Download or read book Liberals Politics and Power written by Vincent C. Peloso and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at the Latin American liberal project during the century of postindependence, this collection of original essays draws attention to an underappreciated dilemma confronting liberals: idealistic visions and fiscal restraints. Liberals, Politics, and Power focuses on the inventiveness of nineteenth-century Latin Americans who applied liberal ideology to the founding and maintenance of new states. The impact of liberalism in Latin America, the contributors show, is best understood against the larger backdrop of struggles that pitted regional demands against the pressures of foreign finance, a powerful church against a decentralized state, and aristocratic desire to retain privilege against rising demands for social mobility. Moving beyond the traditional historiographical division between Eurocentric and dependency theories, the essays attempt to account for a uniquely Latin American liberal ideology and politics by exploring the political dynamics of such countries as Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Peru. Contributors discuss liberal efforts to build a viable legal order through elections and to implement a means of public finance that could fund the states' operations. Essays that span the entire century address issues such as the emergence of caudillos, the role of artisans, and popular participation in elections in light of fiscal, and other, impediments to progress. In their introduction, Vincent C. Peloso and Barbara A. Tenenbaum provide a hemispheric overview of liberalism that illustrates its similarities across Latin America. By exploring the liberal constitutional and economic order lying beneath apparently dictatorial states, this pathbreaking volume underlines the importance of fiscal policy in the fashioning of state power. Liberals, Politics, and Power serves not only as a guide to the liberal principles and practices that governed state formation in nineteenth-century Latin America but also as a means to evaluate the complex relationship between ideas and practical politics.
Download or read book Politics Is for Power written by Eitan Hersh and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant condemnation of political hobbyism—treating politics like entertainment—and a call to arms for well-meaning, well-informed citizens who consume political news, but do not take political action. Who is to blame for our broken politics? The uncomfortable answer to this question starts with ordinary citizens with good intentions. We vote (sometimes) and occasionally sign a petition or attend a rally. But we mainly “engage” by consuming politics as if it’s a sport or a hobby. We soak in daily political gossip and eat up statistics about who’s up and who’s down. We tweet and post and share. We crave outrage. The hours we spend on politics are used mainly as pastime. Instead, we should be spending the same number of hours building political organizations, implementing a long-term vision for our city or town, and getting to know our neighbors, whose votes will be needed for solving hard problems. We could be accumulating power so that when there are opportunities to make a difference—to lobby, to advocate, to mobilize—we will be ready. But most of us who are spending time on politics today are focused inward, choosing roles and activities designed for our short-term pleasure. We are repelled by the slow-and-steady activities that characterize service to the common good. In Politics Is for Power, pioneering and brilliant data analyst Eitan Hersh shows us a way toward more effective political participation. Aided by political theory, history, cutting-edge social science, as well as remarkable stories of ordinary citizens who got off their couches and took political power seriously, this book shows us how to channel our energy away from political hobbyism and toward empowering our values.
Download or read book Liberalism Black Power and the Making of American Politics 1965 1980 written by Devin Fergus and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pioneering exploration of the interplay between liberalism and black nationalism, Devin Fergus returns to the tumultuous era of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Helms and challenges us to see familiar political developments through a new lens. What if the liberal coalition, instead of being torn apart by the demands of Black Power, actually engaged in a productive relationship with radical upstarts, absorbing black separatists into the political mainstream and keeping them from a more violent path? What if the New Right arose not only in response to Great Society Democrats but, as significantly, in reaction to Republican moderates who sought compromise with black nationalists through conduits like the Blacks for Nixon movement? Focusing especially on North Carolina, a progressive southern state and a national center of Black Power activism, Fergus reveals how liberal engagement helped to bring a radical civic ideology back from the brink of political violence and social nihilism. He covers Malcolm X Liberation University and Soul City, two largely forgotten, federally funded black nationalist experiments; the political scene in Winston-Salem, where Black Panthers were elected to office in surprising numbers; and the liberal-nationalist coalition that formed in 1974 to defend Joan Little, a black prisoner who killed a guard she accused of raping her. Throughout, Fergus charts new territory in the study of America's recent past, taking up largely unexplored topics such as the expanding political role of institutions like the ACLU and the Ford Foundation and the emergence of sexual violence as a political issue. He also urges American historians to think globally by drawing comparisons between black nationalism in the United States and other separatist movements around the world. By 1980, Fergus writes, black radicals and their offspring were "more likely to petition Congress than blow it up." That liberals engaged black radicalism at all, however, was enough for New Right insurgents to paint liberalism as an effete, anti-American ideology--a sentiment that has had lasting appeal to significant numbers of voters.
