; Academic Search; Corporate ResourceNET; CSA Political Science & Government: A Guide to Periodical Literature; Current Contents: Social & Behavioral Sci- ences; Expanded Academic Index; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences; International Political Science Abstracts; ISI Basic Social Sciences Index; MasterFILE Full TEXT; Periodical Abstracts; Political Science Abstracts; Public Library FullTEXT; Social Science Source; Social Science Citation Index; Social Sciences Index Full Text; Sociological Abstracts; Standard Periodical Directory (SPD); The Philosopher’s In- dex; TOPICsearch; Wilson OmniFile V;and Wilson Social Sciences Index/Abstracts, and is available on micro- film from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Back issues: Information about availability and prices of back issues may be obtained from the publisher’s order department (address below). Single-issue orders for 5 or more copies will receive a special adoption discount. Contact the order department for details. Write to the London office for sterling prices. Inquiries: All subscription inquiries, orders, and renewals with ship-to addresses in North America, South America, Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and the Philippines must be addressed to Sage Publica- tions, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, U.S.A.; telephone (800) 818-SAGE (7243) and (805) 499-9774; fax (805) 375-1700;http://www.sagepub.com;e-mail:[email protected] subscription inquiries, orders, and re- newals with ship-to addresses in the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, and Africa must be addressed to Sage Publica- tions Ltd, 6 Bonhill Street, London EC2A 4PU, England; telephone +44 (0)20 7374 0645; fax +44 (0)20 7374 8741.All subscription inquiries, orders, and renewals with ship-to addresses in India and South Asia must be addressed to Sage Publications Private Ltd, P.O. Box 4215, New Delhi 110 048, India; telephone (91-11) 641-9784; fax (91-11) 647-2426. Address all permissions requests to the Thousand Oaks office. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by Sage Publications for libraries and other users
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Political Science 41/Classics 45/Philosophy 41 Western Political Thought I Tufts University Fall Semester 2011
    Political Science 41/Classics 45/Philosophy 41 Western Political Thought I Tufts University Fall Semester 2011 Socrates is said to have brought philosophy down from the heavens to examine “the human things.” This course will examine the revolution in Western thought that Socrates effected. In the process, we will study such topics as the manner in which political communities are founded and sustained, the claims for virtue, the various definitions of justice, the causes and ramifications of war, the relation between piety and politics, the life of the philosopher, and the relation between philosophy and politics. Finally, we will examine Machiavelli’s challenge to classical political thought when he charges that imaginary republics—some of which we will have studied—have taught people their ruin rather than their preservation. Office Hours Vickie Sullivan [email protected] Packard Hall 111, ex. 72328 Monday, 1:30-3 p.m. Thursday, 1-2:30 p.m. Other times by appointment Teaching Assistants Nate Gilmore [email protected] Tuesday, 12-1:30 p.m. Packard Hall, 3rd-floor lounge Other times by appointment Mike Hawley [email protected] Wednesday, 12-1:30 p.m. Packard Hall, 3rd-floor lounge Other times by appointment Required Books Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler, Touchstone (Simon & Schuster). Plato and Aristophanes, Four Texts on Socrates, trans. Thomas West and Grace Starry West, Cornell University Press. 2 Plato, Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete, University of Chicago. Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom, Basic Books. Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord, University of Chicago Press. Machiavelli, The Prince, trans.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Values Annual Review
