Product Description: Is it possible to bridge the gap between the state's secrecy and the people who are ruled? "Social and Political Bonds" argues that mediation between people and purposes, parts and wholes, voluntariness and coercion, not only can but must occur in a fair society and outlines a range of strategies that can be used to join seemingly irreconcilable social and political contexts...read more

Product Description: The processes of transition from communist rule in Eastern Europe and the dilemmas of reform in the Soviet Union invite reflection on the role of pluralism in rendering a political system legitimate and democratic. In this book, Frederick M...read more

Product Description: F.M. Barnard goes beyond the seventeenth-century understanding of the social contract by making national self-enactment contingent on public reasons for individual liberty within civic mutuality. He examines the possibilities and limits for a self-enacting, principled politics, acknowledging reason and self-enactment as central concepts of historical and political thinking...read more

Product Description: The core of J.G. Herder's philosophy of nationalism lies in the conviction that human creativity must be embedded in the particular culture of a communal language. While he acknowledged that this cultural particular must be integrated into a more universal humanity, he insisted that each culture should preserve its incommensurable distinctiveness...read more

Product Description: In "Democratic Legitimacy", Frederick Barnard argues that political accountability is as important to the democratic ethic as political participation - and equally in need of reappraisal and invigoration. Unless its importance is recognised, accountability, like participation, will remain an idea that is easy to praise but difficult to incorporate into political life...read more

Product Description: Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) has been called the German Rousseau. Yet while Rousseau is recognized as a political thinker, Herder is not. This book explores each thinker's ideas--on nature and culture, selfhood and mutuality, paternalism, freedom, and autonomy--and compares their conceptions of legitimate statehood...read more