Download or read book Moral Politics written by George Lakoff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classic text, the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics, George Lakoff analyzes the unconscious and rhetorical worldviews of liberals and conservatives, discovering radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. For this new edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath.
Download or read book The Politics of Virtue written by John Milbank and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two expert authors combine a compelling critique of contemporary liberalism with post-liberal alternatives in politics, the economy, culture and international affairs, to provide the fullest account so far of the post-liberal alternative in Western politics.
Download or read book American Power and Liberal Order written by Paul D. Miller and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to widespread belief, the United States has been following a broadly consistent grand strategy across presidential administrations for more than a century by using American power to create and expand the liberal international system. This liberal order is the outer perimeter of American security. Today, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some are calling for a policy of restraint or pulling back because they believe America is relatively safe and its resources are overstretched. Paul D. Miller argues that they are wrong. American security and the liberal international order need US leadership and are in jeopardy from nuclear-armed autocracies, violent non-state actors, and the failed states who harbor them. In response, the United States should not pull back but should continue to promote five pillars of American grand strategy: maintaining a favorable balance of power among the great powers, defending the U.S. homeland from attack, promoting democracy, investing in good governance abroad, and punishing rogue actors that threaten allies or the stability of the international system. Miller does however call for reprioitzing where around the globe the United States should focus its energies in the future, and he proposes common sense reforms to the US national security state so as to better manage foreign policy.
Download or read book The Once and Future Liberal written by Mark Lilla and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly 40 years, Ronald Reagan's vision--small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism--has remained America's dominant political ideology. The Democratic Party has offered no truly convincing competing vision. Instead, American liberalism has fallen under the spell of identity politics.Mark Lilla argues with acerbic wit that liberals, originally driven by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, have now unwittingly invested their energies in social movements rather than winning elections. This abandonment of political priorities has had dire consequences. But, with the Republican Party led by an unpredictable demagogue and in ideological disarray, Lilla believes liberals now have an opportunity to turn from the divisive politics of identity, and offer positive ideas for a shared future. A fiercely-argued, no-nonsense book, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times.
Download or read book Moral Politics written by George Lakoff and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lakoff takes a fresh look at how we think and talk about politics and shows that political and moral ideas develop in systematic ways from our models of ideal families. Arguing that conservatives have exploited the connection between morality, the famility and politics, while liberals have failed to recognize it, Lakoff expalins why the conservative moral position has not been effectively challenged.
Download or read book Foucault And Political Reason written by Andrew Barry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.
Download or read book Why Liberalism Failed written by Patrick J. Deneen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.
Download or read book The Theology of Liberalism written by Eric Nelson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our most important political theorists pulls the philosophical rug out from under modern liberalism, then tries to place it on a more secure footing. We think of modern liberalism as the novel product of a world reinvented on a secular basis after 1945. In The Theology of Liberalism, one of the country’s most important political theorists argues that we could hardly be more wrong. Eric Nelson contends that the tradition of liberal political philosophy founded by John Rawls is, however unwittingly, the product of ancient theological debates about justice and evil. Once we understand this, he suggests, we can recognize the deep incoherence of various forms of liberal political philosophy that have emerged in Rawls’s wake. Nelson starts by noting that today’s liberal political philosophers treat the unequal distribution of social and natural advantages as morally arbitrary. This arbitrariness, they claim, diminishes our moral responsibility for our actions. Some even argue that we are not morally responsible when our own choices and efforts produce inequalities. In defending such views, Nelson writes, modern liberals have implicitly taken up positions in an age-old debate about whether the nature of the created world is consistent with the justice of God. Strikingly, their commitments diverge sharply from those of their proto-liberal predecessors, who rejected the notion of moral arbitrariness in favor of what was called Pelagianism—the view that beings created and judged by a just God must be capable of freedom and merit. Nelson reconstructs this earlier “liberal” position and shows that Rawls’s philosophy derived from his self-conscious repudiation of Pelagianism. In closing, Nelson sketches a way out of the argumentative maze for liberals who wish to emerge with commitments to freedom and equality intact.
