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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political theory'
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Baderin, Alice. "Political theory, public opinion and real politics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7fa3ccbe-1a70-4d6f-95ce-54146da83af1.
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If we are interested in questions about how we ought to organize our political lives, what kind of weight, if any, should we give to evidence about what people actually think? The thesis explores this question about the role of public opinion in normative political theory. First, I disentangle a number of distinct justifications for taking account of public opinion. Specifically, the thesis evaluates four views of the status of public opinion: as an epistemic resource; a feasibility constraint; a means of democratizing political theory; or constitutive of moral and political ideals. I defend the epistemic argument, outlining two forms in which popular attitudes represent a valuable epistemic resource. The thesis criticizes the feasibility and democratic accounts of the role of public opinion as these are presented in the existing literature, but suggests more convincing ways of reconstructing these arguments. Finally, I reject the view that public opinion constitutes the ideal of justice, arguing that such an account is subject to a fundamental tension. As well as clarifying the status of popular attitudes, the thesis addresses the methodological difficulties that arise when we seek to bring public opinion to bear on ideas from political theory, whose meaning and status in everyday political thought and discourse is often limited or uncertain. I outline two approaches to integrating normative theory with the investigation of popular attitudes that mitigate the methodological problems that often confront such projects. The second major aim is to situate the question of the role of public opinion in the context of wider debates about the aims and methods of contemporary political theory. In particular, I address recent demands for greater ‘realism’ in political theory, distinguishing two main strands of realist critique and drawing out their contrasting implications for the role of public opinion.
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Kaehne, Axel. "Russian political liberalism and Western political theory." Thesis, Swansea University, 2002. https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42222.
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The thesis attempts to reinvigorate the universalist credentials of Western liberal political theory by (1) illustrating the centrality of the concept of human agency for universal political liberalism, (2) arguing for the significance of the concept of agency for understanding the Russian societal transformation, and (3) suggesting that political theory may most usefully be conceived as a universal discourse which is in constant need of appropriating and constructively integrating different accounts and conceptualisations of political liberalism. In order to accomplish this it will be argued that Western political theorists have to take seriously the ways in which Russian scholars think about political liberalism and, to this end, the thesis will present an overview of the Russian debate on political liberalism during the first post-communist decade.
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Turner, Jonathan. "Political theory as moral philosophy." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9b47b083-30aa-411d-a100-29aee7c34a3b.
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I argue against the claim that normative political theory is 'autonomous' with respect to moral philosophy. I take the simple view that political theory is a form of moral philosophy, and is differentiated by pragmatic rather than theoretically significant criteria. I defend this view by criticizing arguments for the autonomy thesis. In the first three chapters I introduce and analyse the autonomy thesis and provide a framework for understanding the various claims that are made in the literature. In Chapters 4 to 8 I proceed to criticize a series of arguments for the autonomy thesis. In Chapter 4 I explain why Kant's division of morality into ethics and right is not as useful as it may seem to those who wish to defend the autonomy thesis, and argues that Arthur Ripstein gives no reason to think that political philosophy is autonomous that can be endorsed independently of commitment to a Kantian normative theory. In Chapter 5 I examine the political liberal argument for the autonomy thesis, concluding that even if a freestanding political conception of justice can be regarded as autonomous, it does not follow that political philosophy can also. Chapters 6 to 8 tackle various political realist arguments for the autonomy thesis. In Chapter 6 I argue that political theory is not required to deal with empirical facts in any way that distinguishes it from moral philosophy, and any argument for its autonomy that is based on a prior claim about the purpose of political theorizing would be question-begging. In Chapters 7 and 8 I provide various arguments against the idea that there is a distinctively political form of normativity, and diagnose some of the mistaken assumptions about morality that I take to lie at the heart of the realist case. In Chapter 9 I conclude.
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Hah, Byong Joo. "Al-Fārābī's political theory." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/28178.
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The first aim of this thesis is to comprehend the political thought of al-Farabi (d.950) as fully as possible. Special attention is given to his views on types of non-virtuous states and international relations. It goes on to assess whether there is any possibility that his theory of state can be extended to a world state. Lastly, the thesis is concluded by setting out al-Farabi's position in Islamic mediaeval political philosophy and in the world history of political thought. The thesis consists of an introduction, five main chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction deals with the character of al-Farabi as a political thinker in general and examines previous studies of al-Farabi's political thought. The first chapter discusses al-Farabi's concept of 'political science' and his basic philosophical views. The second chapter examines his doctrines of happiness, society and political education. The third chapter is concerned with al-Farabi's framework of the virtuous state. The fourth chapter focuses on the types of the non-virtuous state. The fifth chapter centres on al-Farabi's view of international relations. The conclusion presents al-Farabi's contribution to Islamic political thought and the results of this analysis of his political works.
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Festenstein, Matthew. "Pragmatism and political theory." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321482.
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Arnold, Thomas Clay. "Political theory and language." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/184561.
