Description
This new edition of Political Thinking, Political Theory, and Civil Society presents a comprehensive overview of the Western tradition of political thought that approaches concepts with the aim of helping readers develop their own political thinking and critical thinking skills. This text is uniquely organized around the theme of civil society - What is the nature of a civil society? Why is it important? - that will engage students and help make the material relevant. Major thinkers discussed in the text are explored not only with the goal of understanding their views but also with an interest in understanding the relationship of their ideas to the notion of a civil society.
New to this edition:
• Visual aids and pedagogy
• New chapter on black political theory and civil society, including a discussion of protest and #BlackLivesMatter in political theory.
• Expanded discussions of feminism and the LGBTQ movement, as well as an additional discussion of the #MeToo movement from the perspective of its theoretical foundation and its implications for feminist theory.
• Revised chapter on multiculturalism, including an expanded discussion of religion, neoliberalism, globalization, and global environmental issues.
This authoritative text, written by two leading theorists and experienced lecturers, is essential reading for all students of political theory and philosophy.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Importance of a Civil Society
Part 1: Civil Society in the Classical and Religious Traditions
2. Plato: Civic Virtue and the Just Society
3. Aristotle’s Response to Plato: The Importance of Friendship 43
4. Christian Conceptions of Civic Virtue
5. Elements of Islamic and Jewish Medieval Political Thought
Part 2: Early Modern Approaches to Civil Society
6. Niccolò Machiavelli: Civic Virtue and Civil Society
7. Thomas Hobbes and Modern Civil Society
8. Benedict Spinoza and Liberal Democracy
9. John Locke, Civil Society, and the Constrained Majority
10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Community and Civil Society
Part 3: Late Modern and Contemporary Approaches to Civil Society
11. Immanuel Kant: Civil Society and International Order
12. G. W. F. Hegel: Civil Society and the State
13. Karl Marx and the Economic Argument about Civil Society
14. John Stuart Mill: Civil Society as a Higher Calling
15. John Rawls: The Just and Fair Civil Society
16. The Conservative View: Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Michael Oakeshott
Part 4: Critiques of Civil Society
17. The Critique of Power in Civil Society: Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault
18. Feminism, Gender Equality, and Civil Society
19. 21st Century Challenges for Civil Society: Culture, Religion, and Climate Change
20. Civil Society, Liberal Democracy, and Racial Injustice: A Political Theory Informed by the Black Experience in America
