In the history of republican China, Hu Han-min played an important role both in its political affairs and in its intellectual life. This study concentrates on Hu's political and social thought, with the emphasis on the period from 1919 to 1927. From the time he joined Sun Yat-sen's nationalist movement in 1905, until his death in 1936, Hu devoted his intellectual energies to the study of the varieties of western socialism. In 1919 he wrote an important series of articles for the Shanghai periodical Chien-she on the materialist conception of history. This represented one of the first comprehensive discussions of this aspect of Marxism to be presented in China. Hu followed with articles interpreting Chinese cultural and social history through the application of historical materialism. During the 1920s, Hu was concerned primarily with political activities. This was the time of the United Front between Sun's nationalist party, the Kuomintang, and the recently founded Chinese Communist Party. Hu initially supported this alliance for the Soviet support that it brought the Kuomintang. However, he altered this position because growing Soviet influence in China threatened the nationalist movement, and because the Chinese Communist Party threatened rural China with social revolution. As a result, Hu took a prominent part in bringing about the termination of the United Front. Hu's hostility to the Communist Party did not imply a similar attitude towards Marxist theory. Hu maintained an interest in it. His main work in the last years of his life lay in building Sun Yat-sen's theories into a system which was capable of counteracting Marxism. The results of this venture were mixed, but Hu's exposition of Sun Yat-senism reveals much about the strengths and weaknesses of Kuomintang doctrine.

The focus of this work is on the formation and the development of the principles underlying contemporary Chinese political theory. The concern is with the definition of the categorical framework explaining the meaning of the adaptation of Marxism to China, and with the effect of these categories on the structure of the concepts of theory. Thus, this is a study of the ground of the condition of reason, and of the expression of this ground in the activity of thought. This is brought out through an analysis of the dominant theoretical controversies of the two periods in which the philosophical principles of Chinese Marxism were first posited, and then established: 1935-1940 and 1949-1955. These two eras are linked by the publication in 1952 of "On Contradiction," which was the culmination of the attempt to define the categories governing this political thought. It is the argument of this study that "On Contradiction" was Mao's philosophical declaration of China's Marxist independence. And that in the early 1950s, this was recognized and understood by leading Party intellectuals, who, in turn, realized the postulates of theory by denying the applicability of a Soviet model for China. This principle of a Marxist identity through opposition was informed, in part, by the contributions of Party theorists in Shanghai and Beijing, in the mid- to late 1930s. Therefore, through an analysis of the dialectic of formulation, of that which was both preserved and cancelled in the statement of intention, the character of this Marxism is made clear. In conclusion, it is shown that, that the codification of principle which arranged meaning for theory has continuously represented the interests of the state. Reason has been defined instrumentally, as a philosophy of and for national construction.

This thesis concerns the normative dimension of transitional justice—the problem of which moral and political values should guide the process of transition from conflict and authoritarian rule to democracy. The central thesis is that the value of security should be a normative priority in the process of transition, because establishing security is a necessary condition for democracy and other transitional measures (lustration, compensation, institutional development and reconciliation, to name but a few). The thesis develops an account of how the value of security informs a justification of the measures utilised in the transition to a politically legitimate state. In doing so, it explores how the value of security (much neglected in political philosophy) informs our understanding of central political problems and concepts—including state legitimacy, democracy, the function, content and value of laws (including the concept of the ‘rule of law’) and the role of human rights in state coercion. Far from being an issue confined to the academy, the problems of transitional justice are a reality for a number of states around the world who are struggling to achieve democracy. This thesis represents a contribution to the scholarship around this process of political transition. It seeks to show the important insights that moral and political philosophy can provide for the process of moving from conflict and authoritarian rule to democracy. In doing so, it illustrates how the problems of transitional justice are in fact central problems for political philosophy.

The thesis attempts to reinvigorate the universalist credentials of Western liberal political theory by (1) illustrating the centrality of the concept of human agency for universal political liberalism, (2) arguing for the significance of the concept of agency for understanding the Russian societal transformation, and (3) suggesting that political theory may most usefully be conceived as a universal discourse which is in constant need of appropriating and constructively integrating different accounts and conceptualisations of political liberalism. In order to accomplish this it will be argued that Western political theorists have to take seriously the ways in which Russian scholars think about political liberalism and, to this end, the thesis will present an overview of the Russian debate on political liberalism during the first post-communist decade.

This thesis examines the contention that Plaid Cymru is a political party whose principles and objectives are representative of nationalist ideology. The thesis explores the fields of ideology and nationalism to establish what ideology and nationalism entail. This is important, as Michael Freeden, whose model is used in this thesis, has claimed that nationalism is not a full ideology in that it needs input from other ideologies. The genealogy of Plaid Cymru is assessed to establish a picture of where the party's political perspectives derive from. The breaking up of Plaid Cymru into 'early' and 'modern' phases also enables an analysis of the party's evolution from 'cultural nationalist' party under Saunders Lewis to the contemporary 'decentralist socialist' party to be undertaken. Also noted throughout the thesis are areas in which individuals within the party have sought to shape its ideology. The literature and pronouncements of Plaid Cymru are then explored to ascertain what set of actual political ideas are contained within. The model of ideology enunciated by Michael Freeden is used throughout the thesis to assess the ideational development and 'thought-practices' within Plaid Cymru. A Freedenite assessment of the major ideologies and primary ideological concepts that have appeared within Plaid Cymru's morphology since its inception in 1925 is made so that these can be examined and classified In dismissing the claim that Plaid Cymru is merely a nationalist party, the concluding chapter of the thesis then attempts to construct a fresh paradigm, on the lines of Freeden's model, so that Plaid Cymru's ideological make-up can be more clearly defined.