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The relationship of language to the study and practice of political theory is the subject of the following analysis. Though by no means a "new" or even overlooked topic, it has experienced keen and lively debate. This was especially the case in the 1960s and 1970s, when advocates of political theory's "demise" and/or "rebirth" as a field of inquiry both took recourse in what they deemed to be the "lessons" of language. Today, however, debate has focused on the question of whether or not a more directly linguistic approach to the study and practice of political theory (as is exhibited, for example, in the works of, among others, Habermas, Flathman, and Shapiro) is in fact "political." Increasingly, the position is today that it is not. Some (Baumgold, 1981; Gunnell, 1979) even claim language a threat to theory's properly political foundations (Chapter One). I argue the contrary. Building from both the Wittgensteinian and Habermasian schools of thought (Chapters Two and Three) and, even more importantly, from the linguistic practices of Hobbes and Tocqueville (Chapter Four), study reveals language not only relevant but central to the discipline as even Baumgold and Gunnell understand it. As will be shown below, language's significance is grounded in its value as both a unit for political analysis and as a medium for political participation.
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Radice, Henry. "The politics of humanity : humanitarianism and international political theory." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2010. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1008/.
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This thesis brings the concept of humanitarianism sharply into focus within the discourse of international political theory. Existing literature examines humanitarianism obliquely, via debates on military humanitarian intervention or human rights, resulting in an impoverished account of a vital idea. Meanwhile, a vibrant discussion among professional humanitarians has recently questioned the nature of their endeavour, along lines that clearly fit the remit of international political theory. Bringing together these two discussions in the course of its critical analysis, the thesis argues that humanitarianism should be conceptualised as a political context in which we articulate, negotiate and defend our understandings of common humanity. Central to this politics are the ways in which we react to and conceptualise human suffering, through humanitarian crises that are often "crises of humanity". In sparking concern and mobilising responses to suffering, the affective underpinnings of the humanitarian impulse create a complex and shifting backdrop to extensions of solidarity and humanitarian action. At the heart of this action is the idea of rescue, a crucial "presumptive occasion" of our moral life. But an important part of humanitarian action consists in the efforts to institutionalise the humanitarian impulse. In this sense human rights and projects of global justice represent important crystallisations of humanitarian concern, yet neither can fully capture the more contingent workings of the humanitarian impulse. What emerges is an understanding of humanitarianism as a broad discussion, central to the identity of contemporary liberal international political theory, but with a scope best gleaned not from cosmopolitan accounts, but from a more fluid internationalist tradition of thought. The thesis concludes that the importance of this theoretical approach will be borne out by the complex and far-reaching practical challenges that humanitarianism is set to confront over coming decades, not least the "crisis of humanity" threatened by climate change.
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Edgerton, Barton T. "Creating a space for politics : territory and political theory." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2008. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2333/.
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Territory is an important part of contemporary political debates but there is an odd silence about the concept of territory in contemporary political theory. The unraveling of colonization and concerns over global justice should make territory a central aspect of political theory, yet it is not. This silence has the curious feature of recalling the original justifications for territorial acquisition. Because territory is neglected by contemporary thinkers, it is important to return to theorists such as Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Pufendof and Kant for a critical engagement with the concept of territory. Understanding the arguments of these thinkers illuminate the presuppositions of present day theorists and contributes to the understanding of contemporary theoretical problems. The thesis is organized into eight chapters. The first two chapters consider the neglect of territory in political theory the role of territory in international law. This sets up the three middle chapters which are critical engagements with historical thinkers organized around three conceptions of territory: territory as possession, as property and as jurisdiction. Contemporary cosmopolitanism is inspired, in part, by unraveling of colonization and a concern for global justice. Chapter 6 considers the relationship between contemporary cosmopolitanism and the legacy of the historical conceptions of territory. The next chapter investigates the communitarian critique of cosmopolitanism and the role of identity in territorial claims. At first glance there seems to be good reasons for contemporary theory to presuppose or ignore territory. However, the answer, though skeptical, is more subtle. Following Rawls and others, contemporary theory is right to remain silent about territory and about property in territory. The main skepticism is about arguments for colonial restitution or global redistribution of resources. This is because many take a crude territory as property view - which when abandoned seems to leave the world un-owned and therefore subject to equal distribution or claims. Yet skepticism is not the only alternative. Jurisdiction entails some elements of the territory as property view. This is a more sophisticated claim than the straight territory as property argument. Here ownership is a secondary but important claim states make in the absence of a binding universal norm. As a result there is a prima facie but not indefeasible right to particular territory. Identity plays a role in linking peoples to places. It also raises the bar to colonial restitution and global resource redistribution. This legitimates the current view of territory in political theory and international law where territory is pre-supposed but not theorized.
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Roy, Cornelia Sydnor Vasunia Phiroze. "Political relativism implicit political theory in Herodotus' Histories /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,2892.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010.Title from electronic title page (viewed Jun. 23, 2010). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics." Discipline: Classics; Department/School: Classics.
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Chan, Joseph Cho Wai. "Politics and the good life : explorations of Aristotle's political theory." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.240264.
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Stephenson, Susan Jane. "Narrative, self and political theory." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242510.
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Inamura, Kazutaka. "Aristotle's theory of political distribution." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609930.
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Prinz, Janosch. "Radicalizing realism in political theory." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/8367/.
