Sovereignty and the sovereign state are often seen as anachronisms; Globalization and Sovereignty challenges this view. Jean L. Cohen analyzes the new sovereignty regime emergent since the 1990s evidenced by the discourses and practice of human rights, humanitarian intervention, transformative occupation, and the UN targeted sanctions regime that blacklists alleged terrorists. Presenting a systematic theory of sovereignty and its transformation in international law and politics, Cohen argues for the continued importance of sovereign equality. She offers a theory of a dualistic (...) world order comprised of an international society of states, and a global political community in which human rights and global governance institutions affect the law, policies, and political culture of sovereign states. She advocates the constitutionalization of these institutions, within the framework of constitutional pluralism. This book will appeal to students of international political theory and law, political scientists, sociologists, legal historians, and theorists of constitutionalism. (shrink)

In this hugely influential book, Laclau and Mouffe examine the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles, and their significance for democratic theory. With the emergence of new social and political identities, and the frequent attacks on Left theory for its essentialist underpinnings, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy remains as relevant as ever, positing a much-needed antidote against ‘Third Way’ attempts to overcome the antagonism between Left and Right.

A provocative critique of Western attitudes about the Orient, this history examines the ways in which the West has discovered, invented, and sought to control the East from the 1700s to the present.

Speech and phenomena.--Form and meaning.--Differance.

The book's two essays, 'Limited Inc.' and 'Signature Event Context, ' constitute key statements of the Derridean theory of deconstruction. They are perhaps the clearest exposition to be found of Derrida's most controversial idea.

Civil Religion offers philosophical commentaries on more than twenty thinkers stretching from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The book examines four important traditions within the history of modern political philosophy and delves into how each of them addresses the problem of religion. Two of these traditions pursue projects of domesticating religion. The civil religion tradition, principally defined by Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau, seeks to domesticate religion by putting it solidly in the service of politics. The liberal tradition pursues an (...) alternative strategy of domestication by seeking to put as much distance as possible between religion and politics. Modern theocracy is a militant reaction against liberalism, and it reverses the relationship of subordination asserted by civil religion: it puts politics directly in the service of religion. Finally, a fourth tradition is defined by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Aspects of their thought are not just modern, but hyper-modern, yet they manifest an often-hysterical reaction against liberalism that is fundamentally shared with the theocratic tradition. Together, these four traditions compose a vital dialogue that carries us to the heart of political philosophy itself. (shrink)

Is the history of the modern world the history of Europe writ large? Or is it possible to situate the history of modernity as a world historical process apart from its origins in Western Europe? In this posthumous collection of essays, Marshall G. S. Hodgson challenges adherents of both Eurocentrism and multiculturalism to rethink the place of Europe in world history. He argues that the line that connects Ancient Greeks to the Renaissance to modern times is an optical illusion, and (...) that a global and Asia-centred history can better locate the European experience in the shared histories of humanity. Hodgson then shifts the historical focus and in a parallel move seeks to locate the history of Islamic civilisation in a world historical framework. In so doing he concludes that there is but one history - global history - and that all partial or privileged accounts must necessarily be resituated in a world historical context. The book also includes an introduction by the editor, Edmund Burke, contextualising Hodgson's work in world history and Islamic history. (shrink)