Abstract
Benjamin Arditi's book is a very welcome addition to the field of post-structuralist political theory. Cutting a considered path between Laclauian and Rancièrian theory without remaining dogmatically faithful to either, Arditi sets out to investigate the political and social phenomena that operate at what he terms ‘the edges of liberalism’. Co-opting the Freudian concept of ‘internal foreign territory’, Arditi posits that these edges of liberalism can be thought of as the ‘internal periphery’ of liberal democratic politics, which is ‘an outside that belongs’ (p. 3). As such, the book takes on four central elements of political thought – difference, populism, agitation and revolution – and investigates how they inhabit these frayed corners of liberal democratic politics. As well as the theorists named above, he draws on a plethora of important thinkers – Žižek, Deleuze, Vattimo, Gramsci and Derrida, to name a few – as well as a compelling range of varied examples to illustrate creatively how these ‘grey areas’ of present-day political life challenge the hegemonic status of liberalism.
Not all of Arditi's investigations are equally successful. The first section, which deals with difference in the guise of identity politics and the culture wars, treads familiar territory without introducing any particularly novel insights. However, the following section, which focuses on populism, could not be more different. Arditi's take on populism is outstanding, and perhaps represents the most sophisticated conceptualisation of this difficult topic in the literature to date. Rather than going down the recent Laclauian path of basically equating all politics with populism, or worse, taking the typological approach, Arditi eschews the need to provide an ultimate definition of the phenomenon. This allows him to capture the different ways that populism manifests in the contemporary political landscape: as a mode of representation, as a symptom of democratic politics and as a potential underside of democracy. What is so refreshing about this three-pronged approach is how it opens the space for further theoretical and empirical analysis of this important phenomenon – a substantial feat indeed, given the patchy nature of the literature on populism. The final chapters, which aim to re-contextualise and vindicate the important role of agitprop and revolution in radical politics, are also impressive.
What is most exciting about this book overall is how successfully it marries sharp theoretical insight with conceptual tools for real-life political activism. In this sense, it is a brilliant example of that good old-fashioned Marxist term, praxis. Written clearly, concisely and with a particularly deft touch, it is highly recommended to political theorists and activists alike.
Benjamin Moffitt
(University of Sydney)
A collection of critical essays, the majority of Balakrishnan's Antagonistics consists of extended book reviews previously published in the New Left Review. The purpose of the book, so its introduction explains, is to chronicle and bring into ‘sharper relief’ (p. vii) the second decade of the post-Cold War status quo. This introduction is a blistering read as preface to an exciting intellectual prospect: charting the effacement of once definitionally indispensable narrative coordinates and conceptual distinctions in the present situation of omnipresent capitalism (‘state’, ‘revolution’, ‘war’), Balakrishnan critically locates the succeeding essays as attempts to develop a form of writing and position taking that might further the goal of radical transformation in this epoch.
Balakrishnan is well aware of the impossibility of intellectual neutrality in doing this and notes by way of Carl Schmitt the polemical nature of all political terms, concepts and images. In this light, the neologism of the title is meant, so he writes, to evoke both a notion of rational polemics of political (‘over-politicised’) reason and ‘to index a historical moment in which some of the presuppositions of criticism – most vitally the test of and passage to action – are missing’ (p. xi). Following Gramsci's edict to understand and evaluate adversaries' positions and reasons, the essays are fair and scrupulous wherever the subject sits upon the ideological spectrum, from the far right to left. Indeed, in this manner, both in style and political perspective, the book does what the New Left Review generally does so well. It should be taken as no slight, therefore, to depict it – stylistically and intellectually – as a lesser companion piece to Perry Anderson's magnificent Spectrum (2005).
Antagonistics is structured in three parts: recent macro histories of the co-evolution of capitalism and the interstate system; reflections on politics as per the genesis, identity and motives of the state; and two reflections on Machiavelli, a figure to whom Balakrishnan has turned for insights regarding the defeat and prospects for renewal of revolutionary causes. The book covers, across its breadth, such disparate thinkers as Schmitt, de Tocqueville, Habermas and Hardt and Negri, to name but a few. Considered as a whole, however, the book never manages fully to live up to its opening promise. Possibly due to the constraining nature of the book review format, the collected essays – while always well written and interesting – never manage to catch fire. There is plenty of narrative and intellectual elan throughout, but the promised polemic is a little too cauterised.
David S. Moon
(University of Sheffield)
It is now widely assumed that the battle for universal suffrage has been won but, as Ludvig Beckman observes in this provocative study, no actual democratic state enfranchises everyone. After an introduction and a further chapter on the meaning of democracy, this book examines the main cases of exclusion in turn, devoting a chapter each to resident foreigners, children, felons, the cognitively impaired and future generations. In each case, Beckman asks first whether it is democratic to exclude this group from ‘the people’ and, second, whether it is reasonable to exclude them from the franchise. This separation of the conceptual and normative issues allows him to draw some interesting conclusions, such as that it would be more democratic to enfranchise children but there are nonetheless good reasons not to do so (p. 119), whereas it would actually be less democratic to enfranchise members of future generations, but there may nonetheless be reasons to represent their interests (p. 186).
This is a timely book on an important topic, but I doubt that it will be the final word. Beckman's arguments are sometimes rather too quick. For instance, his criterion for inclusion in the democratic people is whether or not one is legally subject to the decisions made, interpreted as a version of the ‘all affected’ principle. However, there seems to be no explicit justification for interpreting ‘all affected’ as ‘all and only those affected’, which is crucial to his claim that overinclusion is actually less democratic as opposed to merely no more democratic. There are hints that this follows from the identity of ruler and ruled (p. 84) but, without further support, this assumption threatens to turn a sufficient condition of suffrage into a necessary one, thereby undermining some of the arguments (e.g. it does not logically follow from the claim that all citizens should have the vote that non-citizens should not).