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This thesis intervenes into the current debates about realism in political theory. Realism is a new challenge to the liberal mainstream in political theory. However, the extent to which realism, in its heterogeneity, actually has the potential to pose such a challenge, has thus far remained largely unexplored. The thesis offers the first differentiated assessment of this potential of realism and, finding it limited, embarks on a radicalization of realism. Having established a critical foil through a political reading of Rawls’ Political Liberalism, I divide contributions to realism into those who aim to revise, reform and reject liberal-normative political theory. This ‘ordering perspective’ of realism allows analyzing the thus far neglected similarities between realists and their liberal-normative opponents. This analysis suggests that the less critical subdivisions of realism limit themselves to be internal correctives to the liberal mainstream. However, even the most critical and challenging of the prevalent subdivisions of realism, which I call ‘vision of politics’ realism, remains caught in tensions between realist and liberal-normative commitments. In reaction to this limitation, my re-interpretation of Raymond Geuss’ realism as a modification of early Critical Theory through Foucauldian elements provides the basis for the development of a radical realism. This radical realism departs radically from the prevalent understandings of liberal-normative political theory and transcends the limitations of realism through changing the relationship between political theory and its political context. Radical realism brings the tensions and entanglements between normative and descriptive aspects of political theorizing into view and bases its critical purchase and practical orientation on the diagnostic examination of the political context. A discussion of the criteria for legitimacy in public justification liberalism, realism and radical realism finally ties together the argumentation of the thesis and offers a reflection on its bearing on a key question of contemporary political theory.
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Favara, G. "Political possibility. A research into the methods of normative political theory." Doctoral thesis, Università degli Studi di Milano, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2434/545383.
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This is a research about the limits and the conduct of normative political thinking. When we take a normative perspective about political matters, we essentially engage in an attempt to figure out how our political practices ought to be, compared to what they are. By being so characterised, however, it looks sensible to wonder whether this sort of theoretical endeavour ought to be somehow disciplined and constrained. Are there any limits with respect to the political worlds that we can imagine as normative? Is there some kind of relation between the world as it is and the world as it should be?
In the present study, I explore this fundamental problem. The four essays that together compose this thesis analyse the relationship between political reality and normative theory from different viewpoints. In doing so, they try to offer a better understanding of the limits of political possibility for normative political thinking. The first essay asks what is the appropriate procedure to tackle the problem of the limit of political possibility for normative political theory. The second essay investigates whether political theories ought to identify the desirable political worlds by relying on some features of the actual world, namely by following a bottom-up procedure. The third essay follows a similar lead and defines what sort of theoretical structure would result from the employment of a bottom-up procedure – that is to say, the third essay clarifies how political theories ought to manage the factual knowledge that the bottom-up procedure regards as normatively relevant. Finally, the fourth essay investigates whether the bottom-up theories defended in the second and third essays have to be subjected to some sort of feasibility requirements.
In sum, I affirm that the limit of the political possibility for normative political theory ought to be traced where the political worlds which are practically possible, and which are compatible with the instantiation of the values that concrete agents deem important, can be found. This conclusion has important consequences with respect to the conduct of normative political thinking. I maintain that the theorist ought to be primarily an attentive observer and interpreter of concrete political practices. Moreover, the arguments that I outline suggest that we ought to look at our own world primarily in a spirit of reconciliation, rather than criticism. These two ways of looking at our practices are both fundamental, but I suggest that we should first and foremost look at our world and observe whether something makes sense in it and can be valued, rather than focusing on what could be subverted.
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Karlsson, Susanna. "Contemporary international political theory and global environmental politics : bridging artificial divides?" Thesis, Aberystwyth University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2160/7576bdd8-8ca1-4982-8d96-257d4aeec12e.
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This thesis studies the intersection between contemporary international political theory and global environmental politics. It asks whether concern for global environmental degradation requires a rethinking of the assumptions that underlie international political theory as a field of study within the discipline of International Relations. Answering this question, the thesis introduces three ‗images‘ of international political theory: the liberal cosmopolitan, the critical-theoretical, and the anti-foundationalist. It investigates the contributions of these three images of international political theory to global environmental politics. Assessing, through the three images, the status of contemporary international political theory in light of environmental concerns, the thesis suggests that while international political theory offers many important insights into discussions of global environmental politics it also appears significantly limited when dealing with environmental concerns. Key among its limitations is the human-centred framework and mission of contemporary international political theory that an encounter with environmental concerns helps expose. The thesis argues that international political theory, both to be true to its purpose – that is, the extension of moral and political inclusion in world politics – and to maintain its relevance in the contemporary world, must seek a more thorough engagement with environmental concerns. The thesis contends that a fundamental rethinking of the assumptions that underlie contemporary international political theory forms an important – and necessary – part of this engagement.
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Bannell, Ralph Ings. "Reason and politics : an essay on the foundations of political theory." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.413394.
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Le, Borgne Eric. "Institutions, politics, and macroeconomic performance : on incomplete information in political agency games." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2001. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/52262/.
