This thesis examines the relationship between the concepts of liberty and self in three different contexts - republicanism, liberalism, and post-modernism - all of which are products of particular historical traditions, and which present themselves as alternative 'languages' and practices in political argument today. I attempt to delineate the relation between the self and the concept of liberty within which it operates in each context, and more generally, questions concerning the relationship between personality and polity. The tendency of much recent historical and analytical scholarship when looking at these issues, has been to emphasize the radical differences between the traditions and their conceptual foundations, especially between republicanism and liberalism. Without minimizing the obvious differences, 1 have sought rather in this thesis to emphasize some important similarities in the way each approaches the issues of agency, liberty, and the role and justification of social arrangements. This entails a distinctive reading of some aspects in the history of the development of republican and liberal political argument, particularly in John Locke. An important theme here is the tension between assumptions of natural liberty and autonomy, and the role of the community and government in constructing, fostering, and disciplining the very autonomy that is presupposed. Arguing that the differing accounts of the relation between liberty and self are, in important ways, constitutive of the debate between 'communitarians' and 'proceduralists', I turn to contemporary Rawlsian liberal political theory to see if we can't stand back from this conventional way of looking at the problem and re-think the relations. [Towards this end I make some remarks on the relation between the history of political thought and (so- called) 'analytical' Political theory.] I argue that liberal political theory must be 'perfectionist', though not in the way that communitarians argue, and not in the way that liberals fear. Indeed it must be so if it is to have any chance for success, though 'perfectionism' is a particularly inappropriate way of talking here, and has been taken up too easily and uncritically in the literature. Civic republican practices have something to teach us in this context, though not simply the way they respect the 'negative liberty' of individuals within a scheme of mutually enforcing rights and duties. This leads me in part, to consider how liberalism tries to make transparent elements of not only state coercion, but institutional, social, and non-juridical forms of power which work on, or through, citizens of modem democracies, and how these power relations manifest themselves in modem concepts of liberty, and conceptions of the self. Finally, I consider some aspects of the work of Michel Foucault, particularly a series of lectures and papers he gave on liberalism and 'neo-liberalism' to see if he offers a vantage point (if anything) from which to evaluate our conventional ways of talking about, and acting on, our concepts of liberty and self.

Nagel and Wlezien (2010) found that the Liberal Democrats in Britain tended to gain votes when the Conservatives moved to the right on the left-right spectrum, and the Labour Party moved to the left. They also found that, as the Liberal Democrats gained votes, they pushed the Conservatives to the right, but not Labour. Nagel and Wlezien took their left-right measurements from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) This thesis studies whether these phenomena occur cross-nationally across other advanced democracies. Using a dataset of 26 established wealthy democracies, mainly long-term members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, this work measures whether increased distance between conservative and social democratic parties benefits parties in the liberal party family. The thesis finds that the dynamics that Nagel and Wlezien observed in Great Britain appear in other democracies more generally. It also finds that liberal party strength pushes conservatives farther to the right (which Nagel and Wlezien found in Britain) and social democrats farther to the left (which was not the case in Britain). The work also tests how more general measures of polarization impact liberal parties, finding either no impact or an unexpected negative association. Finally, the work concluded with an examination of the role of some liberal parties as players in the postmaterialist arena, and provides a qualitative study of some new parties which are being or which may be classified as liberal.

As a city well researched as a site of urban conflict, segregation and fear, this thesis will look to demonstrate the theoretical appeal of neoliberalism in Belfast. Looking at the re-discovery and regeneration of the Cathedral Quarter area, it will evaluate the performance of neoliberal urbanism in terms of its effects, and contradictions as well as its local challenges. By grounding neoliberalism as an urban process, the research will illustrate if and how it is possible to counter its logics, methods of working as well as identify any implications for resistance. In particular, it will draw attention to the different behaviors of local, sometimes marginal interests that have looked to challenge, adapt and divert this extension of market-led renewal over time. · The thesis uses secondary census data, a land use survey, a business survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore the making of the Cathedral Quarter as a becoming neoliberal space. A new high-end theatre and arts venue, the relocation of the University of Ulster's campus and a proposal for a1major retail complex illustrate the growing momentum of market-led renewal, but not all developments in the area are dictated by this logic and in particular the research seeks out potential expressions of alternative economic, social and cultural space. By studying further the rationales behind the different responses to market-led renewal over time, the thesis will then demonstrate how it may be of some value to resist neoliberal urbanism where it 'actually exists'. Finally, through developing a more nuanced understanding of how neoliberal urbanism is transmitted it may also present an opportunity to articulate what more progressive and socially useful forms of urban 'resistance' might look like.