Of course, it is to be expected that a book on such a new and controversial topic will generate disagreement. This will be a useful contribution to a still limited literature on the scope of the franchise, due to Beckman's methodical approach, breadth of study and impressive range of references, many of which are very recent (2005–08).
Ben Saunders
(University of Stirling)
In this ambitious book, Antony Black provides a short and global explanation of ancient political thought. He should be considered one of the greatest and most consistent specialists in medieval political thought, but in this book he shows an impressive comprehension of the sources of ancient cultures. He argues that all political thought until Christianity may be studied as a combination of philosophy, religion, politics and social ethics in different proportions.
Black uses several sources (religious, literary, legal) in order to explain the mentality of ancient cultures. This book examines political thought from prehistory to c.***200
The book shows different ideas about who should govern, how to govern and what government is for, and other topics such as monarchy, justice, the rule of law and meritocracy. Black sums up: ‘in Greece and Rome, democracy and liberty were born, while in Israel the polity was based on covenant and the law. Confucius taught humaneness, Mozi and Christianity taught universal love; Kautilya and the Chinese “Legalists” believed in realpolitik and an authoritarian state’.
The author shows the main differences between oriental and Western political thought and emphasises the reciprocal influences. On the one hand, Chinese, Greek and Indian thinkers enforced the unity of the state, while the concepts of status and class were implanted in Indian and Chinese thought. While the nation is a political and a religious reference in Israel, Hellenistic and Roman philosophy saw humanity as a community that covers the whole world.
According to Black's exposition, political philosophy was invented in China and Greece, statecraft in China and India, while political science was born in Greece. Plato and Aristotle were the fathers of the Western political tradition, which was followed by Polybius and Cicero and mixed with Hebrew sources by Christians. Black concludes by underlining the need for a global comprehension of ancient political thought and of the difference between political ideology (existing in all ordered societies) and political philosophy (systematic reflection). It is a book that can be highly recommended.
Rafael Ramis Barceló
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
In Political Judgement the editors have assembled an impressive collection of essays covering the questions both of how to understand what political actors think themselves to be engaged in and justified by, and how confident or sceptical we should be in such judgements and in our own.
The book is aptly inspired by John Dunn, for what emerges is a very Dunn-like combination of wariness and engagement. On the one hand, there is the depressing realisation that good political judgement is demonstrably difficult – even the terms to analyse and evaluate what is going on are palpably affected by our current situation, recent past and intellectual history, as Raymond Geuss highlights in his introduction. Our judgements, according to Victoria McGeer and Philip Pettit, cannot be dependably relied upon to be effectively revised by reason. And even those of celebrated judgement may not on inspection have been warranted in their confidence, as Geoffrey Hawthorn's excellent discussion of Pericles makes clear. These chapters are sobering.
Yet on the other hand we have to, or at least should try to, judge. This task cannot, argues Quentin Skinner in his discussion of Locke, be sanguinely passed over to our rulers. Nor, argues Adam Przeworski, can we reflexively have confidence that the presence of formal political equality is sufficient or even hospitable to a broader socio-economic equality. Retreat from political judgement may be an increasingly unattractive option, argues Richard Tuck, to the extent that a democracy's claim to act on behalf of the people may be taken seriously by its enemies.
Above all this book is a useful reminder that politics is simultaneously a theoretical subject and an activity, and that even if we think we have transcended the second by gaining a steady grasp on what is and should be going on, unless we are uncommonly lucky, we are likely to be mistaken or at least severely misled by the contingencies of the situation, our intellectual history and a cluster of biases. Furthermore, this will apply to political actors too, and as such be a central feature of the deployment of state coercion. A scepticism-fuelled retreat from judgement is thus unwarranted. That we see poorly is no reason for shutting our eyes, or for not watching warily. The book is thus a timely rejoinder to our overly confident and casually apathetic age.
Mathew Coakley
(New York University)
This ambitious book begins with an articulate defence of a cosmopolitan theory of global justice, followed by careful evaluation of the theory's practical implications for international policy. Gillian Brock develops an account of cosmopolitan justice from an initial assumption of the equal moral worth of persons. Then she considers a range of practical policy issues for which her theory has implications. In the final section of the book she argues that her cosmopolitan conception of global justice leaves room for permissible forms of nationalism and for special bonds of loyalty many people feel toward their own communities.
The book is a pleasure to read – clearly written and carefully argued. Brock embeds her view in a meticulous reading of current literature and is careful to explain how and why her view diverges from other prominent contemporary accounts. She does not shy away from controversial positions, and few books can claim such a remarkably high ratio of arguments and carefully supported claims per page.
According to Brock, justice requires that each person should be ‘adequately positioned to enjoy the prospects for a decent life, so they are enabled to meet their basic needs, their basic liberties are protected, and they enjoy fair terms of cooperation in collective endeavours’ (p. 5). This position is modest in important respects: the requirement that people have adequate provision is more minimal than proposals to make people equal and (in some conceivable circumstances) less demanding than a global difference principle that would require maximisation of benefits to those who are worst off. Still, a proposal that everyone should be adequately provided for is still quite demanding compared to the global status quo.
Brock is careful to respond to the ‘feasibility sceptics’ who will regard the requirements of her theory as excessive and utopian. Her response is twofold: first, she uses the second section of the book to develop practical proposals for poverty mitigation, taxation, prospects for the International Criminal Court as an institution to promote and secure basic liberties, institutions governing permissible humanitarian intervention, immigration and the regulation of trade. Second, she uses the last chapter of the book to analyse and respond to the reasons that might most plausibly be thought to underlie the view of the feasibility sceptic. The scope of the project and the care with which it has been executed make this book one of the most important recent contributions to this most important topic.
Clark Wolf
(Iowa State University)
Glenn Burgess' main theme in this book is the impact of the English Reformation on three thorny issues: the ruler's approach to religious diversity (prosecution of dissent versus a circumscribed, pragmatic tolerance); the relationship between secular and sacred authority (especially the role of political leaders in matters of faith); and the response of those who disliked their ruler's religious affiliation. This last subject was especially fraught during the early modern period: some argued for obedience in all situations (arguing that even the heretical king was sent by God); some settled for acts of limited disobedience (flouting specific laws); and a few mounted fully fledged theories of resistance.