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This thesis analyses the interactions between politics, institutions, and policy outcomes using a political agency framework with incomplete information. After an introductory chapter, we develop a political agency model that is consistent with the empirical evidence on politically-induced fiscal cycles, and especially budget deficit cycles. We find that electoral concerns create, on average, a rising budget deficit prior to elections. The net welfare effect of elections is ambiguous: although they give rise to a deficit bias, they increase the quality of office-holders. The next chapter uses this microfounded model to study the incentive and welfare effects that the imposition of fiscal constraints has on policy makers' decision to create excessive deficits. Three types of constraints are investigated: deficit ceilings, a Golden Rule of public investment, and a balanced-budget rule. We find that constraints are effective in reducing excessive budget deficits - although at the expense of unconstrained instruments. Only one can yield higher welfare than the fully discretionary case. No appropriately designed fiscal constraint can achieve the first-best. In Chapter 4, we show that two key results in the political agency literature are not robust. The first is that a cutoff rule followed by voters in re-electing an incumbent always motivates the latter. The second is that this cutoff rule is an optimal incentive mechanism. Under symmetric incomplete information, the first result can be reversed since elections can reduce the experimentation effect of office-holders (i. e. the incentive to raise effort so that performance becomes a more accurate signal of ability). This reduction may more than offset the positive effect of elections on effort. When incentives to stand for office are modelled, result two can be overturned since a revealing equilibrium at the candidate entry stage can always be designed. This screens out low-ability citizens from policy making and therefore eliminates the adverse selection problem. If this latter is more important than moral hazard issues, the cutoff rule at the policy stage is no longer an optimal mechanism. In Chapter 5, we investigate in more details whether relevant (private) information about citizens' competence in political office (ability, honesty, etc. ) can be revealed by their entry and campaign expenditure decisions. We find that this depends on whether voters and candidates have common or conflicting interests; only in the former case can entry be revealing in equilibrium. We apply these results to Rogoff's (1990) Political Budget Cycles model, allowing for candidate entry: as interests are common, low-ability candidates are screened out at the entry stage, and so there is no signalling via fiscal policy. In a variant of the Rogoff model where citizens differ in honesty, rather than ability, interests are conflicting, and so the political budget cycle can persist in equilibrium. The final chapter concludes the thesis.
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Swift, Adam. "For a sociologically informed political theory." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.335897.
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Qizilbash, M. "Corruption, political systems and economic theory." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.358574.
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Gordon, Uri. "Anarchism and political theory : contemporary problems." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2006. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7615e18b-7357-4784-8228-5b49253c7650.
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This thesis explores contemporary anarchism, in its re-emergence as a social movement and political theory over the past decade. Its method combines cultural sociology and philosophical argumentation, in a participatory research framework. The first part, "Explaining Anarchism", argues that it should be addressed primarily as a political culture, with distinct forms of organisation, of campaigning and direct action repertoires, and of political discourse and ideology. Largely discontinuous with the historical workers' and peasants' anarchist movement, contemporary anarchism has fused in the intersection of radical direct-action movements in the North since the 1960s: feminism, ecology, and the resistance to nuclear energy and weapons, war, and neoliberal globalisation. Anarchist ideological discourse is analysed with attention to key concepts such as "domination" and "prefigurative politics", emphasising the avowedly open-ended, experimental nature of the anarchist project. The second part, "Anarchist Anxieties", is a set of theoretical interventions in four major topics of controversy in anarchism today. Leadership in anarchist politics is addressed through sustained attention to the concept of power, proposing an agenda for equalising access to influence among activists, and an "ethic of solidarity" around the wielding of non-coercive power. Violence is approached through a recipient-based definition of the concept, exploring the limits of any attempt to justify violence and offering observations on violent empowerment, revenge and armed struggle. Technology is subject to a strong anarchist critique, which stresses its inherently social nature, leading to the exploration of Luddism, the disillusioned use of ICTs, and the promotion of lo-tech, sustainable human-nature interfaces as strategical directions for an anarchist politics of technology. Finally, the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is used to address anarchist dilemmas around national liberation, exploring anarchist responses in conflict-ridden societies, and direct action approaches to peacemaking.
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Little, Adrian J. "The political theory of Andre Gorz." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.333801.
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LoÌpez, Alejandro MeÌndez. "Green political theory : a Popperian perspective." Thesis, University of Essex, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.410239.
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Bufacchi, Vittorio. "Reasonable agreement : a contractualist political theory." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1994. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1300/.
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The thesis is a defence of contractualism in liberal political theory. My aim is to show that contractualism can play a crucial role in the political theory of liberalism if it applies to the meta-ethical level rather than the ethical level. In particular, I will argue that the contractualist concept of 'reasonable agreement' provides the foundation for a new comprehensive liberal political theory. The basic intuition behind the idea of reasonable agreement is that all principles and rules must be capable of being justified to everyone: these are principles and rules on which everyone could reach agreement, where the agreement is defined in terms of what no one could reasonably reject. The first introductory chapter will attempt to establish that contractualism reflects the ethical core of liberalism, and that the contractualist theory of reasonable agreement gives the best account of egalitarianism. This will be followed by six chapters, divided in two parts, and a brief conclusion. Part I presents the case for contractualism from a theoretical angle, providing a conceptual analysis of reasonable agreement. Part II examines reasonable agreement from a political angle, providing an analysis of three key questions in political liberalism. The three chapters making up Part I deal with the theories of Rawls and Scanlon, the two major figures responsible for reviving the interest in contractualism in general, and 'reasonable agreement' in particular. Chapter 2 critically evaluates Rawls's contractualism, while Chapter 3 focuses on the moral theory of Scanlon. Chapter 4 attempts to build on the efforts of Rawls and Scanlon by further exploring and hopefully improving on their theory of reasonable agreement. I believe that the strength of reasonable agreement lies in its effort to raise contractualism from the ethical to the meta-ethical level, thus the three chapters in Part I evaluate two notions central to reasonable agreement: the idea of agreement and the concept of reasonableness. This brings us to the second part of the thesis, where the relationship between 'reasonable agreement' and political liberalism is investigated. Political liberalism is concerned with the political concepts that form the basis of a liberal society, namely, political obligation, social justice, and neutrality. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 examine how the egalitarian proposal of reasonable agreement applies respectively to these three liberal questions. The concluding chapter will provide a summary of the main arguments presented in the thesis.
