Download or read book Is Self Determination a Dangerous Illusion written by David Miller and published by Polity. This book was released on 2019-12-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claims to self-determination are rife in world politics today. They range from Scottish and Catalonian campaigns for independence to calls for the devolution of power to regions and cities. But is self-determination meaningful or desirable in the twenty-first century, or merely a dangerous illusion? In this book, David Miller mounts a powerful defence of political self-determination. He explains why it is valuable and argues that geographic proximity alone is not enough for groups to have the capacity for self-determination: group members must also identify with each other. He explores the different political forms that self-determination can take, and he suggests some realistic constraints on how it can be achieved, concluding that people exercising their collective agency is still both feasible and important. Anyone concerned by the theoretical issues raised by the various secessionist and nationalist movements around the world should read this book.
Download or read book Deconstructing Self Determination in International Law written by Przemysław Tacik and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-07-17 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The right of peoples to self-determination seems well-settled and covered extensively in the scholarly record. Yet old Trotsky’s question – of whom is this right and to what? – haunts the self-determination literature. Somehow almost every work on it begins with an expression of puzzlement. This right turns out to be elusive, underdefined in its scope and content, paradoxical in almost every aspect. This book mobilises all powers of critical legal theory and modern philosophy to take the bull by its horns. Instead of ironing out the paradoxes, it aims to finally give them a proper explanation based on the concept of exception.
Download or read book Freedom and Experience written by Kevin Magill and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Theory Practice and Interpretation of Customary International Law written by Panos Merkouris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 647 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses the theory, practice, and interpretation of customary international law, as well as new developments and future research trajectories. Combining discussions of familiar concepts with new ideas, it is useful for researchers, scholars, and practitioners of international law. Available Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Download or read book Freedom and Experience written by Kevin Magill and published by DR KEVIN MAGILL. This book was released on 2016-01-18 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us take it for granted that we are free agents: that we can sometimes act so as to shape our own lives and those of others, that we have choices about how to do so and that we are responsible for what we do. But are we really justified in believing this? For centuries philosophers have argued about whether free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism or natural causation, and they seem no closer to agreeing about it now than at any time in the past. Many contemporary philosophers have come to the conclusion that the intractability of the old argument about free will and determinism is caused by deep rooted illusions and inconsistencies in our unreflective attitudes about moral responsibility and freedom to act. Kevin Magill challenges this view and argues that the philosophical stalemate about free will has arisen through lack of attention to the content of the experiences that shape our understanding of free will and agency and through a mistaken belief that the concept of moral responsibility requires a moral and metaphysical justification. The book sets out an original account of the various ways we experience choosing, deciding and acting, which reconciles the apparently opposing intuitions that have fuelled the traditional dispute.
Download or read book Freedom Culture and the Right to Exclude written by Uwe Steinhoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that citizens have a moral right to decide by which criteria they grant migrants citizenship, as well as to control access to their territory in the first place. In developing and defending this argument, it critically engages numerous objections, thus providing the reader with a thorough overview of the current debate on the ethics of immigration and exclusion. The author’s argument is based on a straightforwardly individualist and liberal starting point. One of the rights granted by liberalism is freedom of association, which also comprises the right not to associate with people with whom one does not want to associate. While this is an individual right, it can be exercised collectively like many other individual rights. Thus, people can decide to collectively organize into an association pursuing certain goals; and subject to certain provisos, this gives rise to legitimate claims to space and territory in which they pursue these goals. The author shows that this right is far-reaching and robust, which entails an equally far-reaching and robust right to exclude. Moreover, he demonstrates that large-scale immigration from illiberal cultures tends to severely compromise the way of life, the values, and the institutions of liberal democracies in ways routinely ignored by apologists for multiculturalism. Freedom, Culture, and the Right to Exclude will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in applied ethics, political philosophy, political theory, and law.
Download or read book Nationalism Self Determination and Political Geography written by R. J. Johnston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the place of nationalism in the modern world. It looks at the relationships between nationalism, politics and states, explores the rise of minority national movements and the problems they cause, and discusses the problems of national integration in particular countries. It analyses the problems in a general and thematic way and includes a number of important case studies.