Burgess reveals that the Henrician and Edwardine imposition of a Royal Supremacy produced an ambiguous legacy: the borders between the temporal and spiritual spheres were not settled and there was still room to argue about whether the Supremacy belonged to the king alone or king-in-parliament. The Marian Catholic revival persuaded some exiled English and Scottish Protestants to flirt with innovative resistance theory, and the reign of Elizabeth, while witnessing sustained attempts to justify the via media, also provoked many voices of dissent. Catholics and more radical Protestants oscillated between reluctant obedience, partial conformity and more menacing strategies. After the relative calm of the reign of James I (James VI), during which reverence for the ancient constitution and the divine right of kings managed to coexist, the realm fell into chaos. Burgess shows us Scottish Covenanters embracing the idea of legitimate resistance to an errant monarch and English Parliamentarians casuistically insisting that they respected monarchical authority even as they were challenging Charles I. Finally, Burgess explores the radical outpourings of the late 1640s and 1650s and the attempts, by Hobbes and Harrington, to stem the tide of overly enthusiastic speculation.
The book will appeal most to those who are already well versed in the religious and political history of the period, not least because of the extended explorations of major figures (More and Hooker both warrant fifteen pages of close analysis, for instance). The book is not intended as a rounded survey of British political thought during the early modern era but as a study of the Reformation's impact on ‘the interaction of religious belief and political ideas’ (p. x). As such, it is nuanced, insightful and respectfully argumentative.
Jonathan Wright
(Independent Scholar)
‘This book is a philosophical reflection upon the end of modernity’ (p. vii). Thus opens this new book by one of Italy's foremost political philosophers, Furio Cerutti. As the author explains, more than any other concern we face today, including terrorism, global poverty or pandemics, there are two global challenges that both define the human condition and endanger human civilisation: the sheer existence of nuclear weapons and global warming. What makes these two challenges distinctive is the fact that the principal actor on the international political stage today, the modern state, seems powerless to curtail these threats.
In some of the most thought-provoking and erudite pages of the book, Cerutti provides an overview of what he calls ‘the Hobbesian moment’; namely, the formation of a centralised institution which reduces violence by concentrating it in its own hands. In doing so the modern state not only establishes peace, order and security, but its legitimacy stands or falls with the accomplishment of this task. The fact that the Leviathan is toothless when faced with the dual challenges of nuclear weapons and global warming creates a crisis of legitimacy that threatens to engulf the very foundations of political modernity.
There are at least two reasons why this book deserves to be recommended. First, it is unlike any other recent book of political philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition. This is not simply due to the fact that John Rawls makes only a fleeting appearance. Instead it is the breadth of the problem, and the expansive historical, political and philosophical perspective embraced by Cerutti, that make this book very refreshing reading.
Second, the interdisciplinary nature of the book is impressive. The analysis Cerutti provides will be of interest not only to political philosophers, but also to scholars of political science, international relations, history of ideas and social theory. Students of all these disciplines will also benefit from the research in matters of physics and climatology undertaken by the author during the many years it took to write this book.
There is no doubt that nuclear weapons and climate change pose profound challenges. So what is the solution? As Cerutti rightly reminds us, we should not expect simple solutions to epochal questions, but what he does is to urge the reader to look beyond the traditional dispute of political realism vs. normativism. This is a precious insight, which hopefully will inspire many followers.
Vittorio Bufacchi
(University College Cork)
This book gathers together a sample of the main currents of contemporary political philosophy. The editors have assembled 23 papers on a wide variety of topics, most of which are original contributions by some of the leading philosophers. The collection is organised around five themes: method; liberalism; democracy; identity and difference; and global justice. The first sets up the debates with the fundamental question of how one should do political philosophy. Each subsequent theme is then subdivided into key topics. The range of issues encompassed is vast, and the papers are thus necessarily selective.
The title is slightly misleading and the editors acknowledge that they have not held to the debate format. They observe that all of the issues clearly have more than two sides. However, the publisher's blurb on the back cover misleadingly describes this as ‘leading philosophers engaging in head-to-head debate’, and claims that it may serve as an introduction to the major topics in political philosophy. This is neither what the book achieves nor what it proposes. While some papers directly refer to others, the format is an overview of key issues, not head-to-head debate. Most of the papers confront different issues, or do not conflict in their approaches. Nor is this an introductory book. The papers present in-depth arguments on specific issues, and many require a certain amount of familiarity. This book provides a useful selection of papers on key issues, as the editors intend, and not an introduction as the publisher's blurb contends.
The editors' stated purpose is ‘to provide a cross-section of some of the best thinking about particular topics’ and to ‘suggest where some of the most trenchant fault lines between contrasting approaches can be found’ (p. 20). They achieve both goals, in general. The papers and the way in which they are organised give a clear indication of the crucial issues that divide political philosophers and provide a useful overview of the terrain of contemporary political philosophy.
At times the selection is questionable – the section on distributive justice, for instance, is limited to libertarians, and does not adequately characterise the debate. Further, whereas most of the papers are good, original contributions, John Kekes' paper against egalitarianism confronts a straw man instead of the important issues and does not merit its place alongside the likes of G. A. Cohen, Onora O'Neill, Iris Marion Young, etc. Nevertheless, this does not detract from the book's success as a strong and useful overview.
David Marjoribanks
(University of Kent)
As the editor states in the introduction, the purpose of this volume is to provide those interested in Gramsci with an insight into how he is ‘read’ today and ‘how different Gramscian categories and theories are being used in diverse ways in different fields’ (pp. 5–6). The twelve essays are organised alphabetically by author, apparently to allow ‘readers the creative freedom to pursue the volume in their own individual way’ (p. 6).