    University Center for Human Values 304 Marx Hall Princeton, New Jersey 08544 The University Center for Human Values supports teaching, research, and discussion of ethics and human values throughout the curriculum and across the disciplines at Princeton University. Additional information about the University Center for Human Values can be found at http://uchv.princeton.edu or by calling (609) 258-4798. Human Values Annual Review 2011 “As someone with interests in both meta-level philosophy debates and more applied issues in normative ethics and political theory, the values and public life (VPL) program was a way for me to integrate these areas. The VPL program also afforded wonderful opportunities to attend lectures on the applied and academic areas of values—something that doesn’t often come together in certificate programs.” Shivani Radhakrishnan ’11, Philosophy Introducing a new Undergraduate Certifi cate Program in SOCIETY INDIVIDUALITY PLURALITY COMMUNITY CITIZEN NATION IDENTITY ETHICS MODERNITY RESPONSIBILITY CASUISTRY OBLIGATION CONSEQUENTIALISM LAW EQUALITY RIGHT WRONG DUTY SUPEREROGATORY RULES FAIRNESS UTILITY RECIPROCITY RULES EQUALITY JUSTICE COMPASSION CASUISTRY NATURAL LAW IMPERATIVE OBLIGATION SENTIMENTS FREEDOM DEMOCRACY SOCIETY INDIVIDUALITY COMMUNITY CITIZE NATION IDENTITY ETHICS MODERNITY RESPONSIBILITY CASUISTRY OBLIGATION CONSEQUENTIALISM LAW EQUALITY RIGHT WRONG DUTY SUPEREROGATORY RULES FAIRNESS UTILITY RECIPROCITY RULES FAIRNES EQUALITY JUSTICE COMPASSION CASUISTRY IMPERATIVE OBLIGATION SENTIMENTS FREEDOM DEMOCRACY
    [Show full text]
  • The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought 1
    The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought 1 The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought Department Website: http://socialthought.uchicago.edu Chair • Robert Pippin Professors • Lorraine Daston • Wendy Doniger • Joel Isaac • Hans Joas • Gabriel Lear • Jonathan Lear • Jonathan Levy • Jean Luc Marion • Heinrich Meier • Glenn W. Most • David Nirenberg • Thomas Pavel • Mark Payne • Robert B. Pippin • Jennifer Pitts • Andrei Pop • Haun Saussy • Laura Slatkin • Nathan Tarcov • Rosanna Warren • David Wellbery Emeriti • Wendy Doniger • Leon Kass • Joel Kraemer • Ralph Lerner • James M. Redfield • David Tracy About the Committee The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought was established as a degree granting body in 1941 by the historian John U. Nef (1899-1988), with the assistance of the economist Frank Knight, the anthropologist Robert Redfield, and Robert M. Hutchins, then President of the University. The Committee is a group of diverse scholars sharing a common concern for the unity of the human sciences. Their premises were that the serious study of any academic topic, or of any philosophical or literary work, is best prepared for by a wide and deep acquaintance with the fundamental issues presupposed in all such studies, that students should learn about these issues by acquainting themselves with a select number of classic ancient and modern texts in an inter- disciplinary atmosphere, and should only then concentrate on a specific dissertation topic. It accepts qualified graduate students seeking to pursue their particular studies within this broader context, and aims both to teach precision of scholarship and to foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry.
    [Show full text]
  • How Philosophers Rise and Empires Fall in the Work of Leo Strauss
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2019 Ungodly Freedom: How Philosophers Rise and Empires Fall in the Work of Leo Strauss Eli Karetny The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2819 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] UNGODLY FREEDOM: HOW PHILOSOPHERS RISE AND EMPIRES FALL IN THE WORK OF LEO STRAUSS by Eli Karetny A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2019 © 2018 Eli Karetny All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Political Science in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. PROFESSOR COREY ROBIN _________________ ____________________________________ Date Committee Chair _______________ PROFESSOR ALYSON COLE Date ____________________________________ Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Corey Robin Alyson Cole Carol Gould THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract UNGODLY FREEDOM: HOW PHILOSOPHERS RISE AND EMPIRES FALL IN THE WORK OF LEO STRAUSS by Eli Karetny Advisor: Professor Corey Robin This dissertation argues that to fully understand the work of Leo Strauss, scholars must look beyond the Platonic and Machiavellian elements in Strauss and explore how Nietzsche’s ideas about nihilism, the will to power, the eternal return, and the ubermensch influence Strauss’s critique of modernity, his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and politics, and his redefinition of the philosopher as a prophetic lawgiver.