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RICO, ALESSANDRO. "A Conservative Theory of Political Obligation." Doctoral thesis, Luiss Guido Carli, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11385/201061.
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The aim of this thesis is to develop a conservative theory of political obligation.
In the first chapter, I advance a series of preliminary definitions: I specify that political
obligation is the moral (not merely the legal) duty to obey the law qua law; I discuss the
requirements that a successful theory of political obligation should match; and I criticize
philosophical anarchism.
In chapters 2, 3, and 4, I analyse the notion of conservatism. I focus on the concepts of ‘status
quo bias’, ‘historical value’, ‘traditionalism’, and on the principles I label as ‘the primacy of order
over liberty’ and ‘the primacy of community over the individual’.
The idea is that conservatism is committed to the preservation of existing states of affairs and
traditions, as long as they are carriers of historical value (HV), as the means to establish a form of
intergenerational connection (what I call the ‘diachronic community’), and for reasons related to the
problem of transition costs in reforms, to policy-makers’ ignorance, and to the role of stable
conventions in political life. However, I also observe that conservatives recognize that some degree
of change is necessary precisely for conservation to be effective. This so-called ‘conservation
paradox’ is particularly evident in the case of transmission of traditions.
In chapter 6, I develop a conservative theory of political obligation based on the Oakeshottean
notion of membership in the ‘civil association’. This is a mode of relationship that members of
nation-States entertain with each other, sharing not a common purpose, but only subscribing to the
same general rules of conduct, sanctioned by the legal system. Obeying the law is the minimal, but
necessary and sufficient condition for political obligation to hold.
The so-called practice of civility, in which membership in the civil association is grounded,
connects with each other the members of the polity both synchronically and diachronically.
Therefore, it is the source of an internal good, the bond of community that citizens establish
reciprocally and across the generations, and it is a carrier of HV. Moreover, the good of ‘civility’
can also be understood in functionalist terms, as it represents the conditio sine qua non for the
realization of all other essential goods of societal life, be they primary (peace, security, etc.) or
secondary (the development of arts, science, a market system, etc.). I conclude that, since the
practice of civility generates HV and the internal good of civility, and it links together the
generations of the living, the generations of the dead, and those of the unborn, citizens do have a
moral duty to conserve it and transmit it. Consequently, they do have a political obligation, that is
to say, the duty to obey the law.
In chapter 6, I also show how the theory of political obligation developed in this thesis matches
the requirements discussed in the first chapter.
Eventually, I add an Appendix in which I analyse the problem of a ‘conservative’ civil
disobedience, by adopting a slightly modified version of the Rawlsian framework. I argue that civil
disobedience should have the following characteristics: it has to be directed against the government
and its agencies, not against private subjects; it has to be public; it has to be nonviolent; its aim has
to be the reinstatement of the transcendental conditions of the civil association, which the targeted
law or policy have allegedly damaged; it may be either direct or indirect; its purpose should be
either the repeal of the contested law or policy, or the obtainment of exemptions for the exercise of
legal conscientious objection; civil disobedients ought to be prompt to accept punishment.
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Dombowsky, Don. "Nietzsche's plan for political organization and its formation in political theory." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2001. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/NQ66144.pdf.
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Mann, Hollie S. Bickford Susan. "Getting political theory pregnant conceiving a new model of political personhood /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,874.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.Title from electronic title page (viewed Dec. 18, 2007). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Political Science." Discipline: Political Science; Department/School: Political Science.
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Thompson, Simon. "Political theory in a democratic society : a critique of political liberalism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.239381.
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Christov, Theodore Krassimirov. "Leviathans Tamed political theory and international relations in modern political thought /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1666166221&sid=35&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Goode, Luke. "Politics and the public sphere : the social-political theory of Jurgen Habermas." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.297734.
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Schampel, James Howard. "Dyadic power theory." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/185279.
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Dyadic power theory proposes that the speed of power-ratio change between two nations predicts to both the onset of war and alliance formation. The speed of power-ratio change is measured utilizing the concepts of velocity and acceleration. It is posited that decision-makers perceive high velocity change and/or high acceleration of change in the power-ratio between them and a potential adversary as threatening. The lack of reaction time encourages the decision-makers to act in non-traditional ways. Thus, they opt for hostilities or alliance partners rather than utilize traditional diplomatic measures such as "summits", conferences, protests, etc. The independent variables of national power were provided by Jacek Kugler in private correspondence, and the dependent variables of alliances and wars were selected from data-sets compiled by Singer and Small. Dyadic changes in power previous to these events were then correlated with the events, themselves. Moderate support for the theory was obtained. Although there was little correlation between acceleration of power-ratio change and either event, there were moderate correlations between average velocity of change and the event, suggesting that decision-makers react precipitously to rapidly changing conditions vis-a-vis potential adversaries. The findings suggest that future studies that will isolate such factors as size of nation, century of event, contiguity, and even type of political system of the adversaries or partners are warranted.
