Description
Book SynopsisIn this interdisciplinary volume, a group of prominent international scholars considers alternative political formations to the nation-state, discussing their ability to preserve and expand the achievements of democratic constitutionalism in the twenty-first century and their capacity to deal with deep societal differences.
Trade ReviewWhat is the best political form for modern democratic orders—a nation-state, a sovereign state, an empire, a confederation, an international organization, a federation of states, or a federal state? In an age where the classical answers to this question have become unsatisfying, the authors in this book come up with new arguments and answers. The articles are crisply written and very accessible for political scientists, legal scholars, and historians. The book is essential reading for those who want to know about the institutional options in order to keep democracy’s future in the age of globalization alive. -- Hubertus Buchstein, Universität Greifswald
This unique volume explores the various dimensions of the contemporary crisis of the modern nation-state and the potentialities and dangers of alternative political forms, such as dispersed sovereignty, legal pluralism, and corporate governance. Timely, systematic and wide-ranging, it offers unrivaled insights into the distinctive political challenges of our times. -- Cécile Laborde, University of Oxford
Diverse, sharp, and timely, this volume is a welcome intervention in the debate on postnational political forms. The authors explore a panoply of historical and contemporary pluralist ideas and institutions—from empire, federation, subsidiarity, status group pluralism, to transnational corporate jurisdiction—and critically detail their political trajectories and normative possibilities. What makes this volume distinctive is its constructive orientation and global scope. It asks with clarity how these political forms might be revived, reformed, and enacted without undermining the ideals of democratic self-rule and political equality that the nation-state was meant to secure. -- Karuna Mantena, Yale University
The essays in
Forms of Pluralism and Democratic Constitutionalism address an important new topic with clarity and substance. All in all, this is an extraordinary book which incorporates the very best of scholarship on a significant topic, constitutionalism and pluralism, and is fundamental reading for the current debates in political theory, law, sociology, and political philosophy. -- David M. Rasmussen, Boston College, Editor-in-Chief,
Philosophy and Social CriticismTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Forms of Pluralism and Democratic Constitutionalism, by Andrew Arato and Jean L. Cohen
I. After Empire: Historical Alternatives1. Federation, Confederation, Territorial State: Debating a Post-imperial Future in French West Africa, 1945-1960, by Fred Cooper
2. Decolonization and Postnational Democracy, by Gary Wilder
3. From the American System to Anglo-Saxon Union: Scientific Racism and Supra-Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century North America, by Joshua Simon
4. Constitutions and Forms of Pluralism in the Time of Conquest: The French Debates Over the Colonization of Algeria in the 1830s and 1840s, by Emmanuelle Saada
II. New Federal Formations and/or Subsidiarity5. The Constitutional Identity of Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Status Groups or Federal Actors?, by Patrick Macklem
6. Federacy and the Kurds: Might This New Political Form Help Mitigate Hobbesian Conflicts in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria?, by Alfred Stepan and Jeff Miley
7. Europe-What’s Left: Towards a Progressive Pluralist Program for EU Reform, by Robert Howse
8. Subsidiarity and the Challenge to the Sovereign State, by Nadia Urbinati
III. Status Group Legal Pluralism9. Indian Secularism and Its Challenges, by Christophe Jaffrelot
10. Tainted Liberalism: Israel’s Millets, by Michael Karayanni
11. Jurisdictional Competition and Internal Reform in Muslim Family Law in Israel and Greece, by Yuksel Sezgin
IV. The Challenge of Corporate Power12. Corporate Legal Particularism, by Katharina Pistor
13. Tax Competition and the Unbundling of Sovereignty, by Tsilly Dagan
14. The Politics of Horizontal Inequality: Indigenous Opposition to Wind Energy Development in Mexico, by Courtney Jung
Conclusion: Territorial Pluralism and Language Communities, by Astrid von Busekist
List of Contributors
Index
