This book examines the birth of the European individual as a juridical problem, focusing on legal case dossiers from the European Court of Justice as an electrifying laboratory for the study of law and society. Foucault’s story of the modern subject constitutes the book’s main theoretical inspiration, as it considers the encounter between legal and other practices within a more general field of juridical power: a network of active relations, between different social spheres.Through...

First published in 1999, this book focuses on the new role of private law in late modernity. It analyses the pressures for changes in this area of law due to the present processes of privatisation and marketisation. The perspective is welfarist: in what ways and to what extent can the welfare state expectations of the citizens be defended through private law mechanisms when state-offered security is diminishing? Which alternatives are available when developing private law? The questions ar...

The third edition of Jurisprudence offers a logically structured, comprehensive, well-researched and accessible overview of legal theory and philosophy. Written primarily for undergraduate students, it examines and demystifies the discipline's major ideas, and promotes a richer understanding of the social, moral and economic dimensions of the law. By locating the major traditions of jurisprudence within the history of ideas, the author deepens students' understanding of the perennial debat...

According to republican theory, we are free persons to the extent that we are protected and secured in the same fundamental choices, on the same public basis, as one another. But there is no public protection or security without a coercive state. Does this mean that any freedom we enjoy is a superficial good that presupposes a deeper, political form of subjection? Philip Pettit addresses this crucial question in On the People's Terms. He argues that state coercion will not involve individu...

`This is an excellent introduction to classical social theory. For most students it is the only book on the subject that they will need. The expositions are clear and comprehensive, outlining with almost alarming clarity ideas with which many of us have to struggle′ - Alan Bryman, The Management Centre, University of LeicesterThis is a thoroughly revised, expanded version of the best selling student text in classical social theory. The book provides an aut...

In this sequel to his prize-winning book, The Eyes of the People, Jeffrey Edward Green draws on philosophy, history, social science, and literature to ask what democracy can mean in a world where it is understood that socioeconomic status to some degree will always determine opportunities for civic engagement and career advancement. Under this shadow of unfairness, Green argues that the most advantaged class are rightly subjected to compulsory public burdens. And just as provocati...

The concept of law lies at the heart of our social and political life, shaping the character of our community and underlying issues from racism and abortion to human rights and international war. But what actually is law? A set of naturally occurring moral principles, or simply rules agreed by a particular society? What is a 'right' and what rights should people actually have? Is law really colour-blind and gender-blind? Can the law truly tell us whether gay marriages are immoral, what's wron...

"Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?"In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism...

This introduction to human dignity explores the history of the notion from antiquity to the nineteenth century, and the way in which dignity is conceptualised in non-Western contexts. Building on this, it addresses a range of systematic conceptualisations, considers the theoretical and legal conditions for human dignity as a useful notion and analyses a number of philosophical and conceptual approaches to dignity. Finally, the book introduces current debates, paying particular attention to...

An argument that draws on canonical and contemporary thinkers in political theory and science studies—from Machiavelli to Latour—for insights on bringing scientific expertise into representative democracy.Public controversies over issues ranging from global warming to biotechnology have politicized scientific expertise and research. Some respond with calls for restoring a golden age of value-free science. More promising efforts seek to democratize science. But what...

Long recognized as one of the main branches of political science, political theory has in recent years burgeoned in many different directions. Close textual analysis of historical texts sits alongside more analytical work on the nature and normative grounds of political values. Continental and post-modern influences jostle with ones from economics, history, sociology, and the law. Feminist concerns with embodiment make us look at old problems in new ways, and challenges of new technologies...

Incisive, straightforward, and eloquent, this third and concluding volume of F. A. Hayek's comprehensive assessment of the basic political principles which order and sustain free societies contains the clearest and most uncompromising exposition of the political philosophy of one of the world's foremost economists.