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Mantle, Deborah J. "Critical green political theory and international relations theory : compatability or conflict?" Thesis, Keele University, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.301163.
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Emmonds, Kerry Louise. "Social theory and political change in Argentina." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ39822.pdf.
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Kazmi, Zaheer Abbas. "Polite anarchy : an anarchist international political theory." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.614055.
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Kribbe, Hans. "Corporate personality : a political theory of association." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2003. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2659/.
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This thesis aims to rescue the tradition of corporation theory from the implications of ontological and ethical individualism, which form important tenets of mainstream political theory. My argument for corporate personality builds on the Lockean and Humean theory of personal identity over time. According to this theory, personal identity is not rooted in the identity of a deep and indivisible Self, but in the relatedness between temporally distinct psychological stages. A person is a group of desires, beliefs, memories, traits and other attitudes, tied together by a causal string. On the best interpretation of the Humean view, personal identity has normative consequences. We are bundles but the string that ties the stages of one life together is formed by the normativity of action-guiding principles and by the mutual recognition of certain associative obligations. This normative claim is often meant to buttress ethical individualism against those who deny that persons exist at all. However, this thesis demonstrates that the claim also reinvigorates the idea of corporate personality. The argument develops along two different strands. First, it is shown that corporate personality is a political theory. It is the theory that compares co-operative relations between people with the co-operative relations between the stages of one person. For contractualist theories, the core virtue is justice. For corporate theories, the highest virtue is integrity. Second, corporation theory makes a real contribution to the field of political theory, in particular in an area where contractualism has traditionally encountered problems, to wit, the continuity of the contract. This thesis argues corporation theory is much more successful in explaining our transgenerational obligations to the past and future.
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Papaioannou, Theodoros. "The moral dimension of Hayek's political theory." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390829.
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This thesis provides an 'immanent' critique of the moral dimension of Hayek's political theory. The concept of morality that Hayek advances is epistemologically founded. That concept is concerned with the recognition and respect of the natural limits of human knowledge and is incompatible with the idea of objective value judgement. The moral dimension of Hayek's theory is based on the methodological implications of his epistemologically founded concept of morality. That dimension consists of the ideas of social spontaneity and cultural evolution and is incompatible with any concept of objective liberal values. The moral dimension of Hayek's theory excludes but also requires substantive politics. The moral exclusion of substantive politics' undermines freedom and equality in catallaxy while, at the same time, it relativises commutative justice and legitimates the minimal state only from the point of view of its legality. Substantive politics is morally required for preserving and promoting institutions such as catallaxy and commutative justice in terms of liberalism. It is argued that the moral exclusion of substantive politics is due to the epistemological premises of Hayek's theory. Those premises form the praxeological presuppositions of social spontaneity and cultural evolution. In terms of them, substantive politics cannot be morally explained. Substantive politics is grounded on a normative/evaluative conception of a social good. That conception depends on critical reason in terms of which objective liberal values can be "recognised and respected. The moral requirement of substantive politics is due to the fact that the process of social spontaneity and cultural evolution cannot by itself be safeguarded against coercion, inequality and injustice.
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Richards, M. "Theory and attitude in Nietzsche's political thought." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.382775.
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Gibney, Matthew John. "Political theory and the international refugee crisis." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.308665.
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Altuntas-Cakir, Ravza. "Muslim democracy : the return of political theory." Thesis, Durham University, 2018. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12644/.
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Muslims worldwide strongly desire democracy with Islamic overtones. Yet Muslim-majority countries suffer from severe democratic deficits. With the Arab Spring, not only has authoritarianism shown resilience in previous non-democracies, but countries with once-promising democratisation are at risk of becoming ‘electoral authoritarianisms’ or ‘majoritarian democracies.’ This failure of democratic experimentation necessitates a return to political theory to reconceptualise ‘Muslim democracy.’ During the last decade, Turkey had been depicted as the epitome of Muslim democracy, yet such interpretations have been recently challenged, leaving the Muslim democracy literature with substantial gaps. Today, the idea of Muslim democracy is in flux; lacking normative rigour and conceptual clarity, the term means everything and nothing. It will remain so until well-developed political theories systematically outline the indispensable institutional, social, political, and normative conditions for its realisation. This project proposes a normatively viable framework that reconciles public Islamic claims with the normative and practical demands of democratic regimes. The thesis questions customary characterisations of Islam’s compatibility with democracy and offers a new methodology by systematically studying a cluster of theories that have never been examined together: debates concerning Muslim political thought, multiculturalism, secularism, the public sphere, and constitutionalism. This approach allows analysing Muslim democracy politically rather than theologically. This work defines Muslim democracy as an alternative form of democracy that recognises the centrality of religion in Muslim societies. The argument first engages with an inclusive typology of Muslim political thought to discover essential variables for a democratic theory and analyse tensions hindering the development of democratic culture. It then examines multiculturalism probing its capacity to reconcile democracy with religion. It subsequently examines pro-democratic thinking within Muslim discourses termed “the compatibility-based arguments” to reveal their limitations. It finally synthesises these theoretical resources, proposing its Muslim democracy framework that encompasses religion-friendly and human rights-concordant interpretations of secularism, the public sphere, and constitutionalism.
