Political Order

by Shapiro, Ian; Hardin, Russell

• ISBN13: 9780814780299
• ISBN10: 0814780296
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-06-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

The collapse of the Soviet empire stands as a dramatic reminder that political institutions are human creations that can be designed more or less well. The question of what constitutes a viable political order is as old as it is profound, and is a central part of the works of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and the American Founders.In eighteen original essays,Political Orderpresents the work of major scholars such as Robert Dahl, John Gray, Jennifer Nedelsky, Pasquale Pasquino, James Scott, Karen Orren, Steven Skowronek, Walter Dean Burnham, Morris Fiorina, and Norman Schofield who address some of the most pressing questions about political order. Under what conditions do we get political order rather than political chaos? How is political order sustained once it has been created? Do constitutions and electoral systems matter, and if so how much? Is there one best type of political order, and, if not, what is the range of viable possibilities and how should they be evaluated?

Table of Contents

Preface
Contributors
Introduction	p. 1
Political Theory, Order, and Threat	p. 19
State Simplifications: Nature, Space, and People	p. 42
Modeling Political Order in Representative Democracies	p. 86
Institutions and Intercurrence: Theory Building in the Fullness of Time	p. 111
E Pur Si Muove! Systematizing and the Intercurrence Hypothesis	p. 147
Looking for Disagreement in All the Wrong Places	p. 156
Reply to Burnham and Fiorina	p. 167
Thinking about Democratic Constitutions: Conclusions from Democratic Experience	p. 175
Majority Rule and Minority Interests	p. 207
Deliberative Equality and Democratic Order	p. 251
Five Theses on Nationalism	p. 288
The World House Divided: The Claims of the Human Community in the Age of Nationalism	p. 333
From Post-Liberalism to Pluralism	p. 345
Democratic Autonomy and Religious Freedom: A Critique of Wisconsin v. Yoder	p. 365
In Defense of Yoder: Parental Authority and the Public Schools	p. 412
Spheres of Political Order	p. 438
Violence against Women: Challenges to the Liberal State and Relational Feminism	p. 454
Structures of Political Order: The Relational Feminist Alternatives	p. 498
Index	p. 523
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