While the book claims a primary interest in ‘the applicability of Gramsci's thought to crucial questions at the crux of contemporary US and world civilization' (p. 5), many of the essays focus predominantly on the interpretative agenda. This tends to undermine somewhat the book's principal purpose, but the quality of scholarship that these essays bring to some of the key concepts and themes in Gramsci's thought – political organisation (Stanley Aronowitz), the Gramsci–Labriola relationship (Roberto Dainotto), Gramsci's theory of labour (Michael Denning), common sense (Guido Liguori) and Italy's Southern Question (Frank Rosengarten) – places them among the best in the volume. The chapters by Denning and Liguori are particularly impressive, not only for the exhaustive and penetrating analysis, but also for the convincing arguments they raise.
The remaining essays provide not only authoritative and persuasive ‘readings’ of Gramsci but also innovative applications of his ideas in anthropology (Kate Crehan), media studies (Marcia Landy), international relations (Stephen Gill), international political economy (David F. Ruccio) and post-colonial studies (Epifanio San Juan Jr). There is considerable focus on US politics, and the essays by Joseph Buttigieg and Benedetto Fontana in particular contain intriguing applications of Gramsci's ideas on civil society to recent developments in American politics. The richest empirical analyses in the volume are carried out by Kate Crehan and Epifanio San Juan Jr. Crehan draws on the Gramscian dialectic between intellectuals and mass to carry out a fascinating analysis of urban regeneration projects in the UK, while San Juan Jr engages in a brilliant critique of mainstream post-colonial studies from a Gramscian ‘national-popular’ perspective which he applies authoritatively to the Philippines.
Although the volume's disjointed nature may not be to everyone's taste, its principle merit – and point of unity – is that it demonstrates how Gramsci's ideas remain at the centre of debates about the contemporary social and political world and how his ideas can be employed effectively in a whole range of disciplines. It deserves to be read widely by both new and seasoned scholars of Gramsci.
Mark McNally
(University of Leeds)
The Political Philosophy of Thomas Paine is the latest addition to the Johns Hopkins University Press series ‘The Political Philosophy of the American Founders’, which already includes titles on Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Washington.
To begin, the author asks: ‘But just who was Thomas Paine, and what drove his thinking?’ (p. 2) and over the course of six concise chapters general readers, students and scholars will find various answers to that question. For the most part the text is thoroughly documented. The author is undoubtedly familiar with the literature on Paine, from which he draws judiciously. As for Fruchtman's understanding of the thought of Paine's contemporaries, this too seems sound, aside from some occasional dubious remarks – did Madison really think the political system described in the Federalist would ‘force [Americans] to be virtuous’ (p. 40)?
A novel part of the book is an illuminating comparison between the economic ideas of Paine and Alexander Hamilton (pp. 103 ff.). A section examining Paine's under-appreciated essay Agrarian Justice (pp. 119 ff.) is also noteworthy for the author's careful rendering of Paine's ideas as not categorically ‘proto-socialism or bourgeois radicalism’, but somewhere in between, and nonetheless ‘truly visionary’ (p. 129, p. 131).
Fruchtman accurately depicts Paine's deism, his hostility to organised religion and the biblical influence on Paine's thought, although Fruchtman's emphasis on ‘God’ throughout the study, especially in chapter 1, may strike some readers as excessive. Moreover, Paine is frequently described, without due attribution, as understanding his role in the American and French Revolutions as divinely sanctioned. Indeed a principal contribution of this book is the influence of religion on Paine's thought. This may disappoint readers expecting a more balanced rendering.
Near the beginning of his book Fruchtman asserts: ‘Although Thomas Paine never set out to write a formal political philosophy, we may discern in his whole body of work a consistency and coherence in his political and social thought’ (p. 14). This is something of a tricky proposition with a thinker like Paine who, the author agrees, was hardly systematic and whose oeuvre includes many propaganda tracts. Nevertheless, after reading The Political Philosophy of Thomas Paine readers will recognise consistencies in Paine's work that reveal, if not a systematic ‘political philosophy’, certainly a marvellous political thinker.
Jeffrey D. Hilmer
(University of British Columbia)
Epistemic defences of democracy have become popular in recent years, and so a collection of articles on truth and democracy seems apt. The reader would be well advised, however, to note the subtitle of this book, for truth is only one of its twin themes – with other papers focusing instead on public space, understood either in a literal (physical) or more figurative sense. Although there is certainly some connection between these concerns, with the suggestion that public deliberation in an open forum may serve truth, the variety of approaches gathered here do not make for a unified treatment of these topics.
The first part of the book includes three contributions offering epistemic defences of democracy (Estlund, Misak, Talisse) and a fourth pointing to affinities between Hobbes' and Kelsen's scepticism towards absolute truth (Raynaud). The second section consists of two essays: Festenstein on the importance of trust and Newey on how democracy is actually hostile to truth and promotes instead a ‘theatre of illusions’. Part III turns to concerns of space, with three pieces (Parkinson, Low, Verschaffel) on the importance of physical location and different scales to democracy. Finally, the fourth section addresses transnational democracy, with Bohman and Cochran each analysing the role of international publics.
The eleven substantive contributions are all short, with some authors doing little more than sketching views that they have developed more fully elsewhere. This is no textbook offering an impartial survey of the field, however – all are argumentative, and despite, or because of, their brevity, some of these essays would be hard going for students. Rather, the collection offers an insight into different approaches to some related problems in democratic theory.
While several of the authors (Misak, Talisse, Festenstein, Cochran) draw on the American pragmatist tradition, particularly Dewey, other contributors – drawn from politics, philosophy, international relations and geography – make use of theorists as diverse as Habermas, Dworkin, Dryzek and Lefebvre. The resulting collection is thus more varied than many such volumes and, no doubt, most readers will find some pieces more to their taste than others. As a sampler of these varying approaches it fulfils a worthwhile function, but the researcher seeking a more sustained treatment of the topics covered will need to follow the references for further development of these ideas elsewhere.
