Social and political philosophy Books

While economic and other social science expertise is indispensable for successful public policy-making regarding global climate change, social scientists face trade-offs between the scientific credibility, policy-relevance, and legitimacy of their policy...

This book is an attempt to save "the sexual" from the oblivion to which certain strands in queer theory tend to condemn it, and at the same time to limit the risks of anti-politics and solipsism contained in what has been termed antisocial queer theory...

This book presents detailed discussions from leading intercultural philosophers, arguing for and against the priority of immanence in Chinese thought and the validity of Western interpretations that attempt to import conceptions of transcendence. The...

This book examines the success of Frederick Schauer's efforts to reclaim force as a core element of a general concept of law by approaching the issue from different legal traditions and distinct perspectives. In discussing Schauer's main arguments, it...

This book examines the ethics, politics and aesthetics of veganism in contemporary culture and thought. Traditionally a lifestyle located on the margins of western culture, veganism has now been propelled into the mainstream, and as agribusiness grows...

This volume provides a comprehensive account of Wilhelm Röpke as a liberal political economist and social philosopher. Wilhelm Röpke (1899-1966) was a key protagonist of transatlantic neoliberalism, a prominent public intellectual and a gifted...

This book focuses on multiculturalism, racism and the interests of nonhuman animals. Each are, in their own right, rapidly growing and controversial fields of enquiry, but how do multiculturalism and racism intersect with the debate concerning animals...

This book is an introduction to and translation of the 1938 Walter Lippmann Colloquium held in Paris, which became known as the intellectual birthplace of "neo-liberalism." Although the Lippmann Colloquium has been the subject of significant recent...

This book identifies a new methodological strategy for the interpretation of film philosophizing. Many recent works in film philosophy, adopting the approach identified with the term film as philosophy, have considered film as capable of doing philosophy...

This book is the first collection of essays in English devoted solely to the relationship between Aristotle's ethics and politics. Are ethics and politics two separate spheres of action or are they unified? Those who support the unity-thesis emphasize...

This book seeks to explicitly engage Marxist and post-colonial theory to place Marxism in the context of the post-colonial age. Those who study Marx, particularly in the West, often lack an understanding of post-colonial realities; conversely, however,...

This book critically introduces two compelling contemporary schools of Marxian thought: the New Reading of Marx of Michael Heinrich and Werner Bonefeld, and the postoperaismo of Antonio Negri. Each stake novel claims on Marx's value theory, the first...

This book studies nineteenth-century American individualism and its relationship to the simultaneous rise of the market economy as articulated in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William Graham Sumner.  The argument of the...

This book reflects on the research and career of political theorist Russell Hardin from scholars of Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, Economics, and Law, among other disciplines. Contributions address core issues of political theory as perceived...

This book recovers the history of realist theorization on nationalism and the nation-state. Presented in a sequence of snapshots and illustrated by examples drawn from the foreign policy of great powers, this history is represented by four key realist...

This book aims to provide fresh perspectives on Vattimo and Zabala's groundbreaking foundational text, Hermeneutic Communism, from 2011. The contributors to this collection of essays explore various facets of Vattimo and Zabala's "anarchic hermeneutics"...

This book is a rethinking of ethics and socio-political life through the ideas of Watsuji Tetsurô. Can we build a systematic philosophy of morality, society, and politics, not on the basis of identity and ego, but rather on the basis of selflessness?...

This volume explores Andrew Feenberg's work in critical theory.  Feenberg is considered one of the key 'second generation' critical theorists, with a keen interest in philosophy of technology. He has made a vital contribution to critical theory in...

This volume features forty-two essays written in honor of Joseph Agassi. It explores the work and legacy of this influential philosopher, an exciting and challenging advocate of critical rationalism. Throughout six decades of stupendous intellectual...

This book develops a philosophical conception of human rights that responds satisfactorily to the challenges raised by cultural and political critics of human rights, who contend that the contemporary human rights movement is promoting an imperialist...

This book constitutes a critical intervention in the theoretical discussion over the political relationship between democracy and communism. Shedding light on the philosophical origins of the democracy debate, it draws a clear demarcation line between...

This book explores topical issues in military ethics by according peace a central role within an interdisciplinary framework. Whilst war and peace have traditionally been viewed through the lens of philosophical enquiry, political issues and theological...

This book considers the current domestic and global political and economic landscape and will show that there are three different but related kinds of leverage that together have emerged as the dominant strategy in economics, politics and international...

