Democracy And The Foreigner

What should we do about foreigners? Should we try to make them more like us or keep them at bay to protect our democracy, our culture, our well-being? This dilemma underlies age-old debates about immigration, citizenship, and national identity that are strikingly relevant today. In Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig reverses the question: What problems might foreigners solve for us? Hers is not a conventional approach. Instead of lauding the achievements of individual foreigners, she probes a much larger issue--the symbolic politics of foreignness. In doing so she shows not only how our debates over foreignness help shore up our national or democratic identities, but how anxieties endemic to liberal democracy themselves animate ambivalence toward foreignness. Central to Honig's arguments are stories featuring ''foreign-founders,'' in which the origins or revitalization of a people depend upon a foreigner's energy, virtue, insight, or law. From such popular movies as The Wizard of Oz, Shane, and Strictly Ballroom to the biblical stories of Moses and Ruth to the myth of an immigrant America, from Rousseau to Freud, foreignness is represented not just as a threat but as a supplement for communities periodically requiring renewal. Why? Why do people tell stories in which their societies are dependent on strangers? One of Honig's most surprising conclusions is that an appreciation of the role of foreigners in (re)founding peoples works neither solely as a cosmopolitan nor a nationalist resource. For example, in America, nationalists see one archetypal foreign-founder--the naturalized immigrant--as reconfirming the allure of deeply held American values, whereas to cosmopolitans this immigrant represents the deeply transnational character of American democracy. Scholars and students of political theory, and all those concerned with the dilemmas democracy faces in accommodating difference, will find this book rich with valuable and stimulating insights.

DIVSince the end of the Cold War, the assumption among most political theorists has been that as nations develop economically, they will also become more democratic—especially if a vibrant middle class takes root. This assumption underlies the expansion of the European Union and much of American foreign policy, bolstered by such examples as South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and even to some extent Russia. Where democratization has failed or retreated, aberrant conditions take the blame: Islamism, authoritarian Chinese influence, or perhaps the rise of local autocrats./divDIV /divDIVBut what if the failures of democracy are not exceptions? In this thought-provoking study of democratization, Joshua Kurlantzick proposes that the spate of retreating democracies, one after another over the past two decades, is not just a series of exceptions. Instead, it reflects a new and disturbing trend: democracy in worldwide decline. The author investigates the state of democracy in a variety of countries, why the middle class has turned against democracy in some cases, and whether the decline in global democratization is reversible./div

Helle Porsdam s new book is a readable and perceptive analysis of European and American perceptions of essential human rights and their roots in national and regional cultures. Professor Porsdam traces the notions of civil, political, social and economic interests as rights protected and implemented by law on both sides of the Atlantic. From Civil to Human Rights is a must read for Europeans, Americans, and everyone else who wants to learn more about the institutions, values, hopes and dreams that bring us together and hold us apart at the beginning of the 21st century. Peter L. Murray, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, US Is there a special human rights narrative emerging from the chastened soul of post-war Europe? What lies ahead for that great but shattered community? Helle Porsdam, a leader in the related fields of human rights and humane letters, bids fair to answer these and other pressing questions. Along the way her highly nuanced intellect addresses the frustrating differences among those contentious first cousins, Europe and the United States. The result is a wide-ranging, richly informed inquiry about Europe s rise from the ashes and the choices it must make to inspire rather than repulse the world around it. Richard Weisberg, Cardozo Law School, New York, US Europeans have attempted for some time to develop a human rights talk and now European intellectuals are talking about the need to construct European narratives . This book illustrates that these narratives will emphasize a political and cultural vision for a multi-ethnic and more cosmopolitan Europe. The narratives evolve around human rights, partly in the hope that they might function as a cultural glue in an increasingly multi-ethnic Europe, and partly because they are intimately connected with that part of enlightenment thinking that sought to promote democracy and the rule of law. Helle Porsdam discusses the development of human rights as a discourse of atonement for Europeans a discourse which has the potential to become a shared, transatlantic discourse. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be an invaluable research tool for postgraduate students and scholars within the fields of law, history, political science and international relations.

Advancing the thesis that a contract between the political members of a community must lead to the highest form of social inclusion, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) has provided the groundwork for democracies around the world. Yet, Hobbes also states that this contract can only be upheld by a strong sovereign whose authority is derived from God. How can a democracy be defined, then, as truly inclusive when it essentially grows out of a theocracy that thinks about human beings in terms of “reduction”? In Democracy and the Divine: The Phenomenon of Political Romanticism Alexandra Aidler argues that despite modern democracy’s problematic heritage, one should not abandon its claims to religion. Articulating a democracy that is based on the religious principle of giving oneself to another, Aidler develops a political theology of democracy that is built upon two traditions in political thought that have rarely been examined thus far side by side for their contributions to this field: German Romanticism, as exemplified by Franz von Baader and Friedrich Schlegel, and the “theological turn” in French philosophy, as represented by Jacques Derrida and Jacques Rancière.

