
The State
Description
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The future of our species depends on the state. Can states resist corporate capture, religious zealotry, and nationalist mania? Can they find a way to work together so that the earth heals and its peoples prosper? Or is the state just not up to the task? In this book, the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit examines the nature of the state and its capacity to serve goals like peace and justice within and beyond its borders. In doing so, he breaks new ground by making the state the focus of political theory-with implications for economic, legal, and social theory-and presents a persuasive, historically informed image of an institution that lies at the center of our lives.
Offering an account that is more realist than utopian, Pettit starts from the function the polity is meant to serve, looks at how it can best discharge that function, and explores its ability to engage beneficially in the life of its citizens. This enables him to identify an ideal of statehood that is a precondition of justice. Only if states approximate this functional ideal will they be able to deal with the perennial problems of extreme poverty and bitter discord as well as the challenges that loom over the coming centuries, including climate change, population growth, and nuclear arms.
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Content
- Cover
- Contents
- Introduction: Motivating the Argument
- Part I: The Role of the State and Its Demands
- 1. The Function of the Polity
- 1.1 Genealogy and Reconstruction
- 1.2 Reconstructing Conventions
- 1.3 Reconstructing Norms
- 1.4 Reconstructing Laws
- 1.5 The Emergence of the State
- 1.6 The Function of the State
- 2. The Polity Incorporated
- 2.1 Basic Agency
- 2.2 Human Agency
- 2.3 Corporate Agency and the Polity
- 2.4 The Polity Without Full Incorporation
- 2.5 Why the Polity Should Incorporate Fully
- 3. The Polity Decentralized
- 3.1 The Polycentric Constitution
- 3.2 The Argument for Sovereignty
- 3.3 Taking Stock of the Argument
- 3.4 Sovereignty with Decentralization
- 3.5 Decentralization, Radical and Moderate
- Part II. The Potential of the State and Its Dimensions
- 4. The Collective Powers of Citizens
- 4.1 The Constitutional Power of the People
- 4.2 The Issue of Extra-Constitutional Power
- 4.3 The Extra-Constitutional Power of the People
- 5. The Individual Rights of Citizens
- 5.1 The Idea of Rights and Their Value
- 5.2 Natural Rights and the State
- 5.3 Institutional Rights and the State
- 6. The Demands of a Market Economy
- 6.1 Property
- 6.2 Money
- 6.3 Corporations
- 6.4 Three Corporate Ontologies
- Conclusion: Outlining the Argument
- References
- Index
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