    [Show full text]
  • FOREWORD to the PRINCETON CLASSICS EDITION Politics And
    FOREWORD TO THE PRINCETON CLASSICS EDITION ••• Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Political Thoughtis both one and two books, written by both one and two political theorists. A changed world and changed thinker divides the 1960 edition from the 2004 expanded edition, the latter now ap- pearing as a Princeton Classic. First published when Sheldon S. Wolin was a young Berkeley professor, Politics and Vision quickly rose to prominence for its luminous interpretations of canoni- cal theorists and probing reflections on the shifting meaning and status of politics and political theory across Western history. A scholarly work of breathtaking scope composed in accessible literary cadences, it was exemplary of what Wolin would term “political theory as a vocation” in his 1969 essay by that name.1 Intentionally recalling Max Weber’s stipulations for scholarship and political leadership in his “Vocations” essays, and especially Weber’s contrast between career and calling, Wo- lin’s formulation of theory as a vocation distinguished political theory’s classic value from current disciplinary conventions. He sought especially to reestablish political theory’s longstanding concerns with res publicae and res gestae—concerns he termed as “irreducible and natural to the political theorist as a concern for health is to the physician.”2 With its immense erudition and close readings trained on the problematic of “the political,” Politics and Vision embodied Wolin’s insistence on political theory as “pri- marily a civic and secondarily an academic activity…a critical engagement with col- lective existence and with the political experiences of power to which it gives rise.”3 This tasking of political theory invites the sort of reading Wolin frequently performed when he taught.
    [Show full text]
  • American Political Thought
    American Political Thought Professor Nicholas Tampio Hamilton College, Fall 2007, GOV 336 [email protected] Class hours: TR 10:30-11:45, KJ 222 Office hours: TR 4-5, KJ 135 Course Overview Contemporary debates in American politics often revolve around a few basic questions: What are the greatest problems facing America? What does it mean to be an American? What are the principles of American politics? Americans often answer these questions by drawing upon seminal texts in American political thought. The aim of this course is to study several of these texts so that we may participate more thoughtfully and effectively in contemporary politics. We begin with The Declaration of Independence (1776), Thomas Jefferson’s statement of America’s founding ideals. Then, we read The Federalist, the 1787-88 essays penned by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to outline the principles of the United States Constitution. Subsequently, we consider Alexis de Tocqueville’s epochal account of American individualism and civil society in Democracy in America (1835, 1840). Afterwards, we look at W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a book that portrays the “double consciousness” of virtually all Americans. Next, we examine Anarchism (1917), a classic of American radicalism written by the anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman. Then, we study Leo Strauss’s Natural Right and History (1950), a guiding text for conservatives such as George Will and Paul Wolfowitz. Subsequently, we turn to A Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls’s great work of Anglo-American liberal theory. We conclude with William E.
    [Show full text]
  • Of Citizenship in the Age of Waning Democracy: Wolin and Balibar on Citizenship, the Political and Dedemocratization
    Citizenship Studies ISSN: 1362-1025 (Print) 1469-3593 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccst20 The ‘I’ and the ‘we’ of citizenship in the age of waning democracy: Wolin and Balibar on citizenship, the political and dedemocratization Robin Rodd To cite this article: Robin Rodd (2018): The ‘I’ and the ‘we’ of citizenship in the age of waning democracy: Wolin and Balibar on citizenship, the political and dedemocratization, Citizenship Studies To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2018.1449812 Published online: 12 Mar 2018. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccst20 CITIZENSHIP STUDIES, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2018.1449812 The ‘I’ and the ‘we’ of citizenship in the age of waning democracy: Wolin and Balibar on citizenship, the political and dedemocratization Robin Rodd Discipline of Anthropology, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Despite drawing on different historical traditions and philosophical Received 16 September 2017 sources, Sheldon Wolin and Étienne Balibar have come to see Accepted 18 February 2018 citizenship and democracy in fundamentally similar ways. However, KEYWORDS the work of one has not been considered alongside that of the other. In Balibar; Wolin; citizenship; this paper, I examine some of their key texts and draw out three areas of democratization; common concern: the historical specificity of the political, citizenship dedemocratization; demos; as a dialectical process and dedemocratization. The significance of equality Wolin and Balibar’s writing on citizenship and democracy lies in a set of proposals for the eternal rebirth of the citizen as democratic agent between action and institution, hierarchy and equality, individual and community, difference and the universal.