Ben Saunders
(University of Stirling)
One of the striking things about John Rawls' work is that its scope is both huge and tiny. It is huge because justice as fairness is huge. It is a beast of a theory: nothing less than a technical, rigorous and systematic defence of liberal principles from the ground up which has defined the terms for normative political philosophy ever since. Had he written nothing more than A Theory of Justice in his career, Rawls would still be appropriately celebrated as one of the most important political philosophers ever to have lived, whose work did more than any other to reinvent analytical political philosophy.
However, Rawls was not content in stating his theory just the once. Rather, he spent the rest of his career refining, restating and amending it in order to make it more appealing to its detractors. In this sense, the scope of Rawls' work was small indeed: he had one project, and he spent over half a century trying to perfect it. In John Rawls: An Introduction, Percy Lehning quotes Rawls as saying in 1991 that after writing Theory he had always ‘planned on doing some other things mainly connected with the third part of the book’, which was, he said, the part he liked the best (p. 9). However, the desire to perfect his original theory proved too strong, and these wider interests were shelved. The jury is out as to whether Rawls' repeated revisions of his ideas made things clearer or more confusing. What they did do, however, is give rise to a thriving scholarly literature aimed at getting straight what Rawls actually meant.
Hence, it seems, the need for so many introductory books on precisely this topic. Like many ‘introductions’ to the work of famous philosophers, Lehning's book is not strictly ‘introductory’ at all. Rather, it is a thorough (and therefore complex) exploration of Rawls' key ideas. After a potted biography of his subject, in which he mentions the key moments in Rawls' life that shaped his philosophy, Lehning provides an erudite dissection of the central ideas at the heart of justice as fairness, beginning with their seminal formulation in A Theory of Justice. Having done so, Lehning then describes Rawls' many rethinks and shifts, tracing the evolution of Rawls' ideas through their countless restatements and extensions, before discussing the practical implications of the theory for public policy and the design of social and political institutions. Lehning succeeds in presenting Rawls' ideas in all their intricacy and also in providing a helpful intervention into many debates about Rawls' work. He manages to convey not just the breadth of Rawls' ideas, but also their depth and the many intricate ways in which they hang together.
And for Lehning, the fact that they hang together is important. Lehning's central aim is to present Rawls' work as constituting a single, unified project. There are strengths as well as weaknesses to such an approach. It is probably the approach that Rawls himself would have been happiest with, but in presenting the entirety of Rawls' work as a unified set of conclusions about justice on the world stage, the only option open to the reader is either to accept it, or reject it, in its entirety. That is, if Lehning is right, then one either has to buy into the whole Rawlsian project or none of it. Importantly, therefore, one presumably cannot do what a very large number of political philosophers have done, which is to defend certain aspects of Rawls' work (for example, most of Theory), while rejecting others (for example, most of Law of Peoples). To do so is merely to make a basic mistake. But this seems too demanding. Can Rawls' philosophy fit such a ‘take it or leave it’ approach? Brian Barry did not think so, and neither did Charles Beitz, Allen Buchanen, Thomas Pogge and many others who all criticised Rawls' later work for moving away from what he wrote in Theory and who, it must be presumed, are all guilty of misunderstanding Rawls' point.
In John Rawls: An Introduction it quickly becomes clear that Lehning does not want us to merely understand Rawls' ideas; rather, he wants us to agree with them. To be fair, he does outline some of the criticisms that have been made of Rawls' ideas, but these are generally batted aside before they get going, and there is no serious discussion of any of the many thinkers writing in the past 30 years who have rejected Rawls' approach to philosophy at a more fundamental level. Lehning's book thus seems to be aimed squarely at explaining Rawls' theory to those who already agree with it, and who already work within the dominant Rawlsian approach to normative theorising that he established.
For more critical engagement with Rawls' work, readers might well look to Shaun P. Young's Reflections on Rawls, a collection of ten essays dealing with a wide range of issues arising out of Rawls' work. Topics include Rawls' approach to toleration (Glen Newey, Patrick Neal), his thoughts on international justice (Rex Martin, David Shugarman), the idea of public reason (George Klosko, William Galston), capabilities (Harry Brighouse and Elaine Unterhalter) and the historical and philosophical roots of Rawlsian liberalism (Lesley Jacobs, Ronald Beiner, Jan Narveson). On the whole, the essays are interesting, thought-provoking and generally shed new light on perennial disagreements among Rawlsian scholars about the limits and implications of Rawls' theory of justice as fairness.
Phil Parvin
(Loughborough University)
David Leopold and Marc Stears have edited a volume that addresses an important lacuna within the contemporary field of political theory, namely, providing systematic engagement with questions of method and methodology. The objective of this volume is to display a wide range of methodological approaches available to students of political theory. This is done in a way that not only demonstrates the multiplicity and diversity of these approaches, but that also offers an in-depth discussion of their respective merits and problems, as well as of their ‘usefulness’ and ‘usability’ for different political theoretical explorations.
While this volume admittedly makes some (potentially problematic) exclusions, its great merit is that its contributions span the analytical–critical and normative–descriptive divide(s). The first part of the book is preoccupied with the impact of analytical philosophy and moral philosophy on contemporary political theory, including discussion of the relevance of the distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘value’, and of the place and role of the category of ‘truth’ in political theory. The next chapters investigate the relationship between political theory and social theory. They focus on the connection between political theory and political practice, on formal theoretical methods and mathematical modelling, on the possibilities of developing critical political theory and on dialectical approaches to theorising politics. The third group of chapters considers the important relationship between political theory and history. It includes texts that investigate some constitutive differences between historical inquiry and political theoretical inquiry, as well as texts that emphasise the importance of historical contextualisation and historical specificity for political theory. Finally, the concluding chapters concentrate on questions of the specificity and character of academic theoretical enterprise defined as ‘political’.