Most conventional academic works generally offer a highly restricted view of the history and nature of classical liberalism. This is perhaps not surprising since most book-length histories of the liberal tradition have been written by authors who are either outright ideological opponents (Harold Laski, The Rise of European Liberalism, Anthony Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism) (1) or at best luke-warm "neo-liberals", out of sympathy with core tenets of classical liberalism (Guido De Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, Jose G. Merquior, Liberalism, Old and New) (2). Even when the source of that restricted view is fairly obvious - ideological hostility or disdain - and can hence be taken into account, such accounts suffer from a deeper failure to perceive or portray the character of the o liberal tradition. However, worse still, in some respects, are works which actually reduce liberalism to a vague "tendency" or "attitude", and hence rob it of almost any sort of substantive character or content (Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America, Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination, Ken Minogue, The Liberal Mind, Arthur A. Ekirch, The Decline of American Liberalism) (3). Text book accounts similarly tend to offer selective renditions of, for example, "Locke, Smith, Bentham and Mill" (or of some similar but equally restricted pantheon), as the sum-total of the liberal tradition (or at least the sum-total of that worthy of academic attention) (eg, George H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory and John Plamenatz, Man and Society: A Critical Examination of Some Important Social and Political Thought From Machiavelli to Marx) (4). In their choice of intellectual representatives all these renditions have in common a version of liberalism which tends to be narrowly economistic in approach and/or restricted to empiricist, positivist, and utilitarian currents of thought. Indeed, it is also significant that there is actually no comprehensive, multi-volume history of liberalism - in comparison to the many such works on the history of socialism in general or Marxism in particular. The works submitted in this application for PhD attempt to demonstrate that classical liberalism (or "libertarianism", to employ the more recent neologism for this intellectual tradition) was a richer, deeper and more systematic school of thought than is normally portrayed. They also try to analyse why that tradition went into decline, and why it has, in recent years, enjoyed a revival. A number of the essays are also attempts to apply that more systematic perspective to a number of topics in different disciplines.

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The idea that the state should be neutral between diverse and conflicting conceptions of the good has occupied centre-stage in liberal political circles during the past two decades. Neutrality is a term of art and therefore not surprisingly it comes in a variety of forms with potentially different interpretations. Two such versions frequently invoked by philosophers are what are called justificatory and consequential neutrality. On the former view the state is held to be neutral if the justification of its policies is independent of any reference to particular conceptions of the good. Abstracting from conceptions of the good does not however repudiate the advantages that some of them will have over others under one policy rather than another. On the other hand, a state is neutral consistent with consequential neutrality only if it can guarantee equal satisfaction for the protagonists of the various conceptions of the good. Accordingly the measures of the state reflect the prospects for different conceptions of the good. The first chapter argues the case for neutrality as a constituent virtue of liberalism by addressing one of its main adversaries, perfectionism. In the second chapter I consider the two forms of neutrality more closely and delineate impartiality as the central kernel of the doctrine of political neutrality. The last two chapters consider some of the implications of impartialist neutrality. The chapter on distributive equality concludes that neutrality of an impartialist variety goes far beyond the conventional view that neutrality could be satisfied by the equal distribution of either welfare or resources. The final chapter draws on the controversy that followed the publication of The Satanic Verses as an example to chart out the implications of an impartialist programme for practical cases. The conclusion drawn from such an exercise is again the perhaps unsettling one that a neutral resolution of conflicts invariably yields at least partially unsavoury outcomes for the conflicting parties, but that its merits lie elsewhere.

This thesis attempts to delineate the moral and political thought of John Locke as a philosophical narrative of liberalism. A central issue of the thesis is the idea of the liberal or modern self, but I do not interpret Locke's thought exclusively from this perspective. Rather, do I attempt to describe a moral vision that integrates Locke's ideas as a whole, in which his concept of the self is to be understood. The thesis shows that Locke's moral vision is a serious contribution to the liberal tradition, which gives us an insight into another, non-Kantian liberalism. After explaining the methodological nature of the thesis in the Introduction, I illustrate the development of Locke's early thought in chapters two and three. This reveals some theoretical problems imposed upon the intellectual effort of the mature Locke. The following three chapters deal with Locke's magnum opus. Essay concerning Human Understanding; they show that despite his failure to construct a demonstrative science of morality, Locke achieved a moral vision in his philosophical enterprise which has more enduring value than the moral science. Chapter seven interprets Locke's political argument from the standpoint of this moral vision. It sheds new light on Locke's political individualism (his theory of property, social contract, civil government, public good, political obligation, and revolution), and reveals some aspects of the nature of liberal politics. Chapter eight directly deals with Locke's concept of the self. It elucidates two distinct elements in his argument for the self (which are, in abstraction, mutually antagonistic), and explains how this duality of the concept of the self is secured in Locke's moral vision without difficulty. The conclusion summarises the main arguments presented in the thesis and suggests how we are to develop the insights we discovered in Locke's moral vision.

Showing that a proclaimed perfectionist like Raz - whose rationale is often contested as illiberal - consistently follows a reasoning resembling greatly that of a celebrated liberal like Mill, could considerably strengthen the case to use perfectionism as part of a compelling liberal strand. The analysis of their distinctive theoretical features elucidates the holistic manner with which their conception of human flourishing informs all the constituent parts of their liberalism as well as its crux, personal autonomy. Against their contemporary interpretations, it is argued that a comprehensive conception of the good dominates Mill's perception of liberalism and that Raz's robust perfectionist arguments follow a logical sequence permeating not only his overall liberal stance but also his position on value-pluralism. By situating the mutual comprehensive understanding of their key liberal concepts and highlighting its advantages compared to the prevalent 'neutralist strand', the present comparison reinforces the coherency of their perfectionist arguments and their compatibility with liberalism. Contrary to what is widely thought, not only they cogently claim that promoting conditions for self-development and liberty are not contradictory but if the latter is to genuinely encompass the ideal of autonomy, the former becomes a prerequisite. Verifying that in pursuing their liberal ideals they do not resort to strong paternalistic and moralistic measures refutes the principal criticism such stream of thought faces, namely that it is ultimately illiberal. If the gist of their argumentation is indeed common, this strengthens the liberal perfectionism's position as a strand of thought with a continuous trajectory linking one of the most celebrated liberals with a theorist not considered a member of liberalism's dominant trend. The connection would prove that the latter's theory is not as 'unorthodox' as it is claimed to be, adding persuasiveness and enhancing the viability of such current of liberalism as a whole.