This book looks at democracy promotion as a form of foreign policy. Elliott asks why democracy was seen to be the answer to the 7/7 bombings in London, and why it should be promoted not in Britain, but in Pakistan. The book provides a detailed answer to these questions, examining the logic and the modes of thinking that made such a response possible through analysis of the stories we tell about ourselves: stories about time, history, development, civilisation and the ineluctable spread of democracy. Elliott argues that these narratives have become a key tool in enabling practices that differentiate selves from others, friends from enemies, the domestic from the foreign, civilisation from the barbarian. They operate with a particular conception of time and constitute a British, democratic, national identity by positing an "other" that is barbaric, alien, despotic, violent and backward. Such understandings are useful in wake of disaster, because they leave us with something to do: danger can be managed by bringing certain people and places up-to-date. However, this book shows that there are other stories to be told, and that it is possible to read stories about history against the grain and author alternative, less oppressive, versions. Providing a genealogy drawing on material from colonial and postcolonial Britain and Pakistan, including legislation, political discourse, popular culture and government projects, this book will be of interest to scholars and students focusing on democracy promotion; genealogy; critical border studies; poststructural IR; postcolonial politics; discourse analysis; identity/subjectivity; and "the war on terror".

Although stereotypically homogenized and hostile to immigrants, Japan has experienced an influx of foreigners from Asia and Latin America in recent decades. In Fighting for Foreigners, Apichai W. Shipper details how, in response, Japanese citizens have established a variety of local advocacy groups-some faith based, some secular-to help immigrants secure access to social services, economic equity, and political rights. Drawing on his years of ethnographic fieldwork and a pragmatic account of political motivation he calls associative activism, Shipper asserts that institutions that support illegal foreigners make the most dramatic contributions to democratic multiculturalism. The changing demographics of Japan have been stimulating public discussions, the political participation of marginalized groups, and calls for fair treatment of immigrants. Nongovernmental organizations established by the Japanese have been more effective than the ethnically particular associations formed by migrants themselves, Shipper finds. Activists who initially work in concert to solve specific and local problems eventually become more ambitious in terms of political representation and opinion formation. As debates about the costs and benefits of immigration rage across the developed world, Shipper's research offers a refreshing new perspective: rather than undermining democracy in industrialized society, immigrants can make a positive institutional contribution to vibrant forms of democratic multiculturalism.

The fall of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime brought the first glimpse of freedom for Iraq and unleashed elation, resentment, and chaos. On the one hand, there is hope: the Iraqi people have their first chance at independence. On the other hand, there is despair: the country is exploding with violent sectarian and political power struggles. Through it all, Iraq has remained an enigma to much of the world. What is it about this country that makes for such a seemingly intractable situation? How did Iraq's particular history lead to its present circumstances? And what can we fear or hope for in the coming years? Fouad Ajami, one of the world's foremost authorities on Middle Eastern politics, offers a brilliant, illuminating, and lyrical portrait of the ongoing struggle for Iraq and of the American encounter with that volatile Arab land. Ajami situates the current unrest within the context of Iraq's recent history of dictatorship and its rich, diverse cultural heritage. He applies his incisive political commentary, his broad and deep historical view, his mastery of the Arabic language and Arabic sources, and his lustrous prose to every aspect of his subject, wresting a coherent, fascinating, and textured picture from the media storm of fragmented information. In the few years after the Iraq war began, Ajami made many trips to that country and met Iraqis of all ethnicities, religions, politics, and regions. Looking beneath the familiar media images of Iraq and the war, Ajami visits with individuals representing the breadth of Iraq's populace, from Sunni leaders and Shia clerics to Kurdish politicians and poets, Iraqi policemen, and ordinary people voting for the first time in their lives. He also hears from American soldiers on the ground, and the result of all his encounters is an astonishing portrayal of a land that has emerged as a crucial battleground between American power and the wider forces of Arab religious and political extremism. With his unrivaled access -- he has been granted an audience with the great, reclusive Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and been admitted into the sacred shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf for a discussion with its religious scholars -- Ajami provides an intimate portrait that draws on both his learning and his lifelong interest in the traditions and the history of Iraq. With his commentator's eye, his scholarly depth of understanding, his poetic ear, and his abiding love for the Middle East, Fouad Ajami is an essential voice for our times. The Foreigner's Gift is the book we all need to read in order to understand what is happening in Iraq today and what the future might hold for all of us.