    [Show full text]
  • {PDF} Tocqueville: a Very Short Introduction Ebook
    TOCQUEVILLE: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Harvey C. Mansfield | 136 pages | 13 Jul 2010 | Oxford University Press Inc | 9780195175394 | English | New York, United States Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction - Harvey C. Mansfield Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Search within Informal democracy 4. Democratic despotism 5. Rational administration 6. Democratic despotism Harvey C. Request Examination Copy. No one has ever described American democracy with more accurate insight or more profoundly than Alexis de Tocqueville. After meeting with Americans on extensive travels in the United States, and intense study of documents and authorities, he authored the landmark Democracy in America , publishing its two volumes in and Ever since, this book has been the best source for every serious attempt to understand America and democracy itself. Yet Tocqueville himself remains a mystery behind the elegance of his style. Now one of our leading authorities on Tocqueville explains him in this splendid new entry in Oxford's acclaimed Very Short Introduction series. Harvey Mansfield addresses his subject as a thinker, clearly and incisively exploring Tocqueville's writings--not only his masterpiece, but also his secret Recollections , intended for posterity alone, and his unfinished work on his native France, The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville was a liberal, Mansfield writes, but not of the usual sort. The many elements of his life found expression in his thought: his aristocratic ancestry, his ventures in politics, his voyages abroad, his hopes and fears for America, and his disappointment with France.
    [Show full text]
  • Habits Matter
    LivingstonCPSA2008.doc (may 12/2008) On the Micropolitical Alex Livingston Department of Political Science University of Toronto [email protected] DRAFT. Do not cite or circulate without the author’s permission. I. Introduction A turn to micropolitics appears to be going on in contemporary American political theory. Defined in its broadest terms, micropolitics is a politics of the ordinary that politicises habits, dispositions, feelings, the body, emotions, and thinking as potential sites of domination and resistance below the hallowed heights of liberal principles of justice. The claim of micropolitics is that justice talk, whether liberal, communitarian or otherwise, is insufficient if it remains narrowly confined to the ordering of basic institutions or of the idea of a political community as such. More everyday and ubiquitous practices and attitudes work to realize or hinder the potential of principles and institutions. And at this lower register, new conceptions of action, judgment, and responsibility are needed. In a recent edited volume Jane Bennett and Michael J. Shapiro define the substance of this turn as follows, “In sum, to engage in micropolitics is to pay attention to the connections between affective registers of experience and collective identities and practices. The aim is to encourage a more intentional project of reforming, refining, intensifying, or disciplining the emotions, aesthetic impulses, urges, and moods that enter into one’s political programs, party affiliations, ideological commitments, and policy preferences.”1 Defined as such, this could include a Foucaultian micropolitics of capillary power and arts of resistance, a Benjaminian micropolitics of capitalist phantasmagoria and redemptive critique, or even an Aristotelian micropolitics of the prior associations of the polis and virtuous self-cultivation.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Western and Jewish Political Thought Yeshiva College, Fall 2019
    1 Great Political Thinkers: Introduction to Western and Jewish Political Thought Yeshiva College, Fall 2019 Instructors: Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik and Dr. Neil Rogachevsky [email protected], [email protected] Course Summary Political philosophy examines the fundamental problems faced by human beings both as individuals and as a members of associations that, in the Western tradition, have come to be called political. It asks two decisive questions: “how should I live my life?” and “how should we live together?” Together these questions point to central dilemmas of human life that the great thinkers of the Western tradition have explored with tremendous depth. What is justice? How does the good of the individual relate to the good of the political community? Is thought superior to action or is action superior to thought? What is virtue? Piety? Courage? The inquiry into these questions has profoundly shaped our lives as well as the countries we inhabit, including the United States. In this class, we will study seminal thinkers in the history of Jewish and Western political thought, including Plato, Aristotle, Abarbanel, Maimonides, and Machiavelli. Because the West was founded on a synthesis of biblical and Greek traditions, we shall also compare the seminal Greek philosophical texts with political texts from the Hebrew Bible, and ponder the impact that both worldviews had on the development of Western Civilization. For Poli Sci majors: toward Intro course requirement or Political Theory distribution. Expectations Students will be expected to carefully read between 100 and 150 pages a week. Prior to every class, students will be expected to have read and reflected upon the readings of that week, and to participate in class discussions about them.
