Harold Laski, born in England at the end of the Nineteenth-century, is a theorist who helped shape political thought throughout much of the first half of the Twentieth-century. Primarily recognized for his contribution to the British pluralist tradition, arguing against state sovereignty and advocating devolution of political power to non-state organizations, Laski's latest writings focused on the relation between capitalism and the sovereign state. This book explores both Laksi's pluralist thinking as well as his later writings on the problems of maintaining and developing democracy and freedom both within and in the relations between capitalist societies. Lamb seeks to explore Laski's work on international politics and its continuing significance to the understanding of politics and the state today.

The essays that comprise Studies in Law and Politics are by and large academic. But Laski had a purpose in addition to the purely scholarly: he was eagerly pursuing possibilities for social and political change. Laski sought tirelessly for opportunities to act on those possibilities and, as is the case throughout his work, his academic and political purposes have no clear boundary between them.Studies in Law of Politics was published at a crucial juncture in Laski's ideological metamorphosis. During this period he had become increasingly worried that socialists might not be able to achieve the growth of working-class power. Although the essays contained in the volume cover a wide range of topics, and a wide span of time since the mid-1920s, he brought them into unity by a common approach. Though he does not make his unifying premise immediately evident to his readers, he clearly meant to chart the growth of power of those who had previously been without influence. His goal also was to identify the problems facing growth in a highly modernized society.Studies in Law and Politics reveals Laski's growing realization that the road to socialism might be more difficult than what he had believed when he wrote his pluralist works. The book reflects the mind of a thinker who was not content to write exclusively as an academic or a political activist. His view was that, while progressive reforms have been achieved in the past, they are not easily accomplished, and obstacles to further reforms should not be underestimated. This sober work offers much insight into Laski's intellectual development, as well as the times about which he wrote.

In this study, Calvin D. Ullrich argues for the political significance of the philosopher-theologian John D. Caputo's radical theology. Against the backdrop of present debates, the author traces the notions of 'sovereignty and event' by drawing on the political theology of Carl Schmitt and Caputo's evolving engagement with postmodern thought; from its genesis in Martin Heidegger to its deeply involved association with Jacques Derrida. Calvin D. Ullrich shows that contrary to some misleading interpretations of his religious deconstruction, Caputo has always held nascent political concerns which culminate in his radical theology. Writing for scholars working in contemporary philosophy and theology, this book offers one of the first major in-depth analyses covering Caputo's writings of the last four decades, and seeks to defend their relevance for discussions responding to ongoing political-theological challenges.

"Labour's Thinkers" seeks to examine the key ideas emphasised by the twelve individuals whom the authors judge to have made the most significant development to the political thought of the Labour Party since the 1930s. Hickson and Beech argue the Labour Party is a party of values but often not of ideas. The number of people involved in the serious discussion of ideas in the Labour Party is relatively small and intellectuals are often viewed with suspicion in what is, or was, a party set up to represent the interests of the working classes. The formulation and development of ideas are therefore crucial to understanding the outcomes of the Labour Party's internal struggles and the basis of the party's appeal. "Labour's Thinkers" highlights influential and, at times, controversial figures involved in the battle of socialist ideas in the Labour Party thus exploring concepts, such as equality, liberty, community, power, the state, ownership and patriotism.

The history of international thought is a flourishing field, but it has tended to focus on Anglo-American realist and liberal thinkers. This book moves beyond the Anglosphere and beyond realism and liberalism. It analyses the work of thinkers from continental Europe and Asia with radical and reactionary agendas quite different from the mainstream.

This book investigates to what extent and in what ways Marxist writings and precepts on imperialism informed the so-called idealist stage of International Relations (IR). Though the formative years of International Relations coincide with a vibrant period in Marxist political thought, Marxism is strikingly absent from the historiography of the discipline. Building on the work of revisionist scholars, the book reconstructs the writings of five benchmark IR thinkers. Villanueva analyzes the cases of John Hobson, Henry Brailsford, Leonard Woolf, Harold Laski and Norman Angell to explore the influence that Marxism played in their thinking, and in the “idealist years” of the discipline more generally. He ultimately demonstrates that, although Marxist thought has been neglected by mainstream IR disciplinary historians, it played a significant role in the discipline’s early development. As such, this book both challenges the exclusion of Marxist thought from the mainstream disciplinary histories of IR and contributes to a deeper understanding of the role it played in early 20th century IR theory.

This book demonstrates the importance of democracy for understanding modern international relations and recovers the pluralist tradition of L.T. Hobhouse, G.D.H. Cole, and David Mitrany. It shows that pluralism’s typical interest in civil society, trade unionism, and transnationalism evolved as part of a wide-ranging democratic critique that representative democracies are hardly self-sustaining and are ill-equipped to represent all entitled social and political interests in international relations. Pluralist democratic peace theory advocates transnational loyalties to check nationalist sentiments and demands the functional representation of social and economic interests in international organizations. On the basis of the pluralist tradition, the book shows that theories about domestic democracy and international organizations co-evolved before scientific liberal democratic peace theory introduced new inside/outside distinctions.

Intellectual activity in the twentieth century took place largely under the banner of science and society. As the new millennium develops, it is becoming evident that science and society are not words that represent an unmitigated good, nor for that matter, do they exhaust what is new in the human condition. Past writing on the theme of culture has emphasized the growth and expansion of human capabilities. Recent use of the term "civilization" has placed great emphasis on the fall from grace of human beings. The use of both terms is rapidly changing. Culture and Civilization develops critical ideas intended to produce a positive intellectual climate, one that is prepared to confront threats, and alert us to the opportunities of the twenty-first century. It recognizes that the twenty-first century presents people in all fields and of all faiths with shared challenges. Culture and Civilization embraces the work of novelists, journalists, cultural figures, technologists, physical sciences, historians, and policy personnel who range beyond social science areas. What they have in common is a view that civilization is under assault and that it represents a cause worth advancing and defending. This publication does not embrace idiosyncratic visions of the clash of world civilizations or the end of Western civilization. It does attempt to bring together immediate issues of the century that are substantially new and challenging. We see that the essential polarity between democracy and autocracy has now taken on larger, deeper dimensions in a different political, economic, and ecological terrain: the central issue of our day is now civilization versus barbarism. The character of democratic culture is central to the global equation and the systemic challenge. This publication is a sober response to such a challenge.

Liberal Ideals and the Politics of Decolonisation explores the subject of liberalism and its uses and contradictions across the late British Empire, especially in the context of imperial dissolution and subsequent state- building. The book covers multiple regions and issues concerning the British Empire and the Commonwealth, in particular the period ranging from the late-nineteenth century to the late- twentieth century. Original intellectual contributions are offered along with new arguments on critical issues in imperial history that will appeal to a wide range of scholars, including those outside of history. Liberal Ideals and the Politics of Decolonisation exposes commonalities, contradictions and contexts of different types of liberalism that animated the late British Empire and its rulers, radicals, subjects and citizens as they attempted to forge new states from its shadow and understand the impact of imperialism. This book examines the complexities of the idea and quest for self-government in the last stages of the British Empire. It also argues the importance of the political, intellectual and empirical aspects of liberalism to understand the process of decolonisation. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.