The common preoccupation of the contributors to the volume is the methodological relationship of political theory to other disciplines. The editors suggest that one characteristic of the field of political theory is its ‘open-endedness’, meaning that it provides ‘very little in the way of settled agreement with regard to questions of method and approach’ (p. 9). This ‘open-endedness’ creates both innovative research possibilities and potential difficulties for students of political theory. This volume helps to deal with these challenges and explores these possibilities by providing an informative and balanced introduction to methods and approaches available to political theorists.
Magdalena Zolkos
(University of Western Sydney)
This book is an anthology of papers on the reception of Locke's political liberty. This ‘rich reception oscillates between myth and heritage’ (pp. 6–7). Although Locke's political heritage is widely recognised in the anglophone world, this volume aims to go beyond the Anglocentric conception of Locke. Thus, a group of international scholars discusses a ‘Euro-Atlantic Lockean heritage’, viz. the dissemination of Lockean ideas throughout the Western world (p. 7).
The volume is prefaced by Wilda Anderson and introduced by Christophe Miqueu. Part I, entitled ‘From Resistance to Toleration’, consists of articles by Jean Terrel, Pierre Lurbe, Daniel Carey, Christopher Brooke and Gerhardt Stenger. Terrel explores Locke's ‘attempt to account for constituent power’ (p. 14). Lurbe discusses the influence of Locke's Second Treatise of Government on John Toland's Anglia Libera. Carey looks at Locke's and Shaftesbury's different ways of justifying religious toleration. Brooke examines Rousseau's claim that there are marked commonalities between his and Locke's political theories. Stenger considers the crucial difference between Locke's conception of religious toleration and Voltaire's view of toleration, as well as the French tradition of secularism or laïcité.
Part II, entitled ‘From Propriety to Property’, includes articles by Duncan Kelly, Pierre-Yves Quiviger, Jørn Schøsler, James Farr and Jean-Fabien Spitz. Kelly examines the intellectual background of Locke's thought and emphasises Locke's distinctive conception of liberty as propriety, that is, a form of freedom grounded in the idea of responsible agency. Quiviger considers Sieyès' reading of Locke, which ‘is centred on the Essay concerning human understanding and falls under the scope of metaphysics’; this was, for Sieyès, ‘the alpha and omega of all political and legal thinking’ (p. 127). Schøsler discusses the belated interest in Locke's political ideas in Denmark. Farr looks at the glaring contradiction between Locke's just war theory of slavery in the Second Treatise of Government and his role as an agent of British colonialism who issued instructions about New World slavery. Spitz suggests that Nozick's interpretation of Locke's theory of property is ‘radically incorrect’ and aims ‘to draft the death certificate of a character named “Locke the libertarian”’ (p. 189). The volume also features a postface by John Dunn.
The book will be of interest to political theorists and historians of ideas. It examines Locke's political thought and its legacy from various perspectives, often revealing different national assumptions and understandings. Therein lies its originality. The essays are well written and well researched and, overall, this volume achieves its objectives.
Evangelia Sembou
(Independent Scholar)
The debates in this volume address issues raised in the seminal essay ‘From Redistribution to Recognition’ by Nancy Fraser in 1995. Reprinted as chapter 1, the essay explored how claims based on identity recognition (insult) and those of economic redistribution (injury) have forced normative theories of justice into a corner. This has been a particular problem for the left, which has traditionally been preoccupied with the outcomes of economic inequality manifested in poverty and exploitation. Multiculturalism calls for a useful synthesis of recognition and redistribution to ensure justice in the twenty-first century, something to which the left must respond.
Featuring essays from Fraser and her contemporaries including Judith Butler, Richard Rorty, Joseph Heath, Anne Phillips and Iris Marion Young, Christopher F. Zurn, Ingrid Robeyns and Rainer Forst, Adding Insult to Injury is structured around four ‘rounds of debate’ in which Fraser directly engages with those critical of her 1995 propositions. Each round centres on a different element in the redistribution and recognition debate, comprising chronologically the redistribution/recognition distinction, integrating both recognition and redistribution into a single perspectival frame, including political injustice as a third frame and the normative foundations and ‘social ontology’ of Fraser's thought. Essays by Fraser are also placed between some responses to unite any themes arising.
This book, characterised by its rigour and contentious and lively tone, serves as an excellent handbook of Fraser's thought between 1992 and 2007. Students of law, democratic theory, critical theory and leftist political philosophy seeking a thorough theoretical overview would find this single volume particularly useful. The editor concedes, however, that it does not delve into an equally important debate taking place at the same time between Fraser and Axel Honneth of the Frankfurt School surrounding the primacy of recognition before normativity. 1
The structure is particularly helpful in navigating through some often intense writing. A principal shortcoming is the book's abrupt ending, which consists of a very short concluding paragraph from Nancy Fraser herself which fails to indicate which direction subsequent theoretical investigation might take. Although it does leave the reader wanting more, this is somewhat incongruous with Fraser's reputation for dealing with cutting-edge themes that correspond to the current manifestations of justice in today's socio-political constellations of organisation.
Lucy M. Abbott
(Durham University)
This book on neo-liberal thought by Raymond Plant is based on a lifetime's study of the subject. Plant, of course, writes from a social democratic perspective and we should not therefore be surprised that neoliberalism is found wanting. What cannot be in doubt from reading this book, however, is the intellectual force with which he makes his case.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the book is the analysis of neo-liberal legal theory. Neo-liberals draw a similar distinction to that made much more explicitly by Michael Oakeshott between a nomocratic and a telocratic state. In a telocracy the state pursues certain ends, something that neo-liberals believe undermines the freedom of the individual, which is better protected in a limited state, as with Oakeshott's idea of nomocracy where the only role for the state is to maintain order so that individuals can pursue their own ends. The differing justifications for the neo-liberal state are analysed. This distinction does not withstand scrutiny.