Download or read book The Right of Self Determination of Peoples written by Jörg Fisch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-09 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The right of self-determination of peoples holds out the promise of sovereign statehood for all peoples and a domination-free international order. But it also harbors the danger of state fragmentation that can threaten international stability if claims of self-determination lead to secessions. Covering both the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century independence movements in the Americas and the twentieth-century decolonization worldwide, this book examines the conceptual and political history of the right of self-determination of peoples. It addresses the political contexts in which the right and concept were formulated and the practices developed to restrain its potentially anarchic character, its inception in anti-colonialism, nationalism, and the labor movement, its instrumentalization at the end of the First World War in a formidable duel that Wilson lost to Lenin, its abuse by Hitler, the path after the Second World War to its recognition as a human right in 1966, and its continuing impact after decolonization.
Download or read book Dangerous Illusion written by Melissa James and published by Harlequin Treasury-Silhouette Intim. This book was released on 2004 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dangerous Illusion by Melissa James released on Mar 25, 2004 is available now for purchase.
Download or read book States Human Rights and Distant Strangers written by Angela Müller and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-24 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book combines legal and philosophical perspectives to address the question of whether states are bound by human rights when they act with effects on people abroad—states’ extraterritorial human rights obligations. Taking an innovative approach, it begins with a profound legal analysis of the issue at national, supranational, and international levels and then engages in depth with counterarguments against extraterritorially applying human rights, on the basis of which it develops its own ethical justificatory theory of extraterritorial human rights obligations. The book closes the circle by showing what the practical implications of this theory for the interpretation (and possible evolvement) of human rights law would be. In a world where critiques of, and resistance to, the general idea of universal human rights are on rise, the book contributes to closing the gap between judicial and normative perspectives on extraterritorial human rights obligations by inquiring into the ethical underpinnings of this topical legal challenge. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in human rights, international law, and more broadly in political philosophy, philosophy of law, and international relations.
Download or read book Should We Ban Killer Robots written by Deane Baker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-01-19 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Images of killer robots are the stuff of science fiction – but also, increasingly, of scientific fact on the battlefield. Should we be worried, or is this a normal development in the technology of war? In this accessible volume ethicist Deane Baker cuts through the confusion over whether lethal autonomous weapons – so-called killer robots – should be banned. Setting aside unhelpful analogies taken from science fiction, Baker looks instead to our understanding of mercenaries (the metaphorical ‘dogs of war’) and weaponized animals (the literal dogs of war) to better understand the ethical challenges raised by the employment of lethal autonomous weapons (the robot dogs of war). These ethical challenges include questions of trust and reliability, control and accountability, motivation and dignity. Baker argues that, while each of these challenges is significant, they do not – even when considered together – justify a ban on this emerging class of weapon systems. This book offers a clear point of entry into the debate over lethal autonomous weapons – for students, researchers, policy makers and interested general readers.
Download or read book Desert Hell written by Charles Townshend and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-31 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S.-led conquest and occupation of Iraq have kept that troubled country in international headlines since 2003. For America's major Coalition ally, Great Britain, however, this latest incursion into the region played out against the dramatic backdrop of imperial history: Britain's fateful invasion of Mesopotamia in 1914 and the creation of a new nation from the shards of war. The objectives of the expedition sent by the British Government of India were primarily strategic: to protect the Raj, impress Britain's military power upon Arabs chafing under Ottoman rule, and secure the Persian oil supply. But over the course of the Mesopotamian campaign, these goals expanded, and by the end of World War I Britain was committed to controlling the entire region from Suez to India. The conquest of Mesopotamia and the creation of Iraq were the central acts in this boldly opportunistic bid for supremacy. Charles Townshend provides a compelling account of the atrocious, unnecessary suffering inflicted on the expedition's mostly Indian troops, which set the pattern for Britain's follow-up campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next seven years. He chronicles the overconfidence, incompetence, and dangerously vague policy that distorted the mission, and examines the steps by which an initially cautious strategic operation led to imperial expansion on a vast scale. Desert Hell is a cautionary tale for makers of national policy. And for those with an interest in imperial history, it raises searching questions about Britain's quest for global power and the indelible consequences of those actions for the Middle East and the world. -- Book Description.
Download or read book Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics written by Gina Gustavsson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-01-13 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In current political debate, liberalism and nationalism are often portrayed as one another's enemies. In contrast liberal nationalists believe that the tolerance and relative openness of liberal societies depends on the unifying force of a shared national identity. This multidisciplinary book explores the different forms that national identities can take, as well as their political consequences, drawing not only on philosophy but also on political science andpsychology. It argues that a liberal national identity must be cultural, rather than ethnic or merely civic, and examines the challenges involved in integrating immigrants, dual nationals, and otherminorities into the national community.