Download or read book Liberals and Communism written by Frank A. Warren and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although deconstruction has become a popular catchword, as an intellectual movement it has never entirely caught on within the university. For some in the academy, deconstruction, and Jacques Derrida in particular, are responsible for the demise of accountability in the study of literature. Countering these facile dismissals of Derrida and deconstruction, Herman Rapaport explores the incoherence that has plagued critical theory since the 1960s and the resulting legitimacy crisis in the humanities. Against the backdrop of a rich, informed discussion of Derrida's writings -- and how they have been misconstrued by critics and admirers alike -- The Theory Mess investigates the vicissitudes of Anglo-American criticism over the past thirty years and proposes some possibilities for reform.
Download or read book The Collapse of Liberalism written by Charles Noble and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2004-05-03 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Collapse of Liberalism, noted political scientist Charles Noble shows how the American political system frustrates progressive reform while taking liberalism to task for not being radical enough-for what he sees as a long history of accommodating the very same political institutions and corporate interests that it has wanted to challenge. As a result, Noble argues, liberals have been unable to solve the problems of class, race and gender inequality that bedevil the United States. In short, American liberalism suffers not only at the hands of conservatives, but also from its own failures of vision, will, and political strategy. Beyond a critique, Noble offers a breath-taking new progressive strategy for rebuilding America. Clear and thought-provoking, The Collapse of Liberalism is a politically engaged interrogation of the way American liberals think about politics and social reform.
Download or read book The New Liberalism written by Jeffrey M. Berry and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you think liberalism is dead, think again. In this sure-to-be-controversial book, Jeffrey M. Berry argues that modern liberalism is not only still alive, it's actually thriving. Today's new liberalism has evolved from a traditional emphasis on bread-and-butter economic issues to a form he calls "postmaterialism"--quality-of-life concerns such as enhancing the environment, protecting consumers, or promoting civil rights. Berry credits the new liberalism's success to the rise of liberal citizen lobbying groups. By analyzing the activities of Congress during three sessions (1963, 1979, and 1991), he demonstrates the correlation between the increasing lobbying activities of citizen groups and a dramatic shift in the American political agenda from an early 1960s emphasis on economic equality to today's postmaterialist issues. Although conservative groups also began to emphasize postmaterial concerns--such as abortion and other family value issues--Berry finds that liberal citizen groups have been considerably more effective than conservative ones at getting their goals onto the congressional agenda and enacted into legislation. The book provides many examples of citizen group issues that Congress enacted into law, successes when citizen groups were in direct conflict with business interests and when demands were made on behalf of traditionally marginalized constituencies, such as the women's and civil rights movements. Berry concludes that although liberal citizen groups make up only a small portion of the thousands of lobbying organizations in Washington, they have been, and will continue to be, a major force in shaping the political landscape.
Download or read book The Danger of Progressive Liberalism written by Charles Gross and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is under assault by the progressive attitudes and actions of the liberal Left. At this critical time in our history, it is imperative that conservatives stand united against this assault. The majority of Americans are not progressive liberals, so why should we have to live with progressive liberal policies? Charles Gross thinks it's time to fi ght for individual liberties and America's future. He makes a case for the following: Liberals consistently say one thing and do another. Liberal politicians blatantly promote racism and divisiveness. Progressive liberal concepts enable the Islamic agenda of global domination. Many moderate Americans support liberal candidates, voting against their own best interests. Republican politicians contribute to the problem by failing to act with integrity and according to the Constitution. Gross proposes achievable solutions to restore traditional American values. By reducing the size of the federal government, reforming taxation, maintaining a strong national defense, and applying the tenets of the United States Constitution along with common sense, it is possible to save America from progressive liberalism.
Download or read book A Thousand Small Sanities written by Adam Gopnik and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stirring defense of liberalism against the dogmatisms of our time from an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author. Not since the early twentieth century has liberalism, and liberals, been under such relentless attack, from both right and left. The crisis of democracy in our era has produced a crisis of faith in liberal institutions and, even worse, in liberal thought. A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history -- and why, in an age of autocracy, our lives may depend on its continuation.
Download or read book Beyond Liberal and Conservative written by William S. Maddox and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 1984-12-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politicians and political analysts continue to use a single liberal-conservative dimension to analyze the ideological views of the American people, but that approach is increasingly inadequate. Professors Maddox and Lilie have gone beyond the liberal-conservative continuum. By separating questions aof economic policy from issues involving civil liberties, they find four basic ideological group: liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and populists. This book goes a long way toward explaining such phenomena as ticket-splitting, the impact of the baby-boom generation, and the internal conflicts both major parties will face over the next few years.