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Barry, John. "Green political theory : nature, virtue and progress." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1996. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1523/.
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This thesis offers an immanent critique and reconstruction of green moral and political theory. In chapter 1, the critical-reconstructive approach and spirit of the thesis is outlined in terms of contributing to the process of developing a green political theory that is different from 'ecologism' or ideological accounts of green politics. In chapter 2, deep ecology is critically interrogated in terms of its metaphysical (2.3) and psychological claims (2.4). Its view of the 'ecological crisis' as a 'crisis' of western culture is criticised as is its a priori defence of environmental preservation over the human productive use of nature. While its ecocentrism is rejected as the normative basis for green politics, its concern with virtue ethics is held to be an important contribution. In chapter 3, a self-reflexive version of anthropocentrism is developed as the most appropriate moral basis for green politics. Some naturalistic arguments are presented in order to support 'speciesism', and defend it from claims of arbitrariness and as being akin to sexism or racism. Arguments centring on demonstrating the tenuous character of the differences between humans and nonhumans are argued to neglect the fundamental moral significance of the difference between 'human' and 'nonhuman'. I argue that an ethic of use, understood as a reflexive mode of interaction with the nonhuman world, is a defensible form of anthropocentrism for green political purposes. The basis of this reflexive anthropocentrism turns on the claim that while human interests are a necessary condition for justifying a particular human use of nature, it is not a satisfactory one. Issues pertaining to the 'seriousness' of the human interest which is fulfilled are held to be important in distinguishing 'use' from 'abuse'.
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Trachtenberg, Zev Matthew. "Making citizens : Rousseau's political theory of culture /." London ; New York : Routledge, 1993. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37427064c.
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Nitz, Michael Earl 1967. "Schema theory: An application to political communication." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291606.
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Political schema research (Kinder, Peters, Abelson, & Fiske, 1980; Miller, Wattenberg, & Malanchuk, 1986) has centered on the schemas voters use to select presidents. Unfortunately, political researchers have all but neglected the state and local level. Consequently, this thesis focuses on the schemas voters use to select governors to determine if these schemas differ from schemas used to select presidents. This thesis also tests the relationship between political sophistication and the use of certain schemas to select a governor. Surveys were administered to 563 adults waiting for jury duty. Results indicate the schemas voters use to select governors differ from those used to select presidents. Political sophistication is positively related to usage of issues and performance schemas. Further research should explore political schemas at state and local levels.
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Zhu, Jiafeng, and 朱佳峰. "Farewell to political obligation : toward a new liberal theory of political legitimacy." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/196492.
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Is there a general moral duty to obey the law because it is the law? This is the question of political obligation. The issue of political obligation is allegedly a central topic of political philosophy, because political obligation is often assumed to be necessary for state legitimacy; that is to say, for a state to be legitimate, it must be capable of imposing political obligation on the governed. Nonetheless, the literature has indicated that it is enormously difficult, at least within the liberal doctrine that many find most attractive, to justify political obligation. Given that political obligation is viewed as an indispensable part of state legitimacy, skepticism about political obligation points to a seemingly inescapable yet disturbing conclusion: no existing liberal state is legitimate, no matter how just it is. This skeptical position is also known as philosophical anarchism.
This study aims to show that philosophical anarchism is not as irresistible as it appears. But I do not take the traditional approach of refuting philosophical anarchism by defending or developing theories of political obligation. On the contrary, I devote the first part of my thesis to consolidating the skepticism about political obligation.
The approach I favor is to argue that political obligation is not necessary for state legitimacy. If this point can be established, then even if political obligation is unjustified, it will not automatically lead to philosophical anarchism. This constitutes the second part of my thesis, where I develop a conception of “legitimacy without political obligation” and defend it against the objection that it is either conceptually or morally wrong to claim that a legitimate state need not impose political obligation on its subjects.published_or_final_version
Politics and Public Administration
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy
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Bonura, Carlo J. "Political theory on location : formations of Muslim political community in Southern Thailand /." Thesis, Full text available, 2003. http://images.lib.monash.edu.au/ts/theses/bonura.pdf.
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Belmonte, Alessandro. "Essays on political economy." Thesis, IMT Alti Studi Lucca, 2014. http://e-theses.imtlucca.it/158/1/Belmonte_phdthesis.pdf.
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While a vast literature has been collected pointing out the role
of the human capital on economic growth, a few has been
said, in Economics, on the mechanism through which education
directly impacts on democracy. The present dissertation
proposes a novel microfoundation of this nexus based on the
paramount role of education as economic growth engine and
determinant of political participation. The first two works
introduce elements of political psychology in order to shed
lights on individual cognitive process that might favor, overall,
a culture of democracy. Education is then a cognitive tool
that citizens/voters can use to decode the information content
of political signals and to keep rulers in charge accountable.
We formally show that the entire initial distribution of
education matters for a successful democracy and that the
median is pivotal in the political process. Motivated by that
in the last work we propose a statistical analysis of the distribution
of the Italian primary school service. Primary schools
tend to distribute in a complex way according to geographical
features of the territory, schooling aged population density,
and possible interactions between the two. Despite the school
system is financed at a State level, we outline the persistence
of remarkable differences not directly attributable to historical
divergences among different macro-area of the country
but rather between montane areas and more dynamic regions
deputed to explain economic and political divergences. Chapter 2: We propose a political agency model where rent-maximizer rulers are constrained by sophisticated principals/producers that use an awareness-management model `a la B´enabou and Tirole. Sophistication is explained by educational attainments
and producers are endowed with different levels of education,
that increase over time with human capital investments.