This book focuses on the financing of religions, examining some European church-state models, using a philosophical methodology. The work defends autonomy-based liberalism and elaborates how this liberalism can meet the requirements of liberal neutrality...

This volume critically discusses therelationship between democracy and constitutionalism. It does so with a view torespond to objections raised by legal and political philosophers who aresceptical of judicial review based on the assumption that judicial...

This book develops an original and comprehensive theory ofpolitical liberalism. It defends bold new accounts of the nature of autonomyand individual liberty, the content of distributive justice, and thejustification for the authority of the State. The...

This book assesses the rapid transformation of the political agency of religious groups within transnational civil society under the conditions of globalization that have weakened the sovereign nation-state. It offers a comprehensive synthesis of the...

This book offers a comprehensive overview and critique of the most important political and philosophical interpretations of the basic results of social choice, assessing their plausibility and seeking to identify the links between the theory of social...

This book improves the alignment of economics with the idea of justice, the first virtue of any social institution, according to Rawls. To this aim, it provides the analytical framework necessary to ensure a just economy. While today's notion of...

This book presents a new reading of the history of French social science and religion through an investigation of early sociology's techniques for narrating the category of belief. The author argues that by looking at the history of social sciences in...

This book is an exploration of Žižek's theory of freedom. By examining key passages in Žižek's work the aim is to provide a functional, serviceable philosophy of power and ideology and show how this philosophy of power relates to...

"You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." These are some of the most quoted lines written by Samuel Beckett, which speak to the impulse of persevering in times of crisis and impossibility. Yet few readers of Beckett agree about what this paradoxical...

Is it possible, in the complex modern world, to have a government 'by the people'? Does, for example, digital technology help us to bring the reality closer to the ideal? Or does it actually make the ideal unattainable?The volume brings together...

In this work the theories of Marx and Laozi are dialectically combined. The resulting synthesis is a positive materialist negation of Hegel's idealist dialectics. Syntheses are presented for Marx and Laozi in ontology, metaphysics, epistemology,...

This text develops a novel methodology for social investigation into the Flint (Michigan, USA) water crisis by using classical Husserlian phenomenology as its point of departure. To develop a proper method in a case like this, the author uses as primary...

At this moment of extreme political polarization in the U.S. which has the potential to threaten the very foundations of the state, Professor Michael DeArmey proposes a revised and updated Constitution. This enriched, reborn Constitution retains much of...

This monograph provides an update to anarchist philosophy, advocating for a paradigm shift beyond neoliberalism and liberal democracy. The book's central thesis has two components. First, it is argued that the maximization of equal liberty requires...

This book is a selection of articles by David Zilberman, a prolific author, whose tragic untimely death did not allow to finish many of his undertakings. Zilberman's work represents a fresh word in the way of philosophizing or philosophy-building and the...

This book offers a systematic, sectoral, and in-depth Marxist perspective on the critique of political economy of higher education. It proposes an original method of analysis of higher education as a field of capitalist production, grounded at the...

This book examines anti-corruption policies in Latin America. It compares best practices in public procurement and state budgets in order to provide new insights into policy design for governments, civil society organisations and international...

This book extends the approach that Murray and Schuler develop in their companion volume, False Moves in Philosophy and Social Theory: Losing Public Purpose. The chapters form a connected inquiry into consequences of capital, a far-reaching social...

This volume is an inquiry into the history of political philosophy by way of the general theme of education. Each contributor addresses the relationship between a particular political philosopher's broad teaching on the best political order and that...

This book investigates the determinants of policy design choices in an area of public policy embracing multiple sectors of public responsibilities: Research and Innovation (R&I). Drawing on case studies from France and Italy, it assesses how governments...

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, in 1923, this book aims at shedding light on the archives of some of the key thinkers of Critical Theory of Society, also well...

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of policy transfer in authoritarian regimes. Focusing on Vietnam, it explores how and why authoritarian governments learn from other countries, and the significance of policy transfer outcomes. By examining...

This book proposes a new interpretation of Claude Lefort's thought focusing on his phenomenological method. Although all scholars recognize the influence of Merleau-Ponty, so far no one has demonstrated the fundamental coherence between Merleau-Ponty's...

This book builds on the recent revival of interest in Marx and Marxism, calling for a renewal and refinement of Marxist state theory. It aims to provoke and encourage new debates and critiques that build on-but also update and extend-the rich tradition...

One of the main goals of this book is to determine if, in the works of some of the key authors in the history of Italian political philosophy, a notion of "efficacy" can be found. In legal philosophy, "efficacy" is the capacity a norm has to effectively...