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Although there is no international government, and no global police agency enforces the rules, nations obey international law. In this provocative study, Franck employs a broad range of historical, legal, sociological, anthropological, political, and philosophical modes of analysis to unravel the ...

Although there is no international government, and no global police agency enforces the rules, nations obey international law. In this provocative study, Franck employs a broad range of historical, legal, sociological, anthropological, political, and philosophical modes of analysis to unravel the mystery of what makes states and people perceive rules as legitimate. Demonstrating that virtually all nations obey most rules nearly all of the time, Franck reveals that the more legitimate laws and institutions appear to be, the greater is their capacity for compliance. Distilling those factors which increase the perception of legitimacy, he shows how a community of rules can be fashioned from a system of sovereign states without creating a global leviathan.

Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government analyses a series of interrelated questions. The first two are diagnostic: how far are there legitimate grounds for concern about public support for democracy world-wide? Are trends towards growing cynicism evident in the United States ...

Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government analyses a series of interrelated questions. The first two are diagnostic: how far are there legitimate grounds for concern about public support for democracy world-wide? Are trends towards growing cynicism evident in the United States evident in many established and newer democracies? The second concern is analytical: what are the main political, economic, and cultural factors driving the dynamics of support for democratic government? The final questions are prescriptive: what are the consequences of this analysis and what are the implications for strengthening democratic governance? This book has brought together a distinguished group of international scholars who develop a global analysis of these issues that looks at trends in establishes and newer democracies as we approach the end of the twentieth century. It also presents the first results of the 1995-7 World Values Study as well as drawing on an extensive range of comparative empirical evidence. Challenging the conventional wisdom, this original and stimulating book concludes that accounts of a democratic `crisis'' are greatly exaggerated. By the mid-1990s most citizens world-wide shared widespread aspirations to the ideals and principles of democratic government. At the same time there remains a marked gap between evaluations of the ideal and the practice of democracy. The public in many newer democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and in Latin America proved deeply critical of the performance of their governing regimes. And in many established democracies the 1980s saw a decline in public confidence in the core institutions of representative democracy including parliaments, the legal system, and political parties. The book considers the causes and consequences of the development of critical citizens. It will prove invaluable for those interested in comparative politics, public opinion, and the dynamics of the democratization process. ADVANCE PRAISE `The great democratic paradox of the 1990s is that it has simultaneously been the decade of democratization and the decade of growing distrust of democratic institutions. This volume admirably dissects the complex and multi-dimensional background of these conflicting trends, and presents a judicious evaluation of the grounds of optimism and pessimism--in which, fortunately, the former prevails.'' AREND LIJPHART, University of California San Diego `Critical Citizens is the most comprehensive collection of comparative work on confidence in government and sources of public support for democracy. I strongly recommend it.'' SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET, George mason University `Pippa Norris and her colleagues examine claims and counter-claims about the erosion of public confidence in democracy, describe the depth and dynamics of trust in government, and lay out a broad and differentiated approach to the phenomenon. They sort out the rather high degree of support for democracy from widespread uneasiness with the workings of instituions and with the behaviour of politicians. Their book is must reading for survey researchers and comparative students of democracy alike.'' SIDNEY TARROW, Cornell University `This is the most impressive comparative study of how citizens in contemporay democracies relate to their governments. In an age of expanding democratic institutions around the globe, the authors of Critical Citizens capture the reader''s interest and provide a masterful update on one of the critical issues of our time.'' CHRISTOPHER J. ANDERSON, Binghamton University (SUNY) `It is the Civic Culture study 40 years later . . .Critical Citizens is a landmark comparative study of trends in attitudes toward nation, government regime, political institutions, and leaders, in some forty regionally well-distributed countries, bringing together the resaerch of a cross-national team of social scientists, led by Pippa Norris of the Harvard Kennedy School. It is full of theoretically interesti

Public confidence and trust in government is low these days. Farnsworth pinpoints this disappointment to shifting expectations of what, exactly, government should do. Politicians were once expected to maintain economic growth, but in our post-scarcity era most citizens expect them to provide ...

Public confidence and trust in government is low these days. Farnsworth pinpoints this disappointment to shifting expectations of what, exactly, government should do. Politicians were once expected to maintain economic growth, but in our post-scarcity era most citizens expect them to provide services - such as welfare or environmental -that are often contentious. Enlarging the scope of local political empowerment will increase public support by making politics more approachable and responsive.

Liberalism and the politics of identity seem incompatible. Liberalism starts from the capacity of reasonable individuals to order their lives. The politics of feminism and multiculturalism, however, argue that liberal individualism glosses over structural inequalities and relies on unjust ...

Liberalism and the politics of identity seem incompatible. Liberalism starts from the capacity of reasonable individuals to order their lives. The politics of feminism and multiculturalism, however, argue that liberal individualism glosses over structural inequalities and relies on unjust normalizing pressures. Modern political philosophy must reconcile these two viewpoints if it is to move forward. Reasonably Radical synthesizes both approaches in a new form of liberal theory: deliberative liberalism.

Anthony Simon Laden demonstrates that liberal theory can accommodate deep diversity once it recasts its understanding of the legitimization of just principles. Liberalism traditionally argues for the legitimacy of liberal political principles on the basis of citizens' consent, but derives that consent from what it regards as common human attributes. Laden, however, drawing on Rousseau and Hegel, two thinkers often ignored by contemporary liberals, claims that legitimacy cannot be so derived.

According to deliberative liberalism, citizens' actual deliberation confers legitimacy on political principles in virtue of its being reasonable, regardless of whether it yields consensus. Laden argues that political deliberation can only be reasonable under certain social conditions, however. These include a reciprocal distribution of power and respect for deep diversity. Reasonable principles thus require radical politics, and both find a home in this clear theoretical articulation of identity politics which is at the same time a strong new vision of liberalism.