One need not always write with broad appeal in mind, but any Canadian will know how limiting it can be to speak of problems that seem particular to the northernmost reaches of the Americas. Still, as a student of Canadian political institutions and history, I cannot help but feel the task of clarifying our ownContinue reading “Ridings & Parties”
Tag Archives: Political Theory
The Idea of Liberalism
For B. A. B., who continually asked for this to be written. ‘Liberalism’ was concerned [with what] I have called the menace of ‘sovereign’ authority and with constitutional devices to reduce it. If it had any theoretical understanding of a state it was that of an association in terms of assured ‘natural rights’ recognized asContinue reading “The Idea of Liberalism”
The Incoherence of the “West”
A new concern emerged during the twentieth century that was more common among ‘conservatives’ (of a certain sort), and there has been something of a countercurrent from those more critical of present affairs: I am referring to the defense or attack of what many have called “Western Civilization” (or, more simply, the “West”). To pointContinue reading “The Incoherence of the “West””
In Pursuit of Democracy
The word ‘democracy’ has become something of a buzzword in today’s political discourse, though it tends to be used in a manner that is not merely an easy term to throw around but as something believed to have true substance – this word is supposedly making a real demand of us. There has been anContinue reading “In Pursuit of Democracy”
A Reflection on What Moves Us: Power & Force
In what is, in my view, one of the most audacious works of political theory written in the twentieth century, The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt formulates a distinction between two ways in which human beings relate to one another: power & force. This pairing is specified by her to have a meaning that is notContinue reading “A Reflection on What Moves Us: Power & Force”
Hoping for Clarity 