Download or read book Should Secret Voting Be Mandatory written by James Johnson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The secrecy of the ballot, a crucial basic element of representative democracy, is under threat. Attempts to make voting more convenient in the face of declining turnout – and the rise of the “ballot selfie” – are making it harder to guarantee secrecy. Leading scholars James Johnson and Susan Orr go back to basics to analyze the fundamental issues surrounding the secret ballot, showing how secrecy works to protect voters from coercion and bribery. They argue, however, that this protection was always incomplete: faced with effective ballot secrecy, powerful actors turned to manipulating turnout – buying presence or absence at the polls – to obtain their electoral goals. The authors proceed to show how making both voting and voting in secret mandatory would foreclose both undue influence and turnout manipulation. This would enhance freedom for voters by liberating them from coercion or bribery in their choice of both whether and how to vote. This thought-provoking and insightful text will be invaluable for students and scholars of democratic theory, elections and voting, and political behavior.
Download or read book Referendums as Representative Democracy written by Leah Trueblood and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-04-18 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In referendums on fundamental constitutional issues, do the people come together to make decisions instead of representatives? This book argues no. It offers an alternative theory of referendums whereby they are one of many ordinary ways that voters give direction to their representatives. In this way, the book argues that referendums are better understood as exercises in representative democracy. The book challenges the current treatment of referendums in processes of constitutional change both in the UK and around the world. It argues that referendums have been used under the banner of popular sovereignty in a way that undermines representative institutions. This book makes the case for the use of referendums stronger by showing how they can support, rather than undermine, institutions of representative democracy. Understanding referendums as exercises in representative democracy has broader implications for constitutional democracy as well. Rather than see the power to constitute constitutions as something that happens occasionally in exceptional moments through referendums, this book argues instead that voters constantly have the power to constitute and reconstitute their constitutions.
Download or read book The Global Justice Reader written by Thom Brooks and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-03-06 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique compendium of foundational and contemporary writings in global justice, newly revised and expanded The Global Justice Reader is the first resource of its kind to focus exclusively on this important topic in moral and political philosophy, providing an expertly curated selection of both classic and contemporary work in one comprehensive volume. Purpose-built for course work, this collection brings together the best in the field to help students appreciate the philosophical dimensions of critical global issues and chart the development of diverse concepts of justice and morality. Newly revised and expanded, the Reader presents key writings of the most influential writers on global justice, including Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Martha C. Nussbaum, and Peter Singer. Thirty-nine chapters across eleven thematically organized sections explore sovereignty, rights to self-determination, human rights, nationalism and patriotism, cosmopolitanism, global poverty, women and global justice, climate change, and more. Features seminal works from the moral and political philosophers of the past as well as important writings from leading contemporary thinkers Explores critical topics in current discourses surrounding immigration and citizenship, global poverty, just war, terrorism, and international environmental justice Highlights the need for shared philosophical resources to help address global problems Includes a brief introduction in each section setting out the issues of concern to global justice theorists Contains complete references in each chapter and a fully up-to-date, extended bibliography to supplement further readings The revised edition of The Global Justice Reader remains an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in global justice and human rights, cosmopolitanism and nationalism, environmental justice, and social justice and citizenship, and an excellent supplement for general courses in political philosophy, political science, social science, and law.
Download or read book The Spirit of Democracy written by Sofia Näsström and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-20 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does one revitalize democracy in times of crisis? Democracy is today challenged by populism and elitism, as well as by the resurgence of new forms of authoritarianism. The Spirit of Democracy: Corruption, Disintegration, Renewal shows that while we have good reasons to worry about the corruption of democratic practices and ideals, these worries are often attributable to questionable assumptions about what democracy is. Drawing on Montesquieu's classical work on the spirit of laws, the book sets out to reconceive the ways in which we understand and conceptualise modern democracy: from sovereignty to spirit. According to Montesquieu, different political forms are animated and sustained by different spirits: a republic by virtue, a monarchy by honour, and a despotic form by fear. This book argues that modern democracy is a sui generis political form animated and sustained by a spirit of emancipation. The removal of divine, natural, and historical authorities in political affairs unleashes a fundamental uncertainty about the purpose and direction of society. In a democracy, we respond to that uncertainty by sharing and dividing it equally. It emancipates us from a state of self-incurred tutelage. Based on this argument, the book develops a new theoretical framework for studying the corruption, disintegration, and renewal of democracy: what it is, how it begins, and where in society it plays out.