This thesis offers a critique of the normative assumptions of the concept of civil society and an evaluation of its relationship to democracy in contemporary political discourse. The proposition is that civil society represents the only feasible aspect of society that can maintain any democratic expansion. But I will argue that civil society must first of all detach itself from liberal theory. To this end, a number of reconstructions of the 'assumed norms' of what constitutes democracy will be made. Democracy is in crisis, but the legitimacy of political systems remains. The purpose of the reconstructions in this thesis is to assess the factors that contribute to democratic development and those that mitigate against it. The method employed is an immanent critique of the normative bases of civil society - privacy, publicity, plurality and legality - and their reconsideration. Two sets of criteria must be met in these reconstructions: those required by democracy (as an empowerment in society), and those that maintain the connections between theory and the actual. Each of these norms contains a number of principles and assumptions, axiomatic in liberal theory but problematic for civil society, and so for democracy. When subjected to critical enquiry, some of these references to political and social freedoms are antithetical to the conditions of democratic development. The conclusions arrived at point to the reconstruction of the concept of privacy, and how this relates to what is understood to be 'private' is basic to democracy. The factors that contribute toward this legitimacy (privatism) impedes civil society, and consequently the development of democracy.

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Anthony Downs first introduced a comprehensive account of political decision-making founded upon rational choice in 1957. Though there have been many refinements of the initial framework, rational choice approaches have been dogged by the same problems that Downs first highlighted: 1) Why do people vote? 2) How do politicians convince voters that they are worth electing? This thesis seeks to address these problems by concentrating upon the role of the 'Political Entrepreneur' and their relationship with voters. It is shown that because rational choice theory is wedded to the instrumental conception of rationality it is unable to account for the fact that people do participate in the electoral process, and in numbers of larger than predicted by rational choice models. Even when a radical subjectivist account of decision making is considered, it is clear that the instrumental approach to reasoning fails to integrate peoples' present actions with their previous decisions. An alternative approach to rationality is considered which seeks to understand people's behaviour in terms of their social context. It is argued that if we are to provide an explanation of behaviour based upon a rational account of action, then we must include some notion of the normative nature of what constitutes behaviour into our theorising. The emphasis is upon the nature of plans that enabled people to ensure that their behaviour is coherent, both with their own behaviour over time, and with the behaviour of others.

This thesis answers the question: what is Hobbes’s moral theory? Two dominant interpretations have answered this question on previous attempts. First, the orthodox account, which argues that Hobbes’s subjective theory of the good makes for a subjective moral theory; second, the dissent interpretation, which argues that Hobbes’s objective moral theory is underpinned by an objective theory of the good. In both cases, authors believe that one’s moral theory is necessarily linked to one’s theory of the good. I disagree and argue in defence of a Hobbesian subjective theory of the good and an objective moral theory. Hobbes thought morality depends on objective facts instead of objective values, which makes for a moral factualist reading. The moral laws are the laws of nature, which aim for nature’s preservation. The orthodox argue that those laws of nature apply only to those who desire their preservation. I argue that the laws of nature indeed depend on desires, however, they are categorically obligatory still. Morality namely depends on the universal ability to desire and the fact that all people do desire some thing. One does not need to value one’s preservation in itself; rather, because all desire some thing, one’s preservation becomes an analytical necessity: one ought to stay alive to enjoy whatever it is one values. As such, the objects of one’s desires remain subjective, as do one’s judgments of those objects; yet, given all desire, all will need to survive. The laws of nature apply to all.

In both everyday morality and law it is generally assumed that individuals are able to waive rights by giving consent. However, a detailed understanding of why consent has normative significance is often lacking. On a popular view about rights, rights are grounded in the interests of agents. In this thesis I consider whether we can also appeal to the interests of agents in order to explain the normative significance of consent. Ultimately, I argue that we can. The central claim of the thesis is that consent has normative significance because it provides a means through which agents can interact whilst relating to one another in a morally decent and valuable way, by recognising one another as bearers of interests worthy of protection. Specifically, by relying on consent to manage their interactions, agents recognise one another as having significant interests in having control over the central aspects of their own lives. After addressing some preliminaries in Chapter 1, in Chapters 2 and 3 I consider and reject a number of interest-based theories of consent. In Chapter 4 I articulate a relational version of the interest theory of rights, according to which rights establish a normative framework that allows agents to recognise that they accord one another's interests the appropriate role within their practical deliberations. In Chapter 5 I argue for the relational theory of consent. According to the relational theory, consent allows agents to interact in valuable ways whilst recognising one another as having legitimate control over the spheres or domains protected by their rights. In Chapter 6 I show how this theory can be relied upon to provide useful insights into debates regarding the role that can be played by sexual consent in a world marked by entrenched gender injustice.