A range of other neo-liberal arguments are rejected. Freedom only becomes intelligible once it is linked to agency – the ability to do things – or the positive conception of freedom. Social justice is defensible in the sense that market outcomes are foreseeable and the failure to protect those who lose out is then a form of injustice. Positive rights to the generic goods of agency are also established and there is found to be no fundamental distinction between the kind of limited welfare state advocated by those such as Hayek, and the more substantial form of welfare state designed to achieve social justice favoured by social democrats. All of these points I find convincing. There are also interesting reflections on more recent debates such as social capital and trust, while the discussion of empowerment and the public service ethos are especially clear.
The conclusion Plant reaches is that there is no fundamental difference between social democracy and neo-liberalism and hence that the latter has failed to win the ideological battle. The book is obviously a work of political philosophy but I wonder if in British politics at least social democracy really has won the battle of ideas, since the social democratic state has come under attack in other ways. Contemporary conservatism stresses communal activity as an alternative to the central state and there have been attempts to constrain the scope of state activity in other ways too, including restricting discretionary government activity through rule-based economic policies and attacks on the public service ethos in welfare services. All of these are attempts to constrain social democracy, which has traditionally favoured an active state. I think it is therefore necessary to rethink the prospects for the social democratic state. The only hope is that this can be done with the intellectual rigour of Plant's critique of the neo-liberal state.
Kevin Hickson
(University of Liverpool)
Various attempts have been and are constantly being made to catch the conceptual essence of democracy, one of the most controversial terms in the social sciences. The task becomes even more difficult as soon as it is frequently used not only in theoretical debates but also in political discourse. David Powell and Tom Hickey's edited volume is an attempt to identify the sources of democracy and to direct attention towards the essential components of democracy (i.e. rights and liberties). The nine chapters of the book are chronologically ordered insights into crucial moments of England's history when democracy was at stake. Their exploratory endeavour covers an extensive period of time starting from the Anglo-Saxon through to Tudor times and ending in contemporary debates (i.e. discussions on globalisation and its implications). However, this longitudinal perspective is interrupted as it focuses on specific periods and events. Despite an effort to justify such a shortcoming in the introductory chapter, the editors use unconvincing arguments for their selection.
The heterogeneity of approaches may be a further impediment for readers expecting to have in front of them a coherent piece that analyses the origins and development of democracy. At the same time, this is one major contribution of the volume. Only by bridging different perspectives, ranging from historical to philosophical viewpoints, can the book make a valid point. Its central argument is that democracy does not solely provide representation and government and cannot be reduced to institutions. Instead, it is an ongoing process visible throughout the development of society, characterised by people's attitudes in their quest for a better future. In this respect, the volume accurately captures multiple challenges faced by democracy at various moments in time. For example, two chapters (6 and 7) are dedicated to the meaning of ideological differentiation and to the continuous development of labourism in a changing world.
With its elaborate language and explicit arguments the book raises useful questions regarding the status of democracy across contexts and time. It is valuable reading for scholars and students of democratisation, the latter being able to learn from the history of an old democracy.
Sergiu Gherghina
(University of Leiden)
With this book Paul Rahe returns to a nascent theme in his earlier work and delivers a cogently argued and impeccably documented study of Niccolò Machiavelli's direct and indirect influence on English political thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, John Milton, Marchamont Nedham and James Harrington. Students of Machiavelli and English republicanism will find it indispensable.
The author states that the book's aim ‘is to explore the earliest stages in the development of the various Whig understandings of the constitution of liberty’ (p. 3). The context is England from 1649 to 1660 during the ‘abortive experiment in the construction of a republic in Britain’ (p. 1), and Rahe argues that Machiavelli's republicanism became relevant to English political thinkers during this time. Machiavelli specialists will be interested in Rahe's account of Machiavelli as ‘a critic of classical republicanism’ inspired by Epicurean philosophy and various Arab political thinkers including Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroës and Maimonides (p. 3, emphasis added).
Machiavelli's influence is first followed to John Milton who, according to Rahe's unconventional reading, rejected on classical republican grounds Machiavelli's arguments in his Discourses on Livy. Rahe's account will likely be contested by readers familiar with Milton. Rahe then argues that Marchamont Nedham is rightly depicted as a devotee of Machiavelli and instrumental in anglicising his republicanism. Rahe's account of Nedham's contribution is particularly illuminating. In the chapters that follow Rahe again challenges conventional interpretations by contending that James Harrington was less Machiavellian than is commonly presumed. He argues contrarily that Harrington's ‘Machiavellianism’ was a reflection of Thomas Hobbes' critique of Machiavelli's political thought, and not of Machiavelli's republicanism.
This is an exceptionally provocative book, but it is not an easy book to read and nor is it likely that the average undergraduate or layperson will persist past the introduction. However, this work is a model of scholarly erudition. The text is dense and the target audience is advanced graduate students and scholars acutely interested in English republicanism generally, and Machiavelli, Hobbes, Milton, Nedham and Harrington specifically. Readers who persevere to the end of this recommended volume are strongly encouraged to peruse the rest of Rahe's oeuvre.
Jeffrey D. Hilmer
(University of British Columbia)
Indigeneity and Political Theory brings together theoretical critiques of Hobbes and de Tocqueville with empirical and ‘actual’ accounts grounded in indigenous policy in North America beginning in the early nineteenth century. The author seeks to understand how political theory, the ‘problem’ of state sovereignty and forms of authority have legitimised violence against indigenous peoples by designating them as ‘other’ or ‘outside’ political form.
De Tocqueville, for example, in his celebration of American democracy, recognises indigenous individuals as ‘men’. However, in the process, he erases the possibility of colonial land appropriation as doing anything even resembling violence. Rather, according to de Tocqueville, ‘It is impossible to destroy men [the ‘Indians’] with more respect for the laws of humanity’ than was done by ‘the Americans of the United States’ (cited on p. 49). This strange justification of violence found in de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, the reader learns, is based on the foundation laid by Hobbes.
