Irreconcilable Politics

How can people with different worldviews overcome their political disagreements to make collective decisions. Immigration, capital punishment, abortion, gun control, foreign policy-- these are just some of the many issues that divide us. Each of us has a unique worldview, our own understanding of justice, rights, and the consequences of political actions. So how can we possibly make shared decisions that affect us all? To address this question Michael Hutchins uses modern bargaining theory, in conjunction with analysis of important political controversies to provide new insights into how broadly liberal people--those who are not inclined to enforce their own views through violence--can govern themselves despite fundamental disagreements. Irreconcilable Politics examines the ways in which we disagree and explores the very meaning of freedom and democracy.

Why do states do what they do? Who are the relevant nonstate actors in international politics and why do they do what they do? What causes conflict and cooperation in the international system? These are some of the most basic questions that the discipline of International Relations (IR) seeks to answer; they are also the questions that drive the objectives, organization and content of this book. International Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Second Edition seeks to help students engage critically with some of the world’s most challenging questions through the use of leading classic and contemporary scholarship in the field of international relations. The first five chapters of the book explore the leading theoretical traditions in international relations, while subsequent chapters explore the themes of international security, international political economy, and contemporary challenges in international relations. This organization makes the book easy to use as standalone text or alongside core text. Class-tested on over 10,000 students in the last decade, this text was built from the ground up to introduce students to the traditions and new foundations of international relations as well to the principles of intellectually rigorous thought.

The problems of modern Ireland have attracted the attention of many British political leaders from Gladstone to Major. Attempts to formulate a 'solution' have been governed by the British perception of what the problem is, and by the structures, as well as the ideas of British party politics and British political life: Ireland was never a laboratory in which dispassionate political experiments could be conducted. Modern Ireland has been shaped by British policy, and this has itself been influenced by British political habits and traditions, social and economic reforms, and new governmental institutions have been applied by politicians both of the left and the right. The 'Framework Documents' represent the latest attempt to achieve what Gladstone, David Lloyd George and Neville Chamberlain sought, and failed to achieve: a lasting settlement of the political divisions within Ireland, and between Ireland the Great Britain. This book places the Irish question in the wider context of the history of the British Isles, and thus seeks to explain its special place in British history as the 'Oldest Question', and as a question for contemporary Britain. Fully revised and with a new chapter to bring the analysis up to 1996, this new edition of Professor Boyce's work will be widely acclaimed.

This volume analyses the historical background of violent international conflicts. Starting with an analysis of the conflict and cooperation structures in post-communist Eastern Europe and the eastern expansion of the European Union, the author discusses the problem of acts of intervention in response to severe human rights violations, taking Kosovo, Libya and in a further text also Darfur, as examples. To analyse the subject of ethnonational autonomy and independence movements, the author presents case studies on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgium, Cyprus, on the Kurdish areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, on Israel/Palestine, on China with regard to Tibet and Xinjiang, and on the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The classic subjects of inter-state security and armament policy include the controversy over the nuclear policies of Iran and North Korea, while the analysis of the changes in Russia’s political system focuses on their far-reaching consequences for international politics. This book will appeal to students and scholars of international relations and peace and conflict studies, as well as to practitioners and decision makers in the field of peace politics.

In this concise, timely book, constitutional law expert Stephen M. Feldman draws on neoconservative writings to explore the rise of the neocons and their influence on the Supreme Court. Neocons burst onto the political scene in the early 1980s via their assault on pluralist democracy’s ethical relativism, where no pre-existing or higher principles limit the agendas of interest groups. Instead, they advocated for a resurrection of republican democracy, which declares that virtuous citizens and officials pursue the common good. Yet despite their original goals, neocons quickly became an interest group themselves, competing successfully within the pluralist democratic arena. When the political winds shifted in 2008, however, neocons found themselves shorn of power in Congress and the executive branch. But portentously, they still controlled the Supreme Court. Neoconservative Politics and the Supreme Court explains how and why the neoconservatives criticized but operated within pluralist democracy, and, most important, what the entrenchment of neocons on the Supreme Court means for present and future politics and law.

Although politics at the elite level has been polarized for some time, a scholarly controversy has raged over whether ordinary Americans are polarized. This book argues that they are and that the reason is growing polarization of worldviews - what guides people's view of right and wrong and good and evil. These differences in worldview are rooted in what Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe as authoritarianism. They show that differences of opinion concerning the most provocative issues on the contemporary issue agenda - about race, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and the use of force to resolve security problems - reflect differences in individuals' levels of authoritarianism. Events and strategic political decisions have conspired to make all these considerations more salient. The authors demonstrate that the left and the right have coalesced around these opposing worldviews, which has provided politics with more incandescent hues than before.

Argues that practices of the sacred have shaped the frames of modern secular politics.

This edited volume presents the first comprehensive analysis of recall processes which have spread globally since the end of the Cold War, and which are now re-configuring the political dynamics of electoral democracy. Drawing on the expertise of country experts, the book provides a coherent and theoretically informed framework for mapping and evaluating this fast-evolving phenomenon. While the existing literature on the subject has so far focused on isolated single-country studies, the collection brings recall experiments to centre stage as it relates them to current crises in the traditional variants of representative democracy. It explains why the spread of recall innovations is set to continue, and to pass a threshold from inattention to urgent engagement. The authors further provide original insights into the rationale for recall, as well as guidance on minimising the accompanying risks.