Download or read book Coercion Authority and Democracy written by Grahame Booker and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-31 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Problem of Political Authority written by Michael Huemer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-10-29 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Authoritarian Police in Democracy written by Yanilda María González and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy written by Kenneth A. Schultz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-07-26 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Power in Deliberative Democracy written by Nicole Curato and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Jane Mansbridge written by Melissa S. Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State written by Robert Audi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Legitimacy written by Arthur Isak Applbaum and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Liberty and Coercion written by Gary Gerstle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Coercion and Governance written by Muthiah Alagappa and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Arab Uprisings Explained written by Marc Lynch and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Tunisian protests following the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi lead to a massive wave of uprisings across the entire Arab world? Who participated in those protests, and what did they hope to achieve? Why did some leaders fall in the face of popular mobilization while others found ways to survive? And what have been the lasting results of the contentious politics of 2011 and 2012? The Arab uprisings pose stark challenges to the political science of the Middle East, which for decades had focused upon the resilience of entrenched authoritarianism, the relative weakness of civil society, and what seemed to be the largely contained diffusion of new norms and ideas through new information technologies. In this volume, leading scholars in the field take a sharp look at the causes, dynamics, and effects of the Arab uprisings. Compiled by one of the foremost experts on Middle East politics and society, The Arab Uprisings Explained offers a fresh rethinking of established theories and presents a new framework through which scholars and general readers can better grasp the fast-developing events remaking the region. These essays not only advance the study of political science in the Middle East but also integrate the subject seamlessly into the wider political science literature. Deeply committed to the study of this region and working out the kinks of the discipline, the contributors to this volume help scholars and policymakers across the world approach this unprecedented historical period smartly and effectively.

Download or read book The Power to Coerce written by David C. Gompert and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mounting costs, risks, and public misgivings of waging war are raising the importance of U.S. power to coerce (P2C). The best P2C options are financial sanctions, support for nonviolent political opposition to hostile regimes, and offensive cyber operations. The state against which coercion is most difficult and risky is China, which also happens to pose the strongest challenge to U.S. military options in a vital region.

Download or read book Tunisia written by Safwan M. Masri and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab Spring began and ended with Tunisia. In a region beset by brutal repression, humanitarian disasters, and civil war, Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution alone gave way to a peaceful transition to a functioning democracy. Within four short years, Tunisians passed a progressive constitution, held fair parliamentary elections, and ushered in the country's first-ever democratically elected president. But did Tunisia simply avoid the misfortunes that befell its neighbors, or were there particular features that set the country apart and made it a special case? In Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly, Safwan M. Masri explores the factors that have shaped the country's exceptional experience. He traces Tunisia's history of reform in the realms of education, religion, and women's rights, arguing that the seeds for today's relatively liberal and democratic society were planted as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. Masri argues that Tunisia stands out not as a model that can be replicated in other Arab countries, but rather as an anomaly, as its history of reformism set it on a separate trajectory from the rest of the region. The narrative explores notions of identity, the relationship between Islam and society, and the hegemonic role of religion in shaping educational, social, and political agendas across the Arab region. Based on interviews with dozens of experts, leaders, activists, and ordinary citizens, and a synthesis of a rich body of knowledge, Masri provides a sensitive, often personal, account that is critical for understanding not only Tunisia but also the broader Arab world.

Download or read book Coercion written by Kelly M. Greenhill and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the rising significance of non-state actors to the increasing influence of regional powers, the nature and conduct of international politics has arguably changed dramatically since the height of the Cold War. Yet much of the literature on deterrence and compellence continues to draw (whether implicitly or explicitly) upon assumptions and precepts formulated in-and predicated upon-politics in a state-centric, bipolar world. Coercion moves beyond these somewhat hidebound premises and examines the critical issue of coercion in the 21st century, with a particular focus on new actors, strategies and objectives in this very old bargaining game. The chapters in this volume examine intra-state, inter-state, and transnational coercion and deterrence as well as both military and non-military instruments of persuasion, thus expanding our understanding of coercion for conflict in the 21st century. Scholars have analyzed the causes, dynamics, and effects of coercion for decades, but previous works have principally focused on a single state employing conventional military means to pressure another state to alter its behavior. In contrast, this volume captures fresh developments, both theoretical and policy relevant. This chapters in this volume focus on tools (terrorism, sanctions, drones, cyber warfare, intelligence, and forced migration), actors (insurgents, social movements, and NGOs) and mechanisms (trilateral coercion, diplomatic and economic isolation, foreign-imposed regime change, coercion of nuclear proliferators, and two-level games) that have become more prominent in recent years, but which have yet to be extensively or systematically addressed in either academic or policy literatures.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing written by Michael D. Reisig and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The police are perhaps the most visible representation of government. They are charged with what has been characterized as an "impossible" mandate -- control and prevent crime, keep the peace, provide public services -- and do so within the constraints of democratic principles. The police are trusted to use deadly force when it is called for and are allowed access to our homes in cases of emergency. In fact, police departments are one of the few government agencies that can be mobilized by a simple phone call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are ubiquitous within our society, but their actions are often not well understood. The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing brings together research on the development and operation of policing in the United States and elsewhere. Accomplished policing researchers Michael D. Reisig and Robert J. Kane have assembled a cast of renowned scholars to provide an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the institution of policing. The different sections of the Handbook explore policing contexts, strategies, authority, and issues relating to race and ethnicity. The Handbook also includes reviews of the research methodologies used by policing scholars and considerations of the factors that will ultimately shape the future of policing, thus providing persuasive insights into why and how policing has developed, what it is today, and what to expect in the future. Aimed at a wide audience of scholars and students in criminology and criminal justice, as well as police professionals, the Handbook serves as the definitive resource for information on this important institution.

Download or read book The Gandhian Moment written by Ramin Jahanbegloo and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The father of Indian independence, Gandhi was also a political theorist who challenged mainstream ideas. Sovereignty, he said, depends on the consent of citizens willing to challenge the state nonviolently when it acts immorally. The culmination of the inner struggle to recognize one’s duty to act is the ultimate “Gandhian moment.”

Download or read book Democracy Without Shortcuts written by Cristina Lafont and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book defends the value of democratic participation. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it.