Karena Shaw's main theoretical argument is pursued through a close reading of Hobbes. She argues that Hobbes' theory of the conditions needed for a rigorous account of individuality – authority and sovereignty – have been too passively accepted and reproduced by political theorists and political society more broadly. By being concerned ‘with laying the groundwork for and producing the individual subject’ (p. 19) Hobbes thereby develops a theory of individual difference, or ‘others’ whom he likens to children. Hobbes argues that these others are ‘not endued with Reason at all, til they have attained the use of speech’ (cited on p. 25). Children are merely potential users of reason and Hobbes' theory of difference is based on his account of children. Although everyone is equally able to acquire knowledge about what is required for safety and security – authority – according to Shaw, Hobbes' story ‘Most remarkably … tells us what we must be and what we must forget in the name of order, progress, security' (p. 38). This point about what ‘man’ must by necessity be in order to accept sovereignty then enables a conceptual starting point for Hobbes to make a distinction between those who naturally understand the stakes of sovereignty and those who do not – namely, ‘the savages’ or children who have not yet attained reason.
Shaw enunciates a critique of ‘the disciplining of knowledge’ or simply ‘disciplinarity’. This involves illuminating the violence of discourses that uncritically presuppose sovereignty and how this applies (or not) to indigenous politics. The reader learns that indigenous peoples are consistently defined as being on the outside or margins of the political frameworks that we take for granted after Hobbes. Indigenous politics is rarely understood as presupposing sovereignty and can therefore be excluded from politics with impunity; for example, as lying outside any analysis of a community of sovereign states in international relations theory.
Each of the chapters is well argued and carefully written and the book would be suitable for undergraduate students and more advanced researchers. The argument is at times overly detailed and technically characteristic of a literature review, yet it is convincing.
Barret Weber
(University of Alberta)
Liberals have a problem justifying political obligation to their particular state. Cosmopolitans argue that universal and impartial liberal principles are fundamentally incompatible with special obligations to members of a given state. Liberal nationalists, on the other hand, argue that democratic institutions presuppose a cultural nation, but in doing so they betray universal liberal principles. This is the predicament that Anna Stilz sets out, against which she aims to advance a theory of constitutional patriotism on liberal grounds alone. This requires justifying both why we have any obligations to (democratic legal) states and, further, why we have certain obligations that are particular to the state in which we happen to reside.
Contemporary liberals, so Stilz claims, are already committed to extra-institutional principles of freedom and equality, yet these can only be fully realised and made determinate by state authority. To demonstrate this Stilz employs Kant's hypothetical state of nature to counter the philosophical anarchist, and then draws on Rousseau to delineate the limits of legitimate state authority. Stilz argues lucidly, and although her reading of Rousseau is (admittedly) contentious, this need not detract too much once it is ‘properly updated in contemporary terms’ (p. 59). Indeed, Stilz's self-styled ‘Kantian-Rousseauian theory’ (p. 91) – which looks more than a little Hegelian – arrives at conclusions that Rousseau and Kant explicitly rejected, yet it does prove more promising for justifying modern liberal democracies.
Stilz eschews Rousseau's recommendations for inculcating civic virtue and instead turns to his Emile to supplement and remedy the weaknesses of Habermas' theory of civic allegiance. The form of constitutional patriotism that emerges successfully obviates the criticisms levelled at liberal nationalism. Here Stilz is at her most convincing and original as she elucidates a theory of obligation and solidarity which derives neither from natural moral duties alone nor duties that autonomous individuals contract to undertake. Instead, she maintains, democracy should be understood as a shared cooperative activity in which we have involuntary obligations of membership that are necessary to realise liberal values in any given state. Stilz concludes by clarifying that her version of constitutional patriotism is ‘a normative ideal’ that should ‘serve as a tool of critique’ (p. 208). The implications of such a critique are briefly suggested; yet the book would have been far more commanding had Stilz devoted more space to expounding her theory and its ramifications at greater length, and less to recounting the intellectual ancestry of her ideas.
Robin Douglass
(University of Exeter)
This is the final part of David Walsh's trilogy dealing with ‘modernity’. The current book differs from the earlier two (After Ideology and The Growth of the Liberal Soul) in that the examinations of the political dimensions of ‘modernity’ found in those earlier works is almost wholly absent in this last volume. Here, Walsh makes the case that the postmodern philosophic stance is far less the radical break from modern philosophy that is all too often suggested. Thus the book shifts from a focus on political ideas and political philosophy (or political thought) to focusing more on the history of modern philosophy and the much narrower interests of modern philosophy per se.
This is perhaps due to the character of late modern philosophy, where the concerns of political philosophy (or political thought) are slowly eclipsed (and marginalised) as more and more attention is given to ontological questions. Thus those looking for a more explicitly ‘political’ study such as that found in Walsh's earlier two volumes might be disappointed here. Also, merely labelling the volume as a work of ‘political philosophy’ or ‘political theory’ does it a great disservice and potentially limits its possible wider audience, since all those who have a broad interest in the history of modern thought will generally find something worthwhile in this book.
Walsh offers the reader a clear and detailed road map of the ‘unnoticed’ tradition that links postmodern philosophy to modern philosophy, especially that of Kant, Hegel and Schelling. Walsh argues that we find in the work of postmodern thinkers such as Derrida and Levinas (who follow in the path of Nietzsche and Heidegger) a significant engagement with ‘the turn to existence’ that modern thinkers (again Kant, Hegel and Schelling) seemed to initiate. That is to say, ‘the question of existence’ becomes ‘the question’ of philosophy itself, for the postmodern rebellion stems from a disagreement with some of the solutions that modern philosophy came to as the experience of the twentieth century led postmodern thinkers to have serious doubts about those solutions. Thus this book is the finest attempt yet to offer a broader and more extensive account of this interconnection of a whole range of philosophers from Kant to Derrida and Levinas regarding the ‘turn to existence'.
Clifford Angell Bates
(University of Warsaw American Studies Center)
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Footnotes
1
Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition: A Political-Philosophical Exchange, 2003.