We allow education to be both the engine of growth and a
determinant of political participation; in equilibrium, more
educated societies are more able to punish politicians that,
in turn, invest more in productive public goods such as infrastructure,
roads or legal rules for contracts enforcement.
We prove the existence of multiple steady states featuring, respectively,
a sophisticated society with congruent politicians
in office, and a naive society ruled by dissonant politicians.
Finally, we address inequality concerns and show how, for
intermediate values, inequality opposingly hits citizens and
ruler and only the latter is found to better off; conversely, citizens
are averse to inequality, contributing to explain, via sophisticated
accountability, why most people dislike living in
a society which is too unequal. Chapter 3: The paper originally attempts to explain the rise of the new
wave of populism in Europe and the persistence of the Latin
American populism. Such phenomena rose an unresolved
political puzzle according to which populist politicians has
been widely supported by the electorate while ultimately hurt
the economic interests of the majorities. We address this puzzle
by looking at the electorate side and, specifically, at individual
citizens that are endowed with different level of political
sophistication. According to the Political Psychology
literature, we approximate political sophistication in terms of
individual education attainments whose distribution evolve
over time with human capital investments. In each period,
the distribution of political sophistication within a country
generates different incentive structure for the incumbent that accordingly optimally decide whether to be a populist or a responsible
type whereas between countries might determine
completely different equilibria in the long run, one with populist
politicians and one ruled by responsible ones. I argue
that rent-maximizer politicians have the chance to behave in a
populist fashion when a naive electorate fail in keeping rulers
politically accountable. Despite citizens are politically committed
to responsible economic policy, naive voters are basically
unaware of the politicians intentions providing to the
latter opportunities for the manipulation of the economy and
the electoral outcome. Populist rulers carry out inefficient investment
with the only intent to induce a mean-increasing
spread in future distributions of human capital so as to increase
electoral consensus based on a naive electorate and to
maximize tax revenues based on a few of rich. Chapter 4: We characterize the statistical law according to which Italian
primary school-size distributes. We find that the schoolsize
can be approximated by a log-normal distribution, with
a fat lower tail that collects a large number of very small
schools. The upper tail of the school-size distribution decreases
exponentially and the growth rates are distributed
with a Laplace PDF. These distributions are similar to those
observed for firms and are consistent with a Bose-Einstein
preferential attachment process. The body of the distribution
features a bimodal shape suggesting some source of heterogeneity
in the school organization that we uncover by an indepth
analysis of the relation between schools-size and citysize.
We propose a novel cluster methodology and a new
spatial interaction approach among schools which outline the
variety of policies implemented in Italy. Different regional
policies are also discussed shedding lights on the relation between policy and geographical features.
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Sun, Cheng. "Reputation games and political economy." Thesis, Princeton University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3714502.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation studies the applications of reputation games in social media and finance as well as decision games in political economy. Chapter 1 develops a reputation game in which a biased but informed expert makes a statement to attract audiences. The biased expert has an ideological incentive to distort his information as well as having a reputation concern. The expert knows that his expertise may vary in different topics, while the audiences cannot identify such differences. The biased expert is more likely to announce his favorite message when he knows less about it. Moreover, the biased expert is less willing to lie when the audiences have better outside options, and such improvements in outside options may benefit both the expert and the audiences.
Chapter 2 studies a credit rating game with a credit rating agency(CRA), an issuer and an investor. The privately informed and biased CRA provides a rating on the issuer's project, and the investor decides to purchase the project or not according to the report. As long as the CRA obtains a contract, he will inflate the rating. When the default risk is high, the CRA tells the truth. Moreover, he is more likely to tell the truth when the issuer's private benefit is larger. When the default risk is low, the CRA sends a good rating. He is more likely to inflate the rating if the issuer has a higher private benefit.
Chapter 3 presents a model in secessions and nationalism, with a special emphasis on the role of civil war. In our model, a disagreement on secession between the central government and the minority group leads to disastrous military conflicts. As a result, the tremendous potential cost of the war distorts the political choice of the minority group, and helps the central government to exploit them both economically and politically. Several key ingredients, such as population, per capita income and perceived winning chance of the civil war, play an essential role in the decision making process of the minority group. I also conduct an empirical test of this model, which supports the major findings stated above.
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Sottilotta, Cecilia Emma. "Concept and measurement of political risk: from theory to practice." Doctoral thesis, Luiss Guido Carli, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11385/200932.
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Ahmedullah, Muhammad. "John Locke and Karl Popper on epistemology and politics : a study into the relationship between theory of knowledge and political theory." Thesis, University of Kent, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.244342.
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Welsh, Scott Michael. "The rhetorical pursuit of political advantage : toward a rhetorical theory for democratic politics /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3268342.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2007.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Dec. 5, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Robert L. Ivie.
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Shen, Fei. "An economic theory of political communication effects how the economy conditions political learning /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1243880056.
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Paipais, Vassilios. "Critique and the grounding of political community : ideological depoliticisation in international political theory." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.538739.
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