    [Show full text]
  • Olin Foundation in 1953, Olin Embarked on a Radical New Course
    THE CHRONICLE REVIEW How Right­Wing Billionaires Infiltrated Higher Education By Jane Mayer FEBRUARY 12, 2016 ​ If there was a single event that galvanized conservative donors to try to wrest control of higher ​ education in America, it might have been the uprising at Cornell University on April 20, 1969. That afternoon, during parents’ weekend at the Ithaca, N.Y., campus, some 80 black students marched in formation out of the student union, which they had seized, with their clenched fists held high in black­power salutes. To the shock of the genteel Ivy League community, several were brandishing guns. At the head of the formation was a student who called himself the "Minister of Defense" for Cornell’s Afro­American Society. Strapped across his chest, Pancho Villa­style, was a sash­like bandolier studded with bullet cartridges. Gripped nonchalantly in his right hand, with its butt resting on his hip, was a glistening rifle. Chin held high and sporting an Afro, goatee, and eyeglasses reminiscent of Malcolm X, he was the face of a drama so infamous it was regarded for years by conservatives such as David Horowitz as "the most disgraceful occurrence in the history of American higher education." John M. Olin, a multimillionaire industrialist, wasn’t there at Cornell, which was his alma mater, that weekend. He was traveling abroad. But as a former Cornell trustee, he could not have gone long without seeing the iconic photograph of the armed protesters. What came to be ​ ​ known as "the Picture" quickly ricocheted around the world, eventually going on to win that year’s Pulitzer Prize.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the 2017 Edition
    Introduction to the 2017 Edition Sheldon Wolin was our most important contemporary political theorist. He gave us a modern vocabulary to describe our decayed democracy and the poi- sonous effects of empire. He was a scholar who detested orthodoxies, rooted his understanding of democracy in the ancient concept of the Athenian demos and believed, like Max Weber, that politics was a vocation. Ralph Nader gave me Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism when it first came out in 2008. Nader, who has been fighting the abuse of corporate power longer and with perhaps more success than any other American, called it a “masterpiece.” Wolin cap- tured the political mutations caused by neoliberalism and coined the term “inverted totalitarianism” for the novel political and economic system it had spawned. He foresaw that this system of inverted totalitarianism would, as it has, eventually crush or hollow out our democratic institutions and give rise to an authoritarian or even totalitarian regime. Inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism. It does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader but in the faceless anonymity of the corporate state. Inverted totalitarianism pays out- ward fealty to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the iconography, traditions and language of American patriotism, but it has effectively seized all of the mechanisms of power to render the citizen impotent. “Unlike the Nazis, who made life uncertain for the wealthy and privileged while providing social programs for the working class and poor, inverted totali- tarianism exploits the poor, reducing or weakening health programs and social services, regimenting mass education for an insecure workforce threatened by the importation of low- wage workers,” Wolin wrote.
    [Show full text]