Description
Proposes a new democratic theory, rooted in activity not consent, and intrinsically related to historical understandings of power and ethics.
About the Author
John R. Wallach is Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Previous to this, he has been a Liberal Arts Fellow in Political Science at Harvard Law School and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College and University Teachers. He is author of The Platonic Political Art: A Study of Critical Reason and Democracy (2001) and Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy, co-edited with J. Peter Euben and Josiah Ober (1994).
Reviews
'Democracy and Goodness is an admirable exercise in argumentation, as refined in its theoretical perspective as it is expansive in its political scope. Ranging across ancients and moderns in an unabashedly 'historicizing' mode, Wallach intervenes decisively onto the contested terrain of contemporary democratic theory, retrieving an account of democratic ethics that is intrinsic to democracy as an ongoing activity in politics and history. On these terms, Wallach's book is a welcome provocation at a moment when principled and coherent conceptions of the relation between democracy, power, and goodness are in short supply.' Mary G. Dietz, Northwestern University, Illinois
'Wallach argues on the opening page of this ambitious, erudite, and wide-ranging book, 'democracy' is often treated as self-evidently 'good'. Why - on the basis of what conceptualizations of democracy and goodness - have successive generations of self identified democrats believed that? And how should future democracies act so as to bring democracy and goodness closer together? Wallach argues that efficacious answers to the second question require the kind of critical political judgment that can be developed by answering the first one.' Daniela Cammack, University of California
Book Information
ISBN 9781108435567
Author John R. Wallach
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 530g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 15mm